Indestructible (23 page)

“Adrian, don’t,” I said before he could try to reach for me. I had no doubt she’d shoot us both if we tried to touch. Hell, using his element even while he was touching me seemed like a bad idea.

His gray-blue eyes were filled with pain when they met mine. “I can’t keep it up.”

“Isidora, please, you have to let us touch. My boyfriend…  is not well,” I said, unwilling to explain what was really going on. “His disease is getting worse.”

A vein pulsed in her neck as she considered giving in to my request. “You can touch, but only one hand. And keep your hands up.”

I intertwined my fingers with Adrian’s and gave him a concerned look. “Better?”

He nodded, but he didn’t use his element, which meant things weren’t so great. Had I drained him too much?

“So where were we?” Isidora tilted her head. “Oh, right. At the part where you tell me why I shouldn’t kill you both.”

Actually, we hadn’t been at that part. Damn it.

“You don’t like what Anton does, do you?” Adrian said, his hand trembling in mine, his eyes focused on Isidora.

She scrunched her nose. “Of course not. He’s a monster.”

Adrian and I looked at each other. That was an interesting piece of information. We just had to use it right. “Then we have something in common,” I said.

“If you came here to kill him, you’re wasting your time. He’s always well-protected,” she said. “Believe me. I’ve seen people try and fail.”

There was a chance she was trying to fool us so she could find out what we intended to do, but maybe she was telling the truth. “If you want Anton to pay for what he did to your grandson, you have to let us go.”

“And what would you do if I let you go?” She snorted. “Laugh about how you tricked a poor old lady?”

I shook my head. “That’s not what we’d do. Trust me. We have many reasons to hate Anton. We want him exposed for what he is, but we need evidence. Can you tell us where to find it?”

Her gaze traveled from me to Adrian and back to me. “Don’t you think that if I had the evidence, I would have already gone to the police?”

“Not necessarily,” Adrian said. “You don’t want to be exposed as a carrier and you might be afraid Anton will retaliate against you or the people you care about.”

“Well.” She waved with the gun and my pulse sped up. “I know where the evidence is, but Anton keeps it under lock. He’s the only one who has the key. Never lets it out of his sight.”

“We can deal with that,” I said. “I promise. All you have to do is tell us where the evidence is.”

“There’s a secret passage in the basement. It will lead you to the room where Anton keeps his important things.” She lowered the gun and stepped aside. “If you manage to get inside, take whatever you can. And if you go to the police, don’t you dare ever mention me or I will hunt you down.”

“Thank you,” I said. “You won’t regret this.”

“I better not,” she said, and Adrian and I ran down the hall. My heart was still thudding loudly in my chest. I could barely see where I was going from the excitement because we had gotten away from Isidora. But we weren’t done yet. We had to find the evidence before the guards found us.

“What happened upstairs?” I asked as we descended into the basement. I didn’t dare to let go of Adrian’s hand. Not after what I’d seen.

“I’m not sure. I tried to use my element while I was connected to you, but I couldn’t do it.”

“But you can still feel your element, right?” I didn’t know what I’d do if Adrian had lost his element because of me.

“Yes, I’m just… I don’t know,” he said, frustrated.

“Okay, we’ll deal with that when we get out of here.” I hopped over the last flight of stairs and opened the door. We entered a dark room, which was completely empty. I turned around, staring at the dark blue walls. The only light was coming from a row of small windows on one of the walls.

“She mentioned a secret passage. How are we supposed to find it?” I said, feeling the nearest wall for the hidden door.

“I have no idea. Maybe we should have asked.” Adrian pressed his free hand against the wall.

“Yeah, and risk getting shot.” Isidora could have changed her mind at any moment. Actually, she could be calling the guards at this very moment, although she didn’t look like a woman who’d scream for help if she could do everything by herself.

“There must be a way to open the door. It can’t go farther into the ground, so it has to be somewhere here.” He looked around and pointed at the wall with the windows. “The door can’t be there, which leaves us three walls to check.”

“Right.” I knocked on the wall, but I didn’t hear anything that might indicate there was something behind it or that the wall could move. “And we still have to blow up whatever door we find after this.”

“It’s not here,” Adrian said, pushing at the wall with his shoulder.

“Then let’s try the other wall.”

As we made our way across the room, a soft click echoed through the room. Adrian pulled me to a stop. We retraced our steps and heard the click again.

“There’s something right under us,” he said.

“But nothing is happening. I don’t see a door.” I let out a frustrated breath. “Maybe we triggered an alarm. Let’s hope Lily turned it off.”

“Can you put your hand on my shoulder?”

“Sure.”

Adrian crouched and pushed at the laminate. When that didn’t work, he punched at it. The laminate popped out and I heard myself gasp. A smile spread on Adrian’s lips. A button was hidden in the opening and Adrian pressed it. The wall in front of us started to move and shake until it parted enough to form a passage.

We squeezed through the passage and followed the dark hall that led to a blue door. Two lights were above the door, illuminating the keypad next to it. But the tiny light on the keypad was flashing green, just like any other keypad we’d seen in the house.

I opened the door and realized it led to yet another door. This one appeared to have a normal lock. Isidora must have been talking about it when she mentioned that Anton carried the key with him everywhere, but luckily for us, we didn’t need a key. I found the mini bombs in my pocket and attached them around the lock.

After I pressed the right buttons to activate the bombs, Adrian and I went back to the first door and waited for the explosion. Lily had been right when she said the bombs were quiet. The door was ajar, the part around the lock gone. We hurried into the tiny room with no windows. The bluish lights were already turned on, so we went to the first cabinet.

“There are many papers in here,” I said, going through the first drawer.

“Find the ones we need and we’ll put them in this.” Adrian took the empty bag he’d found in the other drawer. I stuffed into the bag any paper and file that seemed business-related. We didn’t have time to look through each one of them carefully, but if they were in this room, then it meant they were important to Anton.

“He has files with Ethan’s and Sebastian’s name.” Adrian’s eyebrows shot upward.

“Take them. We need that. I want to know more about those experiments Sebastian and Isidora mentioned.” I took a couple of more files, careful not to move too far away because we were standing close enough that our shoulders were touching. We needed both of our hands to go through the files, but our movements were still too limited.

“We should start planning how to get out of here. Lily is not answering. We don’t know where the guards are and I don’t even know if my element will work,” Adrian said, zipping the bag.

“Wait, you think you won’t be able to use your element at all? I thought that you couldn’t use it because you’d been shielding me for too long.” I supposed we could always come out shooting at anything that moved, but we’d get shot too, so that wasn’t such a good idea.

“I don’t know.” He frowned. “I can try.” He slipped the bag over his shoulder and took my hand. His eyes glistened with determination, which was replaced by bewilderment. “It’s not fucking working!”

“Maybe you should let go of me and try again.” I had no clue whether the guards had noticed the explosion. It hadn’t seemed loud enough, but we couldn’t be sure. We had to get out of here sooner rather than later.

“Okay, but only for a second.”

As soon as his fingers left mine, I swayed on my feet and had to catch myself before I knocked over the drawers. My breath came out in short, choked gasps as the elements tried to tear me apart. I could taste all of them if I just… I found myself staring into Adrian’s gray-blue eyes and saw relief flash through them.

“I still have my element.” He nodded toward the thin layer of ice that was covering the wall. “But every element I can feel bothers me more than usual and I have to fight to stay in control.”

Crap. I’d weakened him, hadn’t I? “We have to go.”

“Yeah.”

We ran for the door.

Chapter 33

I held my breath, listening for any sound of footsteps coming from the main hall. “I think we can go.”

“Only one way to find out,” Adrian whispered and opened the door. My gun was out and ready, but I had trouble holding it in my left hand. Still, it was better than no gun at all. Adrian was going in front of me, his left hand in mine, his other hand holding the gun. He needed to have a good aim in case someone tried to catch us or kill us.

The hall was empty, which was a huge relief, but the true trouble was waiting for us once we got out of the house. Adrian cracked the door open and risked peeking out. I assumed the coast was clear because he pushed the door open and we ran outside. The bag jumped in between us, hitting me in the side.

Someone yelled and Adrian let go of me. I nearly doubled over, tightening my hand on the gun. Adrian touched me and we were running again. I glanced to my right and saw a guard lying on the ground, a bunch of ice shards stuck in his chest.

A bullet whizzed past my face and I unsuccessfully fired at the man who was coming after us. Adrian fired a couple of shots, but the man hid behind the upturned table and continued to fire. We were out in the open. There were no tables or chairs to hide behind. Why had the Marlaus decided to have their place for relaxation and outdoor activities on the wrong side of the house?

Elements viciously attacked my consciousness, but I kept on running. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see where I was going or that my whole body was shaking as if someone had hit me with a bolt of electricity.

“Ria!” Adrian’s voice broke through the pain in my mind, but I couldn’t understand why he was calling my name. His fingers found mine and the veil in front of my eyes disappeared. A wall of ice was only a couple of inches away from us, getting hit by bullets.

We got to the fence and had to come up with a way to climb over it. The ice would be shattered at any moment and the guards were close enough to get us. Adrian shrugged the bag off his shoulder and handed it to me.

“You go first. I’ll be right behind you,” he said. “I think I can keep up the cloud around you.”

There wasn’t time to argue because he let go of me and none of the elements could touch me. I tucked the gun into the bag, which I slung over my shoulder. Climbing over the fence wasn’t that hard, but as I jumped down on the other side, the wall of ice fell apart and crumpled to the ground.

“Adrian!” I yelled. Getting the gun out again, I aimed through the hole in the fence and kept firing. Adrian was half-way up when a bullet embedded itself into his leg, but he ignored it and kept on going. I had to duck to avoid another bullet. My gun was empty. Without my elements, there was not much I could do.

Adrian threw me his gun before he could climb down. I fired at the guards who were closest to us, but it didn’t take long until Adrian’s gun was empty too. Damn it. I ran to Adrian and helped him get down. It was only a matter of time before the guards realized we were no longer shooting and they got out of hiding. If they got too close, they’d kill us both.

Adrian stumbled into the bushes, shielded by the concrete columns that held together the fence. We had to get out of here, but Adrian’s leg was bleeding and I knew there was no way he could run.

A black SUV pulled over not far from us, and the door opened. “Get inside!” Someone yelled.

Adrian put his arm around my shoulders and we limped to the SUV.

“They’re getting away!” One of the guards yelled as they all ran into the street. I’d managed to get Adrian and the bag inside with the help of a young blonde. Hot pain spread through my shoulder and back and I jumped into the SUV at the last moment.

We lurched forward, the tires screeching. The blond woman closed the door while a dark-haired man tended to Adrian. My vision blurred under the attack of the elements, mixing with the pain I felt in my shoulder and back.

“Adrian…” I wheezed, trying to reach out to him.

“Oh God,” the woman said and knelt next to me. As soon as her hand touched me, the elements were gone, but the wave of pain was stronger than ever. “Digg, she’s losing a lot of blood. We have to get her to Lily.”

“Ria!” I was vaguely aware of Adrian trying to push himself up and crawl over to me.

“No, don’t move. She’s going to be fine,” a calm voice said, probably Digg’s. I blinked, trying to clear my vision.

“Ria, can you hear me?” Adrian gasped, his gray-blue eyes swirling with worry.

“I hear you,” I whispered.

“Drive faster,” the woman yelled. Great. Was my condition that bad? I closed my eyes, letting the darkness find its way back to me. I only hoped the files we’d stolen would be of some use to Lily. It would be such a shame to die for nothing.

Chapter 34

I woke up from the worst nightmare I’d ever had. In my stupid dream, Adrian and I had been doing some very silly stuff and I didn’t have my elements. What was wrong with my mind… I moved and pain shot up through my whole body. The emptiness inside of me indicated that no, I hadn’t been dreaming. That shit was real. “Oh, fuck.”

“I’m glad you’re fine.” Adrian chuckled.

I opened my eyes and saw him sitting next to my bed, his right leg was wrapped up in plaster. “I feel like a herd of cows danced on me.” I tried to sit up, but ended up wincing in pain.