Indestructible (Indestructible Trilogy Book 1) (25 page)

The second fiend, however, has a different idea. Before I can strike, its wings have carried it up out of range, and I have to duck its clawed feet as they grab at my head. I catch a glimpse of Cas battling the other, sword flashing, as I roll in an undignified heap to avoid the grasping claws. I stick my dagger into one then pull it free in a spray of blood, forcing the fiend to retreat out of range.

Hardly out of breath, I get back on my feet, and two huge arms fold over me from behind. I choke, kicking out as I’m lifted into the air. The fiend’s grip tightens, squeezing the air from my lungs.
The power.
I imagine fire, blasting the monster to dust, and the fiend hisses at me.
Come on.

Red light flashes before my eyes, flaring from my arms, my shoulders. The fiend lets go, bellowing in rage. I have no chance to brace myself before my back hits the ground, but it barely winds me. I’m on my feet in a second, dagger still in hand, heat melding it to my skin. Fire still burning.

The fiend’s smoking all over, standing back as though unsure whether to lunge at me again. But they’re stupid, and they can’t override the instinct to kill anything that looks human.

I thrust with my dagger as it runs at me, burying the weapon to the hilt in its chest. Blood pours over my hand, and I pull my weapon free, moving aside as the fiend staggers. It drops to its knees, and the ground shakes like the tremors have started up again.

The second fiend, the one I wounded, jumps in to take its place, causing another mini-quake. It’s easily twice my size and its palms could crush my skull like an egg, but it knows I’m no normal opponent. Blood streams from my dagger, but the hilt remains firm in my hand. I duck the fiend’s swinging fist and stab its uninjured arm, but misjudge. The side of its hand hits my head and my teeth rattle in my skull.

Shaking my head, willing the dizziness to pass, I spin to face the enemy again.
Fire. Come on. Fire.

Flames fan out from my arms and my dagger as I raise it to the sky. The fiend’s eyes follow the motion, unable to resist the bright light.

I leap forward and sucker-punch it in the face with my other fist.

The flames consume the fiend, head to toe. Its skin blackens and crumbles, breaking apart and turning to ashes. At that moment, gravity catches up with me and I drop to the ground—I jumped six feet into the air, maybe more.
Oh my God.
I’ve never taken out a fiend with one punch before, either. Unless Jared’s are easier to kill, and somehow I doubt it.

I’m stronger than before. My powers are stronger.

A sudden jolt of pain shoots up my arm from the dagger, and images flash before my eyes—images of barren land under burning sky, lava flowing across the ground, hot enough to melt the skin off bones. Fiends crawling out of cracks in the ground…

I blink. The world comes back into focus. Cas stands over the crumbled remains of the third fiend, breathing heavily.

Clapping echoes in the silence.

“Congratulations!” calls a voice from above, on the cliff.

Jared.

CHAPTER TWENTY

A smirk crosses Jared’s face. “I knew you’d come.”

Cas moves closer, blood-stained blade held out. “What have you done, you fool?”

“Me, a fool?” Jared laughs again. “You should look closer at your own transgressions, Pyro. Look what you did to that girl.”

Cas’s gaze flashes back to me. I blink, nonplussed. What he did to me? Jared can’t know about any of that.
He’s lying. He has to be.

“Well, this is nice, isn’t it? It could have got very messy, with your friends back at Murray’s little hidey-hole. I’m glad my brother was able to see reason. It certainly makes things easier for me.”

“I thought you were waiting for us at the lab,” says Cas, tonelessly.

“Didn’t anyone teach you not to interrupt?” Jared jumps down from the cliff, feet slamming into the ground. “As a matter of fact, I was on my way there when I spotted some wayward fiends behaving rather unusually.”

“Wayward?” Cas echoes. “Meaning they’re not yours?”

“Don’t trifle with me, boy. If I didn’t know my brother to be a coward, I would accuse him of unleashing this himself. Somehow, the fiends on the other side must have found me out. Or is one of you in contact with them?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” says Cas. “I don’t know, maybe they’re pissed off you’ve been experimenting on so many of their kind. Perhaps they know you’re planning to throw Leah and me into battle with them.”

Jared lifts an eyebrow. “Is it so hard to believe that I have your best interests at heart? I would never put you in danger like that. You’re too valuable.”

“So why do you need us so badly? I might not agree with Murray, but he’s preparing us for the invasion better than you ever did.”

“By hiding? Fool, the fiends were never going to stay away indefinitely. As long as the divide exists, they will always find a way to break through, and their leaders will not stay down. Mark my words, they’ll attack soon, if they haven’t already.”

“Yes, I think we’ve established that,” says Cas. “What I want to know is: what was the point in threatening to kill two hundred other Pyros to get us to fight a battle we intended to fight in the first place? Or do you just like making enemies?”

Jared’s face is brick-red. “I warn you, boy, you’ll regret those words. You have no choice but to come with me, and you’ll find I have little mercy left for the likes of you.”

His tone brings me out in goose bumps. I don’t want to imagine what could be worse than what he put Cas through as a child.

We can’t go with him.

“Well, if I die before I get to battle the fiends, it’ll be a shame, won’t it?” I’m impressed at the utter indifference in Cas’s tone. I couldn’t have managed it if I’d been in his place.

“You know better than anyone that death is often a welcome relief.”

“So, anything else you want to tell us?” asks Cas. “Like how to stop those tattoos from killing people?”

I look at him. So it isn’t just about his own life. He’s genuinely concerned for Elle and the other victims of Jared’s experiments.
Yeah, he might be an asshat, but he’s better than this guy.

“Is that truly all you want to know?” Jared’s eyebrow lifts again.

“Preferably before you send us to our deaths, yes.”

“I told you, I have no intention of sacrificing you.”

“And that earthquake was just for show?”

“You don’t believe me.” Jared’s voice is coloured with disbelief.

“I can’t imagine why,” says Cas. He still hasn’t put the blade away, and it gleams crimson in the moonlight.

“That attitude of yours won’t help you. You’re going to come with me now. Do you think you have a choice?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“You think so little of me.” Jared’s attempt at a wounded expression falls flat.

“Yes, but Leah and I are more than capable of killing you ourselves. If you die, have you left explicit orders behind for someone else to set off those magical tattoos of yours? I know you don’t like sharing.” He spits the last sentence out.

Jared’s eyes are noticeably wider.
He didn’t think of that,
I realise—and we actually have leverage over him. Now we just need to use it to our advantage before we lose it.

Cas’s plainly got something in mind. He moves over to the now-frozen Jared, raising his knife to point it at him.

“I think we could come to an
agreement,”
he says, his tone mimicking Jared’s earlier confidence. “If you’d be so kind as to cooperate, I might not have to skewer you.”

The gleaming blade is reflected in Jared’s eyes as he looks down at it.

“You mistake me, boy,” he whispers. “I didn’t want to have to do this, but you’ve given me no other option.”

He snaps his fingers. For a few seconds, nothing happens. Cas’s blade’s inches from his neck, but Jared doesn’t look fazed.

The sound of wing beats fills the air. I look up to see a dark shape silhouetted against the sky—no, three of them, moving closer fast. The winged fiends. They were hiding nearby all along. Of course.

Cas moves with lightning speed, but Jared anticipates him and draws a weapon of his own, a dagger around the same length of mine. The side of his blade blocks Cas’s.

A stalemate.

Cas’s eyes narrow. The dark shapes in the sky are getting bigger by the second. We can’t afford to waste another minute.

As I move, something holds me back, a voice whispering in my ear, asking if I can really kill another person.
I have to stop him hurting us
, I tell the voice
. I have to stop him killing the others.

I lunge with my dagger, but Jared whips out another blade with his free hand. The weapon shakes—and a scream rises in my throat as sudden pain hits me, deeper than anything I’ve felt before—a horrible, wrenching pain that feels like I’m being pulled apart from inside. Burning, everywhere, searing, consuming every part of me. I can’t see Jared or Cas. Every sensation given over to agony. The screams rip my throat apart, but the only sound is a roaring in my ears. Trying to fight it is like swimming against an impossible current.

I’m pulled back, vividly, to a family holiday in Cornwall. Mum and Dad chose a bad moment to take their eyes off four-year-old me, and before they knew it, I’d swam out to sea—too far out. The current took hold of me and tossed me like a discarded doll. Choking on salt water, I saw my own death approaching, cruel and merciless, and had no power to prevent it.

And then the lifeguard pulled me out.

This time, there’s no lifeguard, and soon, even that memory fades. I can’t think. Everything fades away, piece by piece, until nothing’s left but the pain.

Time disappears. Every second burns, every minute passes without relief. I’ve lost all sense of self.

I can’t even remember my name.

***

Bright light fills my vision, so intense it hurts. The blackness in my mind fades, and it takes a minute to realise I can feel anything besides pain.

Everything hurts with the memory of it, every inch of me, inside and out, feels as though it’s been dipped in burning lava. Thoughts trickle into my mind, from a time I still had senses, still had memories.
I thought nothing could hurt Pyros like this, let alone Transcendents.

It takes another minute or five to process the flood of words in my head. Pyro. Transcendent. Phoenix.

Leah. Me.

Memories return in a dizzying rush, and I feel like some of them aren’t mine, though I couldn’t say which. They fade in and out as I lie… somewhere. I know I’m lying down, but it hurts too much to take it in. I retreat back into my own head, running through the reel of images again. One person keeps returning, sparking emotions back into my ravaged body. Mostly anger. A tall, scowling guy, wielding a long knife and a bad attitude.

Cas.

Another image appears: a boy in a cage with a terrible beast. Horrible sadness rises, bringing tears to my eyes, hot and stinging. I’m not burning anymore. But I still feel the echo of it. I shudder, my body arching.
That pain.
Never felt anything like it. Never. What the hell happened back there? Jared moved as I lunged at him, but I don’t
think
he stabbed me. There’s not a mark on me, anyway.

I blink the tears away, slowly gaining awareness of my real surroundings. I’m in a bedroom. Small, nothing in there aside from a chest of drawers and the bed I’m lying on. The softness is a welcome relief against my burning skin. Someone’s removed my coat, but I’m still dressed in the plain black combat outfit I wore underneath it.

I sit up, looking around. My boots lie at the foot of the wooden bed. Light spills into the room from an open window which looks out onto a courtyard. A brick building faces it.

More importantly, there’s a door behind me. I stand, but just as the thought of escape enters my head, it opens and someone comes in.

Jared. He sweeps into the room, red cloak flying. The echo of pain burns again, and my hands curl into fists. I picture my fist flying out, his head snapping back… but I’m here for a reason.

A girl’s face flashes before me. Heart-shaped, kind, young for her age.

Oh, God, Elle.

I’m here for my friends. This madman has their lives in his hands, and is willing to kill to get me on his side.

Now I’m his prisoner.

My hand jumps to my belt, and I curse myself for not noticing I was missing my weapon. The dagger’s gone.

Jared closes the door behind him and studies me, a pitying expression on his face. It doesn’t fool me for an instant.

We study each other, neither breaking the silence for a minute. Finally, he says, “I’m sorry, Leah. You gave me no choice.”

“What the
hell
did you do to me?”