Indestructible (Indestructible Trilogy Book 1) (6 page)

“It’s fine. I like it.” I don’t manage a smile, but that doesn’t matter. “Have you found other people… like me, then?”

“Not really.” She bites her lip. “It’s not common. Like a genetic mutation. It’s dormant until the energy blast triggers it.”

Dormant. But could it have happened before?

I think of Cas’s blood, mixing with mine, healing.

Could I have saved my sister?

It doesn’t matter,
a voice in my head tells me.
That’s over now. It’s done.

I turn back to Elle. “How does it work?” I ask. “Using my… abilities, I mean? It happened by itself, but can I control it?”

“Of course.” She smiles. Her confidence takes me by surprise. “You’ll learn how.”

“But they’re… they’re impossibly strong. They came out of the earth, and why? To kill us? Why can we fight back, but no one else can?” In my class, I wasn’t the fastest runner, or the strongest, or the most intelligent. I was average. Only luck, and finding Randy when I did, kept me alive this long.

“Dad’s researching,” she says. “Trying to work out why the Pyros are different.”

“You don’t know?” The impression that this group had answers starts to slip away.

“Not exactly.” She bites her lip. It’s that expression again. She’s hiding something.

“Well, how did you know to hide when they came? When the energy blasts…”

The image of a city crumbling, live on our HD screen, comes to mind. The horrible images playing like something out of a sci-fi movie. Before the connection cut off.

“It’s kind of complicated. You’ll have to ask my dad. We live away from regular people. I’m not like the others, but my dad’s the leader, so I grew up with the Pyros.”

“You did?” That explains her lack of knowledge of the outside world. Not that I’m one to talk. I’ve no idea whereabouts we are or where we’re going, either.

“Yeah. Where did you grow up?”

“Gloucestershire. I lived in a small town, until… two years ago.”

Time has no real meaning, but for whatever reason, Randy wanted to keep track of the months. Two years ago, I was days away from my sixteenth birthday, studying for exams which supposedly decided my future. London fell when I was in the middle of a drama rehearsal in preparation for my GSCE practical exam.

I’d seen the first energy blast broadcast on the news. Somewhere in the Middle East. People thought it was a nuclear explosion, and no survivors got close enough to confirm if it actually was. The world was more preoccupied with the freaky weather. A blizzard hit in the middle of May, blanketing the whole of the UK in snow. Coastal areas flooded. Earthquakes became global.

Then, within two days of each other, the two big disasters struck.

First came the earthquake, a movement so vast it tore apart the surface of the Earth. The ground split open along a fault line no one had known existed, a massive jagged line cutting through the Earth’s surface. Earthquakes devastated too many countries to count. And then the fiends came out.

But few people saw the news report about the fiends, because the second disaster had already taken out the national grid before they could broadcast.

Blasts of energy burst out of nowhere in the middle of major cities. They gave no warning. Everything within a mile of each blast was obliterated, even buildings and landmarks. People stood no chance.

There have probably been even more since then. The world’s changed beyond recognition. I spent the first fifteen years of my life secure in the knowledge that Britain was safe from almost all kinds of natural disasters. But now, all the people in charge who used to reassure us how safe we were have gone. No army, I presume. No government. No contact overseas, if there’s even anyone to contact anymore.

“We have to take care of ourselves now,” Randy always said, while polishing his service revolver. No need for anti-gun laws now. Nor the stringent laws against carrying knives. If I’d had any kind of weapon on me, at least I wouldn’t have been utterly defenceless when the fiends attacked. Or maybe I just shouldn’t have gone to school that day in the first place. Mum and Dad wanted our lives to have a semblance of normality, which was laughable given that London had disappeared off the map a couple of days before. But other than the lack of power, our town kept it together. Most of the teachers and pupils showed up to school.

Of course, the survivors regretted it.

Elle’s eyes grow huge as I describe the fiends’ attack. I should probably stop speaking, but I’ve never told anyone this—never been allowed to. By the time I get to Lissa’s death, she’s crying.

“That’s so horrible,” she says, sniffing.

The world we’re walking through now is bleak and cold, but beautiful all the same. Green fields and rolling hills, with a row of mountains ghosting the horizon. No Burned Spots here, but no towns or villages, either. No signs humans lived here at all. The world would be reverting to its natural state—were it not for the energy blasts. They’re as unnatural as the red sky.

“Do the energy blasts just target people?” The question slips out before I can hold it back.

Elle’s posture stiffens. “I don’t really know about the energy blasts.”

I add the question to the lengthening list of things to ask when we reach wherever we’re going. The blast was the start of it all.

“What’s with the uniform?” This seems like a safe question to ask. “I mean, I like it, but isn’t it a bit conspicuous?”

The whole group’s conspicuous. I do a head count. There are twelve of us, and everyone but me wears one of those dark-red coats.

“You like them? I make most of them myself,” she says. “That’s what I’ll be doing when we get back.”

“You make them?” I blink, confused. That wasn’t the answer I expected.

“Yeah. They’re fire-proof and super-durable.”

“Fire-proof. Does that include… energy blasts?”

She nods. “They’re conspicuous for a reason. Dad asked for it specifically. We have to let people know who we are. And it draws the fiends’ attention, too.”

“That’s deliberate?”

“Yeah. If they’ve gone after a group of normal people, then it’s a challenge to them. They can’t resist.”

“I guess that makes sense,” I say, “but what about those of you who don’t fight? You don’t want to draw their attention, right?”

“We don’t leave the base often,” she says.

“Why…?” I bite the question back, sensing from her tightening expression that this is yet something else I’m not supposed to ask. “When I was with Nolan and Cas, we tried to get into this town, but the gatekeepers refused to let us in because of the uniform. They don’t trust you—us.”

“They don’t?” Disappointment clouds her face.

“I’ve been on the road for ages,” I say, “and I didn’t know anything about you until last night. But I know my old group’s leader knew something about you. I saw some of you once, in a town.”

Elle frowns. “I don’t understand why people don’t trust us.”

“No one trusts anyone these days,” I say, knowing my words have upset her. “It’s probably nothing personal.”

I manage to coax a few small details about where we’re going as I ask Elle about her childhood. This occupies us for a while. The terrain under our feet becomes rougher as we get closer to the hills, and I’m glad for the hiking boots. Elle lets slip that we’ve been heading north, further into Scotland. We could be in another world for all I know.

Until two years ago I’d no idea this much open space even still existed. Mum and Dad took us on holiday to exotic overseas places. Spain, the south of France, Tenerife. Lissa and I wanted to go to beaches and theme parks, not close to nature. If we stayed in England for the holidays, we went to tourist spots on the coast—Blackpool, Cornwall. I’ve never even
been
this far north. But all the holidays are part of a distant, disconnected past. The memory of sitting in a giant metal bird and flying seems more unreal than the fiends. More impossible than the past twenty-four hours.

Humans could once fly. Now all we can do is run.

But I’m done running.

Sunset lights the sky on fire before we reach our destination. The mountains loom over us, austere and snow-capped, bright against the blazing sky. We follow a long, winding trail that cuts through fields and forests, even passing a small town where lights suggest some inhabitants remain. But Murray—or whoever’s leading—doesn’t stop, and our path soon veers away. There’s a strip of something just visible between the hills, reflecting the sky. Possibly a lake. A loch? I make it my focus point as we walk, to avoid thinking about the ache in my legs. I know I should be keeling over with tiredness by now, but I file it away with the other impossible things I’ve survived already. The bread I ate earlier barely took the edge off my hunger. My feet burn in the warm shoes, and the skin on my face starts to sting. I’ve caught the sun.

Just when I think my legs can’t take any more, people start to slow down. The lake comes into view—only it’s not a lake. It’s the sea.

“That’s our place.” Elle points to the range of mountains I’d thought lay just ahead of us. Now, a mile of glittering blue separates us from it.

I just gape at it. How are we ever going to get across?

“There’s a path,” says Elle, guessing my thoughts. “This didn’t used to be an island. The land changed.”

“Where’s this path?”

“You’ll see it in a minute.”

We move further along the road, past a sweeping wave of green forest. The sea remains a glittering mass, but a tip of land extends into it, and as we draw closer, I can see that it connects us to the island.

“So it’s not technically an island,” says Nolan. I jump, not having noticed him beside me. “You getting along all right, Leah?”

I nod. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“We’re calling her Phoenix now,” says Elle.

“Really? I like it,” says Nolan. “Elle gives everyone pet names. I’m supposedly Owl.”

Elle laughs, teasing him. “Well, it’s true, you do look like an owl when you bother wearing your glasses…”

They’re like family, really.

I’d like to feel like part of a family again.

CHAPTER SIX

As it turns out, the path to the island is more of a bridge, which turns into a series of stepping stones. I follow Elle onto the first stone before my brain remembers how much I hate the water.

Something about the salty, eye-stinging wetness makes me cringe. I stop, feet wobbling, while Elle deftly jumps from one stone to another as though it’s as easy as walking on solid ground.

Cut it out. You walked away from the fiends, for God’s sake.
It’s ridiculous. I don’t have any other phobias. Heights don’t bother me, and neither does the dark. But water? When I was younger, I fought against the school’s compulsory swimming lessons with everything I had. I avoided rivers where possible. And in this new world of fire and explosions, a fear of open water doesn’t even come into conversation.

Drawing in a deep breath, I jump, and my feet hit the rock. At least these hiking boots have a good grip, but visions of slipping on the wet moss and falling into the sea slow me down. I can’t let the people behind me see my fear, so I fix my gaze on the mountain ahead and not on the sea either side of me. I already died three times. I can walk across a bunch of stepping stones.

And then we’re on a beach of jagged rocks and grass, the mountain looming over us. I catch up to Elle and the others.

My heart sinks as I see Cas looking at me. The disgust in his expression makes me flinch.
He
saw my fear. What have I done to make him despise me so much?

“What’s Cas’s problem?” I ask, as we wait for the rest of the group to catch up.

“Huh?”

“Cas,” I say. “He’s hated me without reason since the minute we met.”

“Oh, God,” she says. “Casimir gives the worst first impression! And second impression. He scares the living crap out of me and I’ve known him all my life.”

“He’s always lived here too?”

“Yeah, I think. He’s four years older than me. Nineteen.”

Strange. Cas doesn’t act like a teenager. But then again, I don’t feel seventeen.

“He’s the resident grump. I’m amazed he said more than a few words to you, to be honest.”

“He saved my life,” I say. “That’s why I’m confused. But I guess Nolan made him do it.”

“Nolan.” She sighs. “You got to lie in his arms, right? You know how many people would kill for that opportunity?”

I blink. “Um, no?”

She sighs. “Lovely Nolan.”

“Do you have a crush on him?”

“No!” But a flush spreads up her neck and onto her cheeks.

It’s been years since I’ve even been able to
think
about crushes. Not when running for my life. The extent of my experience is an awkward make-out session in a cupboard on my fifteenth birthday with my then-crush, Shane something. The hours discussing it with my old friends seem trivial now.