“Good,” Elf says.
The wind picks up, and the high-pitched screaming gets higher still. I groan, clutching my head.
“Keelie?”
“If it’s in the engine, having the truck running could be hurting it,” Esther shouts. Then she looks confused. “Can spirits get hurt?”
I don’t know. I press my lips together, pull my hair back from my face. I’m sweating. Sweating so much.
“Turn the engine off then,” Elf says.
And Rahn does and—
And then there’s no more.
A tremor runs through Red’s body.
I stare at him.
“Run!” someone screams at me, but I can’t tell whom it is. Can’t see them.
But the voice is right. I need to run, have to run, have to get away.
And so I do.
And I’m running, and everything’s pounding.
And my parents, they’re ahead. They’re running through the trees. Mila’s cries wrap around me. We’re all here. All of us. Our family, surviving. A unit. The only survivors.
I cry out, and my father looks back, sees me.
And then I’m in his arms, and there’s blood in his moustache and something broken in his eyes. He points with his other hand back toward the hut. “Is anyone else alive?” His voice is low as he sets me down on the woodland floor.
My mother looks panicky, and she flaps her hands around her head as she turns.
“Keelie!” My father snaps his fingers in front of my face. I refocus on him. “Is anyone else alive at D’Elinous?”
Alive….
I turn. Dry leaves crackle under my feet. Red’s body is visible by the last hut. Just the shape of it. Then I think I see him move. His head. But no, it’s too dark to see. And he didn’t move. He’s dead. The blood fanned out around him.
But—
“Keelie?” He starts to step away from me. Toward the village. “If someone’s alive still, I have to help. Fight, help them, not flee.”
He’s going to go back.
No. He can’t. There are too many Enhanced there now. Far too many—we’d get caught or killed and—
But the others! They need help!
“There’s no one!” I cry, the words escaping me. I grab hold of his shirt, realize how much I’m trembling. My bottom lip quivers.
My father flinches. “No one?”
I shake my head. In the corner of my vision, I see Red’s body. And it is a body, I tell myself. He’s dead. He’s not there, not watching this, not hearing.
But his eyes asked for help!
And I didn’t, because an Enhanced One came after me, and I got away—and I ran to the edge of the woods. Not to Red. But he’s gone now.
“Owen, there are two Enhanced coming!” my mother shouts. “We have to go!”
My father pulls me closer. “You’re sure there’s no one left?”
Red’s there!
But we’re left. Us. And I have to focus on the people that are here, Untamed, now. My family. And the Enhanced are coming after us. My father can’t run toward them.
And I look back at Red’s body and at the Enhanced women heading toward us, and I tell myself I’ve got no choice. He can’t have survived. It’s stupid going back.
But other villagers are still alive—I know that. I heard their screams. They’re still alive, still fighting.
But I can’t lose my father. He can’t go back there.
“Owen, they’re coming now! We’ve got to run!”
“Keelie?”
I shake my head. “There’s no one left. We have to go.”
I open my eyes slowly, and every part of me groans. Light fractures toward me. For a moment, I feel sick as I recall the flashback dream.
That lie. No… But why have I revisited it now? Hell.
I’m lying down.
Lying next to the truck, my cheek pressed into grit and dust and red rock.
My breath hitches, and I stand up slowly, confused.
I look around. “The spirit…it’s gone….”
“Keelie?”
The voice comes from my right, and I turn. See the others. They’re waking up now too. Rahn gets out of the cab, looks groggy.
It’s silent. No wailing now. No high-pitched shrieking.
“Everyone all right?” Rahn’s voice is dull. My ears crackle.
We all say that we are, but we sound different.
“What the hell happened?”
“The spirit….”
“What?” Corin looks at me. “The spirit…” He trails off.
Esther frowns, then looks alarmed. “Has it fed from us?”
And, suddenly, we’re all looking at our arms, our legs—every bit of bare skin. Corin pulls his shirt off. Elf and Yani do the same. I push my sleeves up, examining my arms. They don’t look any different. There are no marks. Would there be? I run my fingers over my skin, feeling for lacerations—or anything—that might not be visible to the eye.
But I don’t find anything. As far as I can tell, my body’s the same as always.
But your mind?
For some reason, I hear the question in Caia-Lu’s voice. Then I shudder. I try to think. How do I feel? I stretch my neck a little.
If anything, I feel stronger. More suited for a fight. The spirits did that? To help us? Given us strength—for a reason? A reverse feeding, like Corin said before….
“I think we’re okay,” I say. But I don’t like it. Spirits are supposed to be bad. Even the good ones.
But they used to help the Untamed a lot—that’s what Caia-Lu said. And they helped me find Elf.
“We all just fell asleep,” Kayden says, yawning. “All of us.” He frowns and looks up at the sky. “Was that spirit sent after us?”
Corin clears his throat. “Sent after us? Why?”
“To delay us getting to New Kimearo? To stop us getting Seven back? We all fell asleep.”
Elf points at the sky. “But now it looks earlier than it was?”
“We’ve gone back in time?” I frown. Spirits can distort time. When they killed my uncle, they messed with time then. Made the scene play over and over. And now we’ve gone back in time?
“So they’re making sure we get to Seven in time,” Corin says. “Giving us an extra couple of hours?”
“The spirits are mostly supposed to be on our side,” Esther whispers.
But her words make me uncomfortable, and the back of my neck prickles.
“What is it?” Yani looks at me. “You look like you’ve thought of something?”
I shake my head. “No. I haven’t.”
“Let’s get goin’,” Rahn says.
We do.
And, soon, we see the town, down there, in the little valley of the Titian Mountains. Sand-colored blocks with spider-wires strung between them.
New Kimearo.
I feel too hot, like there’s too much heat in my body making me fuzzy, trying to discourage me. The color of my hoody makes me feel sick now.
My shoulders tighten.
You mustn’t go to any towns or cities.
But I am.
And I’m not coming back.
In the end, I tell myself to forget Katya’s warning, that it doesn’t mean anything. That Seers can’t really see events that far in the future. No, Seers see imminent events. That’s all, and I push any contradicting thoughts aside, insist that Caia-Lu was just trying to scare me as well. That it’s not real. It’s just a coincidence both Seers picked on the same thing: my death.
And this mission, it won’t end with my death. Because I’m good. I’m careful.
Rahn drives us as close as he can, then he parks the truck in one of our less-used places, and we check the immediate area. We’re a fair distance from where we believe Seven was captured—where I found the cans and bags—as it’s likely the Enhanced will be paying close attention to that area now. They’ll probably have claimed the bags and fuel by now.
I look around. I’m buzzi
ng to get started. To get in there and get Seven back.
And Katya, I remind myself.
Corin grabs a pair of dark glasses from the truck. The rest of us have ours on now. I tie my hair back into a tight bun, high up on my head, and watch as survival bags are handed out. I shake my head when Kayden tries to give me mine. The bag is black, and I need the neon orange of my hoody to be visible from all angles—plus, I’m likely going to be running and climbing. I’ll need to be able to move freely and fast. Rahn just shrugs when I explain it, and Elf says he’ll take the gear from my bag in his.
“Remember,” Rahn says, handing a radio each to Elf, Esther, and Corin. “Seven could already have been mind-converted. If that’s the case and it’s too dangerous, I’ll set off the red flare. Remember, the purple flare is for when we need help. Red means abandon. We cut our losses, and we get out if we need to. All of us.”
I get the impression that, under his dark glasses, he looks at everyone but me.
Because he wouldn’t mind if I didn’t come back. And isn’t that his plan, having only me running the distraction?
“Everyone ready?” Rahn asks. He hands me a stopwatch on a long, looped string. “Keelie, don’t start the distraction until thirty minutes in. We need time to get in place and locate her. We don’t know how long you’ll be able to distract the Enhanced and leave the compound free for us once we start, so we absolutely need to be ready.”
“I can distract for as long as needed.” I keep my voice cool as I put the stopwatch’s cord around my neck.
“Once we’re finished, one of us will come and find you, signal to you, and Elf and Yani, if they’re still with you, and we’ll get us all out,” Rahn says, but we all know that the plan often changes at the end of a rescue depending on whether other gunshots have sounded or not. Mostly it’s improvising and doing what you think is best at the end. “And, remember, if Seven’s gone too far, then we leave her. No arguments.” He rubs his hands together for a moment. “I ain’t got a good feelin’ about this.”
I resist the urge to say something. Nothing like a reassuring leader.
Rahn makes sure we’ve all got weapons—though he doesn’t look happy as he watches me tuck a Luger into my belt—and we set off in two groups. Corin, Rahn, Kayden, and Esther walk faster than us, and they head more to the left. Elf, Yani, and I are to skirt around, avoiding the main conversion compound, and then, when it’s time, I’m to separate from the guys and draw the Enhanced away from the conversion area and toward me, toward a new location.
We don’t say anything as we walk. I listen to my heart pounding and start to feel the usual thrill in me—only it’s different, and I can’t work it out. We seem to get to the town line too quickly, and then suddenly we’re inside New Kimearo, navigating the streets.
We skirt around several buildings, and I catch a glimpse of our reflections in a shop window. Part of me smiles. We look good: Elf, Yani, and I. Ready for action. And my legs, they look amazing.
I smile slightly.
“This way,” I say, looking around. Everything looks duller thanks to the glasses—it’s not an especially bright morning—but I see the clock tower ahead. It’s one of the ones that shows the date as well as the time.
I stare at the date and frown. It can’t be. My head whirls. That’s not today’s date…that…that’s a date next week… Bea’s calendar is up in our hut; I saw it before I left, saw this month’s page, and we’re —
Why do the Enhanced Ones have the wrong date up? One that’s… I count on my fingers… Six days ahead?
Unless the spirits have… Hell. They mess with time. We haven’t gone back in time…we’ve gone forward.
Shit.
I turn, ready to show Elf and Yani, but they’ve walked past. Neither of them noticed?
I catch them up quickly, desperately trying to think. I remembered the date from Bea’s calendar correctly, didn’t I? And we left Nbutai the day after Seven’s capture…and we’ve gone forward six days in our journey here? So she’s been here a week—is that right? My head pounds. And Katya too… A week.
My chest tightens. Is that too long? A week’s the cut-off point, isn’t it? So it’ll be fine, right? We can still try on the seventh day…still get them back.
But what if Rahn sees the date, decides we’re too late, and abandons the extraction—because it’s any excuse with him to leave Seven, isn’t it?
And Seven will have thought we weren’t coming for her. And how Untamed will she even be now? A week is the max—but that’s for the strongest ones… We could be too late.
The commentary in my head won’t shut up, and I stare ahead, barely taking in my surroundings.
If we’ve really lost that amount of time in our journey here, will the same number of days have passed at Nbutai too? Are they worrying about us, sending a team out? My head feels like it’s going to explode, and I feel sick.
“Kee.” Elf’s voice is low, and I jump. “How long do we give them to get in place?”
I look around quickly. “Rahn said thirty minutes from set-off. They should be be ready by then.” I lick my lips, wonder whether to say anything about the time, the days. But I don’t want to make them nervous. And we’ll get Seven back. And Katya. We will. I nod. “I’m going to distract from the gardens. Come on.”
The three of us head over there. It’s deep in the middle of New Kimearo—a predominantly walled area of eight acres, split into various gardens and courtyards—but I know there’s a direct path from the conversion compound to it, providing an easy route to draw the Enhanced along. We only ever visit the gardens when we’re distracting or checking for new distraction locations when we’ve got spare time on raids.
“Do you think Rahn will use a purple flare?” Yani asks just as the welcome sign for the gardens comes into view. The gate’s open as always, and I look up at the walls. Red brick. “It’s a sure way to draw the Enhanced Ones’ attention to them.” He shakes his head. “If he has to use a flare, I hope it’s a red one, then we can all get out as quickly as possible.”
Annoyance flares through me at his use of Enhanced Ones. That’s a sure way to draw attention to us. He should use the name they have for themselves—the Chosen Ones—when we’re out here.
“It’s just the emergency protocol,” I say. “Same as always. He’ll only set them off if it’s a last resort to try and save us. And, anyway, he won’t need to signal for help. Seven’s strong, she won’t be mind-converted already.” Even after a week? “And I’ll be distracting them,” I add. “They won’t get caught.”
Elf grunts. “They’d better not. Because I don’t want to leave you without backup.” He shakes his head. “The three of us should be doing the distraction together, not just you.”
Yani nods.
“Hey, I’m the only one wearing neon.” I let out a small laugh.
“You don’t need to look distracting to be the distraction,” Elf mutters.
“It’s got to help,” I say.
But he’s right: it’s safer if a group works together for a distraction. That’s what Corin’s team did when we were trying to rescue Mila. But Rahn must be anticipating trouble, and it’s the only way for him to be sure to have extra backup—and I know he’s confident in my abilities and that I won’t need Yani and Elf helping me. Pride swirls in me, and I hold my head up higher. Out of all the Nbutai villagers, I’m sure I’m the only one who can pull off a distraction for such a big mission single-handedly. Hell, even Yani had trouble doing a distraction on his own when I was getting the keys from the dealership office, and that was just distracting one person.
“We need to go in, check the gardens,” I say. “Check nothing’s changed in the layout. You go left at the gate. I’ll go right. And you need to find a high vantage point to watch me from—on the very rare possibility that I need you for backup. But make sure you’re near an exit in case Rahn needs you. Meet back here in ten, and we’ll have time to finalize my plan.”
“Be careful
,” Elf whispers.
“You too.”
We part.
I already know the rough layout of the gardens and ornamental courtyards. It usually only has few Enhanced patrolling it compared to other parts of New Kimearo, so it’s a great place to draw more of the enemy too.
Many paths wind through the different courtyards and gardens here—lots of routes to be chased down, but I know which ones connect up with which. Shrubbery, hedges, and trees provide plenty to hide behind. I look up at one particular tree. It’s about forty feet tall and doesn’t look like a native species. I could climb up there and fire the gun from high up, giving myself a good vantage point. The Enhanced would flock around the base of it—but then my escape would be limited. Still, I’d have a gun; they wouldn’t climb up to meet me. Last resort then…perhaps only if Rahn sets off the flare. Then Elf and Yani could go on ahead and this could be my new distraction.
I store that info as I move on.
The brick walls only encase three sides of the gardens, and, at the back, there’s a pretty open field-like space that leads to a gray-colored building a few hundred yards beyond. The inside of that building is like a maze. Hundreds of small corridors and intersections. Leading the Enhanced in a dance around the gardens first seems like the obvious choice. Then I can make my exit via the building and its network of corridors—discard my not-so-subtle hoody so I’ll be dressed all in black like the others, and let my hair down—and then meet up again with Elf and Yani. The Enhanced will still be looking for me then, and, by that time, Rahn’s team should have Seven. If not, I could climb the tree, do that plan.
But what about Katya?
I press my lips together. Can Elf, Yani, and I go for her? Head over to the conversion compounds while the Enhanced are still looking for me in the gardens—or the maze-buildings—and get her out too?
It’s a possibility. But it won’t work if Rahn sets the flare off. And it will be going against his plan. But that thought only makes me more determined.
I glance at the stopwatch. I’ve still got a couple minutes before I’m to meet Elf and Yani for final comments on the distraction plan. I head down the path quickly—it will loop back on itself for a moment—and take stock of everything I notice. More flowers. A water-feature. A sundial. Several small saplings tied to canes with red twine.
A Dangerous Game Page 34