Indestructible (Indestructible Trilogy Book 1) (21 page)

“Are there no more inside?”

“No.”

Why would he just leave?
It doesn’t add up.

Not that he’s going anywhere right now. Murray moves forward, and Jared laughs.

“You aren’t going to hurt me with those sticks, brother.” He raises his own weapon to match his brother’s.

“You will return what you took,” Murray responds. “Return it to me, and I’ll let you go in peace.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. I need this information. If you aren’t going to do anything useful with it, then I will.”

“You’re mad,” Murray says, calmly. “What did you hope to achieve by coming here? Did you expect to just take two of my soldiers and leave?”

“I had a feeling you wouldn’t be cooperative,” says Jared, “so I left a prize for you. See if you can find it. If you’re game, you can come and meet me at the place where this whole wonderful mess started.”

A hand grabs at my ankle. I stumble, nearly falling over the edge—below, the sheer cliff tumbles down to nothing.

“Cas! Look out!”

He swings around, teeth bared in a snarl—but the ground shakes beneath our feet, the rock crumbling. I grab Cas for balance and he twists away, as though to yell at me to let go.

But suddenly there’s nothing beneath our feet, and we’re falling.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The air buffets me, sending my coat flying out, and my grip tightens on Cas’s arm. Even though I should know the fall won’t kill me, panic rises at the lack of control, of the ground approaching like a train at full-speed. A scream sticks in my throat, and before I can brace myself, the two of us slam into the ground.

The impact knocks the breath from my lungs and jars the bones in my body, but I roll over, unhurt, and turn to check on Cas. He’s already on his feet, as though falling from a cliff is no big deal.

“Thanks,” he says, glaring at me.

“What? That wasn’t my fault.”

I look up at the cliff, searching for Murray and Jared, but can’t see them—the sloping cliff hides everything from view.

Cas’s started climbing the cliff again. I reach up and grab a protruding piece of rock, using it to pull myself up. Rock-climbing without the fear of falling feels strange, but I keep hold of the knife, confident that it won’t drop from my hand—just in case the fiends reappear. How many are there? Did they expect to kill us by knocking us down the cliff?

Finally, we reach the ledge, just as a fiend swoops down from behind. Its claws graze my head, but Cas swings his blade at it and decapitates it.

Holy wow.

The fiend’s body crumbles, turning to rock before my eyes. I spot Murray, fighting another fiend. No sign of Jared.
Did he get away?

Cas runs his knife through another fiend, then runs to help Murray. Not that he needs it—the two swords in his hands move in unison, leaving deep gouges. The fiend drops to its side, eyes blanked out, before crumbling into rock.

Murray lets the swords drop, breathing heavily.

“Where is he?”

Murray shakes his head. “Got away—should have expected a diversion.”

“Idiot,” Cas snarls.

I expect Murray to react to the insult, but he merely straightens, sheathing the swords. He looks strange carrying them. Strange, but somehow right. I’ve never seen him fight until now.

“So, what did he run off with?” Cas demands. “What did you let him take?”

Murray doesn’t meet his eyes. “The research. And a weapon. He took it from the lab. I should have expected it…”

“W
hat
weapon?” Cas asks furiously.

“One we were making for the Transcendent.”

My heart misses a beat. “What? How does that work? I thought
this—”
I hold up my own knife—“Was mine now. Like I bonded to it or something.”

“We didn’t expect that,” says Murray.

I’ve no idea what he’s talking about. “Shouldn’t you be chasing Jared?”

“He flew away, on one of those fiends,” says Murray.

“Great.” Cas kicks viciously at a rock. “So you let the enemy get away, again. I want to know why he was so keen on taking me and the girl. As soon as you showed up, he ran off.”

“He wouldn’t have hurt me,” says Murray, shaking his head. “And as to why he didn’t take you, that may be because the weapon he stole will give him the power to overcome even a Transcendent.”

“If he creates one of his own. You forget it didn’t turn out so well last time.”

He’s talking about himself?
His eyes are as unreadable as the rock wall. But suddenly, it makes sense. Murray’s the leader, but I can’t imagine him authorising cruel experiments. Cas said,
the Pyros created me.
Not Murray. No. Jared did, and now he’s stolen one of our weapons.

“I fear he may have already succeeded.”

My heart plunges. Another Transcendent? Like me, but created by the enemy—an enemy I didn’t even know we had.

Cas’s eyes narrow. “So why did he want to take me and the girl?”

“I have a name,” I remind him. “And he said something about us being on the wrong side. What about that town? Did he start the fire?”

“Him, or his fiends.” Murray shakes his head. “The ones that attacked were his genetic mutations. You knew, Cas, didn’t you?”

“I figured,” says Cas. “It spoke English. Nolan said the fiends might be making their own Transcendent, but I reckon that’s what Jared wanted us to think, because we thought he was dead.”

I look from one of them to the other. “So the fiends aren’t making a Transcendent. Jared is?”

“He always has been,” says Murray, running a weary hand through his greying hair. “That was the original goal. He used to capture fiends and experiment on them, too, trying to turn them against one another. He was convinced if we extracted all their secrets, we could create an army that could take down the regular fiends. Most of his experiments were dismal failures, but I begged him to stop, if just because he would have brought disaster upon all of us. I allowed him to continue in his cruelty when none of the other Pyros had any idea.” His expression darkens. “After his death, I could have confided in a select few, but I didn’t. I feared the consequences if someone took his ideas. They were well-meaning, in the beginning.”

“They were madness,” says Cas, his voice tight, “and you know it. Half the fiends out there in the wilderness are the monstrosities he lost control of when his ridiculous plans failed.”

This is news to me. I stare at both of them. “The fiends are Jared’s?”

“Some of them,” says Murray. “He was desperate to find a way to out-manoeuvre the monsters before they exterminated humanity, and that’s what almost destroyed us.”

“Never mind that,” Cas interrupts. “The real question is why he left his prize behind after going to all that trouble.”

“He wanted the weapon,” says Murray. “But… I don’t know. He’s supposed to be
dead.”

“Clearly he’s not,” I say. “Did you
see
him die?”

“He disappeared when the breach closed,” says Murray, and Cas shoots him a murderous look.
What—oh. The Transcendent died at the same time.
“There’s been no sighting of Jared since, until now. Our focus was on the fiends—as it had to be.”

“Jared’s fiends? Or the others?” I’ve never thought of the fiends as anything other than purposeless killers, even now. But a
human,
or Pyro,
giving them orders? A Pyro with resources like ours?

“Both,” says Murray. “But I always saw the first fiend invaders as the main threat. We lost so many of our own last time, even the new recruits aren’t enough to make up the difference. And if Jared provokes them…”

“Then we’re screwed,” says Cas.

“Pessimistic much?” I say, though this new information’s changed the game entirely. The fiends have no limit, at least that I know of. Humanity’s defence is reduced to a couple of hundred of us Pyros. The image of the monsters crawling out of the divide, knocking people aside like skittles, fills my head. Put an army like that in the hands of an enemy who has the exact same powers as ours and suddenly our training sessions look like nothing.

“We can still fight,” I say. “We can stop him. Right?”

But neither Cas nor Murray respond, and we begin the long climb back up to headquarters in silence.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

As we reach the top, they start arguing. It takes me several attempts to ask an obvious question, as we pass by the boundaries.

“How did Jared even get in?”

Murray turns to look at me. “He knew about our defences.”

“So why not use something different?” I say.

“Because he was supposed to be dead.”

Murray doesn’t speak another word until we reach the main chamber. Though the damage from the fight remains behind, the silence is eerie. Cas hasn’t put away his weapon, and Murray carries his twin swords carefully as we make our way back to his office.
Elle,
I think, with a flicker of anger at Jared’s nerve. He just walked in here.

And Murray
let
him. He really believed his brother was dead?

“Elle?” Murray calls, pushing the door open.

A whimper answers. My blood freezes, and I pull my knife from my belt with shaking hands. Elle wasn’t injured. Murray made sure she was safe. Which means…

Someone stands in the middle of the room, a tall figure in red. A Pyro.

Nolan.

He turns to face us. A small body lies at his feet, twitching feebly.

“Elle!” Murray rushes forward, aghast. But Nolan moves in a blur, raising his blade to block Murray’s path. The younger man’s face is a mask of sadness, but he stares the leader down.

“I’m sorry, Murray.”

Every tiny sound—from the dripping pipes to the hiss of smoke from the lava pool—is amplified in the hush that follows. My thoughts whirl. Nolan. A traitor. But why? Has he worked for Jared the whole time? Why would he hurt Elle?

“You.” Murray chokes out the word. He hasn’t drawn his own weapon, and leans on his desk for support. “Why?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” says Nolan. “I belong to Jared.” He lifts his sleeve to reveal something carved into his wrist. A symbol leaps out at me, inked in red, bleeding as though recently sliced open.

A flame-shape.

“He marked all of his subjects,” says Nolan, letting his sleeve fall again. “It’s fiends’ blood, another of his experiments. I never found out what he intended to do with me.”

“That symbol,” I whisper. “What is that?”

“A warning. Jared has my life in his hands.”

Murray takes another step forward. “So you hurt my daughter?”

“Not everyone is as selfless as you,” says Nolan, with the same hollow sadness in his tone, lifting his blade again. “I’m not the only one. There were a few more. I’m not sure who. But Jared told me. I met him on his way out, when I was patrolling outside. He told me he plans to pull a trigger that will kill all of us with the symbol. Those of us you let him recruit? We were meant to be the perfect soldiers. We have an incentive to obey, seeing as we can be killed at the touch of a button. And you’ll lose your daughter, now, if you disobey.”

I feel numb. The world’s shifted on its axis. Nolan. The first to welcome me to the group. The first to make me feel I belonged. And now he’s turned on innocent Elle, all to save his own life. It takes a minute to realise the buzzing feeling is rage. Pure rage. I want to hurt him.

Murray bends over Elle, shaking all over. “What… what have you done to her?”

“Just marked her, transferred some of my own blood.”
That’s why it’s still bleeding.
“I didn’t really have a choice. I’d rather die in battle with the fiends than suffer the death of the people with the mark. You can’t imagine the pain.”

“Elle.” Murray’s voice is little more than a whisper.

“There’s a way out,” says Nolan. “Jared himself has the cure. If Leah and Cas go to him, he’ll deliver it himself.”

“A likely story,” Cas mutters. “I wouldn’t have thought you of all people would turn on us, I admit. Have you and Jared been meeting up in secret all this time?”

“No, I haven’t seen him in two years. It wasn’t until the fiend at the divide told us he still lived. And that symbol kept cropping up.”

The image of the flame symbol etched into the wall of that cave fills my head.

Nolan sighs. “I didn’t know what it meant when I got it. I was supposed to be on the frontline in the war. All of us were keen to fight for him, until he betrayed us. I hoped he’d died.”

“So, do you know what he’s planning?” Cas asks. “Why reappear now? Is he in cahoots with the fiends?”