Indestructible

by Linwood, Alycia

  “Damn it. Doesn’t he think I’m dead?” Had the assassin told Ethan’s father about Sebastian? I didn’t know what kind of a deal Margaret and Ethan’s father had, but once Sebastian had taken me to his lab, I assumed the deal was off. I couldn’t know whether Sebastian had told his uncle I was dead. “If he knows the truth, then why would he think I survived the explosion of the lab?”

  “We’ll think this through later.” Adrian unlocked the car and I let go of him. The cloud of coldness clung to me, but it wasn’t as strong as it used to be. I didn’t have time to ponder on that, so I got in the car and slammed the door. We had to get out of the town before the assassins tracked us down. Hopefully, the people in the club had put up enough of a fight to stop them.

  “Call, Lily,” Adrian said. I placed my hand on his leg and pressed the call button on my phone.

  “Lily, hey. We need help. We’ve been attacked,” I said, setting down the phone. The only thing I could find in the car to press against my wound was a napkin, but at least it was something.

  “Are you alright?” Concern filled Lily’s voice. “What happened?”

  “We’re fine,” Adrian said. “But you’ll have to do something for us. Can someone from your team trace the phone’s signal and check whether there are any other signals? Someone might have placed a tracker on the car.”

  “Umm, yeah.” Lily yelled her commands to someone. “If there is a tracker, our satellite can block the signal. A couple of new techs joined my team after the protest and they’re pretty awesome at what they do.”

  “Thanks,” Adrian said.

  “I still think it’s Margaret who’s after me.” I found another napkin because my first one was soaked with blood. “Sebastian said his uncle hired Margaret so the police couldn’t connect him to my death. Whoever these assassins were, they were amateurs. And Margaret has already brought an amateur with her once. Who was that guy anyway?” I could come up with at least a couple of better ideas on how to kill me in a club full of people, and none of those ideas involved getting exposed.

  “No one important. Some ex-convict,” Lily said. “Apparently, Margaret likes to hang out with people who have been in jail. Her ex-boyfriend was in jail too at some point, so it might be related, but I couldn’t find anything else.”

  Adrian glanced at the rearview mirror. “If she’s been following us, then I’m surprised we haven’t seen her. She wasn’t in the club.”

  Voices could be heard from Lily’s end of the line. Someone came to tell her something, but I couldn’t hear what.

  “I’m not surprised,” Lily said after a couple of moments. “Adrian, you were right. Your car was bugged. My techs will try to trace the signal back to the person who put the bug.”

  “Can whoever put the bug hear us too?” Adrian asked, his hands tightening on the wheel.

  “No, it’s a regular tracker,” she said. “Although, I believe you wouldn’t be able to find it if you looked for it. It’s very hard to notice.”

  I was glad Lily’s techs could tell so much about the tracker just from tracing its signal. Our car had been parked near the main street for hours while we were camping, so it wasn’t a surprise that someone had taken the opportunity and put a bug on it.

  “There’s something more. I’ve been alerted that Margaret is on a killing spree and she’s nowhere near you,” Lily said. “She keeps killing elementals and taking their elements. Looks like she’s lost the control over her disease and needs more and more elements.”

  I shuddered at the thought that I could lose control like that. My case would be even worse because I could take more elements at once. Margaret appeared to be a regular carrier, so she could only take one element at a time. “Are you going to track her down and send a team after her?”

  “I would, but I can’t.” Lily muttered something like a curse.

  “Why the hell not?” Margaret was a danger to everyone and I doubted the police would be enough to take her down. Lily’s team had more experience in finding carriers.

  “We’re trying to be a legal organization, and while I’m sure the government would allow me to go after Margaret, I don’t want to alienate carriers. Killing one of our own won’t win me anyone’s support.” She sighed. “We’ll have to let the police deal with this one. It’s not like they hadn’t taken care of it before.”

  “But if Margaret lost it, then she can’t be the one after me.” I was about to run my left hand over my face, but I caught myself at the last moment. Now wasn’t the time to stop touching Adrian or move my injured shoulder.

  “She could have hired someone before she lost control. Maybe that’s why she didn’t come with the others,” Adrian said.

  “I don’t know.” I groaned. “Everyone wants to kill me. I want to kill everyone. It’s exhausting!”

  “Guys, I know who is after you,” Lily said. “My techs traced the signal to the house of Anton Marlau.”

  “Is that Ethan’s father?” I’d never heard his name before.

  “Yes,” she said. “He knows you’re still alive.”

  “And he probably knows I killed his nephew too.” I grimaced. “Yeah, if I were him, I’d be hunting me down.”

  “The tracker is blocked, but you should be careful. Ethan’s father has money and he won’t stop until he kills you,” Lily said. “I’m sure the guys he hired won’t speak, even if they are amateurs.”

  “What do we do then?” I said. “I assume you can’t go after him because he belongs to a powerful family and the government wouldn’t risk his exposure for someone as insignificant to them as me. Ethan worked with the government. I’m sure the father was involved somehow too.”

  “We need proof against him. His scientists were doing some stuff even the government wouldn’t approve of, but since you blew it all up…” Was Lily’s tone getting reproachful or was I imagining it? “Oliver went to Marlau’s house once to get the funding for the weapons, but when I did further investigation, it turned out Marlau was only a proxy for someone else, so he wasn’t the one providing the money. But even if we somehow framed Marlau for working against the old government, I’m not sure we’d achieve anything.”

  I knew Marlau wouldn’t be supporting the carriers so easily, even though he was one of them. Another carrier must have blackmailed him into doing the transaction in a place safe enough from prying eyes. “My bad. I should have let the lab intact and let them ruin the lives of more carriers,” I said.

  Lily sighed. “I’m sorry, Ria, but this whole situation frustrates me. I want to help you and I want to do something about Marlau, but I just… I want to make some progress with the new organization. We need the trust of both the government and carriers. I can’t turn against one side.”

  “I understand. But if we exposed Marlau for who he truly is, what would the government do?” Lily was right. She finally had a chance to do something for all of us. I couldn’t let her ruin that because of me. My life wasn’t worth it.

  “I guess they’d put him in prison or kill him. It depends on how much evidence there would be against him.”

  “But if they find out that he’s a carrier, won’t they just sentence him to death?” I frowned.

  “Not unless he’s done something really bad. He’s not any carrier and after what happened, everyone is reluctant to sentence a carrier to death. Unless, of course, the carrier in question is a serial killer and can’t be stopped.”

  “Okay, but let’s say that Ethan’s father didn’t kill anyone, but he’s still responsible for what happened in his lab. Would he be able to bribe the judge and walk out free?” My shoulder was numb with pain, but I tried to ignore it.

  “Depends on the evidence. Maybe he’d get the lowest sentence possible, but I don’t think he’d be able to walk out a free man,” Lily said. “Why do you ask?”

  “I have something in mind. I know you can’t send a team to get the evidence against Marlau, but Adrian and I could.” I looked at Adrian, expecting him to look surprised, but
he only nodded.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “If you can help Adrian and me to find the evidence, we can give it to you and you can send Marlau to jail. Technically, you’d give the government one of your own and they wouldn’t be able to complain about it. Carriers wouldn’t mind because Marlau has always pretended to be an elemental with a pure element, so he’s not really one of them. But the most important thing in all of this would be the judge’s reaction. If Marlau has a fair trial and just gets to spend a couple of years in prison, then every carrier would have to be treated like this, right? The cops couldn’t get away with killing a carrier without evidence that the carrier was a serial killer, right?” I took a deep breath, hoping my rambling made sense to Lily.

  “I guess. Even if things don’t go exactly like you described, we’d still have an opportunity to see how the government would deal with Marlau’s case. If they treated him like any other carrier and without any privileges, some people would get upset. If they sentenced him to death for no good reason, there could be another protest. The new government might talk about more rights and equality for carriers, but we don’t know how far they’re ready to go.”

  “Then we can do it. If Adrian and I are caught, no one will know that you were involved too. If things go right, we’ll give you the evidence.” I dabbed at my wound with another napkin. There wasn’t as much blood as before, so I assumed the wound wasn’t serious after all.

  “I like the idea, especially because we could use the evidence to find out what they did in that lab, but I want to remind you that Marlau wants you dead. If you go too close to him, he could actually get what he wants. Not to mention that he could send more assassins after you from prison.” Lily paused. “I don’t want you to get killed because of this, but I also won’t stop you if this is what you want.”

  “Great. Then it’s settled. Find all you can about him and we’ll see what we can do.” I ended the call and looked at Adrian. “Do you think we should do this despite the danger?”

  “I don’t know. I guess we’ll decide whether it was worth it after we do it.” He pulled over the car. “Let me look at your shoulder first. We should be far away from anyone you would want to kill.”

  I rolled my eyes at him, but let him inspect my wound.

  Chapter 31

  Lily called us nearly a week later because it was hard to pinpoint the location where Anton Marlau kept his important files. Adrian and I had been on the road all the time, trying to avoid elementals and assassins. My shoulder didn’t hurt anymore, but that was the only improvement. My disease just wasn’t interested in giving me a break.

  “You think the files are in his house,” I said skeptically.

  “Yes. His house is his safe fort. He rarely leaves it, has it under constant supervision and his business associates go there to meet him. He’s trying to hide his disease, so he doesn’t have an office in the city,” Lily said. “Oliver confirmed that he had to go through security checks too, but he was there for a short while and he doesn’t remember anything useful.”

  “And how exactly are we supposed to get inside if he’s there all the time? Even if he leaves, someone will always stay. If not family, then maids, cooks and guards, because I’m sure he has them.” Marlau knew what he was doing. His house truly was the safest place.

  “That will be a little bit tricky,” Lily admitted. “But he and his whole family will be away in two days.”

  “That’s strange,” I said. “Why would everyone leave the house?”

  “For Sebastian’s funeral. They confirmed that the remains found in the debris belong to Marlau’s nephew, so the whole family has to go.”

  “But someone could realize Anton has the disease.” The press wouldn’t miss this chance to take photos of the family together, especially the elusive Anton Marlau. And if one of the journalists or photographers was a carrier, they could out him or spread the rumors. Of course, the whole family could be wearing the element-blocking jewelry, but with his emotions running high, Marlau could lose control and go after someone from the press. Surely, there’d be other unprotected elementals.

  “That won’t happen,” Lily said. “The funeral is private and the whole cemetery will be closed. No one will be able to get in except for the closest family.”

  “Right.” I should have known even the biggest cemetery in the city would be closed because of Marlau.

  “Does that mean the cooks and maids will have a day off?” Adrian asked. “Or at least a couple of hours off?”

  “Yes, but the guards will be there.” Papers rustled and I had a feeling Lily was checking out something.

  “Do you have their schedule? Maybe there’s a gap somewhere when they change shifts,” I said.

  “I’m afraid there is no gap. Marlau pays them too well for that,” Lily said. “But we could do something to divert them. You’d have a couple of minutes to sneak into the house. My guys can turn off the alarms, but we don’t really have a good plan how to get you out. The guards won’t fall for our diversion more than once.”

  “Do the guards have elements?” Adrian said.

  “I don’t know. It would make sense that Marlau hired carriers or that he requires his guards to wear the element-blocking jewelry. It would be a problem for him to be around elementals, especially if they have to protect him.”

  “Good. That means they won’t be able to use their elements. I can use my element so Ria and I can get out,” Adrian said. “It shouldn’t be that difficult. The only thing we need is the plan of the house. It would be a problem if we got lost.”

  “I’ll send you the plan. The house is huge,” Lily said. “And we have absolutely no clue where he could be hiding the important files.”

  “We’ll find them,” Adrian said confidently. “He must have some sort of an office or he wouldn’t have where to meet his business associates.”

  “Do you think he has a safe somewhere? How are we going to open it?” I didn’t think Adrian and I could guess the password.

  “I’ll give you some mini bombs. They’re good for opening that kind of things and they don’t make a lot of noise,” Lily said as if opening safes were the easiest thing in the world. The only good thing was that Ethan’s father couldn’t have a lock enhanced with an element because he didn’t have any elements. If he were an element preserver, he wouldn’t need to hide all the time and stay away from people.

  “Great,” I said. I knew Lily would try to help us as much as she could, but I still couldn’t shake off the nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. Would this mission be the last thing I do before going to a lab? Or would this be the last thing I do in my life?

  I tucked a knife in my boot and strapped a gun to my belt. The bombs Lily had sent us were small enough to fit into the pockets of my leather jacket. Adrian was across the room, but I was safely enveloped in the cloud of his element. He flashed me a smile as he shrugged his black jacket onto his shoulders.

  “Five minutes,” I said, glancing at my watch. Adrian crossed the distance between us and pulled me into his arms. I rested my forehead against his. “If something goes wrong, I want you to know that I’m not sorry for anything we’ve done.”

  “Good to know,” he said, tipping my chin up. “But even if things go wrong, we’ll find our way out. Isn’t that what we always do?”

  “Yeah, I guess it is.” I smiled and pressed my lips against his. “We have to go.” Gathering our things, we left the hotel and hurried to our car. This time we’d let Lily to rent the room for us, so hopefully no one would ransack it by the time we got back. All I knew was that if we wanted our plan to succeed, we didn’t have much time.

  “Not so fast.” Adrian grabbed my arm, and I raised an eyebrow at him. We were just across Marlau’s house and we could clearly see the guards and the high fence that surrounded the whole property.

  “What? I just wanted to go closer. Maybe near that tree?” I pointed in the direction of the tree that was closest to th
e fence.

  “No. It’s too close. We wait for Lily’s sign. She’s monitoring everyone and she’ll know when it’s safe to go near.”

  I stomped my foot on the ground, trying to alleviate my anxiety. Why couldn’t we just go inside and be over with it? Pressing the com-link in my ear, I turned it on so I could talk to Lily. “Hey, what’s the hold up? If your guys want to help and create a diversion, they better do it now.”

  “Don’t be impatient. The family has left the house only fifteen minutes ago. You don’t want the guards to alert them about something weird happening. We don’t want any family members to return too fast,” she said.

  “Relax,” Adrian breathed into my other ear, running his fingers across my arm.

  I licked my dry lips and waited, glancing at the watch every twenty seconds. A couple of people passed us by, but we pretended to be two young people in love who hadn’t seen each other for a long time. We even had an imaginary conversation about our trips to various countries.

  “Go to the alley behind the house,” Lily said, and just like that, we were on the move, striding across the street. Adrian’s hand was in mine, my fingers a bit slippery from sweat, but there was no time to wipe them on my pants.

  “The cameras are off. Be careful,” Lily added.

  An explosion rocked the ground before we reached the alley, and we ran toward the fence. The guards rushed to the other side of the house, their guns drawn. Whatever Lily’s men had done, it worked. After he safely wrapped me in a cloud of his element, Adrian climbed the fence and I followed him. We’d chosen the lowest part of the fence, and I was glad there weren’t any sharp points.

  I jumped to the ground, bumping into Adrian. His protective cloud faltered, but he grabbed my hand in time to stop the disaster. We ran across the grass as fast as we could and got to the porch.

  “Lily, the door!” Adrian said after his attempt to push the door open failed. The keypad next to the door beeped and the door opened. I stared at it in surprise because I would never have thought someone would bother to have a keypad instead of a normal lock on the door of their own house. Maybe the front door was different, but we didn’t have time to check.