Ablaze (Indestructible Trilogy Book 2) (10 page)

“I… saw it,” I say, biting my lip.
Damn.
The visions—how much does he know about them?

“You saw it.” He looks away, and I see a flash of something very different in his eyes this time.

Pain.

“Sorry,” I say. “It’s the best chance we’ve got. Can I at least try? My blood stopped Elle’s mark from Nolan working.”

“Thought Murray would have killed him.”

Oh, crap.

“No. Um, he’s dead, though.” I don’t meet his eyes. The lie, that Nolan and I were allies, hangs between us. Does Cas have any idea? How much do
his
visions show him? Damn connection.

“Anyway,” I say, “Murray can stop it.
I
can stop it.”

“How do you know it’s the same for me? You know what I am.”

“I’m sure,” I say, more confidently than I actually feel. “You’re a Pyro. Same as me.”

“Not like you,” he corrects me, and suddenly, he’s turning away.

“Wait!” I say. “At least tell me where you’re staying!”

“Two corridors from your room on the left, if you can find it,” he tells me. “Not that Murray’s guards would let us within ten feet of each other.”

“Then talk to me now,” I say. “Tell me what he’s doing here. And what did you mean about something I’ve not seen? He’s using the fiends again, right?”

“Using them… cloning them. Making hybrids.” Cas shakes his head, disgusted. “Anyway, that’s not why he thinks you’ll agree to stay. This place—” He taps the wall—“it’s literally next door to the divide. Next to them.”

My blood runs cold. The divide, where the bridge opened. Exactly where I wanted to avoid. Crap.

“Jared built this place right next to them?” I whisper.

“It was built long before that. But we’re near the original battlefield where the first breach opened. Jared stopped using this place when the divide appeared, but I guess there wasn’t much choice after the other place was destroyed.”

“An energy blast,” I say. “It got hit by an energy blast.”

“Did it? I haven’t been back.” He frowns. “That explains all the new recruits.”

“Huh?”

“A bunch of new people signed up in the last few days. Some of them used to be scientists at the old place.”

“So… they’re new Pyros?”
That happened fast.
But of course, that’s exactly how it happened for me, too. Normal one second, different the next.

Cas’s raised eyebrow tells me he’s thinking the exact same.

“All right,” I say. “So how big is this army of his?”

“Not big enough to win,” he says. “At least, not against one of their leaders.”

“Leaders.” God, I have to tell him. “I think I killed one of them already. Over the divide.”

Cas starts to speak, then stops, gaping at me. For the second time ever, I have rendered Cas speechless.

“That’s what happened after—after I left.” I swallow, the word
you
hanging unsaid between us. “I got attacked by that giant fiend again, and there was another one. On the bridge. And—”

“Jared was there,” Cas says, quietly. “But it wasn’t really him.”

My heart skips a beat. “You saw it?”

He bows his head. “I didn’t know if it was real. I was half-conscious, totally out of it, and I thought I was hallucinating. Never seen one of their shape-shifters before. Plus, no one’s survived crossing over the divide—except I guess Jared did.”

“Yeah, about that,” I say. “He should be dead. I stabbed him.”

His face twists. “Yeah. He used fiend DNA, the sneaky bastard. I almost hoped he’d used
my
blood…” He breaks off, looking away from me as if ashamed.

“Damn,” I say, shaking off the implication—that both of us know I’m doomed, thanks to his blood running in my veins. “So he’s unkillable?”

“No, just hard to kill as the fiends.”

“So I could do it with my powers,” I say, thinking of the way I controlled the waves of the energy blast and destroyed the fiends’ leader—obliterated him. Like I could do to anyone. Human or fiend. But
how
I did it… I still need to know. Damn. I called the fire when I fought Jared’s fiends the last time, but that had nothing on the frisson of energy that exploded through me when I beat the Fiordan. I can’t begin to think of how I accessed that. But it’d sure come in handy right now.

You’re willing to risk everyone else’s lives?
a voice in my head asks. Because the others won’t be spared, either. Am I heartless enough to kill everyone else to be rid of Jared, even if they’ve been brainwashed?

“You’ve used them?”

I glance over my shoulder. “You didn’t see me kill the Fiordan?”

Cas’s eyes widen. “No. The vision cut out. I didn’t think anyone
could.”

“Except the Transcendent?”

Cas doesn’t respond, and the silence feels oddly cold. Of course. He knew the last Transcendent. He was supposed to protect her, but Jared betrayed everyone. I still don’t know what exactly happened, but right now isn’t the time for a discussion. I can’t read his expression. Would
he
sacrifice everyone else? He saw the rest of Murray’s group as expendable, after all. The only time I’ve ever seen him express any kind of feeling for someone else…

Is with me.

I push the thought aside. Like it’ll help us now.

I shake my head violently. “I can’t use the power here,” I say. “We can’t guarantee everyone else was brainwashed, right? Some might be clueless as I was when I first joined Murray.”

“Well, not quite that clueless.”

I gawp, until I realise he’s attempting to defuse the tension thick in the air.

“Ha ha,” I say. “So, mass homicide aside, I don’t suppose you know any other sure-fire way to get rid of the bastard? Short of throwing him in the divide?”

“Never thought of that one,’ he says. ‘But you’d have to get him aboveground first, and that’s not happening anytime soon. The energy blasts,” he adds in explanation. “The fiends’ last attack triggered a bunch of them over the divide. They’re drawing the regular fiends like flies. Even Jared doesn’t have a big enough army to fight all of them.”

The sheer enormity of the task weighs down on me. “Does Jared really think we can win? Against the fiends?”

“He’s close,” says Cas. “Closer than Murray was, even, seeing as he has all these engineered monsters at the ready. But it doesn’t mean he’s ready to face their leaders.”

“There’s more than one,” I whisper. “How—how many?”

Cas shrugs. “He doesn’t tell me that much, believe it or not—despite my supposedly being his most
valuable
soldier. I’d say at least three or four. And they’ll be seriously pissed you killed one of them.”

“Great, another enemy.” I shake my head. “I just want to know what Jared’s planning to do with me. It feels
wrong.
He’s acting like I’m his honoured guest or something.”

The tension inside me eases slightly as I voice my thoughts aloud.

“You
are
his honoured guest,” Cas points out. “You’re the Transcendent.”

“So everyone keeps telling me.” A shiver dances down my spine. “That doesn’t mean I can win the war for him.” Of course, there’s no other reason he’d treat me as a guest after I stuck my dagger in his chest.

Though… speaking of which. “He’s letting me walk around with a weapon,” I say, holding it up. “Has he booby-trapped it or something?”

“Let me see.” Cas takes the knife from me. “No. Doesn’t look damaged to me. So he really thinks you won’t turn on him. That, or he’s planning to use another incentive.”

“He showed me this old propaganda video,” I say. “He seemed convinced it’d make me want to stay, but I don’t see it. Might have worked on recruits a few years ago, but after what he did? How can he expect me to trust him?”

“I’ve no idea.” He hands me the dagger again. Our hands brush against each other for a brief second, but there’s nothing. No pain.

Come to think of it… I haven’t had any visions since coming here. Is it because we’re in the same place now?

I can’t help my gaze drifting to the livid mark on his hand. “Let me help,” I say. “At least give me a chance to stop it.”

I take his hand in mine, raising my dagger to cut my own skin.
My blood can stop it…

Without warning, he jerks his hand away. “You’re awfully keen to mutilate yourself, aren’t you?” The words come out from between clenched teeth.

My heart drops a notch. “What?”
Oh, God, the vision.
“That was an accident. A fiend attacked me on the way out. I didn’t realise it’d affect you.”

His eyes harden. “I cut myself on my own blade.”

“That’s not what you told Jared.”

“How much did you see?” he demands, hands curling into fists. “Have you been watching me this whole time? And you only show up now?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I retaliate—then lower my voice, realising we’re both shouting. “I thought you’d given yourself up for dead. You won’t even let me
try
to save you! It’s not like I want to spy on you all the time. Bloody inconvenient, actually.”

“Yeah, you could say that,” says Cas, and without warning, he punches the wall, leaving a fist-sized hole. “Inconvenient enough to die for.”

I feel hollow, like a gaping pit is opening inside me. To die for. He’s not referring to me risking my life, but to what Jared said the last time. After the visions started for the other people Cas was forced to heal, they died within weeks. This connection is killing me. Literally. “Then let me help.” My voice comes out in a croak. “There must be a lab down here, right? Jared will have research on this kind of thing. He doesn’t want to lose his Transcendent, right? I’ll figure it out.”

“You don’t know the first thing about it.” Cas stares into the hole in the wall. “Neither of us do. He got the technology from the fiends. You know that little propaganda piece of his, about how the fiends stealing our technology? He used to do the same thing, sending people over to steal fiend technology and blood samples. Half of them never came back, of course. The other half brought him what he needed.”

What?
It shouldn’t surprise me. Nothing about Jared should surprise me anymore.

“So you did watch it,” I say.

“I’ve seen that crap before,” he says. “There are dozens of them. How he persuaded eager young people to sign up to be his soldiers. Most didn’t have the privilege of being born into it, after all.”

“That’s not…” I wish I knew what to say, wish I could somehow make it better. But all I can do is listen.

“Whatever,” he says. “There’s no point to the video now, I don’t know why he bothered showing you. He has more efficient ways to get people to obey him, and it’s too late for him to brainwash you.”

I rub my arms as a chill rises. What
is
Jared planning? “Has he said anything about what happened to him after the battle last time? Has he been hiding the whole time?” Even though I wasn’t there, I can’t get it out of my head. Jared disappeared, over the divide. Yet he came back. Survived. Made himself indestructible, even.

“You might have better luck getting answers out of him than me,” says Cas. “No, he hasn’t talked about it. I’m guessing he slunk away to hide out here for a bit. Touched in the head after losing the Transcendent. Not that he wasn’t a twisted bastard before anyway…”

“I just wondered about the fiends. Why the divide opened again. Did Jared provoke them?”

“Got it in one,” says Cas. “He had his engineered fiends running around the divide, and I guess it was too much for them.”

“But… that makes no sense. I thought they’d been coming here for years.” The video. The figures stepping out of thin air. Through a gateway? Or something else?

“Yeah, there’s the little white lie Murray told us,” he says. “The Fiordans were always able to cross over. They never managed it en masse until they set up the bridge.”

My gaze snaps onto him. “No way.”

The image of the battlefield I saw in my vision, through Cas’s eyes, fills my head. The army gathering at the edge of the divide…

“Yeah,” says Cas. “He may have omitted that little piece of information.”

“
Why?”
I say. “What harm is there in telling the truth? What if it happened again?”

“It is,” says Cas. “Jared was the one who kept provoking them, but Murray covered for him every time. Until it was too late.”

I shake my head. “How did they open the door, then?”

“Amassed energy,” said Cas. “Don’t ask me. Did you pay any attention in classes?”

“I never went to class,” I mutter, leaning my head against the wall. I feel so misguidedly angry, even though only I’m to blame for wanting to jump straight into the fight, without finding out
what
exactly I was fighting first.

“It means if they opened a bridge, they’re probably preparing to open another,” says Cas. “Maybe more. See why we need to kill their leaders? They’ll do it again. Whether it takes a day or a year.”