Destroyed

by Madeline Dyer

  I flinch and—

  Pain in my head.

  What the—

  I blink. The connection’s gone and—

  Gone?

  I pull on my powers quickly, my heart pounding, panic rising. But they’re there—they’re still there, and I’m all right, aren’t I? No instability…no—

  “Sorry, did I wake you?”

  I look up to see Melissa standing at the foot of the bed.

  I jolt a little and rub my eyes.

  “I was just wondering if you can entertain Riley for a little while?” She hands me the three-year-old before I can say anything. “I need to brush up on my sparring. Just play a game with him,” she says. Then she leans closer, softens her voice. “Now, Riley, you’re going to be good for Seven, aren’t you? Yes, you are. And Grandma will be back soon.”

  Grandma? I stare at her, feel something akin to shock—and I don’t know why.

  Because she’s got maternal feelings, and you haven’t.

  I swallow hard as I watch Melissa leave.

  My eyes widen. Zahlia wants me. Not to use me and save her people—or maybe that’s there too—but mainly so she can prove herself a worthy leader, usurp Raleigh.

  I frown, think of her when I was at New Kitembu. She never outright disrespected Raleigh. She was almost friendly, charming.

  But I felt her anger. I felt her rivalry. I felt her hatred.

  It feels strange, knowing I have something in common with her, an Enhanced. But I do. We both hate Raleigh.

  I hold the boy close, then stand up, head out of the room. Feel like I need to move, walk around. So much energy pounds inside me.

  Zahlia hates Raleigh. She’s in competition with him. It feels like important information, but how can we use that to our advantage? She’s still an Enhanced. She’s still converting Untamed. There are more Untamed out there—that proved it.

  We’re not all here.

  “You don’t look very comfortable holding him,” a voice says, and I jolt, turn, and find Bea behind me. “Do you want me to take him?”

  “Uh, yeah.” I nod and watch as Bea takes the child, how she looks so relaxed with him.

  And that is not something I feel, not with Riley.

  Not with my own daughters.

  But I’m not their mother. Not yet.

  I can’t concentrate. I just can’t.

  I’m shaking as I pace the town, careful to avoid everyone else. Really, it’s easy.

  I scrub at my arms, feel restless. I need to do something, yet I don’t know what, and my head hurts. Everything hurts, aches. It’s too hot. I’m sweating, sweating so much.

  Seer instability? a voice whispers.

  But I push it away. It can’t be. All I did was body-share with Zahlia. It was a simple body-share. That’s all. Something I’ve done so many times before.

  Yes, with Untamed. But not across the state-barrier. Not with the Enhanced. Or across different timelines.

  I swallow hard, feel too jittery. There’s nothing in it. The person’s wrong. The person…who?

  I frown, can’t think and—

  No. I run a hand through my hair.

  It’s happening again.

  It can’t be happening again.

  But it is.

  Okay.

  I take a deep breath. I need to rest then. I need to sleep. Sleep takes away the Seer instability, doesn’t it? Sleep heals it. I felt better after sleeping before—but that seems so long ago, and I don’t know if I’m just making it up, telling myself it’s true.

  I need to sleep.

  I walk back to our room, walking quickly past Siora and Quinn who stare at me—like they know that I’ve been body-sharing, doing something I shouldn’t.

  But I haven’t done any harm. I haven’t. All I did was find out information about Zahlia and her motives. Things that can help us and—

  I stare at the augmenter.

  It’s just lying here. In the corridor. The middle of the corridor.

  So easy for anyone to find.

  And what’s it doing here?

  I bend forward, feel like I’m in a trance—like none of this is real—as I pick it up and—

  Oh Gods. The augmenters.

  That’s it—that’s a sign of it, of the Seer instability. Because only I can see it.

  It’s in my head. My Seer instability is torturing me? The remnants of my addiction, are they still inside me? Is the instability drawing on that?

  I drop it. I stand on it, feel it break.

  “But it’s in my head,” I whisper. “How did I feel it?” But I did—I felt the glass crunch under my foot. And, when I move my foot, I see it. A sticky mess, tiny pieces of glass. Oh Gods. “No!”

  Then I look around at the empty corridor and realize I sound like a mad person, talking to myself.

  The Seer instability. The price to pay for having so much active power inside me.

  But Raleigh’s powerful—and he doesn’t have this, I know he doesn’t. Why doesn’t he have this?

  Why’s it me?

  Because your power is different. Death gave you only a fraction of what you have—but enough that you could control it. We gave you the rest, our powers—ones that were once from Gods and Goddesses, but that we took charge of to form the legacy. And we are inside you.

  The words play over and over, whispering in so many tones I start to feel sick. Very sick. But Raleigh’s got some of my powers! He should have this instability too, yet I know, I just know he hasn’t. Because he’s still only got a little extra power, compared to what I have? I swipe at my arms again. My skin is clammy.

  My head spins and spins and spins, and then I’m back by my room. I lie down and—

  My powers start up like an engine.

  No.

  My breath catches in my throat, makes a low, growling sound.

  No! I have to stop it! My mind’s hurting! I can’t use the powers again!

  But I can’t stop it, can’t—

  Body-sharing. Again.

  Something more to do with Zahlia? Something I need to see?

  It’s….

  It’s Raleigh.

  No.

  No.

  No.

  Taras’s warning about power-transference drifts over me, but I can’t do anything about it, and it’s like part of me is folding up his voice, his words, into a small box and hiding it.

  No! I need to find him, find Taras. He can stop this, can’t he?

  I can’t body-share with Raleigh!

  I’m strong. I can fight this.

  No. I can’t fight this.

  It’s just happening.

  So go along with it.

  I gulp. We can’t know what we need to do to win the war unless we know Raleigh’s moves.

  I focus on the black hole in my mind. It’s not going to get any bigger, but I’m watching it. I’m ready.

  Raleigh is sitting at a desk. It is very different to Zahlia’s desk.

  There are four houseflies trapped in a glass jar in front of him, and they each take turns at flying around, crashing into the glass walls, and falling back down. But each attempt doesn’t faze the next fly. He still tries, and Raleigh watches. Their buzzing—their begging—is a far-away sound, and I know Raleigh likes that. If he can’t properly hear their pain, he doesn’t need to do anything about it.

  “Yes,” Raleigh says, his voice low. He leans over his desk more and wraps his hands around the jar. Through the curving glass, the undersides of his fingers look massive.

  The flies buzz louder.

  A strange taste creeps over me—a taste only I can feel.

  He’s sitting in a room with two other Enhanced, each of them at their own desks, just visible out of his peripheral vision. The other two are women but I can’t see much of their faces.

  He hums to himself, then calls the others over. They stand either side of him, stooping slightly as they peer at his jar.

  “Wildlife can teach us so much about the inner workings o
f parasite-ridden minds,” he says. “Each of these houseflies is an individual, but they act like a swarm. They become one being, and that is how we must think of the Untamed.”

  He reaches under his desk and grabs a bottle with a sprayer. Slowly, he twists the jar’s lid, then he raises the bottle’s nozzle to it. As he lifts one edge of the lid up, he sprays a clear mist into the jar.

  The flies drop down, but still buzz.

  Amusement tickles Raleigh. “Pass me those tweezers. Both sets.”

  The woman with black hair retrieves the two pairs that sit on the far side of Raleigh’s desk.

  “Thank you, Marie.”

  He opens the jar again, and, using one of the sets of tweezers, he reaches in and grabs a fly. Its body and wings are sticky, wet, and it buzzes angrily as he sets it down on a craft mat in front of him.

  “Watch this,” Raleigh says, putting the lid back on the jar so the others can’t escape—though they’re unable to move from the bottom of the jar.

  Glee fills him—I feel the way it travels through his body, heightening euphoria—and he grabs the other set of tweezers too. With the implement in his left hand, he holds the fly’s rounded body down on the green mat.

  One of the women frowns, and Raleigh catches the look as he glances up. A soft chuckle escapes his lips. I don’t like the way it feels, bubbly.

  For two minutes, he stares at the fly as he holds it down.

  “Spray it again,” he says, and the other woman—the blonde—does so. She doesn’t look very comfortable following his orders.

  The fly’s wings are like sodden tissue, and the smell of chemicals fills the room.

  Raleigh licks his teeth slowly—all of them—then adjusts the smaller pair of tweezers in his right hand. The chair creaks as he leans forward again.

  I watch in horror as he positions the points of the other tweezers either side of one of the fly’s wings. He squeezes the tweezers together and tugs. Slight resistance. Not much. It comes free.

  I separate myself from Raleigh a little—just enough so I don’t feel his euphoria.

  The women both stare at him. I can’t read their expressions, but I see Raleigh’s reflected in their eyes. See the way his jaw is set with cold calculation.

  “Previous efforts obviously were not enough.” He pulls another wing off.

  The other flies in the jar start buzzing like mad.

  Raleigh goes for a leg next. The fly is still alive.

  I want to look away, but I don’t. I can’t.

  “This is what we’ll do to Shania,” Raleigh announces. “Not herself, of course. Her wings are those who are most important to her. We must dismantle her means of flight, her comfort, her shell.”

  “You’ve already targeted her boyfriend.”

  “And she has not surrendered. The boy is not enough,” Raleigh says.

  Then his lips twist together into a thin smile, and I see it reflected in the blond woman’s eyes as she steps closer.

  “You have another plan, my lord?”

  My lord?

  Raleigh’s grin widens. “My powers are stronger than they’ve ever been. Imran re-coded me yesterday. New abilities have revealed themselves, powers I am still learning, not to mention my original powers have strengthened in unbelievable ways since this world changed. I know who I need to target in order for us to win the war, for we need to appeal to Shania’s sense of right and wrong. But we also need to appeal to her love. One man isn’t enough, but I know what will be. I am currently working on the strategy for how to achieve this, but the answer is close and will be with me soon. I have resources. Once we pluck one wing off, Shania will save us before a second needs to be lost. Family is important to her. She won’t let her own flesh and blood die.”

  My head pounds. Raleigh knows.

  Siora and Quinn.

  He knows.

  She won’t let her own flesh and blood die.

  Siora and Quinn. He had them in his compound. My heart lurches. He knows the frequency of my powers, and he coded them too—so he knew they were Seers, even though they hid it, and their results…he’s worked out who they are from them. Their link to me.

  But they’re from the future… How would he believe it, that they’re my daughters?

  Unless he has my time-manipulation power—though he hasn’t used it, hasn’t yet learnt how to?—but he knows it is possible, that time-manipulation exists, that my daughters being here isn’t out of the question.

  I take a deep breath, realize I’m back in my body. My own body. Disconnected without realizing. Don’t remember it at all.

  My stomach twists, and I feel sick.

  Maybe he doesn’t know they’re my daughters—maybe he doesn’t know that the time-manipulation power is a time-manipulation power, hasn’t discovered what it does yet, or maybe he doesn’t even have that power—but he knows they’re Sarrs. He knows they’re my flesh and blood. He thinks Corin wasn’t enough. So he’s going after them too.

  A bitter taste fills my mouth.

  My family.

  No.

  That’s not happening.

  I may not know how to process the situation with Siora and Quinn, but neither of them is dying. Raleigh is not going to target them.

  I look around. Taras, I need to find Taras.

  “You body-shared with Raleigh?” Taras doesn’t attempt to hide his disapproval as I tell him what happened. “After the last time? Child, you lost your powers to him.”

  I swipe heat from the back of my neck. The little hairs are stuck to it, my sweat sticky. “But he’s targeting Siora and Quinn this time, don’t you see? They’re my daughters.”

  Taras gives me a very strange look, then shakes his head. “You need to calm down, child. You need to think logically.”

  “I am!”

  “Raleigh is messing with your head. They cannot be your daughters.”

  “It wasn’t even him who told me—it was Siora and Quinn. They told me I’m their mother. I sent them back here, from the future.” I try to breathe, but I’m talking too much. “They’re here, and Raleigh had them—he captured them before they got here. The girls both said that. He must’ve recognized them. Even if he doesn’t know they’re my daughters, he knows I’ve got close family with me.”

  Taras breathes out slowly. “Have you considered the possibility this is a lie? That it is a story to reel you in? Child, you will not have children—you die at the war’s end. Perhaps we should find Siora and Quinn right now. I believe they have been compromised, that Raleigh is using them.”

  “What?”

  Taras moves to the door, but I’m quicker. I block his way.

  “They’re not working with Raleigh!”

  “He wants you to think they’re your children so he can use them against you. They are actors. Seven, it is quite clear.”

  “They are my children! Siora showed me a vision. She was in Death’s realm. With me. Quinn too. I saw it. And I feel it. They are my children.”

  I’m supposed to protect them. That’s what mothers do.

  It doesn’t matter that I don’t feel like their mother. That I haven’t got the protective, maternal instincts.

  They’re still my children.

  I’d protect them even if they weren’t, wouldn’t I?

  “She showed you a vision?” Taras stops, frowns. The lines around his eyes seem deeper. “I must see this vision.”

  I exhale, hard, then agree. “Fine. Then you’ll understand. And then we’re doing something, okay? I’m not going to sit back and let Raleigh bind himself to them as well as Corin.”

  Siora is painting an elaborate mural onto one of the walls outside. Huge silver swirls, matching her tattoo designs, make up the background, and, at the front, is an eye. An Untamed eye. Within it is a bison. She has no paint, it is her power that stains what she touches. She looks up, startles, as she sees us.

  “Show Taras that vision,” I tell her, my voice rough as I look over the painting again. It’s good. Ve
ry good. “Quickly.”

  Then I look at her. Look into her soul. No longer blocked. No longer hidden from me. because the secret’s out.

  No red dots.

  I breathe a sigh of relief.

  Siora just stares at me.

  “Come on,” I yell, irritable. “We haven’t got time.”

  “The vision?” Her voice wobbles, and she steps backward. The mural seems to glow and shimmer.

  “The one proving I’m your mother. He needs to see it. This is important.”

  She nods, a sudden, sharp movement, and her bottom lip quivers as she looks around. Then she holds her hands out to Taras. Wordlessly, he takes them.

  I watch as she closes her eyes. An expression of both power and uncertainty fills her face. Taras’s expression slackens, and I feel the power ebbing between them. The air is thick with it, almost like a forcefield between them, drawing them both in, trying to draw me in to see it too.

  “This is unchartered territory,” Taras says, once they’ve finished.

  “Everything is unchartered territory.” My voice is a little too loud.

  Siora squeezes her pendant. Her Seer pendant.

  “Can I see that?” I ask.

  She takes it off, then hands it to me. “You recognize it?” Her eyes are keen.

  I stare at the pendant, and the black beads either side of it. Recognize it? No. But it feels different, strange. There’s energy inside it. An energy that speaks to mine. I turn it over in my fingers. There’s a sharp bit on it.

  A sharp bit.

  Just like mine has.

  I freeze.

  Three’s words come back to me. What he said when he gave my pendant back to me at New Kitembu: I gave it to you because a Sarr Seer should have it. Mum says it’s always been in our family, our line. All the Sarr Seers. It gets smaller each time there’s a generation with more than one Seer. Mum cut part of it for Two. And Mum gave it to Esther to pass onto you when she joined the Chosen Ones. She left it behind for you. She says you must have it. Keep it, Shania. Hide it from them. Don’t let Raleigh take it from you again.

  Because I have to continue the tradition? Give part of it to each of my daughters. The pendant must produce more pendants?