Blood - Lucas Sinclair

The Flea and the Acrobat (Part 2)

The girls sat on the couch with Mike as he explained their theory of the gate. At the end of his explanation, Mike poked a hole through the paper, just like Mr. Clarke, making both girls jump.

He put the paper down and mainly looked at El. "It would take a lot of energy to build a gate like this. But that's got to be what happened. Otherwise, how'd Will get there, right?"

"Right." El answered for both of them.

Nikki, who was half listening, half watching Dustin pace around the room, was confused beyond belief of what any of them were talking about.

"What we want to know is, do either of you know where the gate is?"

El shook her head silently and Mike and Lucas turned their heads to Nikki. "Nikki?" Lucas asked.

Nikki looked up from playing with the hem of her shirt and shook her head.

"Then how do you guys know about the upside down?" Lucas raised is voice. El looked down at her hands while Nikki tried to think of anything that could help.

"Dustin, what are you doing?" Mike asked finally noticing what he was doing. "Dustin? Dustin!"

"Dustin!"

Snapping out of it, Dustin looked at the two boys. "I...I need to see your compasses."

"What?" Mike scrunched up his eyebrows.

"Your compasses." Dustin repeated. "All of your compasses, right now!"

The boys quickly gathered all the compasses they could find and laid them on the table.

"What's exciting about this?" Mike said looking between the compasses and Dustin.

"Well, they're all facing north, right?" Dustin smiled.

"Yeah, so?" Lucas raised an eyebrow.

"Well, that's not true north."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what I just said. That's not true north." He waited a second before realizing that neither of the boys understood what he was saying. "Are you both seriously this dense?"

After earning a shrug from Lucas, Dustin sighed and started to point in different directions. "The sun rises in the east, and it sets in the west. Right? Which means that's true north." He pointed in a different direction than the compasses.

"So what you're saying is the compasses are broken." Mike said trying to understand where he was getting at.

Dustin sighed. "Do you even understand how a compass works?" He held one up in front of Mike. "Do you see a battery pack on this?"

"No." Mike answered.

"No, you don't. Because it doesn't need one." He set the compass back down on the table. "The needle's naturally drawn to the Earth's magnetic North Pole."

"So what's wrong with them?" Lucas questioned with a shrug.

"Well, that's what I couldn't figure out, but then I remembered. You can change the direction of a compass with a magnet. If there's the presence of a more powerful magnetic field, the needle deflects to that power. And then I remembered what Mr. Clarke said. The gate would have so much power-"

"It could disrupt the electro magnetic field." Mike finished finally understanding him.

"Exactly."

"Meaning, if we follow the compasses' north.." Lucas trailed off but he knew what he was thinking was right.

Dustin helped him confirm it. "They should lead us to the gate."

Nikki let out a small breath after hearing all of that. She tried to understand what they were talking about but it seemed impossible. All she really understood was that they found a way to help Will. That was enough to make a smile her small smile.

The smile quickly left her face when she felt El tense next to her. Nikki was the only one in the room to see her sister's face. It was scared and guilty at the same time.

Then Nikki felt a pit start to form in her stomach. She didn't like the feeling, it made her nervous about the journey they were about to take.

***

The boys went to their houses and changed quickly before all of the kids left Mike's house. They all followed the compasses into the wood and were now on a railroad track on the look out for anything different.

"How much further?" Lucas asked Dustin who were both leading the way.

"I don't know. These only tell direction, not distance." Dustin responded. "You really need to learn more about compasses."

Lucas sighed. "I'm just saying. How do we know when we get to the gate?"

Dustin responded in a "duh" tone like everyone knew what they were looking for. "Uh, I think a portal to another dimension is gonna be pretty obvious."

Lucas sighed again and looked behind him. El and Mike were in the back while Nikki walked alone in the middle trying to calm down her stomach.

"Do you think their acting weird?" Lucas asked Dustin in a lower voice since Nikki wasn't too far behind them. However, Nikki didn't hear the conversation due to her stomach and nerves.

Dustin turned to look at the girls. "You're asking if the weirdos are acting weird?"

"I mean, weirder than normal. El especially."

"I don't know. Who cares?"

Lucas turned around one more time before deciding to drop the subject and keep looking.

Authors note
Sorry if this is a little sloppy, I know it's not my best but I wanted to post something since I haven't done anything in a while. I've been distracted by a book series I just started reading and I am in love with it! But I will try to do better with updates, I promise.

Love ya!! ❤️❤️❤️