Cassidy Jones and the Secret Formula (34 page)

As I took a deep breath, the smell of blood stuck in the back of my throat. But I resolved to move forward. “Okay, I’m ready. What now?”

“Now, we find the elevator.”

Hopping down from the desk, I kept my eyes up, following Emery to the wall that appeared solid. In the area indicated on the blueprint, we ran our fingers along the wall, searching tactilely for the hidden doors.

“Found it,” Emery said, pulling a crowbar from the backpack and putting the end against the thin crevice. “Cassidy, you’ll have to force this in and pry the doors apart.”

Pushing and wiggling the bar simultaneously, I worked it between the metal doors until I had enough leverage to force them apart. The doors popped out and slid open, revealing the corridor on the other side through the glass elevator shaft. Gloomily lit, the long passageway appeared like a white tunnel, lined with doors and black monitors. There were no pictures, no potted plants, nothing but sterile white, and each floor would be the same.

Tears welled in my eyes. “It’s so sad,” I choked out, staring down the white, cheerless expanse.

“You’re crashing,” Emery stated, looking up the shaft. “Know that is all it is, and keep focused. The elevator is at the top. You’d better start climbing. I’m heading for the electrical room.” Turning away, he began to jog across the lobby. That’s when I realized his face was uncovered.

“Emery, your mask.”

Stopping next to a sprawled body, Emery turned and looked at me, shocked. With a furrowed brow, he quickly unzipped the backpack. At his feet, a bloodied gladiator began to lift his head off the floor. Dropping his eyes to the man, Emery whacked him hard in the head with the backpack. The gladiator’s head dropped to the floor, and he went limp. With an impassive expression, Emery lifted the backpack up in his arms, retrieving the mask from it. Slinging it over his shoulder, he pulled the mask over his calm face. “Go,” he said to me as he turned, resuming his quest for the electrical room.

Turning to the shaft, I leaped toward the center and grabbed the thick cable. Legs dangling, I began quickly pulling myself up. I rapidly progressed, focusing on the elevator overhead. I pushed bloodied images from my mind and reviewed the plan. Around the ninth floor, a fatal flaw in the plan occurred to me.
King can’t see me in the shaft, but he can see
Emery. My gosh, Emery has a mask on! King will think he’s me!
Then it hit me, like a ton of bricks.
Emery came into the lobby after the security cameras were down, and he
was alarmed when he realized he had forgotten to put the mask on. He wants King to think he is me. He wants them to come after him. He’s trying to buy me time.
It was a brave, noble, and completely stupid act. If his ploy worked, they would shoot first and
ask questions later
.

Above me, the elevator doors opened. The click of high heels echoed through the shaft. Frantically, I leapt from the cable toward the elevator floor doors in front of me. My foot caught the frame’s ledge, and with my arms, I braced myself inside the frame. The elevator doors closed overhead as my right foot felt along the frame for a lever.

The elevator powered up.

I located the lever and pressed it down. Slowly, the doors before me began to open. The elevator above me dropped.

I dove through the slim opening just as the elevator plunged past me.

Lying on the floor, I took a couple of deep breaths to steady my racing heart before hopping to my feet. Down the center corridor, and down the corridors to my right and to my left, King’s face suddenly appeared on every screen lining the walls.

“Hey, ninja, that was a dirty trick, sneaking your buddy in like that. Hoping we’d follow him around like dopes, huh?”

Focus, Cassidy
, I reminded myself,
Think. Think.
Ignoring King, I visualized the blueprint and the location of the stairwell.
It’s at the end of the right hall
, I decided, pivoting right and sprinting. King continued to talk.

“Wow, you’re fast, ninja. Keep coming, fast, fast, fast as you can.”

I picked up speed. In a split second, I was at the stairwell. King caught up with me.

“HOW DID YOU DO THAT?” he screamed from the monitor behind me as I opened the stairwell door.

Walking through, I met King’s face.
Of course there would be
monitors in the stairwell.

His weasel face twisted in rage. “Hope you’re not attached to your buddy. Heart is probably blowing his brains out now!”

I flew up the four flights of stairs. As I burst through the stairwell door to the top floor, I came face-to-face with Mr. Diamond, Mr. Club, and two large semi-automatic gun barrels. Suddenly, darkness engulfed us. I didn’t waste a moment. The flash from the first round of ammunition tore through the blackness. Two swift kicks later, the thugs were down and the lights came back on, revealing white walls riddled with bullets and two unconscious henchmen sprawled on the floor. As I gathered their weapons, King went into hysterics on the screens.

“What do you think you’re going to do with those? You plan on making me into Swiss cheese? I’m ready for you! This has only been a warm up!”

King abruptly stopped yelling. With the weapons in my arms, I looked up at the screen to see if he had keeled over from a burst blood vessel. I wasn’t so lucky. He had muted the sound as he talked into a walkie-talkie. His lips twisted up into a smile. Switching the sound back on, he informed, “Heart’s got the kid, ninja.” His brows knitted in thought. “What are you doin’ with that kid, anyway?” he asked himself more than me.

In that quiet second, relief washed over my rage.
Emery is alive.

King’s brow reformed into an enlightened expression, like he’d just figured out a challenging riddle. His expression wasn’t triumphant. I don’t think this was a riddle he cared for.

“Phillips. How’d he—” King violently shook his head, like he was trying to dislodge a thought. “It’s Phillips who sent you, didn’t he? Is he on his way? Is he? ANSWER MEEEE!” King practically foamed at the mouth.

Stunned, I stared up at the monitor, thinking,
King is afraid of
Emery’s dad
.

King’s face contorted into mockery. “He’s going to go berserk when he knows I’ve got his kid.” He laughed, snorting like a pig.

Shaking my head to dislodge King’s insanity, I focused on crossing this
bridge. I glanced down the hall lined with glass-knobbed doors.
Maybe King has
Dad and Professor Phillips gagged and tied up in a room down this hall. If he does, and I can locate them before any more henchmen show up, I can leave them with the guns while I rescue Emery.
This was the best I could come up with on the fly. I sniffed the air, picking up a faint trace of Dad.
He’s here
, I thought excitedly, listening for movement. Though I didn’t hear any, I decided not to rely on hearing alone and to check room by room.

With the guns in my arms, I began kicking in doors. They may have been unlocked, but kicking was less time-consuming.

After observing me kick in two doors, King asked, “What are you looking for, moron? I’ll save you time. It’s not anywhere near you.”

I kicked in another door.

“Hey, how about a game of
Hot and Cold
?”

Another door flew open.

“Cold.”

Another.

“Still cold.”

King burst into laughter as I kicked in the next one. “Cold, but getting a wee bit warmer. Ninja, this
is
a stupid game, because before you get close to hot, you’ll already be dead.”

I kicked in another door. The room, like all the rest, was unoccupied.

“How stupid are you? No one is down there. The party is up here, and we are having a good time! Hey, moron, while you were messin’ with doors, Heart brought the kid up here, right under your idiot nose. You’ve disappointed me. I thought you were better than this.”

So did I
. Bending into the empty room, I dropped the guns on the floor and closed the door.

King peeled into laughter. “You really are a hair-brain. Why go get rid of good guns like that? Don’t need them, huh? Well, come and get me, ninja, but you won’t make it through this next round. If you’ve got an ounce of brain, you’ll turn and run with your tail between your legs.”

I ran, but not away. Rounding the corner to the central corridor to King’s office, I skidded to a stop.

Midway down the hall, dressed in identical black robes, stood three ninjas. With hands behind their backs, they stood, barefoot, side by side, like stone statues. Their faces revealed no emotion, but their dark eyes were fearless. They didn’t wear hoods. They had nothing to hide. They were the real deal.

“Ninja, meet my ninjas…Tick, tick, tick…tick…Time is up.”

Twenty-Two

My blood ran cold.

As I stared into the ninjas’ still faces, fear gripped me. King’s office doors were no more than a hundred feet away, but they may as well have been a hundred million. There would be no bulldozing these men.

Their penetrating dark eyes rested on me. I felt they could see under the polyester costume and through the purple paint, taking in my true face. They weren’t fooled. They knew I was no match.

Where are you, Beast?
I appealed, only feeling paralyzing fear.
These men are going to kill me. I’m so sorry, Dad.

On the monitor, King addressed someone in his office. “So, what do you think, Mr. News? Good stuff, huh? Better than anything you bozos put on TV…What? No comment? Heart, why don’t you teach him some manners after the show? On second thought, your program has been cancelled, Mr. News. When this is over, Heart’s taking you off the air.” He chuckled. “Get it? Off the air? Come on, Mr. News, admit it’s funny.”

As if a lit match had dropped into a barrel of gasoline, rage exploded in me. I could feel fury blast from the soles of my feet to the roots of my hair, consuming me completely. The blaze burned in my core, melting away fear and doubt. No barrier would keep me from my dad, especially not this human one.

My eyes narrowed to slits on the ninjas, waiting for them to make their move.

I am not an animal, but I will defeat these men
.

The ninjas, who had appeared to be made of stone, closed their eyes and slightly bowed. Then their eyes opened, revealing controlled fierceness. They moved their hands from behind their backs, revealing weapons. The first ninja held nunchucks. Like a magician with a deck of cards, the second ninja fanned out small throwing stars, five in each hand. The third pulled a long, thin staff from his back.

The ninjas appeared to have a fighting order. The third ninja stepped forward. Raising the staff in the air, he twirled it wildly like a baton, abruptly thrusting it to the ground, catapulting toward me. Not expecting his speed, my eyes didn’t track him quickly enough. His foot struck me on the side of the head. Stumbling back, my body righted itself instantly, and my eyes adjusted to his speed, tracking him as he leaped toward me. As he brought the end of the staff down toward my skull, my right hand darted up, caught the staff, and flung the ninja toward the floor. The ninja stopped his fall with the staff, flipping up onto his feet. Without pausing, he twisted toward me and dropped low, jabbing the end of the staff up toward my jaw. I swiftly moved to the side, narrowly avoiding having my head skewered.

“What happened? Did you see?” King asked his forced audience in surprise. “They moved so fast, I couldn’t make out a thing.”

The ninja swung the staff over his shoulder and lunged toward me, plunging the end of the staff toward my temple. My right hand shot up and blocked the staff inches from impact. Cupping the staff’s end in my palm, I propelled it away from me. The force caused the staff to shoot through the air, harpooning the wall. The ninja stared in disbelief at the staff for a split second—the split second I needed to perform his twist and kick, planting my foot on the side of his head. His body spun in a full circle, his legs buckled, and he fell motionless to the floor.