Spearwood Academy Volume Three (The Spearwood Academy Book 3) by A.S. Oren

Underground
     
    M y entire body aches, like I jumped off a cliff but didn’t die. The odor of stale waste and air wafts into my nose.  “Man, are you okay?” Horace asks. I force my eyes open. Where the hell am I? Why am I so cold? I look down, only to see I’m as naked as the day I was born. My arms come up to cover my chest. I turn my head to the others who are gathered around Dante. He sits with his back pressed against an old concrete wall, which could crumble at any moment. Behind me lays an old subway track, but it leads to a dead end.
    “Why am I naked?” I swallow hard as they turn to look at me. Blurry images of fighting giant creatures and of Dante taking me over with the use of the Voice flash in my mind, like I’m watching a movie through another person’s eyes.
    “Great, the other version is back,” Lusk says.
    I frown. Other version? Hot tears prick the corner of my eyes. Naked, in a place only the Sun god knows where, and he chooses now to pick on me? I turn my body away from them and sob.
    Dante takes in a sharp breath and swallows hard.  “I’m fine. It will just take a minute for this scale to take full effect. Someone give her their blazer.”
    With a heavy sigh, Maverick stands and walks over to me. He drapes his green Spearwood blazer over my bare shoulders. I slip my arms into the long sleeves. Now covered, I stand up to face the guys. The hem of the blazer falls right above my knees. The guys are still around Dante. Pale does not look good on him; I don’t think I have ever seen him look this bad. What happened? I don’t remember anything happening that would have gotten me from the cabin place to here. I move closer to them. Dante’s shirt is missing. A large golden scale lays against his side. Gold? None of the guys have golden scales. Off to the side of the group, a jagged piece of metal lays, covered in dark red blood.
    I take a few steps away from them. Are they still crazy, like before? “What happened?”
    Horace stands. “You honestly do not remember anything at all?” Behind his thin glasses, his green eyes narrow.
    “Not really. I think we may have fought something.” I shake my head as more images flash in front of my mind’s eye. These flashes can’t be right. If they are, I was in a full dragon form at some point. “That can’t be right. I don’t even know how to shift my wings yet, let alone my whole body.”
    Dante sighs and readjusts himself, pushing his body against the wall to sit up straighter. His amber eyes appear dull compared to the vibrancy they normally hold. “Bullock, how are we going to get to the Sea Witch? We can’t move through the city unnoticed. Not with me like this and her being half clothed.” He gestures to me. I pull the blazer tighter around myself. I just want to go back to Spearwood and see Dad. How did we get here? None of them should know how to perform the magic necessary to move us somewhere else.
    “We won’t need to walk the actual streets. New York has hundreds of abandoned underground tunnels, some of which the historians don’t even know about. A lot of them are used for the Outcasts who wish to stay out of the eyes of Spearwood. She’s located in Chinatown near the border of the Lower East side. I’d say it’s about a day’s walk from here, unless we can find someone who smuggled a golf cart down here and has it still working.”
    Dante nods. With a grunt, he uses the wall to stand up. He sways on his feet. Amr and Horace come to his sides, and he uses their bodies for support. One of Amr’s hands holds the golden scale into place. Where did that thing come from anyway?
    “Are you sure you can do this? One of us can stay behind with you,” says Amr.
    Dante shakes his head. “No, that’s not going to happen.”
    Bullock stands and walks a few feet in front of us. “Well, for now, we just need to move forward. We won’t have any forks for a while.”
    I move over to Paden and take his hand. I don’t like