“Seven’s in there too, and—”
Distant shouts fill my ears.
My breath catches in my throat. The fire’s in front of me, cutting me off. But it doesn’t look real. Can’t be a real fire…not when the Enhanced are out there, they wouldn’t set our house alight on purpose. A mistake. They can’t be trying to flush us out. They’re not violent, they’re—
Hands grab me from behind, and I shriek. I twist, see Kayden, red hair shining. See the sweat on his skin as he pulls me with him. But I only see him for a second, because then the smoke is there. Dense, black smoke. Smoke that tries to cut me off and—
Kayden stabs an Enhanced One with a knife.
And there’s someone else in here, another Untamed person because more gunshots are going off and—
I trip, pain twisting through my ankle. And the carpet is burning…fumes and…something hisses against my skin. I cry out, trying to move, but there’s nowhere to go, just a wall.
My body hunkers, fear grasps me. I try to look, try to see someone, and—
“Faya!”
A hand pulls me up, and then—
Then the window, appearing through the smoke, and—
I soar toward it, catapulted, glide through the gap and—
Behind me, the walls collapse. Sparks fly out, hit me. So many sparks…my skin… I scream. Pain, too much pain, and….
“Keep her alive. Do everything you can. She must survive. I’m not losing her….”
“Yes, sir. I’ll need to do another round of bloods and….”
More people… They’re moving too quickly, I can’t keep up. So many faces, with their mirrors, and voices. Voices, shouting and shouting. Panic. But they weren’t in the burning house…so why are they here, breaking into my memory?
The smell of coffee washes over me, and I gasp. Open my eyes. But everything’s blurry, too blurry. Can only see shapes and colors. Reds and grays. Pale blues that stretch on and on, forever.
“Are you sure it’s them that are causing this? Why aren’t we….”
“The signs were there before. It’s to do with this group. I don’t understand. But Esther Eriksen collapsed after the very first…”
“So it wasn’t the Tranquility and Sleepiness that….”
“No. We thought the grade must’ve been too high, but….”
An alarm goes off. Bleep. Bleep. Bleep. People move. More people, rushing past.
“… I want a full team of scientists down here. We need to know why this has happened, why these individuals are reacting and why it’s so bad now. I want the medical….”
Bleep. Bleep. Bleep.
“… Get onto the Section, see if there are any similar reports and….”
Something hot passes over me. Another light. Too bright.
A radio crackles.
“We’ve lost two in bay six. Severe anaphylactic reactions. Both stopped breathing within three minutes of tonight’s third administration of….”
And then Raleigh’s here, right in front of me. But he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at someone else, a woman. She’s standing on the other side of my bed, and papers are passed over me. She’s beautiful, with perfect skin and glossy, black hair. She’s pale, but she also looks like Jed, the parts of him that don’t look like his father.
Raleigh swears loudly, then looks down at me. His fingers reach for my face and touch my chin roughly. He looks into my eyes, before asking the woman for my temperature. She tells him, and he grunts, shaking his head.
Then he nods at her. “All of them. We’ll have to.”
The beautiful woman’s lips quiver as she tucks her hair behind her ears. “But then we wouldn’t be saving them… We’d be letting them live with their fear and violent thoughts.”
Raleigh leans over me, until his face is an inch from the beautiful woman’s. “Zahlia, we have no choice! If we don’t, we’ll lose them all.” He gestures around us, and my vision starts to blur again. “It’s too dangerous at the moment. We’ve lost some already. Antihistamines aren’t working, and we’ve got eight more in a critical condition since we topped up those in bay one.”
He pauses for a long time. When he speaks again, his voice is low and controlled.
“No, I am not risking Shania’s life. We have to stop until we know why our augmenters are killing these Untamed.”
I dream of the sky, and I’m outside, and the sky is a soft blue, edged in gray clouds—the kind that are heavy and dense, yet won’t give up their water—and I’m running, feet throwing up sand.
I keep running, weaving around clumps of grasses, but my rhythm’s bad; I’m not breathing properly and—
I stumble over a ridge. Long, flaxen-colored grass brushes my legs, but there’s something sharp in it too. Thorns. Pain and—
I glance down, my hand batting at my right knee and—
The legs aren’t mine. The skin’s the wrong color. It’s too pale, but sections are reddened with sunburn and—
I freeze. Only the body doesn’t freeze.
The body keeps running. I keep on running, twisting to the left, turning my head back for a second. A glimpse of more land—dry and dusty, with clumps of grass and a few stilted trees. I cough and—
This isn’t my body.
I breathe in deeply, aware that somewhere else, my own short, sharp breaths are audible. But not here, not when—
But it’s a dream. And I’m dreaming I’m free because I desire it most and—
A Seeing dream?
I try to look high at the sky, but my head—no, the person’s head—isn’t tilting that far up now. All I can see are the sparse trees with their flattened tops, the bumpy horizon in the distance, small beige mounds rising out of the plateau into the lowest murky clouds.
The person—me—coughs again. Deep and throaty. A man. He wipes a hand over the back of his mouth, and I see his hand—thick fingers, hardened skin over the knuckles—but only for a second, then he’s pumping his arms.
I’m pumping my arms, because I’m in his body, and it feels like I must be moving, but I’m not. I’m not in control. I’m just here. Trapped.
Oh Gods.
My stomach tightens. Don’t know if it’s his or mine.
But I’m—
He’s Untamed.
The thought flies at me. I’m in an Untamed man’s body.
I’m—
He coughs again, and I go cold. How didn’t I notice? That cough? That sound—that tone.
It’s him.
I’m him.
He’s out here, free.
And I’m in Corin’s body.
When I open my eyes, I know two things. One: I’m myself, I’m Untamed. Two: I had the weirdest dream ever. It’s like no dream I’ve had before. Seeing dreams I remember with clarity, and little details of those don’t make sense. Nightmares haunt me after I wake up, even if it’s just the impressions of them that are left. And normal dreams often die the moment I open my eyes.
Yet this one… A strange feeling builds inside me. Corin.
I breathe his name. Remember the sensation of me running—running with his body.
Is Corin coming back for me?
My mind races and my shoulders feel strange, too tense, like the muscles are too hard. Do I want him to come back for me—to risk him getting caught again? I don’t know. My heart cries an emphatic yes, but my head says no.
He’s safer out there.
I stare at the big light above me. The lightshade is ornate, and I blink into the brightness, pick out the swirls there. I’m in a different room. I turn my head, see pale yellow walls. Then I take a deep breath and sit up. Metal jangles again metal, and I flinch, look down, see the manacle around my wrist and the chain attaching it to an iron unit on the wall, a few feet along from me.
Locked up, restrained, because I’m Untamed.
A smile breaks across my lips as if a switch has been flicked and new life has bolted into me. Tears well up as I close my eyes for a second—as
it really sinks in.
Untamed.
Untamed.
Untamed.
I blink as words echo through my mind: poison and augmenters and fluids and scans. I see Raleigh with his head in his hands, next to me, and then him shaking his head. The distant memories of people shouting fill me. And then me—lying on something cool, feeling weak, someone stroking my forehead gently and….
I flinch. How much time has passed? I don’t feel weak now. I flex my fingers slowly. I feel strong, better. Untamed. And the augmenters were making us sick?
I slouch, let my head fall back against the wall, and my lips buzz with energy, with the need to smile. I’m Untamed, and now it’s possible—it’s got to be; the Enhanced aren’t going to win now. Somehow, I’m going to escape.
Because I’m Untamed. And Corin’s still out there, and we’re going to find each other.
And they’re letting us be Untamed and—
“This doesn’t change anything.”
Raleigh stands in the doorway to my new room, to the right. I hadn’t noticed him—or the door—and, suddenly, I feel stupid, too preoccupied with my Untamed state and my dream of Corin to take in my surroundings. Oh Gods, if my father knew….
I take a deep breath and look at Raleigh as confidently as I can.
“This does not mean you are winning.” Raleigh crosses the distance between us, quickly and efficiently. “And this—” He points at my eyes, my Untamed eyes. “This is only temporary. As soon as my labs know why you were all reacting to our augmenters, we can resolve the issue and quell the darkness once more. Do not worry, you won’t be Untamed for long. I will not keep you like this, for long. It would not be fair, would it?”
He touches the chain, the part high up on the wall, makes it jangle more, sending ripples of movement to my left wrist. The chain is about six feet long; the length means I can move about if I want, and that makes me smile.
“But you must still fight for us even when you’re one of them,” Raleigh says. “Fight for the Chosen Ones. Do not let the Untamed evil have a big part of you again. Keep it locked up. I’m sure you can do it, even on your own without the augmenters, you’re strong, my darling. I know you can do it, and it will make it all the easier for you, when we have suitable augmenters, if you haven’t regressed back to your truly wild state. Just think of the happiness our lifestyle offers…never having to feel negative emotions, never being in pain, never—”
I lift my arm up, test the full weight of the chain, and the clanging metal cuts him off. I stand, slowly, carefully. Raleigh steps back a little, but only an inch or so. Momentarily, I see my Untamed eyes reflected in his as he moves his head a little. It makes me feel giddy, seeing them, seeing my eyes. Giddy, but good. Things aren’t as bad anymore. They’re really not.
“Where are the others?” My voice is light, bubbly.
“The ones who survived are each in solitary confinement.”
“What?”
I start to shake. Anxiety floods me. Waves and waves of it. And it feels worse—more horrible than ever before…because the augmenters were working then, even though they were making us sick? Or did that cancel them out? But the Zharat—they weren’t calm, weren’t free of negative emotions. They shouted at me to stab myself—a negative command. Or maybe their anger was curbed slightly?
I swallow hard. Augmenters are supposed to be so good they’re addictive. But I’m not yearning for augmenters. Just the thought of one makes me feel sick. Has the sickness conditioned me not to like them? The opposite of what they’re supposed to do….
And they’ve killed people, the augmenters have killed people?
Raleigh presses his lips together for a moment. “It’s too risky to keep you together. Being around other Untamed would cause the parasites in each of you to strengthen. You would cultivate plans of evil together. No, each of you will only see myself and my men. Do not look so alarmed, Shania. You will be allowed out as soon as we have this augmenter problem fixed and you are all Chosen Ones properly—once you can all be happy and productive members of society. I truly am sorry for this delay. It has never happened before.”
I stare at him. “Who… Who’s still…” I can’t speak, my words are too thick. I get sudden images of Esther and Clare—dead—flashing through my mind. “Is… Are….”
The corners of Raleigh’s lips lift up. “Like I said, this doesn’t change anything. I still have command over your soul, and I can still control your body.” He nods, and I clap—I just do it, and I know it’s him, proving to me what he’s saying. The chain clatters in laughter. A second passes, and then pain forks through me. Raleigh smiles. “We will have our second session later today.”
“Session?”
I go cold. I blink and see Elia’s body. Everything in me slackens.
No. No. No.
“I’m not wasting time.” Raleigh edges closer, closer than before, and my eyes have trouble adjusting to the sudden proximity. “And you still need to learn more about your powers. You just have to make sure the darkness isn’t fueling them. You’re so strong, my darling. You can do it.”
My heart beats a little faster. I was Untamed before…wasn’t I…when he made me kill Elia Jackson… I was still Untamed in my mind then—the augmenters weren’t working and I was resisting…and me being Untamed didn’t stop him. And he’s got my soul. I can’t fight him. Not even now. He can still control me…but can I resist better now? Being physically Untamed as well as psychologically has got to count for something… It has to. But I need to be careful too, I know that. And I don’t know for sure if being physically Untamed will help. I don’t know anything. Not really.
I lift my gaze, need to appear strong. “But there’s no point… If we can’t have augmenters, you can’t convert us, whatever my powers are…and….”
“Oh, Shania. So naive.” Amusement dances on Raleigh’s lips. “My men are working on the augmenters now, and they will create a safe composition for you once we’ve isolated the ingredient you’re all reacting to. By the time the labs have the modified augmenters ready for you, you and I will have worked out your conversion powers, and you will be able to rescue the remaining Untamed with no problems. We are still going to save everyone. We cannot let a little problem like this stop us.”
My fingers click as I squeeze my hands into tight fists. I shake my head. “No… I’m not doing—”
Sudden pain snaps through my head, and I flinch.
Raleigh laughs. “I still control your soul, and I can still inflict great pain on you if you do not co-operate. Don’t think that just because you’re Untamed again, you have an advantage. You don’t. It’s the darkness in you, Shania. Remember, it manipulates you. You will still do as I say because I will help you to be good. And you need to understand that I’m doing this because it is the right thing to do. It’s a pity the parasite is still active in you, that it’s going to try and mar your way of thinking. But you can fight it. And you will.”
My breathing gets shallower as I stare at him.
He bows his head slightly, so the new angle means his mirrors are directly in front of my eyes again, closer and steadier this time, only inches away. And I see my Untamed eyes, see them perfectly, properly, and I stare at them, feel the same giddiness, the wonder. At me. At him.
“Should the evil in you even attempt anything, your Untamed friends would suffer.”
Raleigh leans toward me more, going slightly to my left. I stiffen, eyes widening, heart pounding. His lips move toward my ear, and I freeze.
“So, let’s just make that clear now, shall we?” he whispers, and his words catch my breath in my throat. “I have no qualms in hurting Untamed creatures if it means you obey. It will be for the greater good.” There’s something about his whisper, something dangerous in it, that crawls under my skin. “But if you force me to hurt your friends, then you would watch it—via video link, of course. And they would know—your friends—they’d know the pain they are experiencing is because o
f you.” Raleigh smiles as he pulls back and straightens up. He moves away from me. “They’d know they’re suffering because you let the evil in you take hold, because you are trying to make my job harder and make everyone hurt.”
I stare at him, my body shaking, and the chain rattles like a bad omen.
His smile gets wider. His teeth almost seem to glow. “Like I said, you being temporarily Untamed doesn’t change a thing. You are still on our side, under my control, and you will ensure that the Chosen Ones are the only survivors of this war. Got it? Good. I’ll be back later for our session.”
He leaves, and the light goes out, plunging me into darkness. His words ring in my head. I try to ignore what he’s said…pretend that it didn’t happen, that there is still a way out of here—because I’m Untamed now, but the thought of Esther or Clare—or both of them—being dead won’t leave me.
What if it was them who didn’t make it?
No. Raleigh would’ve told me. He’d be happy to rub it in… He’d… Oh Gods.
At least Corin’s not here.
“Raleigh!” I shout, and my voice breaks. But I keep shouting. If I make enough noise, he’ll come back.
And I bellow his name, over and over. But there’s nothing.
I scream until I’m shaking, until I can feel sweat dripping down my back, until my throat is even more swollen.
Raleigh doesn’t come running back.
No one does.
Solitary confinement, until the next session? Can I wait that long to find out which Untamed died?
I blink, but I may as well have my eyes shut. It’s too dark in here now.
For a second, I imagine all sorts of horrible things in here with me. Rats and skunks and scorpions. I think I feel something brush against my foot, and I yank it toward me quickly, stand on trembling legs. My breathing is loud—too loud.
And I’m trapped here…until later… I shudder and see Elia Jackson lying on the floor, strangely illuminated in the darkness. I freeze, shake my head, and she disappears. No. I can’t. No, I need to get out.
I go to first to the iron unit on the wall and try to see if there’s a way to detach my chain from it. There isn’t, so I search the room as best as I can, still fettered.
Divided Page 11