Indestructible

by Linwood, Alycia

  “I don’t know.” He frowned. “I can try.” He slipped the bag over his shoulder and took my hand. His eyes glistened with determination, which was replaced by bewilderment. “It’s not fucking working!”

  “Maybe you should let go of me and try again.” I had no clue whether the guards had noticed the explosion. It hadn’t seemed loud enough, but we couldn’t be sure. We had to get out of here sooner rather than later.

  “Okay, but only for a second.”

  As soon as his fingers left mine, I swayed on my feet and had to catch myself before I knocked over the drawers. My breath came out in short, choked gasps as the elements tried to tear me apart. I could taste all of them if I just… I found myself staring into Adrian’s gray-blue eyes and saw relief flash through them.

  “I still have my element.” He nodded toward the thin layer of ice that was covering the wall. “But every element I can feel bothers me more than usual and I have to fight to stay in control.”

  Crap. I’d weakened him, hadn’t I? “We have to go.”

  “Yeah.”

  We ran for the door.

  Chapter 33

  I held my breath, listening for any sound of footsteps coming from the main hall. “I think we can go.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Adrian whispered and opened the door. My gun was out and ready, but I had trouble holding it in my left hand. Still, it was better than no gun at all. Adrian was going in front of me, his left hand in mine, his other hand holding the gun. He needed to have a good aim in case someone tried to catch us or kill us.

  The hall was empty, which was a huge relief, but the true trouble was waiting for us once we got out of the house. Adrian cracked the door open and risked peeking out. I assumed the coast was clear because he pushed the door open and we ran outside. The bag jumped in between us, hitting me in the side.

  Someone yelled and Adrian let go of me. I nearly doubled over, tightening my hand on the gun. Adrian touched me and we were running again. I glanced to my right and saw a guard lying on the ground, a bunch of ice shards stuck in his chest.

  A bullet whizzed past my face and I unsuccessfully fired at the man who was coming after us. Adrian fired a couple of shots, but the man hid behind the upturned table and continued to fire. We were out in the open. There were no tables or chairs to hide behind. Why had the Marlaus decided to have their place for relaxation and outdoor activities on the wrong side of the house?

  Elements viciously attacked my consciousness, but I kept on running. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see where I was going or that my whole body was shaking as if someone had hit me with a bolt of electricity.

  “Ria!” Adrian’s voice broke through the pain in my mind, but I couldn’t understand why he was calling my name. His fingers found mine and the veil in front of my eyes disappeared. A wall of ice was only a couple of inches away from us, getting hit by bullets.

  We got to the fence and had to come up with a way to climb over it. The ice would be shattered at any moment and the guards were close enough to get us. Adrian shrugged the bag off his shoulder and handed it to me.

  “You go first. I’ll be right behind you,” he said. “I think I can keep up the cloud around you.”

  There wasn’t time to argue because he let go of me and none of the elements could touch me. I tucked the gun into the bag, which I slung over my shoulder. Climbing over the fence wasn’t that hard, but as I jumped down on the other side, the wall of ice fell apart and crumpled to the ground.

  “Adrian!” I yelled. Getting the gun out again, I aimed through the hole in the fence and kept firing. Adrian was half-way up when a bullet embedded itself into his leg, but he ignored it and kept on going. I had to duck to avoid another bullet. My gun was empty. Without my elements, there was not much I could do.

  Adrian threw me his gun before he could climb down. I fired at the guards who were closest to us, but it didn’t take long until Adrian’s gun was empty too. Damn it. I ran to Adrian and helped him get down. It was only a matter of time before the guards realized we were no longer shooting and they got out of hiding. If they got too close, they’d kill us both.

  Adrian stumbled into the bushes, shielded by the concrete columns that held together the fence. We had to get out of here, but Adrian’s leg was bleeding and I knew there was no way he could run.

  A black SUV pulled over not far from us, and the door opened. “Get inside!” Someone yelled.

  Adrian put his arm around my shoulders and we limped to the SUV.

  “They’re getting away!” One of the guards yelled as they all ran into the street. I’d managed to get Adrian and the bag inside with the help of a young blonde. Hot pain spread through my shoulder and back and I jumped into the SUV at the last moment.

  We lurched forward, the tires screeching. The blond woman closed the door while a dark-haired man tended to Adrian. My vision blurred under the attack of the elements, mixing with the pain I felt in my shoulder and back.

  “Adrian…” I wheezed, trying to reach out to him.

  “Oh God,” the woman said and knelt next to me. As soon as her hand touched me, the elements were gone, but the wave of pain was stronger than ever. “Digg, she’s losing a lot of blood. We have to get her to Lily.”

  “Ria!” I was vaguely aware of Adrian trying to push himself up and crawl over to me.

  “No, don’t move. She’s going to be fine,” a calm voice said, probably Digg’s. I blinked, trying to clear my vision.

  “Ria, can you hear me?” Adrian gasped, his gray-blue eyes swirling with worry.

  “I hear you,” I whispered.

  “Drive faster,” the woman yelled. Great. Was my condition that bad? I closed my eyes, letting the darkness find its way back to me. I only hoped the files we’d stolen would be of some use to Lily. It would be such a shame to die for nothing.

  Chapter 34

  I woke up from the worst nightmare I’d ever had. In my stupid dream, Adrian and I had been doing some very silly stuff and I didn’t have my elements. What was wrong with my mind… I moved and pain shot up through my whole body. The emptiness inside of me indicated that no, I hadn’t been dreaming. That shit was real. “Oh, fuck.”

  “I’m glad you’re fine.” Adrian chuckled.

  I opened my eyes and saw him sitting next to my bed, his right leg was wrapped up in plaster. “I feel like a herd of cows danced on me.” I tried to sit up, but ended up wincing in pain.

  “Don’t do that,” he said, waving his finger at me. “You’ve been shot three times in the back.”

  “Son of a bitch.” I groaned. Who knew how long the recovery would take? The room around me looked like a typical hospital room, except the walls were a deep shade of blue and I couldn’t feel any elements, so we had to be in Lily’s safe house.

  “I don’t get it why you’re mad. We knew we might end up hurt or worse.” Adrian was awfully cheerful, but maybe that was because I’d woken up. The dark shadows under his eyes indicated that he’d been here for a while. They must have taken me for an operation at some point.

  “I know.” I pouted. “How is your leg?”

  “Fine. I keep forgetting I can’t get up and snuggle with you when I want, but the doctor said I’d be able to walk normally once everything is healed.”

  “Did he mention if I’m going to be alright?” I asked hesitantly. If the guards had hit the wrong spots in my back, I didn’t even want to think what the consequences could be for me.

  Adrian licked his lips, lowering his gaze. “He said you’d be fine, but you might have trouble moving your left arm or experience some back pain from time to time.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. “Okay. I can live with that.” If the disease let me. “Any news on Ethan’s father? Did we steal the right thing?”

  “Actually, I didn’t bother to ask.” He shrugged. “With you in here, it just didn’t matter.”

  A knock sounded on the door and Paula came in. “Hey, how are you feeling?” Her curly blond h
air fell around her shoulders, her blue-green eyes glowing with an emotion I couldn’t identify.

  “Okay, I guess.” Ignoring the pain, I pushed myself a bit up so I could at least rest my head against the headboard and not strain my neck every time I wanted to look at someone.

  “You’ll be pleased to hear that Ethan’s father was arrested.” She flashed me a smile. “I know I am.”

  That meant we’d gotten the right files. “So Lily gave the files to the police? What did she say where she got them? Are they looking for Adrian and me because we broke into Anton’s house?”

  “Actually, Lily said she got the files from a friend a couple of days before the lab exploded. She claimed there was some talk about working together on some experiments, but as soon as she found out that they were torturing carriers, she broke off the negotiation. Since none of the scientists survived the explosion, no one can confirm or deny her claims.” Paula took a seat at the edge of my bed.

  “But Marlau can say he never agreed to any negotiation. He owns the lab. It would be his word against Lily’s.” And I could already guess whose word would carry more weight.

  “Yeah, except now that the truth is out, he’ll try to distance himself from what was done in the lab and say he was merely providing the money.” Paula tapped me on the leg.

  “That’s good,” Adrian said, leaning back in his chair. “But won’t someone jump to the conclusion that Lily blew up the lab? I mean, everyone knows she can’t stand that anyone hurts carriers. If they connect her to the explosion, she could lose her position and her new organization.”

  “Well, people can always assume things,” Paula said. “But Marlau and his investigators already confirmed that the lab exploded because of a gas leek. The investigation won’t be reopened.”

  “I blew up that lab with three elements that I no longer have. Even if there is a new investigation, they’ll never figure it out how the explosion happened.” And I was sure as hell that they couldn’t connect it to Lily.

  Paula’s eyebrows went up for a moment. “Right. Anyway, the cops are not looking for the two of you because some woman said that the shooting had been a misunderstanding. I think she’s Sebastian’s grandmother or something.”

  I gasped. The woman must have been Isidora. “But why didn’t the guards or Marlau argue with her statement? Surely Marlau knows what really happened.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he does. But you see, you didn’t take all the evidence there is against him. If the cops had gone there immediately, they would have found the other things. Lily couldn’t say anything about that because there is no way she could know such a thing without doing something illegal,” Paula said.

  “Aren’t they going to search through his house anyway?” I couldn’t imagine that not happening.

  “Of course they are, but by the time they get there, someone will get rid of everything for him,” Paula said. “You know how these investigations are. Once they get the guy and don’t have to look for anyone else, the process gets painfully slow. If Marlau had escaped somehow, they would have been in his house in a second. Now they don’t want to waste their men when they already have enough evidence and I’m sure for certain reasons they don’t really want to find more.”

  “I hope we got enough files. I don’t even know what we took.” I ran my right hand through my hair, trying to untangle the knots.

  “Lily copied all the files before handing them over.” The corners of Paula’s lips quirked up. “You can check them out whenever you want.”

  “Awesome!” I should have known Lily would make sure we’d know what was in those files too. “Did you have a look at them?”

  Paula batted her eyelashes at me. “What do you think?”

  “Is it enough to put Marlau in prison for the rest of his life?” I didn’t even dare to hope.

  The smile fled from Paula’s face. “You know that depends on many factors, but the world will be watching his trial. This could change everything, especially now that everyone knows he’s a carrier.”

  “Did he kill anyone?” If Adrian and I had found proof that Marlau had killed someone, then there wasn’t a way for him to get out of this. Although, I didn’t think he kept such proofs anywhere, unless he was a sentimental psychopath.

  “We don’t know,” she said. “There are no indications of that. You only found the files about the lab and some of the earliest experiments. Illegal experiments.”

  “What kind of experiments?” Both Sebastian and his grandmother had mentioned experiments, but no one wanted to say anything specific.

  “Ethan’s father built the lab because he wanted to find a cure for the disease.” Paula’s lip curled at the mention of Ethan’s name, her fingers twisting in the bed sheet. “Apparently, Ethan and Sebastian loved him so much that they decided to help him and even participate in the experiments. I mean, we assume he didn’t force them, but we can’t be sure. His other children weren’t involved at all.”

  “Well, they seem like a crazy family. I wouldn’t be surprised if they volunteered.” Isidora’s decision not to go to Sebastian’s funeral because she thought it wasn’t him anymore seemed strange, but what did I know about Sebastian and his past?

  Paula shot me an annoyed look. Oops, right. Her baby would belong to Ethan’s family, sort of. I prayed to God that the baby wouldn’t inherit too many of Daddy’s genes.

  “Our scientists are still trying to figure out how the experiments went, but it seems like Marlau wanted to create some sort of a super element that could destroy the disease,” she said. “He thought that was the only way to get his life back to normal, but many of his unwilling subjects died or got the disease, and his experiments failed. So I guess he assumed the problem was in the element. He needed someone with an element similar to his. And who else can have a similar element if not family?”

  “Super element. Yeah, right.” I snorted. What sort of an element would that be? Could it make the whole planet explode or what?

  “The problem was that Sebastian’s and Ethan’s elements weren’t completely identical to Anton’s, so he tried to combine their elements and make them stronger.” Paula licked her lips. “There had to be at least a dozen of experiments to achieve that and they partially succeeded.”

  “What do you mean partially?” Adrian frowned.

  “There are indications that Sebastian’s and Ethan’s elements were stronger than they were before the experiment and that they didn’t get the disease when their elements touched Anton’s. But Anton couldn’t even feel their elements when they were reaching out for him and nothing happened.”

  “Wait,” I said. “So Ethan and Sebastian volunteered to get killed? I mean, how else could Anton get their element?”

  “I told you that. The original plan was to create an element strong enough that it could cure the disease when it touched it, so the element would just reach inside, cure the disease and go out. Anton believed the diseased element was still inside of him, so when it got cured, it would grow back or something. I don’t know. It’s not clear from the files.”

  “I must say I never thought of the possibility that an element could cure the disease.” It just didn’t seem possible. What would an element do? Punch the disease in the face and tell it to go away? I might have seen a cartoon with a similar scene when I was a kid.

  “Me neither,” Paula said, twirling a lock of her hair around her finger. “So, when everything failed, Anton and his team concluded that Ethan’s and Sebastian’s elements had to melt together. Anton abandoned the whole idea because he realized his son and nephew would either have to die or something terrible would happen to them. He pulled out of the experiment and they all got back to their regular lives, except Sebastian and Ethan suffered from the psychological consequences of the brutal experiments they went through. The scientists went on with the research, but they experimented on the carriers they managed to catch.”

  “Then at some point Sebastian must have gotten his own idea about how to
get a super element or how to cure his uncle. He was babbling about something like that.” I didn’t really want to recall the time I’d spent with Sebastian in the lab. “He was a little… umm, unstable.”

  “And Ethan hated carriers so much that he wanted to destroy them, but he still loved his father,” Paula said, looking at her fingers. “Maybe what he did…”

  “No,” I said. “There are no excuses for that.”

  “I know.” She hopped to her feet. “I need to go, but I want to tell you something first.” The smile returned to her face.

  “What?” I was totally ready for some good news.

  “Lily made a deal with the government.”

  “When did she have time to do that?” Seriously, the woman was doing so many things at the same time that I didn’t know how she managed it all.

  “It’s nothing new.” Paula waved her hand. “She’s been negotiating it for some time, but now it’s finally done.”

  “The safe place for carriers?” The safe place for people like me who had no other choice but to be separated from the society. “Is it some fancy building with special walls? An ex-lab maybe?”

  “Yeah, it’s a safe place for carriers, but it’s not what you think.” Her blue-green eyes met mine. “It’s an island.”

  “An island?” My eyes widened.

  “Yep, a whole island just for carriers. No elementals allowed. Well, unless they have protection.” She clapped her hands together. “There are a couple of houses already on that particular island and you two could be among the first ones to choose one. Of course, it’s a little bit on the expensive side because the houses are huge and they belonged to rich people, but I’m sure you can manage.”

  I looked at Adrian, but his face was expressionless. A whole island just for carriers. “Which island? Roivenna? The one that some actors bought?”

  “Yep, it’s that one, but the government bought it back and decided to give it to carriers. There will be a special ferry which will take carriers and their visitors to the island,” Paula said. “They decided that was the best place because it is close to the city. I mean, it’s just across the sea. Lily took some of the carriers who couldn’t control themselves there and they said elements from the city didn’t bother them. They could still feel them a little, but not much.”