Indestructible (Indestructible Trilogy Book 1) (5 page)

“This is Leah,” Nolan tells her. “She’s—well, she’s a natural. One of us.”

“Is she?” Val looks me up and down.

“She survived an energy blast,” says Nolan. “We found her cornered by two fiends.”

“Whereabouts?” She doesn’t seem surprised by his words.

“A mile or two from here. She was camping with a larger group. The blast took everything out in the area.”

Her face softens in sympathy. “I’m sorry,” she says to me. To Nolan, she says, “That’s all of us now. We were going to send a couple of people after you if you didn’t come back soon.”

“We got side-tracked,” he says. “The fiends were really pursuing us. They even followed us into the forest. I’ve never heard of that happening before.”

“Me neither.” She purses her lips. “Tell the others. And Leah, welcome to the group.”

“Thank you,” I say, though I don’t know what this means, yet. Like I said to Cas, good manners cost nothing. It’s the one of my parents’ lessons I can still hang onto in this crazy world.

Cas himself has already strode off alone, towards the back of camp. Nolan nods to Val and beckons me to follow.

I have to walk right into the middle of camp? I tense even more at the idea of being the centre of attention. Do I really want this? Val seems sincere, but then again, so can anyone. I’ve met people willing to pretend to be or do anything for their own survival. Not that this group looks like it’s on the verge of death, but you never know.

Questions war inside me with the growing urge to get out while I can.

Nolan looks back, realises I’m not following. He walks over to me again. Another young man—boy, really, sitting on a rock nearby—glances to see where he’s walking, and our eyes meet. His narrow. He’s suspicious of me.

Maybe Val’s kindness was an act. Maybe they don’t trust me any more than I trust them.

“Leah,” says Nolan, in a low voice, “it’s okay.”

I shake my head. “Tell me,” I say. “Can I trust everyone here?”

“Can you… of course.” Nolan bends down so he’s more on my level, which is a tad condescending, but I know he’s attempting to comfort me. Like a kid.

“Right,” I say. “Then, is there a way out? If I decide I don’t want to join?” I say this loud enough for the other boy to hear. He doesn’t react.

Nolan speaks in a low voice. “It’s tricky, because our base is isolated and we don’t want to draw the fiends near. But if you decide you don’t want to—” He glances around, like he’s checking no one’s listening. “If it’s really what you want, I can help you get to the nearest town.”

He sounds like he means it. Not that I can trust that, but it’s the best I’m going to get. I breathe out, nodding.

“That okay? You can ask any questions if you aren’t sure.”

“Will you teach me how to fight them?” The words come out in a rush.

“The fiends?”

I nod, again.

“Of course.” He steps back. “That’s what we’re here for.”

I follow him to the group sitting in a circle in the centre. A sharp-featured man sits beside a dark-skinned woman and an older man with streaks of grey in his hair. The last of the group is a girl who looks younger than me, who has a book open in her lap. Her heart-shaped face is framed by curtains of fair hair. The way it’s fluffed up reminds me of Lissa.

By now, all eyes are on me. I tense up again, but keep my eyes ahead, not on my feet.

“This is Leah,” Nolan tells the group.

Four pairs of eyes assess me. I half-expect someone to comment on the lack of hair on my head, which is ridiculous. People with missing limbs are a common sight these days, as are corpse-like, starved beggars on the road, unlucky survivors. But this group look pristine compared to the few ragged strangers we ran into on the road over the past two years. Their skin’s unblemished despite the intense radiation and the dust storms. Where in the world do they come from? How did they escape?

The younger girl’s the first to speak. “Hi, Leah.” She smiles, and it’s a genuine smile, too. “Welcome to the group.” She looks at the older man, with the grey in his hair. “Can I give her the tour?”

“Elle, we’re leaving soon,” he says. “Leah, welcome. I’m Murray. Do you want some water?” He offers me his flask.

At once, it hits me how thirsty I am. I nod gratefully and accept the flask. I try not to drink all of it, but once the cool water hits my parched throat it’s an effort to pull away.

“We have plenty, take it all,” says Murray.

“Thank you,” I say.

I’m disarmed by his kindness. It’s not something you come across every day, especially amongst strangers. The memory of a half-starved man on the road chasing after my sister, trying to snatch her water-flask, flickers to the surface. Why do I keep thinking of Lissa now? It’s like meeting the strangers has lifted the lid on everything I tried to suppress.

As I drink, the others stand up, and people start pulling down the tents and packing them away into hiking-style backpacks. For a minute, it’s like being back at camp. The girl closes her book and slides it into her bag. She smiles as she sees me watching her.

“I’m Elle,” she says. “Murray is my dad. He’s the man in charge.”

She’s not as young as I first thought—fifteen, maybe. Her soft features are a sharp contrast to the bleak landscape. She’s not a natural survivor. The others look older—but some are younger than me. These people can’t have all come searching for the fiends. Something doesn’t add up.

Nolan hasn’t told me everything.

“Why did you come here?” I ask Elle. She strikes me as someone willing to talk.

She glances back at Murray. “I’m not sure my dad wants me to talk about it. But I can tell you anything else.” Her bright eyes remind me more of Lissa by the second, if she’d lived and grown up.

“Okay,” I say. “What’s a natural?”

“Ah. Um, well, you probably know that we aren’t like normal people. We don’t get hurt easily for one thing. But Nolan said you didn’t know about it?”

“I survived an energy blast,” I tell her. “And I was attacked by fiends. I should be dead…three times over, now.” If Cas hadn’t healed me. But from what Nolan said, that’s not normal even for these guys. Whoever—or whatever—they are.

Her eyes widen. “Wow.”

“So, what’s this group about?” I’m not used to asking so many questions. “Stupid question. I just want to know what I’m getting myself in for.”

“Don’t worry.” She smiles at me. “You’ll be safe with us.”

“So where you live—it’s safe from the fiends? Is that even possible?”

“Yeah, we’re well-hidden. We live…” She glances around, as though checking no one’s listening in. “In the mountains. Hidden.”

“The mountains?” I say. “Where?”

“Um. I’m not supposed to say. It’s going to be a trek, though. Are you hungry?”

I nod. I haven’t even thought about food, but my insides feel hollow and I won’t be able to walk for long if I don’t eat something soon.

“I’ll ask Dad to get you something. And he’ll have some spare hiking boots somewhere, don’t worry.”

This just gets more and more surreal. I watch as she runs over to her father and says something to him. He rummages in the bag he’s packing and pulls out a loaf of bread. Elle scurries back over and hands it to me with an apologetic expression on her face.

“Sorry it’s a bit stale. We’ve been here a few days.”

It’s been forever since I’ve even
seen
bread that wasn’t mouldy. I inhale deeply, and almost laugh at Elle’s confused expression.

“We didn’t exactly get fresh food on the road,” I say.
More like road kill.
I inwardly shudder as I remember Randy’s attempts to disguise cooked rat and rabbit as regular meat.

“Really?”

I nod, taking a grateful bite. It tastes like heaven, and I have to tell myself to slow down and not inhale it in one go. When I’m done, I remember I’m supposed to be getting answers.

“So you were hiding when the energy blasts started?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says, but doesn’t meet my eyes.

I try to think of a question that won’t lead to evasions.

“Elle!” someone calls. “Come and give me a hand with this, won’t you?”

“Coming!” says Elle. “I have to go. We’ll talk more later.”

How can someone smile like that, with the world the way it is? It’s starting to feel more and more like I’ve stumbled into some bizarre alternative universe.

But I nod at Elle, and she scurries away. I look around, wondering where Nolan and Cas have gone. Nolan’s helping pack tent pegs away, while Cas is in conversation with Murray.

They’re looking at me, but when they see me watching, they return to their conversation. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they’re discussing me.

CHAPTER FIVE

We walk through fields and forests, past abandoned farms and villages ravaged by the fiends. Occasionally we pass another Burned Spot. I’ve given up trying to identify where we are and instead concentrate on staying awake. Tiredness drags at my limbs, but I know logically that I should be more than just tired. I shouldn’t be able to walk at all.

Nolan’s talking to someone further back, while Cas has stalked off ahead of the group. I walk apart from the others, who are talking too loudly for my liking. Can’t they see how conspicuous a group of red-coated, noisy people are? We’d be easy pickings for the fiends, and not everyone can fight. But I hold my tongue. I’m not normally one for judging people, and it would hardly endear me to the group if I started lecturing them.

The new hiking boots Nolan gave me fit almost perfectly, once I’ve put on two pairs of thick socks someone dug out from the packs. The woollen material cushions my feet, and someone was even kind enough to give me a cap to protect my head from the bright sun—I lost mine a while ago, in the forest.

I just wish I had a weapon. What good will I be if the fiends attack again?

Elle bounces up to me. “Sorry about that,” she says. “I had to tell my dad about something and then… what’s up? You look sad.”

I shrug. I wasn’t aware of my facial expression. “Nothing,” I say. “I’m fine.”

“You lost someone, didn’t you?” She lowers her voice, eyes darting about like it’s a taboo subject.

I swallow. I’m too tired, too overwhelmed, to think about the others now.
They’d want you to get answers from these people. They’d want you to live.

I nod. “Everyone. I was the only survivor.”

“I’m so sorry.” Are those tears in her eyes? Who cries on behalf of strangers?

“I’m okay,” I say, lamely. “So, um, Nolan told me that your group fights the fiends. Could you tell me more about that?”

“Sure! Well, we don’t
all
fight—only you Pyros can do that, because the fiends don’t get knocked down easily.”

“Yeah… about that,” I say. “It makes no sense. I mean, I think I’d have noticed that I can survive getting kicked into a wall before now. When I was seven I fell off a bench and broke my ankle, but that fiend hit me into a brick wall and it barely did any damage. Even when I fell out the tree. I broke a couple of ribs, but it should have been worse.”

“Um, that’s probably because you were awakening,” she says. “That’s the one thing outsiders—naturals—have in common. My dad’s studying it, and he says that the energy blasts are what’s triggering it. Before there were only a few of us, but there are a new bunch of people waking up alive from energy blasts. Only you Pyros can survive them. But you know that already, right?”

“Yeah,” I say, though my mind’s swirling. One question at a time. “But the part I don’t understand is how I fought the fiends. I was injured, but it was like my hand—my whole body, really—caught fire.”

“That’s because you’re different,” she says, with a laugh. The sound is foreign to my ears.

“I know
that,”
I say, and inexplicably, my own mouth curls up at the side. “I’d just like to know what—what I am.”

“Pyro,” she says. “Well, that’s just a nickname we’ve adopted. I’ve thought of a nickname for you, anyway.”

I blink. “You have?”

“Yeah. Leah the Phoenix. You rose out of the ashes, right?”

“Um. I guess.”

A mythical bird that burns in fire at the end of its life and is reborn out of the flames? My chest tightens. I’ll never forget the others. Randy… Opal… they kept me alive for the past two years. I don’t know that I’d have lived through Lissa’s death without them. But for the sake of surviving, I have to look forward, not back. Randy told me that himself, like he told everyone in the group. Not all of us listened. Some sank into grief so deep, they stopped eating or sleeping and either died from sickness or were killed during night raids from scavengers desperate enough to attack a group of other humans. Those of us who stopped looking back and started looking out for our own survival were the ones who lived.

“Are you okay? I won’t call you that if it upsets you.”