One of the Enhanced by the door moves to the side of room and retrieves the implement from a cupboard I hadn’t realized was there—it’s almost as if it just appeared. Then he hands it to Raleigh.
I stare at the sharp points of the scissors as Raleigh holds them in front of me. Two sharp points. Like life and death.
“It’s the way you’re seeing yourself,” Raleigh says. He moves the scissors so they point at my face. “Look at you.” And he gestures for me to lift my head. I do, because the points of the scissors get too close.
I see myself in his eyes. Wild, matted hair, plastered to the side of my face by sweat. Torn clothes—different ones to before…no leggings now. Dark jeans. And a murky colored shirt. When were they changed? I can’t remember…hadn’t even noticed. Oh Gods. I look dirty. And my teeth—they’re dirty. I taste the dirtiness on them.
“You need to start again. A new image,” Raleigh says. “It’s what’s holding you back still. You need to separate yourself from your Untamed image. A clean start.”
He lifts the scissors, and, before I have a chance to process what he means, he cuts off a lock of my hair. I watch it fall to the floor, like a feather. A black feather. Death’s feather.
Then I cry out, twist around, my hands going to my head. “No!”
Raleigh seizes a fistful of my hair, pulls it hard. I struggle, try to fight him, but I’m weak after everything, and he knows that. I move my left hand, feel the cold metal against it before Raleigh directs my hands to go down. The scissors snatch more of my hair.
Snip snip snip.
I try to hit him again, try to kick him—try to do something—but I can’t. Can’t because—
Pain.
Oh Gods!
He laughs.
“Yes, this will work well. It’s exactly what you need. And, wow—don’t you look different? It changes the shape of your face completely. And now the Untamed evil that was in you won’t recognize you any longer. It will want to get away from you.”
My head pounds. Fine hairs stick to my skin. I blink as fast as I can, try to get them away from my eyes.
“Yes,” Raleigh says, still cutting my hair off in uneven chunks. “You’re not its host any longer. The Untamed part doesn’t even know you.”
My breathing speeds up. It doesn’t work like that. I’m still Untamed. Cutting my hair won’t change a thing. But seeing my locks fall around me, feeling the cold metal of the scissors against my scalp, does something to me. Sadness fills me. And I feel stupid. It’s just hair. I’m being vain, like Five.
But it’s me, it’s my hair. It’s part of me.
And then it’s gone. And I look at my head, in Raleigh’s eyes. My hair, what’s left of it, hacked into uneven chunks, some an inch long, other sections cut almost to the scalp.
“And congratulations,” Raleigh says, handing the scissors to one of the other Enhanced. He points back at Elia Jackson’s body. “You’ve used your Seer powers to kill your first victim.” He smiles widely. “And we’re not going to fight anymore, are we? Not now we’re on the same side. And once you’re completely pure, once those last bad tendrils have died and left you, you’ll understand.”
I stare at Elia’s body, feel everything inside me move and shift and burn.
The girl I killed.
No, the girl Raleigh killed.
But me…it was me.
Killed with my power.
Dead.
A child.
Eight years old.
A child…like Kyla.
I look up, see Raleigh beaming at me. “We can probably move onto seeking and conversion powers in a day or so. You’re strong. We could wipe out all the Untamed within a week.”
I feel sick, and I try to run—where, I don’t know—but I only get three steps before I collapse and choke on bile and stomach acid and saliva—too much saliva—and I choke on it for so long, my eyes streaming, my throat burning raw.
I lose track of time as I throw up continuously—covering myself and everything around me in vomit—but, at some point, Raleigh and the Enhanced men disappear. They take Elia’s body with them, then three women come and take me to another room. They strip my clothes off and hold me up under a cold shower. But there are mirrors in here too, and I stare at the marks on my skin, somehow emphasized by the water and my convulsing body as I heave. The small dark punctures—the kavalah spirit scars—they mark me. And the huge gold welts—the Promise Marks. They’re everywhere: my legs, my arms, my face… Not even the fetid soaps and lotions the women drench me with as they try to get rid of the smell of my vomit can mask them.
Raleigh said they were his marks on me. I don’t want any part of Raleigh on me.
I need to get the marks off.
I grab a brush from one of the women. She seems surprised, but lets me take it. It’s got hard bristles, but they’re not hard enough, and I use what little energy I have to scrub at my side, where a gold mark is. I keep scrubbing at it, even when my fingers ache and there’s so much pain everywhere. I feel the burn of the friction, the sharpness of the bristles, and the women start shouting at me, then hands claw the brush back.
I stare at my skin, my head’s all floaty, doesn’t feel right. Red oozes out, around my waist, and I wipe it away with my fingers, smear it to the side, down my thigh. But the gold mark is still there. Not moving now. But it’s alive. I know that.
Oh Gods.
It’s true. Only the Gods and Goddesses can get them off me…and they won’t… They think I’m a traitor. They won’t let me in the Dream Land in case I…in case I kill them… They think I’m an Enhanced Seer… They’ve banished me. They can’t see the truth.
But the blue-eyed Seer knows. Somehow, she knows.
“You think she’s got it too?” one of the women says to the others as they dress me in a pair of blue overalls that are far too big. They roll up the sleeves and the legs. The waist is baggy but it’s a one-piece suit.
“No. Raleigh said this was shock. And the purging of the last bit of the….”
I lose their voices as my head starts to swim. My body flushes hot and then cold. Then hot once more.
I throw up again, but there’s now a bucket next to me, and I manage to get most of it in it. A woman next to me grunts, then takes it away. Her skin is as dark as mine, but her hair is a luminous silver. Like the moon. I stare at her in awe.
Then I’m back in the first room. The room Raleigh first took me to. My cell.
I lie down. Someone’s put a mattress here.
Sleep.
But I can’t sleep. It’s too hot in here, far too hot. Within minutes, the mattress is soaked with sweat. I stink badly, still, and the smell engulfs me. Stuff shifts in my stomach again—don’t know how there’s anything left—and I force myself to sit up, look for the bucket.
It’s back, and I grab it. But everything moves—the walls, everything, and I can’t—
I cry out, see my mother in front of me. She watches me, shakes her head softly.
“Mum!”
I hold my arms out toward her, and then I’m a little girl again—I’m five years old—and she holds me, and I stare at her red-rimmed eyes and her swollen face. Swollen with tears, days and days of crying because Four and Six were taken by the fever only days before the enemy attacked and killed Two, and Corin and Esther’s parents, and we’re all tired. We’ve been walking for days, scared, trying to find a new place to set up village because we had to leave Kyzik.
“She’s delirious again,” my mother says, but she’s not talking to me.
There’s someone else here. A shadow at the back of my room. A girl.
Elia steps forward, her long hair flopping forward, only her hair’s darker now. And her face changes, and her skin and—and now she looks like Kyla, Nyesha’s daughter.
She is her.
I gulp. Then she’s Elia again.
Don’t worry, she says. You freed me. Death was what I wanted. Thank you.
Oh Gods.
I seize th
e bucket; part of me wonders why I’m being sick so much. It’s like when we got that virus before…we all had it, except for Rahn and—
Another wave of nausea rises, and all thoughts are pushed from my mind.
When I’ve finished, I turn back. But there’s no one here now. My legs are wobbly, shaking as I walk around my room. I check all the corners for them, the people. They’re here, somewhere, hiding. Got to be. But the corners get bigger and bigger, stretching farther and farther back, and I can’t reach them and—
My throat.
Fire.
It’s burning.
I grasp at my neck, but it hurts my fingers.
I stare at them, see the deep cuts across my fingers and the palms of my hands.
The white light.
I feel sick, see Elia’s body as I shut my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
And everyone’s gone. It’s just me. Just me.
And the darkness… The darkness is growing…bigger and bigger.
It comes toward me in waves. Huge waves that crash over my head, that pull me down, that drown me.
“Seven?”
The voice is urgent… Urgent and fast… Trying to pull me out of the…out of the water. Water?
I groan as I’m thrown onto the bank, as I taste sand and grit and feel rough abrasions all over me. Waves of exhaustion try to hold me down.
“Seven? Are you awake?”
Esther’s words start to fade, get dimmer because of the buzzing in my ears that’s taking over everything.
I sit up slowly. Every single part of me aches. I breathe hard, heavily, try to focus on something, but my eyes are blurry. I bring a hand up, touch my head. Pain rebounds through my temples, and I wince, freeze until it settles. Then my vision clears.
I see the cage I’m in. And the rows of cages, the metal bars. A person in each one…and Esther, she’s in the cage next to me.
Fading mirrors dance in her eyes. For a second, I can only stare.
I move closer to her, slowly, dragging myself. My legs…they feel different. I touch my forehead, my hand shaking. My blue overalls rustle.
I look around at the cells—the cages, the people in them. Then back at Esther. She’s got overalls on too. We all have. I stare at her, at the rashes that have spread down both sides of her face.
“What…?” I shake my head as I look back and forth. Oh Gods. I feel awful. My head, it’s heavy, achy and… I look at Esther. “We’re locked up?”
She nods, squints at me. “Your rash is gold?”
“What?”
“You’re covered in a gold rash.” She lifts her own arm, rolls back the sleeve of her overalls, and against her creamy skin I see thousands of tiny red dots. “Most of us have got rashes…but yours is gold.”
My stomach twists. I try not to look at them, the marks, and concentrate on my surroundings instead. “What is this? These cages…” I frown, can’t remember coming here.
“Quarantine,” a weak voice says.
I turn, wince as my sore muscles protest. A Zharat woman. I recognize her distantly. My eyes focus almost too much until she’s too sharp, too in focus. Nausea rises, and I bring a hand to my mouth.
“We’re all sick,” she says. “They’ve sectioned us off to protect themselves.”
Sick?
I look around, head spinning. I start counting. Five…ten…fifteen…twenty….
“There are one hundred and forty-eight of us, across the different quarantine bays.” Esther’s voice is raspy. “Including you.” She sighs. “They got us. When we were trying to escape, when the volcano exploded.”
“It didn’t explode,” a Zharat man says. “It was a steam release.”
“Right into our living chambers,” the woman who spoke first says. “The Gods were angry with us. Forced us out of our home.”
The Zharat all start talking now, and I lose track of their words, just can’t focus. Can’t concentrate. Their words are like butterflies soaring over me, twirling round and round, weaving invisible threads around me, pulling them tighter and tighter. A mesh of words.
Esther shifts her weight on her side of the bars. When she looks at me, the circles under her eyes seem even bigger. Her bottom lip wobbles. “Corin’s left us.”
Her eyes darken. The fading mirrors look strange in them. She’s running lean—but she’s not acting like she is…is she? There’s no desperation. No jumpiness. No obvious anxiety. I don’t understand. This can’t be real. A dream? A nightmare?
I pull my hand back, fold my arms. My chest feels strange. Hollow. And my stomach—sick. This has to be a nightmare. The augmenters wouldn’t let me feel sick. They shouldn’t.
“Seven, didn’t you know?” Esther looks at me carefully. “Corin’s escaped.”
I nod. “I knew.”
Her eyes widen a little. “And you’re okay with that? Being left here? He didn’t even try and get me out. I didn’t even see him. Not after they caught us, brought us here, and—”
“But he’s safe now,” I say. Or at least he is until Raleigh’s men find him.
Or until I’m forced to locate him.
I breathe deeply, try to steady myself, my thoughts. It’s not going to happen. It won’t get that far. I’ll escape. I will. I’ll do something.
“He’s safe, and we’re not.” Esther says darkly, then looks at me with a different light in her eyes. “What’s going on? Your eyes….”
“What?” My heart rate shoots up, and I lean against the bars to steady myself.
“They’re darkening. The mirrors are fading.” Esther frowns again.
“So are yours.”
She presses her lips together for a second. “Why are they letting us be Untamed again? I don’t understand… I thought augmenters were supposed to be addictive. But I don’t feel… Do you?” She winces, as if she doesn’t like asking the question.
My eyes narrow. I should feel happy, I know that. Or if not happy, something positive. Calm? But I don’t. I’m shaking. I feel jittery. Like I’ve got withdrawal symptoms—yet Esther hasn’t, and her mirrors are fading too….
This isn’t real. It can’t be. The Enhanced wouldn’t let us become Untamed again…this is… I look around. The cages. A manifestation of my mind? My soul trying to separate the Untamed part of me, locking it away where Raleigh can’t get to it, can’t destroy it. A prison where I’m trapping my memories of Esther and the Zharat, trying to keep them Untamed too….
But they’ve all got partial-mirrors….
So Raleigh’s been here? Got them…partly. My head pounds.
“Seven? Do you feel it? Do you want augmenters?” Esther’s voice wavers, and I look across at her, see her pale. She clutches her stomach, breathing deeply. Behind her, there’s a bucket.
My own stomach churns, and I shake my head when she looks back at me. No, I don’t want augmenters.
Yes, you do. Don’t lie to yourself.
But I can lie…and it’s not lying. Is it?
My gaze returns to Esther just as she starts coughing, and then she leans forward, away from me. But I see the frown on her face, the same frown that Corin has.
Corin.
I picture him. Rugged, handsome. I know I should feel a pull. I should feel something. But I don’t—because this isn’t real. Because I can’t feel properly in here, locked away….
Or because the augmenters won’t let me feel love for him, excitement…because Raleigh’s controlling me, choosing what I do, what I feel.
No, that’s not right. That’s not—
I freeze as I see him.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “Oh Gods.”
I try to lift my hands up, to protect myself, but they shake and—
It’s him.
He’s here too.
Alive.
Not dead. And—
Oh Gods.
Jed.
My breath catches on my teeth, my ribs squeeze together. No. No. No. But—but it is, it is
, oh Gods. And he’s in my cage, and he’s moving closer, and he’s bending over me, and his lips are by my ear.
“You do not feel anything for him anymore, because you are my wife, S’ven. You are mine,” he whispers.
I scream, and Esther turns back, still coughing, her face red, and the Zharat are looking at me and—
And he’s gone—Jed’s gone and—
“What the hell?” My words are shaky. I point at thin air. “Did you see him? He was there…and now he’s… Jed was here.”
Esther shakes her head. Her skin looks sallow under the crimson splodges and rashes. “We’re all seeing things. People. My mum was here and….”
Her mother. She’s seeing someone she wants to see. I’m not. I don’t want to see Jed. But my mind’s playing tricks. Why him? Why’s it making me think Jed—of all people—is here?
Oh Gods. It’s Raleigh. It’s down to him, has to be, he’s playing with me. I’m a toy, and he’s….
“Stop it!” I yell out, know he’s watching, somehow, somewhere. Or is he here?
I struggle to stand, to move, looking around. I grab the bars as dizziness pulls at me, use them to support myself. Then I shake them. I need to get out. I won’t be played with.
I won’t.
“Seven?”
I turn back to Esther—Esther with her nearly-Untamed eyes. No. This can’t be real. She was being converted earlier…was it earlier? Or yesterday? A day ago? I don’t know how much time has passed since I’ve been here. A couple of days, surely? But none of this can really be happening.
Esther exhales. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“That,” says a new voice, “is exactly what I’d like to know.”
Raleigh. I look up. He is here. He’s playing with me. I see the big boiler suit he’s wearing and the safety visor in front of his face, and a strange feeling—like thick, tarry bubbles—passes over me. He looks ridiculous. This is my dream, and I’ve made him look like that…because I don’t want to see him. Because the suit creates a barrier, and now he can’t get to me.
“Right,” Raleigh says, directing his word at me as he stops outside my cage. “Tell me what you’ve done.”
I frown, try to keep looking at him, but my eyes are tired, so tired. And I don’t understand. This is my…imagination. Mine. So, I’m in charge.
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