The 39 Clues: Unstoppable: Nowhere to Run by Jude Watson Read Free Book Online Page A

Amy’s voice was muffled because her head was now between her knees. The terrible truth was staring her in the face. Something she didn’t even want to glimpse, let alone confront.
    She shook off Nellie’s hand and stood. “It can’t be!” she said. “It just can’t be, but . . .” Her voice trailed off. “. . . I think he did it. Somehow . . .”
    “What?” Dan asked. “You’re freaking us out, dude.”
    Amy took a deep breath and faced them.
    “Pierce has taken the serum!”

Chapter 7

    What happens when your worst nightmare has just come true?
    Amy couldn’t think for a minute. Couldn’t breathe. The thought that the serum could be
out there
was too terrifying.
    A serum that could make one person all-powerful. J. Rutherford Pierce. Someone with no scruples at all . . .
    . . . could become the most powerful person in the world.
    Amy’s eyes went wide with horror.
    He’s already well on his way.
    That’s why he targeted us.
    Because we’re the only ones who can expose him.
    Can stop him . . .
    “Amy?” Nellie gripped the table edge. “You’re scaring us. Pierce couldn’t have taken the serum. It’s imposs —”
    “No!” Amy smacked her hand down on the table. It was such an unexpected gesture that Dan and Nellie both jumped. “Just listen. There are four branches of the Cahills besides Madrigals. Four separate sets of abilities. Dan, remember how Pierce swung off the building and hit that pedestrian bridge? How does a middle-aged guy
do
that? What did it remind you of?”
    “A Tomas,” Dan said. The branch, they knew, that had accelerated physical powers. He shook his head. “But —”
    Amy shook her head impatiently, unwilling to listen. She had to make them
see.
“And, Nellie — remember what we said — that his rise to fame just defied any sense of
logic
? He fails at one thing after another, and then in less than a year he rises to the top. He leveraged all these buyouts and gobbled up all these companies so fast . . . and got in with politicians and power brokers. . . .”
    “Like a strategist. A Lucian,” Nellie said. “Okay, but —”
    “And how
every
article mentions his out-of-the-box thinking, and how charming he is — he manages to charm millions of people without ever letting someone trip him up! Like a Janus! And now Pony tells us that our absolutely impenetrable fortress of a computer system is breached.”
    “Ekat,” Dan said. “But we’ve seen what the serum does. When Isabel Kabra took it, she didn’t look like a normal human. She was sort of . . . glowing.”
    “But, Dan, think about it. Pierce wasn’t glowing, but he looked . . . I don’t know . . .
enhanced.
Did you notice how his skin was sort of golden?”
    “Fake tan,” Nellie said.
    “No.” Amy shook her head firmly. “I remember noticing how the lights just bounced off him when he took the podium.
But there were no lights on.
And if it
is

true, the rest makes sense — why he targeted us in the first place. Why he’s making us look like . . . like idiotic socialites. Because who would listen to us if we tried to expose him? But now maybe he’s going even further — he wants to scare us. Or kill us.” Amy turned to Dan. “When those guards told us to walk out on those girders . . . I think they were serious. Don’t you?”
    Dan gulped and nodded. “I do.”
    “Amy, I see why you’re suspicious, but you’re forgetting a detail,” Nellie said. “There is no serum. Anywhere in the world. We’ve made absolutely sure of that. And the only one who knows the formula is Dan.”
    “I know.”
    Dan backed away a step. She saw panic in his eyes.
    “I didn’t tell anyone!”
    “I know that,” Amy said. “But you
did
assemble it.” Six months ago. When he’d thought it was the only way to save the world.
    Amy took a deep breath. She didn’t want it to be true. She didn’t want to trace the serum back to Dan. If he was responsible for the serum getting out, the guilt could crush him.