Invincible (The Aerling Series Book 3) (7 page)

We all stop immediately, though we can’t
see anyone yet. The elevators are down the same hall, and we have to get to
them if we have any hope of escaping. This area is too conspicuous to leave a
couple of bodies, though. I scan the hallway ahead of the intersection and spot
what looks like a janitorial closet. Shoving Hayden into Sloane’s arms, I say,
“Wait here.”

Sloane fumbles, trying to get a good grip
on Hayden, but she has him in hand by the time I step out into the hallway
fully visible. It takes the two Sentinels a moment to process what they’re
seeing. One reaches for a walkie talkie on his belt, but I zap it before he
gets a chance to raise the alarm. The other guy doesn’t bother with an alert.

He whips out a gun and has it pointed at
me before I can blink. The muzzle flash lights up the dim hallway and I panic.
The shield I used to protect Olivia that night on the river bank springs to
life as an automatic response. The gale of wind I slam into the bullet drives
it into a wall, instead of my head. Instinct takes over, then, and my anger
sucks the heat out of the room. Crystals form on their lips before they realize
what’s happening. Both fall stiffly to the floor, frozen from the inside out.

Sloane must hear them fall, because she
barrels around the corner to help me drag them away before they’re fully
settled. She’s shaking her head as she reaches out to touch one of the
Sentinels. “Are they…dead?” she asks.

“No, but it’ll take them a while to
recover from this.”

Wordlessly, she helps me drag them both to
the janitorial closet. I wonder how Tū managed to create humans that were
indestructible to Aerlings, all but Wardens, anyway. What is it about them that
makes it so hard for us to kill them? Other humans can kill them. Caretaker
Officers don’t manage to take down one of their twisted counterparts very
often, but Robin’s parents confirmed it was possible. I can only guess it’s Tū’s
intimate knowledge of Aerling power that allowed him to create a being
impervious to everything we can do but the weird dagger Olivia said I created
to kill Alex, the Sentinel who attacked us at the house.

I still can’t remember what I did that
night, or what I did the night I gave the scarred Sentinel the mark he’s so
easily identified by now. Tāwhiri brought back some of my early memories.
It was just a few, the day I was born, the day he named me and claimed me as
his heir. What he did is a mystery to me, but it was his power that repaired
that broken part of my mind. I hold part of his power now, and as we haul
Hayden into the elevator, I wonder if that means I can do what he did.

“How do we know there won’t be Sentinels
waiting for us as soon as the doors open?” Sloane asks worriedly.

“We don’t,” I say, “but we’ll be
prepared.”

Sloane positions Hayden behind her and to
the side of the door. I feel it immediately when she calls her power. For a
moment, I’m surprised by the feel of it. Molly’s power feels like a buzzing
bumblebee, which suits her perfectly. I’m still trying to get a handle on Sloane,
but the soothing hum of her power is tough to reconcile with what I know of her
so far.

Before I have a chance to think on it any
longer, the elevator chimes and the doors begin to slide open. Sloane’s gasp is
the first alert. Hammers clicking back as the Sentinels begin to fire is the
second. I don’t waste a second blasting my power out and away from my body.
Bullets ping off metal and dig into drywall in a furious cacophony of sound.
Anger fuels my next attack, lightning zapping out at every Sentinel within
range. My shield zips back into place as another round of bullets fly.

I feel strangely calm as I send another
devastating blast of air out to one side to clear a path for Sloane. “Get
Hayden out of here,” I command. She’s on her way before I finish my sentence. A
couple of Sentinels try to break off after her, but she dispatches them with
baseball-sized pieces of hail pulled together from the ambient moisture so
quickly even I am impressed. The Sentinels don’t have time to be impressed,
thanks to the hail crashing into their skulls.

Feeling confident in Sloane’s ability to
get Hayden back to Olivia, I turn my full attention back to the rest of my enemies.
For a second, I can’t figure out why they aren’t attacking me. It’s not until I
recognize the familiar feeling of ants crawling under my skin that I spot him
approaching from the back of the group. His scarred face is twisted in a smirk
as he stops at the front of the pack and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Like a fly to honey,” he says.

It was always a possibility that Hayden’s
being captured was a lure to get us onto their turf, but I don’t fully
understand. “How did you know we’d come back to Earth?” I ask from behind my
shield.

“How could you not?” The smugness in his
voice is infuriating, but I keep a careful hold on my emotions.

“You knew,” I say as realization dawns.

The scarred Sentinel laughs at me. “I
knew? Of course I knew, little Aerling, little pathetic Aerling. It was my
plan, and it worked perfectly. Robin got dragged along, right through the
Aerling barrier, breaking it with no chance of repair except the Mother.”

It takes all my effort not to show my fear
in that moment. He knows why we’re here. He expected it from the beginning,
planned for it even. “You won’t stop us,” I say.

He laughs again, this time with a heavy
layer of bitterness. “Who says I’ll need to stop you? Finding the Mother, it
won’t be easy. Learning enough to find wherever that backstabbing woman is
hiding will require finding the truth. When you do that, I won’t need to stop
you from doing anything. You’ll do that all on your own.”

Fears and doubts swim around in my mind.
The fact that we know only a tiny portion of the true Aerling history hasn’t
escaped me. Everything I thought I knew has been turned on its head so many
times since that first run-in with Robin, it’s almost impossible to trust
anything. This guy, though, everything that comes out of his mouth is poison.
He killed my Caretaker family. If he thinks I’m ever going to trust him, he’s
delusional.

“I guess we’ll just have to see about
that,” I tell him as I back away toward the exit.

“Leaving so soon?” the scarred Sentinel
mocks.

I brace myself for another attack, but it
doesn’t come. He just stands there staring at me, like he’s waiting for me to
figure something out. “Why aren’t you trying to kill me? Your goons certainly
gave it their best shot a few minutes ago.”

The scarred Sentinel shrugs. “Just testing
your powers.” He takes a step forward, but makes no move to attack. “I’m
impressed you’ve come so far in such a short time, but you’re still miles away
from where you need to be if you plan on rebuilding the barrier.”

My eyebrows twitch together in confusion.
The Mother is going to fix the barrier, not me. What does my power have to do
with anything? “This is your chance to stop me from making sure you’re locked
out of the Aerling world forever. Why not take it?” I don’t say it, but I know
my power isn’t strong enough to stop him. It wasn’t the night he came for me at
the Parker’s, and although I’ve improved since then, I know it still won’t be
enough.

“Because I want you to learn the truth
before I kill you, little confused Aerling.”

“The truth about what?”

His expression narrows into one so
menacing it’s nearly impossible not to cringe away. “About everything.”

“You killed my family. Sentinels have
killed countless innocent Aerling children. Even if the truth is different than
what I believe, what makes you think I’d ever see you as something other than a
pack of ruthless killers who deserve to be wiped off the face of this world?”

He chuckles, like he thinks I’m being
intentionally funny. “Do you honestly think I care what you think about me?” He
shakes his head. “Your opinion means nothing. All that matters is the truth.
Once you have it, then you’ll understand what truly needs fixing.”

“You’re just going to let me leave then?”

“I have no reason to keep you,” the
scarred Sentinel says. His lips twist into a vicious smile, putting me on edge.
“That doesn’t mean I’ll make it easy on you.” One flick of his wrist sends his
goons back on the attack. He doesn’t stick around to watch it all play out. I
take shot after shot at his back as I fend off everyone else and make a run for
the exit, but nothing touches him. He knew it wouldn’t.

Sentinels lay unconscious all over the
hallway as I bolt from the doors a few minutes later, heaving in breath after
breath, stumbling away from the fear and confusion I am suddenly drowning in. I
run like mad, but as my feet pound against pavement and my power works to
defend me, I know things have once again been turned on their head. Cedrick all
but threw us out of the Aerling world on a mission to find the Mother and
repair the barrier, but now I begin to wonder if pushing us out so quickly
didn’t have more to do with us finding out the real reason behind the barrier
than it did with saving lives.

Chapter 9

Reliable Sources

(Olivia)

I stumble out of the car and start running
before my brain catches up with me. As I trip over rocks and clumps of desert
grass I tell myself I shouldn’t have revealed myself before getting a good look
at who’s coming, but I
know
it’s Hayden. I felt his power. I know it’s
him and I know he’s in agony. I only come to a stop and focus when I realize
there’s only two people.

Staring at Sloane and Hayden, it’s
impossible to tamp down my rising panic. “Where’s Mason?” I demand as I rush
over to Hayden and slip my arm around his waist to support him.

“He’s coming,” Sloane says, but I can hear
the fear in her voice.

“What happened?” I demand. The bite in my
voice makes her flinch.

“Sentinels, they were waiting for us when
we got back to the main floor. Mason held them off while I got Hayden out.” She
glances back over her shoulder quickly before turning back to Hayden. “He’ll be
here soon. They can’t stop him.”

I have firsthand knowledge of how deadly
Mason’s power can be, but he has his limits. One in particular. “Was there a
Sentinel there with a big nasty scar on his face?”

“I’m not sure,” Sloane says. “I was trying
to fight off Sentinels and drag Hayden out. I didn’t really get a very good
look at anyone.”

I turn to look back, hoping for some sign
of Mason, but Hayden’s voice claims my attention. “At the end,” he croaks. “He
showed up right before we escaped.”

My arms tighten around Hayden, because
it’s all I can do. If I don’t hold on to him as tightly as I can, I won’t be
able to stop myself from running to find Mason. “Are you okay?” I ask Hayden.
Silently, I plead for Mason to make it out soon.

“Great,” Hayden says with a smile made
crooked thanks to bruises and a split lip. “Took your time getting here,
though.”

I know he’s joking, but as I look down at
him I can’t stop the tears from forming. The awkward way we’re carrying him has
his ruined t-shirt pulled off to one side. There isn’t a speck of his skin not
covered in mottled purples and browns. His split lip isn’t the only source of
blood. His right sleeve is caked in it. “Oh, Hayden,” I whisper.

“I’m fine,” he insists. “Just need to sit
down.”

“We’re almost to the car,” Sloane says.

True to her words, we reach my dad’s car
less than a minute later. When Sloane tries to step in and help Hayden into the
car, my glare is enough to push her back a step. It clearly pains her to back
off, but I don’t care. Skimming my memories doesn’t mean she knows him. It
doesn’t mean she has any real connection to him. After getting Hayden settled,
he tries to buckle himself in, but that proves impossible when he realizes
several of his fingers are broken.

“Hayden, I’m so sorry,” I cry as tears
spill down my cheeks. This is my fault. I dragged him into this. My hands shake
as I carefully pull the belt across him and clip it into place.

“Hey, don’t cry,” he says softly, lisping
a bit. “I’ll be fine. I’ll heal, I promise.”

Shaking my head, I reach out for him, but
I can’t find anywhere to touch him that won’t cause him more pain. “This never
would have happened if…”

“This isn’t your fault,” Hayden says. “I
made my choice to be a part of this and nothing you could have said would’ve
changed my mind.”

I start to argue with him, but Sloane
grabs the back of my jacket and yanks me away from Hayden. I almost snap at her
for interrupting, but a second later I spot a dark shape sprinting toward us.
When I start running, Sloane calls after me to stop, to stay back, but I have
no fear of being attacked. Seconds later, I crash into Mason’s arms.

“Are you okay?” I demand. “Hayden said the
scarred Sentinel was there. “Did he attack you? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Mason says, looking somewhat
perplexed by that. He shakes his head. “He let his goons attack me, but only to
test my power. He wasn’t trying to kill me.”

“What? Why not?” I mean, I’m glad it
didn’t turn into a full-scale war between them, but that makes no sense.

Mason was there, but he seems as confused
as I feel. “I have no idea, but he said things…I know he’s the last person we
should believe, but…”

“But what?”

“I don’t think Cedrick was being
completely honest with us before we left. There’s more going on than we
realize. A lot more.”

A sick feeling stirs in the pit of my
stomach. “Well, it’s not like we aren’t used to that by now. We’ll figure it
out, Mason, but right now we need to get Hayden out of here. He’s in pretty bad
shape.”

Nodding, Mason takes my hand and we rush
back to the car where Sloane is waiting for us. Poor Hayden looks like he’s
passed out in the backseat, but Sloane is eager to get going. After a quick nod
from Mason, she starts toward the opposite side of the car, but I stop her
before she gets more than a few steps away.

“Olivia,” Mason says softly, “she’s just
going to keep an eye on him.”

I can hear the hurt in his voice, and I
understand it, I really do, but this has less to do with Sloane’s weaseling her
way into Hayden’s life than it does with practicality. “I need to try
something…with Hayden.” Mason quirks up an eyebrow at me, definitely expecting
more of an explanation. I swallow hard. “What if…what if I can heal him like I
did you?”

Mason glances over at Sloane for some
input, but she only shrugs. “I’ve never seen it before, but all bets are off
when it comes to you two. Even with Olivia being a Seeker, she never should
have found Hayden so easily. Tāwhiri’s power is nearly unstoppable. It’s
worth a try.”

Finally, Mason nods his agreement. He
presses his lips to my cheek before gesturing for me to join Hayden. It annoys
me to see Sloane slipping into the front seat next to Mason, but I need to try
to help Hayden. I realize he’s not asleep or unconscious as I previously
thought when he attempts smiling at me. I don’t know if he heard our
conversation outside, or if he just needs to be near someone, but he reaches
out for my hand once I’m sitting and I don’t hesitate to take it.

“Try to relax,” I say.

As soon as the words leave my mouth, the
back of our seat lurches again and again as Mason begins driving. My reaction
is to punch the seat, hoping she feels the impact. Mason’s reaction has a bit
more finesse. All it takes is a flick of his wrist to make his power do his
bidding. The kicking halts immediately, though a muffled scream of frustration
follows the stalled hissy fit.

“Uh,” Hayden says, “is there another
passenger you guys failed to mention.”

“It’s Robin,” I say, her name tasting foul
on my lips.

“What?”

Shaking my head, I promise to explain
everything as soon as we find somewhere safe to stop for the night. Hayden’s
too exhausted to argue. All he says is, “So are we holding hands just for the
fun of it, or are you going to try to heal me up?”

I can’t help smiling at him. I don’t know
how he keeps so much optimism packed away for times like these, but the tension
in the car seems to lessen at his words. “If you’ll stop asking questions about
people in the trunk and little things like that, I’ll give it a try.”

Hayden nudges me playfully, but grimaces
at the movement. Being reminded of his pain, I settle in and focus. With Mason,
my power started healing him immediately, just like when I tried to find him.
The difference in my Seeking abilities holds true with healing as well. Just
touching Hayden isn’t enough. I have to consciously focus my thoughts and power
on repairing the damage the Sentinels did to him. It’s overwhelming to be faced
with so much trauma and I nearly lose it as the sheer enormity of his pain hits
me.

“How are you still conscious?” I whisper
tearfully. Four of his fingers are broken, along with two ribs, several little
bones in his left foot, and a crack in his femur. Deep tissues bruises dot his
entire body. The lingering swelling of a concussion is putting pressure on his
brain and he’s one more hit away from a fractured vertebrae.

My free hand comes up to press against his
chest, begging the healing to move faster. I don’t realize I’m crying again
until Hayden lifts a shaky hand to wipe away my tears. “I’m conscious because
you said you were coming for me and I couldn’t give in before I saw you again.
I had to know you were okay.”

A sob wracks my body as this beautiful boy
smiles up at me through his pain. My power works more slowly on Hayden than it
did on Mason, but it does enough that his eyes close slowly and he drifts into
the darkness free of pain. The car is silent as I cling to Hayden and cry.

I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here
holding onto Hayden before Mason finally speaks, but his voice startles me out
of a deep sleep. “How’s he doing?”

Rubbing my eyes, I lift myself from
Hayden’s shoulder. I instantly feel guilty for having leaned against him,
because it probably only made his pain worse, but as I look down at him, I’m
amazed at the change. The bruises along his jaw have already faded to a muddy
brownish yellow and his split lip is now only a thin red line of dried blood
and new scar tissue. Shocked, I pick up his hand to inspect his fingers and see
them straightened, though still heavily bruised. I gently push up his filthy,
blood stained shirt and almost burst into tears again at the sight of less than
half his torso covered in bruises. One of his ribs still seems out of place
beneath his skin, but Hayden seems to be breathing more easily at least.

“It’s working,” I say excitedly. “He still
looks like he’s been put through a meat grinder, but it’s definitely working.”

Mason reaches a hand back to me and
squeezes my knee. “I had no doubt that it would.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Three hours,” Mason says.

Surprised by that number, I realize it’s
still going to take me a long time to finish healing Hayden. I yawn just
thinking about it and realize how exhausted I feel. Healing Mason took nothing
from me, but I can tell it won’t be the same with Hayden. It doesn’t matter,
though, because he’s only in this condition because of me. I’ll give him
whatever he needs in order to recover.

Settling back against the seat so I’m
contacting Hayden as much as I can, I ask, “Where are we going?”

“Just driving, for now. Your dad’s trying
to find us somewhere to stay that will be safe. He said he’ll call when he
books something.”

“My parents!” Shaking my head, I realize I
completely forgot to let them know we made it out of the compound all right.

“Already called them,” Mason says with a
laugh. “And Hayden’s family. They wanted to talk to him, but you were both out
cold. I promised to have him call when he was more alert.”

Taking my hand away from Hayden for a
moment, I take Mason’s and squeeze it gently. “Thanks for doing all of that.”

When I release his hand and put it back on
Hayden, Mason turns back to the road. He doesn’t say anything, but I don’t
think I’m imagining the tightness in his features. “Is everything okay?” I ask,
worried he found out something troubling when he called home.

Mason doesn’t answer right away, but his
frown deepens. “Can I ask you something?” Mason finally says.

Shrugging, I’m confused why he’s even
asking permission. “Of course.”

“What’s going on with Sloane?”

I glance over at her and realize she’s
asleep before taking a minute to think about his question. The more I think
about it, the more uncertain I am about what he’s really asking me. “I already
told you I hate how she’s able to dig through my memories when she’s helping
me. Wouldn’t that bug you?”

“Yeah,” Hayden says slowly, “but there
seems to be more to it than that.”

“More to it than what?” I argue. “Those
memories are mine. The relationship I have with Hayden, Sloane doesn’t get to
just swoop in and absorb it like she’s been through everything with us. She
says she can’t help doing it, but she enjoys it, Mason. I know she does.”

His expression twists into something that
looks like chagrin mixed with agreement. “Maybe that’s just because of Hayden’s
connection to Levi.” He shrugs, but doesn’t put much backing behind it. “She
was pretty desperate to come save him just based on that. It could be that she
thinks getting to know Hayden through you will somehow make up for losing her brother.”

“She can do that without stealing my
memories,” I snap. I say that, but the thought of her cozying up to Hayden in
any way makes me want to put her in the trunk with Robin. I know I’m being
unfair and selfish, and maybe even a little petty, but I can’t help it right
now. Maybe once everything calms back down I won’t be such a lunatic about
this…maybe. I look back up at Mason, hoping he’ll say something that doesn’t
make me feel like a huge witch, but instead, all I see is hurt.

“Is there something…” He pauses, dropping
his eyes. “Is there a memory you don’t want her to see, something you’re
worried I might find out about?”