The Blade of Shattered Hope (The 13th Reality #3) Read Online Free PDF

shoulder, across his dad’s heap of a wrecked car, and focused on the huge beast of a machine that sat next to some tools and cleaning supplies on an old wooden workbench.
    The MegaVac. The thing looked like R2-D2 with a big hose.
    And it could suck water out of rock.
    Tick got up and ran around the front of the crashed car and over to the workbench. He reached up and grabbed the heavy, squat yellow cylinder with its thick, snaking hose attached. He dragged the vacuum toward his mom, whose face was darkening into a sick blue color.
    “Mom!” he yelled. “Keep swiping at it!”
    He reached her and flipped the switch on the MegaVac.
    It didn’t turn on.
    For one agonizing second, despair crushed Tick. But then he realized the stupid thing wasn’t plugged in. He scrambled for the long black cord, found its end, then crawled over to an outlet and pushed the big plug in. A heavy roar kicked in behind him. Tick scooted back over and knelt down beside his mom, grasping the end of the vacuum hose like the mouth of a deadly cobra.
    The thing worked like a beauty.
    He stuck the hose on his mom’s mouth and watched with elation as the vacuum sucked up the water with no problem. The MegaVac had been a birthday present for his dad two years ago, and Edgar had excitedly given a demonstration to the family on how the beast could make anything disappear into its glorious, hard-plastic belly, be it cereal bits or gallons of floodwater. It was the closest thing to a black hole that the Higginbottoms would ever experience, he’d said.
    Tick wanted to shout in victory as he realized even a supernatural creature made of liquid couldn’t resist the monstrous sucking power of a MegaVac, lord of all vacuums.
    He finished cleaning the water off his mom, her soggy hair and clothes the only sign she’d been encased by a water monster just moments before. Tick’s dad was only a few feet behind him, and twenty seconds later, the vacuum had sucked up his captor too.
    Tick leaned back, panting as his mom and dad gasped and spit, doing their best to recover from the ordeal. He thought of Lisa and Kayla in Seattle, and had an almost overwhelming feeling of relief that they hadn’t been here. The odds of Lisa—and especially little Kayla—surviving something like this . . . Tick quenched the horrible thought before images formed that might never go away.
    He looked over at the body of the MegaVac, which now contained two—what exactly were those creatures?—within its belly.
    A worry hit him. He didn’t want to turn off the vacuum for fear the creatures would find a way to seep back down the hose. “What should we do? Do you think we killed them?”
    His dad laughed, a mere sputter between heavy breaths. “I say we flush the suckers’ guts down the toilet. That oughtta do it.”
    And that’s what they did.

Chapter
5
    ~

A Mother’s Love
    Sofia leaned forward against the railing of the balcony outside her bedroom, resting her elbows on the smooth stone as she looked out over her family’s estate toward the east, where the sun slowly rose above the horizon. The orange glow sparkled on the waters of the Adriatic Sea in the distance. A cold breeze blew past, stirring her black hair and sending chills across her arms and down her back. Though she enjoyed the cold—it was just pleasant enough to keep her awake, keep her alert and alive—she pulled her jacket tighter.
    She missed Tick and Paul. She missed Sato. Master George, Mothball, all of them. Even Rutger. Days dragged like weeks now. Their adventures in the Fourth seemed like a million years ago. She knew it was crazy to want something to happen again, considering they’d almost died, but ever since she’d returned home, returned to school, and gone through the motions of a normal life, she’d been utterly bored out of her mind.
    The Realitants were her true friends now. Yes, Frupey the Butler was good to her, kind to her, ready to fulfill any command she spoke, but he was paid to