Indestructible (Indestructible Trilogy Book 1) (29 page)

But that’s not what draws my attention. A colossal shape is rising through the divide—even from a distance, it towers over everything but the mountains themselves.

The giant is back.

“No way,” I whisper.

“We have to move fast,” Cas whispers. “It’s slower than we are. If we run,
really
run, we could make it back to the base.”

He’s pointing at the nearest mountain, but the silhouette of the giant looks a lot closer than we are, its back to us, moving in that direction.

“Come on.”

But as we take our first step onto the rocky, torn-up ground, Cas drops to his knees, his face a grimace of pain. I crouch down alongside him.

“What’s wrong?”

Cas’s hand moves slowly, his teeth gritted together, sweat beading on his forehead. I’ve never seen him in so much pain, and it scares me to death.

He lifts his arm, and I see the tattoo on his wrist is pulsing red-black. Veins stand out on his arm as another spasm of pain rocks him.

“No—no!” I bend over his wrist, push up his sleeve. Pressing my fingers to it, I feel the pain pulse through the connection and quickly let go. Shame hits me almost instantly—but what can I do?

“He’s alive,” Cas gasps, between spasms. “There’s—no other way.”

“No!” My dagger’s still coated in Jared’s blood, but I don’t hesitate to press it to my own hand. Blood healing—will it counteract the effects of Jared’s poison?

“That won’t work.” Cas’s back arches and he grits his teeth.

“I have to do something!” I look wildly around, desperate for a way out. The giant’s got smaller even in the last minute—closer to Murray and the others.

“There’s—nothing.” A painful smile curls his lips. “I’m sorry, Leah.”

Pain rocks him again, and he stifles a cry. “This was always going to happen,” he gasps. “I’m Jared’s—always. I wasn’t made to live. I was made to die.”

“No. He doesn’t own you!”

“He’s the master of pain, Leah. That’s enough.”

He curls up against the wave of agony, and I almost feel it myself in the echo of the horrific pain Jared inflicted on me. I’m amazed he’s still conscious. I bow my head over his face, tears burning my eyes.

“You have to help the others,” he says.

“I’m not leaving you!”

“I’m not worth it, Leah.” His eyes half-glaze over.

“Cas…”

“Don’t be stupid. Go. Only you can close the bridge. You’ll know it when you see it.”

His eyes roll back in his head, his body spasming in pain. Tears spill from my eyes, and my throat closes up.
Cas… no.

“Please, Leah. Go.”

Another glance up. The giant’s moved even further. Can I hope to outrun it now?

“Go…” His voice is faint now; I can only hear it because I’m so close.

Something inside me is screaming. Fury and grief battle for attention—fury at the sheer injustice of the universe, at Jared, at everyone. I feel the gap where something could have been, like the echo of pain, but somehow worse than anything Jared can inflict.

“GO!” Cas screams, and the fight seems to go out of him. His hand clasps mine, and images burst behind my eyes—images of the last fight, dead Pyros everywhere, people falling, mowed down by fiends. Then he lets go, his hand dropping to the ground again.

It was an underhanded move, but God, he’s right. I can’t stay.

I straighten, trying to lock my feelings behind a barrier, wiping my eyes.

And I run.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I move faster than ever before, the ground flying away like I’m airborne. The cracked earth and other obstacles barely slow me down, and the hills get closer by the second.

But so does the giant fiend. Even from a distance, I can see it knocking trees and rocks aside, its sights set on the hills. I might not be able to warn the others, but maybe I can intercept it first—maybe, as Transcendent, I can beat that thing.

So I change course and run towards the fiend. The divide gets closer until I’m running alongside the trench. Lava flows below, and I know I’m looking into another world entirely. The air above it shimmers.

A roar echoes ahead. The giant’s stopped moving.
Tell me it hasn’t found the others!
My heart pounds, and I run so hard it’s like I’m trying to escape from my body.
No. Don’t let it reach them…

But it’s turning around, slowly, huge feet skimming the edge of the trench. Then I see something that almost stops me in my tracks.

Another giant fiend is coming out of the divide.

And I’m running right at them.

It’s too late to divert my path. I swerve slightly to the left, away from the divide—and glance back at the mountains.

The sight hits me like a punch to the chest, knocking the breath from my lungs. Fire engulfs the divide. So close to the base.

To my home.

First I lost Cas, now everyone else is in danger. The giant fiends turn to face me, and rather than fear, all I feel is rage.

My hand grips my dagger, my skin heats up, and I welcome the rush of power.

The fiends look at one another, as though startled to see me running towards them. I’m nothing in their eyes, a tiny human, easy to crush.

I’m going to kill them.

A scream rips from my throat, and I raise my dagger to the sky. Fire flickers up my arm to the blade and red tints my vision. The fiends react slowly, but they begin to lumber towards me, huge feet creating dents in the ground, crushing rocks. I almost lose my footing as the edge of the divide crumbles away, making the trench wider, but I outrun it.

Power rushes to the tip of the blade, and bright, piercing, flame-like light streams from it, reaching into the sky like a beacon.

The fiends stagger back, momentarily… blinded? Stunned? I don’t know. But I still can’t stop running. The ground rocks under my feet with every step, ripples flowing outwards. Am I doing that?

My feet leave the ground, though I don’t remember jumping. The heat rising around me is so intense it numbs all other feeling, and I’m propelled forward, through the air, right at the nearest fiend.

It moves its huge arm to strike me, but I’m more than ready. My blade strikes, bringing an arch of flame with it, and the giant screams. The ground buckles as I land, and the giant falls back, crashing into its partner. Its severed arm drops over the edge of the divide.

The dagger vibrates in my hand, and I raise it once again. The two giants stand side by side, blotting out the sky, ugly faces bared in snarls.

“I’ll kill you,” I whisper, unafraid. Pure power pulses through my veins, washing away everything. Even my grief stays behind the barrier.

The second fiend kicks out without warning, but not at me. At the ground. Dirt and rocks fly up, like a wave crashing over my head, and I choke on soil, momentarily blinded. A blow sends me flying, and suddenly there’s nothing underneath my feet.

I’m falling.

A blinding flash of light envelops me. I can’t see anything—not the giants, not the hills, not even the river of lava which I should be falling into. But I’m suspended in the air. Wind buffets me, a hot breeze, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. I blink, trying to clear my vision.

I’m not suspended in the air, but on a semi-transparent bridge. The small hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I feel eyes on my back, something watching me. I turn around slowly, dagger lifted.

I don’t expect to see Jared.

He looks the same as when I last saw him, including the red stain on his chest where I stabbed him. Horror chokes my throat as questions explode in my mind.
How—how?

“You,” I whisper.

No. Not him. The original fiends could take on human form—that’s what Cas told me. There’s no way Jared can be here. Or so I tell myself.

A smile curls his lip. “You dared to try to kill me, Transcendent?”

I can do nothing but gape at him.

“Have you nothing to say to me?”

Honestly? Plenty of things.
But I just want to fight until there’s nothing left of me. Nothing left to feel.

“You’re no fun.”

Jared reaches up to his face and rips the skin away. Beneath is the red, raw skin of a true fiend. I watch, almost in fascination, as his outer skin collapses, and the fiend emerges, right there on the bridge between the worlds.

In a way, I’m disappointed. This fiend—Fiordan, whatever—barely comes up to my shoulder, and is far less muscular than the monsters I’ve become accustomed to. It almost looks… human.

“You will die, Transcendent,” growls the Fiordan, the words rolling from its tongue in a way that suggests English isn’t its native language. “You are not supposed to exist. Jared might have tried to get around human limitations, but the end result will be the same. Your world will fall. We will win this war.”

I lift my dagger again, feel the rush of power. Whatever abilities this fiend has hidden, I can take it. I have to. If there’s no one left to fight for our world, then I’ll do my damned best to make sure this monstrosity never gets to take it.

For everyone the fiends took from me. For Lissa. For my parents. For Murray, Elle, everyone at the base. For Cas.

I run, letting out a scream, and the dagger answers my call. Fire flares around me, and I leap at the Fiordan.

The inferno envelops both of us. I scream in pure fury, and the buzz of power is like a physical presence, guiding my every move. I can’t hear anything over the roaring in my ears, but I’m almost positive my opponent is screaming, too. White light folds over us, and the ground rocks under my feet with the energy blast.

A red hand grasps my wrist. Through the light, I can make out the outline, and snarl, trying to push it away. The grip’s weak, barely there, and a finger drops from the hand, then another, crumbling to ashes.

I let go of the power, and the light recedes. There’s nothing left of the fiend. It’s gone, turned to dust and ashes, like…

A human caught in an energy blast.

I stumble back, suddenly on solid ground again, which rocks beneath me, like when the energy blast struck the camp, and everyone around me was consumed. Everyone but me.

Even the fiends couldn’t stand against it.

The energy fans outwards, rippling above the divide. The flame-like patterns recede, the semi-transparent view of the burned-red landscape fading away.

I drop to my knees.

Somehow it sinks in that I’m on Earth again. I didn’t fall through the breach. And the others are out there, still alive.

Staggering to my feet, I walk alongside the divide. My uniform survived the blast, incredibly. Of course it did. It’s indestructible, like me.

I look to the divide again. The bridge is
gone,
like it never existed. Does that mean the fiends can’t come back? No. The divide is still there, which means…

A tremendous roar almost causes me to lose my balance.
Oh, shit.
The giants are still fighting, the uninjured one pummelling its companion into the ground, and the one with the severed arm is barely a metre away from being pushed over the edge of the divide. I guess the first one couldn’t resist an easy target. They’re just brutes. But thanks to me, they’re stuck on this side of the divide. I have to kill them.

Neither notice as I sneak up on them, dagger at the ready. Body aching with tiredness, still trembling with the echo of the energy blast. I feel like collapsing, letting the shock, and grief for Cas, take me.
No. I can’t. Not yet.

The fiend finally spots me, but it’s too late. I leap up and slash with my blade, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Distracted, it starts to turn around, but the other giant kicks it in the shin. As the two start grappling again, I dodge in and out, slashing at their flanks.

Finally, I reach within for the fire and it shoots upwards from my blade, vibrating outwards. Once again, the fire and light consume me and the giants along with me. The sound of heavy objects falling fills my ears, and I know it’s the two fiends falling to pieces, crumbling like stone.

I’m left, shaking, amongst ashes.

Breathing heavily, I look up, my vision clearing. The divide still gapes before me, the air shimmering above it, but on the other side, on Earth, I can see the sun rising.

I fall to my knees, consumed by exhaustion and a dozen other emotions. Pain and grief rock me, and guilt, and terror, and I gladly let the world fade away.

***

“Leah! Leah!”

Someone’s shaking me.

I groan. The hard ground presses against my face, and my eyes sting with dust. Energy blast. Everything around must be dead…

But there’s someone else here.

Slowly, it all comes back, one painful piece at a time. I open my eyes.