“You’re Enhanced. You can’t just decide to be Untamed. It doesn’t work like that.”
“It will if you help me!”
I stare at him. We’re close. Too close. Inches apart. Why did I move so close? And it’s in me—the desire to help him. But I know my help can’t save him. It can make him Untamed, but he won’t be the same. He’ll always be desperate. He’ll feel the negatives of life even stronger than we do. He’ll never be the same. And he’ll want what he once had.
“I love you, Keelie. I love you more than anything in the world. And that’s why I want to save you. Being Untamed in this world is horrible—can’t you see? Being Untamed in this world is dangerous. And it’s my job to save you, to look after you. I don’t want you getting burned. Untie my ropes, and I’ll take you to your parents.”
“No. I don’t want to see them anyway, Red. So that’s a pointless line of argument.” Or at least, I need to find Bea first, before I find them, tell them about Mila. And I stare at him, sad. He can’t even remember what he’s said. One minute, he’ll hide me, Untamed. The next, he’s going to convert me.
“But you want to see your parents,” Red says, his face pained. “You want them to forgive you for killing Mila. And they will. We’ll take away all your pain, all the hurt you’re feeling. The guilt—it’s eating you alive. And you want that, don’t you? You want to forget about all the bad things the Untamed part within you has made you do. And if you come with me, that will happen. You’ll be better. We’ll fix you. I’ll fix you.”
My body tenses.
“Red, I—”
He lunges toward me, despite the ropes, kisses me, hard and fast. His lips crush against mine and…and something happens. Happens inside me.
I don’t pull away.
I see his eyes, so close to mine, a fraction away, and he’s watching me, and I’m watching him as he kisses me. And it doesn’t feel like an Enhanced One is kissing me.
His tongue parts my lips, and I gasp against him. And…and we kiss.
We kiss properly—both of us, equal—and every emotion swarms inside me. A war in my soul. But it’s Red. And it’s like he’s still Untamed. He feels the same, tastes the same, and—
“What the hell?”
I jerk back as Nico’s shadow falls over us.
“You said you wouldn’t!”
I spring to my feet, breathing hard.
Red laughs manically. “We’re joining the Enhanced, aren’t we, Keelie? You and me! Together! Ha, Nico, she was always mine. You never stood a chance.”
I reach out for Nico as I jump off the tailgate, but he pulls back, nostrils flaring.
He points at me, walking backward slowly. “It’s always lies, isn’t it, with you? And now you’re leaving? Changing everything you believe in to be with him?”
“Stop it!” I shout. “No! Can’t you see what he’s doing? He was trying to seduce me, to convert me. He’s still Enhanced! Doesn’t want to be Untamed! He admitted it—and tricked me and—” I’m breathing too hard, can’t get the words out. “Look, we’re wasting time, we need to find Bea. She’s still out here.”
“Trying to seduce you? Is that what you call it? You looked pretty into it. Don’t make out like none of this is your fault.”
I shake my head, looking back at Red. He’s still there, still tied up, looking amused. Amused! “Nico—please. Just calm down.”
“Calm down?” He lets out a manic laugh. “Let’s see what Elf has to say about you betraying us.”
I let out a shrill laugh, and my head feels strange. Lighter. So much lighter. “I’m not joining the Enhanced!”
Nico swears, then slams his left hand into his right. “You’ve taken some?”
“What?”
“Augmenters!” He grabs my shoulders and looks into my eyes, even though I know it’s not necessary. You don’t need to look up close to check for mirrors.
“No—I’ve not.” I wrench myself from his grip.
“It’s a wonder!” He turns his back to me, breathing hard. Tension bunches in his shoulders. When he turns back, the look on his face holds so much disgust and hatred and hurt that I stumble back. “Bloody hell, Keelie! You’re supposed to be my girl.”
“I’m not anyone’s girl.”
“And you said you didn’t trust him—and then you’re kissing him! Or did you say that to make me feel better? Another lie?” He’s shaking. “But you’re right—he is Enhanced and… That’s disgusting. No.” He grabs my arm. “Come on.”
“What?” I pull on my arm, but his fingers stay wrapped around me.
“We’re going to see what your brother has to say about you kissing an Enhanced.”
“No! Just listen” I try to pull Nico back, but, somehow, he forces me with him. “Hey! You can’t just drag me along with you—I’m not some puppy you’re trying to train.”
He starts running, and I chase after him. Elf’s walking toward us. Nico gets to him first.
“She was about to have sex with that man!” he yells.
“What? The hell I was!” I scream, outraged. “That’s a complete exaggeration—that was…. How can you—” I grab Nico’s hand again, trying to pull him back.
“And you’re right,” Nico yells at Elf. “All that stuff you’ve said about Red over the years. That guy is a piece of work, taking Keelie from her own twin, getting in her head, and now stealing her from her boyfriend.”
“You’re not my boyfriend!” I shout back.
“Oh, I am,” Nico says, and then he grabs me.
I yank my arm away—or try to—but he’s fueled up with anger, and he forces me to look at him, and then he crushes his mouth against mine, and his hands press me against him, feeling me everywhere.
Shock makes me freeze.
“You’re mine,” he snarls into my face, pulling back just long enough to say the words. “And I’ve had enough of—”
I knee him in the crotch, and he stumbles backward. Elf grabs him, throws him farther back, away from me.
“Stay away from her.” My brother’s eyes flare, and he’s breathing hard. “Don’t you ever touch her again. Do you hear me?”
Nico glares at us both, still half-doubled over. But then he seems to recover and sizes up Elf. A second passes. In one fluent motion, Nico grabs the gun from Elf. I hadn’t realized that my brother had it—but he often has the Luger now—and now it’s in Nico’s hands, and he turns, strides toward the truck, and—
“No!” I scream, and I don’t know what makes me shout it, except that Elf’s screaming it too. Because Nico can’t kill Red. He can’t.
I pounce on Nico, and we crash to the ground, me on top of him. I grab the gun and see the safety’s off. For a second, I can’t breathe. I could’ve been shot. Then I flick the safety on, and—
“Where is he?” Elf yells.
But it’s like I don’t hear the words, because I’m concentrating on Nico. On holding him down with one hand and pointing the gun at him with the other.
Nico spits at me. “You bitch!”
“Don’t you—”
“Keelie!” Elf yells.
“What?” I turn my head for a fraction of a second, see Elf running to the truck.
Quick as a flash, Nico shoves me off of him, and I fall back onto the ground. My shoulder hits something hard, and I wince—but I’ve still got the gun. I’m in control and—
“He’s done a runner!” Elf shouts.
I look up.
The truck.
And then Nico’s running, and I pull myself up and race for the truck, look in the bed myself. But he’s not there, it’s just the ropes. The ropes we tied him up with.
He’s escaped? How?
Nico grunts, behind me. “Gone where?”
“He’s gone back. Back to them, the Enhanced.” I shake my head, and a part of me feels strange.
Lost? No, that’s not the right word.
Red was lost out here.
He’s one of them.
“We ne
ed to find him,” Nico growls. “He’ll be calling backup to convert us, and he can’t be far away. We need to stop him, kill him.”
“Get in the truck!” I yell at the two of them, and then we’re all jumping in.
Elf takes the gun from me, and I take the wheel and grit my teeth. There’s no way Red’s getting away. Not now. He’s not going back.
But what are we going to do? Really kill him?
And what about Bea? She’ll be getting even farther away now.
But we can’t make sure she’s okay if we’re caught by the enemy. No, we have to find Red.
My heart pounds. “Keep looking for him,” I yell, trying to look in all directions at once as I turn the truck around. “He’s got to be somewhere! Look at the map,” I bark at Elf. “It’s in the glove compartment… There must be somewhere where the land’s hiding him. Look at the contours. Look properly! Is there anywhere a cave could be?”
I peer through the windscreen harder, until pain erupts across my forehead, trying to see a figure out there. But it’s getting windier. Sand’s whipping up. Great. A sandstorm. That’s all we need.
“Oh no,” Elf says. He pulls stuff out of the glove compartment.
“What?”
“The map—it’s not here.”
I slam the brakes, and we’re all thrown forward. I hit the steering wheel—shit, I didn’t put my seat belt on in the haste—and more pain attacks my body. I cut the engine.
“What?”
“Bloody hell, Keelie! You trying to kill us now?” Nico yells at me, his face right up close against mine, but I ignore him and try to lean forward, try to see the glove compartment.
But there are too many things in it: plastic packaging, tin labels, an empty ink cartridge, a length of twine. Why the hell have we got so much stuff? Elf pulls his hands through more. A notebook. Receipts. A few folded bank notes. But there’s no map.
It’s not there.
I breathe hard.
Then I go cold. I turn to them, my eyes wide. My heart pounds, and my lips feel fuzzy.
“What’s the matter?” Nico snaps at me.
I shake my head. “One…one of you marked Nbutai on the map—I don’t care who but I’m sure it was done after we left, and it sure as hell wasn’t me. And now he’s got it. Red’s got it. He has to have it… Oh, hell.”
And I know. A load more shit is going to happen.
I inhale sharply. “He’s going to lead the Enhanced to Nbutai.”
Red’s going to get us all.
They’re going to get us all.
“Shit,” Nico yells. “We need to go back, warn them. Now!”
I nod, frantically, staring through the dirty windscreen.
“No,” Elf says, and he’s calm—too calm. “We need to keep going, find Bea and the others. We wouldn’t get back there in time, anyway.”
“We would! He hasn’t got a car,” I say. “He’s on foot and—”
“He has a phone,” Elf yells. “I saw it! He’ll have told New Kimearo by now, and they’ll be sending people out.” He rubs his hands together, frowning. “There’s no way we can get there in time. Not with how quickly the Enhanced can move.”
I stare at my brother, feel everything in my body get tighter. “No, he didn’t have a phone.”
“We searched him,” Nico says. “He didn’t.”
But Elf shakes his head. “I found it just now, when I was searching—it was over there.” He points vaguely to the left. “Well, somewhere over there. He’ll have gone straight for it when he got free.”
“You found a phone, and you didn’t do anything? You didn’t destroy it?” I stare at my brother, incredulous. “You didn’t take it from him? Or tell us right away?”
“But I was—I was coming back to tell you and then Nico said about you and Red sleeping together.”
“I wasn’t!” I yell, but I know my brother’s not going to believe me. Not after what he saw before.
But Red had a phone. My heart pounds. They can track phones, can’t they? Loads of Enhanced Ones could’ve come for us. They could be coming for us—to stop us from trying to save Nbutai.
“Look,” Elf snaps. “It doesn’t change anything. We can’t save Nbutai. It’s too late for them.” His tone is the most emotionless I’ve ever heard from him, and I wince, think of the Sarrs—all of them—and feel sick, hope that Katya gets a warning in time. “But we’re free of them, unharmed,” Elf continues. “We have to keep going, find Bea and these other Untamed. You’ve already lost one of our sisters. I’m not abandoning another.”
I lean forward, stare at him.
He glares at me, as if daring me to speak against him.
Nico looks at me, uncertainty on his face. “We have to go back,” he says, his voice low, meant only for me.
“No,” Elf says, and I’m surprised he’s heard.
“We go back,” I say. It’s the first time I’ve ever outright disagreed with my brother when it’s come to Untamed safety. Because we always help each other.
We don’t run.
Not anymore.
“I’m the leader—this is my mission.” I’m breathing deeply. Sorry, Bea. I turn the engine back on. “Hell, of course we go back.”
I can’t drive fast enough. My head pounds. All I can think of is going faster…if there’s any chance that Red’s not got in contact with New Kimearo yet then we have to be quick.
We might just make it.
We have to.
I can’t be responsible for all their deaths. Not them as well.
I let out a scream, completely involuntarily, and it startles me.
“Calm down!” Nico yells at me, and then he’s grabbing at the wheel. “Stop! Let me drive!”
“No!” I try to push him away and point at the foxhole radio in his lap. “You’re supposed to be trying to get some waves—trying to find out if the Enhanced have caught the rest of our people!”
“I am doing that,” Nico yells. “But we should swap. You’re in no fit state to drive, you’ll probably crash the vehicle and—”
“Stop it, Nico,” Elf says. “Let her drive.”
Elf’s still not happy, and I don’t understand why. If there’s a chance we can save our village, we have to try. Why doesn’t he want to?
I look ahead, trying to remain calm. Through my watery vision, I can only see sand. The wind’s picking up too fast, throwing the sand into a hazy vortex that scratches the windscreen. I hunker in my seat a little, my eyes narrowed as if the windscreen’s going to break at any moment and sand’s going to hurtle at me.
“It’s not the Turning is it?” I ask, slowing the truck down a little. “Shit. I can’t see.”
“No,” Elf says. “Can’t be.”
My chest tightens. “But didn’t Katya say the last one didn’t feel right—that another would happen soon?”
Nico leans forward, looking.
“The sky’s normal above it all, Keelie,” Nico says. “Just concentrate on driving. It’s just a normal sandstorm.”
But it’s not normal—it’s not normal at all. There’s too much sand. The spirits are going to come out any minute now. If they see our vehicle moving, they’ll come for us. We need to stop, don’t we?
“Go that way,” Nico says, pointing to the right.
“What? Why?” I try to see to the right, but the air’s hazy, and there’s so much dust.
“It’s quicker. We came a roundabout way here before—after going to the caves—if we go through that way, we’ll go through the mountains… You know, the lower path… It’ll cut some time off.”
I don’t know if Nico’s right, but I’ll do anything to save time. Anything to give us more of an advantage. Anything if it means we can save our people.
I put my foot down and drive faster than the terrain advises. The fuel gauge tells me we’re getting low. I curse, but there’s another can in the back—isn’t there? I shake my head, blink hard, can’t think.
“Watch it!” Elf yells, and I s
werve around a huge hole just in time.
More sand blows up across the windscreen, and it sticks to the screen in huge clumps. I flick the wipers on, but the sand scratches deep lines into the glass, and I turn them off again quickly.
Nico keeps going with the radio, but it’s obvious it’s not going to work. We’ve got a dud or something. Or Nico’s not doing it right. Suddenly, I wish Three was here.
The world darkens rapidly. I flinch; it can’t be that late already. Can it? The end of our first day. A whole day. A day away from the village—but no, we’re nearer now. And I’m driving faster—going a more direct route than we came… But we’re still hours away…hours and hours…how many hours? I try to think? Six? Seven? Or more? I bark the question at Nico. He yells at me because there’s suddenly a roaring noise everywhere and tells me just to keep driving.
But that’s what I am doing.
And that’s what I keep doing.
The minutes blur into hours, and then the hours blur into what seems like days and—
A spirit slams into the windscreen.
I scream, stare at its eyes. Eight of them. Watery and big and smearing down the glass. The rest of its face is a semi-solid, partly-translucent mess wobbling about on the windscreen. Its eyes are the only things that look human—no, that looked human. They’re stretching as they smear down the glass.
Hissing fills the air.
“Keelie!” Nico yells, then he lunges over and grabs the wheel.
Without thinking, I flick the wipers back on. They hit the gelatinous mass and something makes a squealing noise, and then—
Then the truck spins around.
Elf yells something, and Nico’s still yanking on the wheel. I push his hands away, look up, and see more spirits by the driver’s window. So close to me, inches away.
“They’re taking control of the truck!” I yell, my voice all hoarse and not at all like me. My heart pounds, but it’s not the good kind of pounding. Not pounding that I’m in control of.
This is… These are spirits. And suddenly all I can picture is them ripping my uncle to pieces. The way they descended and ate him. The way his screams wrapped around me, and how a flake of his skin smacked into my face and….
A Dangerous Game Page 26