And I keep thinking about it all night, as I curl up in bed with the terrier. He croons softly, and I listen to his regular breathing. But I can’t sleep.
I notice a small digital clock on the bottom shelf. I move it to the top. Then I look at the books.
I’ve never really read a book before, but I know how to read. My parents taught me. They taught all of us children, back at Kyzik and our homes before that. And it’s important; being able to read signs when you’re raiding a town or city is vital.
The first book I pick up is Poems to Free the Mind by A Chosen Seer. Odes and ballads about many beautiful, victorious cities, where people can only feel happiness, and how wonderful it all is.
I put the book down quickly, and curl back up with my dog.
My dog.
I still can’t believe it.
But as I lie there with him, not really thinking about anything, my eyelids start to feel heavier. I breathe deeper, and then I’m dragged into the world of the sleeping.
Elia is waiting for me. She offers me her hand.
I take it.
I tell Elia how sorry I am.
But she won’t listen.
And so I tell her again as she stares up at me with big doleful eyes—eyes that change and become my terrier’s.
But Elia never listens, no matter how hard I try to tell her.
It’s like she can’t….
Can’t.
The next day, Raleigh knocks on my door twice before coming in. I’m still in bed, and I drag the duvet over me quickly, covering my bare shoulders as I sit up. I slept in my underwear, and my overalls are on the floor. My Seer pendant has fallen onto the sheets, and I shift my weight, cover it quickly.
My dog’s next to me on the bed, and he watches the Enhanced One suspiciously.
“And how are you today?” Raleigh asks, smiling.
“I slept a bit better,” I say slowly.
He continues smiling, and it unnerves me. He folds his arms slowly. “I have a fun day planned for you.”
I stare at him, waiting. “A fun day?”
“Yes. I’ve not been treating you very kindly. After all, it’s not your fault I cannot save you yet. And perhaps my previous treatment of you is fueling the Untamed parasite, contributing to your grief. So, I am changing my ways.” He smiles. “You wanted to run.”
I sit up straighter. “We’re going outside?”
Hope surges through me, and I’ve got visions of me outside, running. Running through sand and desert and trees, with my dog next to me. Free at last.
“We’re going to the leisure center,” Raleigh says. “It has a great gym. Now, get ready. We’ll bring your dog too.”
Raleigh shuts the door, and I grab my pendant and get ready quickly, trying to fathom him out. He’s being too nice. There’s got to be a catch. But the gym, it could have windows in it. Or an emergency exit? It could have something. Or maybe we’ll pass near where Esther and the others are being kept. If I can break them out….
And maybe the fun day is for them as well, and we’ll see each other. We could group together, get out, escape—but escape properly. Find some way to get out of here fast. Maybe Corin, on the outside, will have thought of something, have something in place so we can just go. Go and be free. And maybe when I’m out there, away from all the badness here, my Seer powers will return?
But, on the way to the leisure center, Raleigh tells me it’s just me who’s to have the fun day.
“But that’s not fair,” I counter. “The other Untamed aren’t choosing to be allergic to the augmenters either, to be unable to be saved.”
“But the Zharat have ten times the amount of evil that you have, my darling butterfly. With you, it is the parasite. With them, it is their nature too. They are ruthless, violent people. I was so disappointed when my son joined them.”
My mood darkens.
“But you didn’t exactly give him a choice about who he was going to join, did you?” I glance down at the dog, check he’s still with us as we weave through corridors. “Jed told me you abandoned him and his sisters, Raleigh. They were just children—barely more than babies. And you didn’t take them with you.”
Raleigh is quiet for a moment. “Zahlia didn’t want them with us.”
“Zahlia?” I frown.
“Their mother,” Raleigh says, his tone dismissive. “And she was right. We had a long way to travel to reach a city, and the spirits were not kind to us. The children were too little. They would’ve died had they been with us.”
“Jed died anyway. You killed him. Don’t pretend you care about them.”
He shrugs. “My girls are still out there, and they will be saved when you save everyone. For once, the Untamed evil is doing a good thing in keeping them alive until the time is right for them to become Chosen Ones.”
Until the time’s right? I stare at him. But the Enhanced always want to save everyone there and then, as soon as possible. No, there’s something he’s not telling me. Lying? A bad trait. Or just withholding information?
“My girls, my beautiful girls will soon be with us,” Raleigh says, his voice soft, and the way he says my girls makes me shiver, makes me realize I don’t know who Jed’s sisters are. Were they at the Zharat cave when I was? Why didn’t I know them? Why wasn’t I introduced to them?
I think of Jeena, Jed’s daughter, Raleigh’s granddaughter. I wonder what happened to her. Is she here too, imprisoned? Or is she one of the Zharat who escaped? Or one of the ones who was killed in the steam eruption? My stomach clenches, and I try not to think about it.
“Here we are,” Raleigh says a few minutes later.
We step through a doorway into a room that is most definitely not a leisure center.
“A kitchen?” I say.
“You haven’t had breakfast.”
“You didn’t care about that before. I’ve barely been fed here.”
Raleigh doesn’t say anything, just goes to the cooker where a pan of steaming porridge sits. He takes two dishes out of a cupboard nearby and then ladles the creamy mixture in. So we’re going to be eating together. And this is…this is weird.
“And what would your dear dog like? Sirloin steak? A pack of gourmet chicken and turkey mix?”
“Ordinary dog food is fine,” I say, exhaling quickly as I look around for any knives.
The terrier whines at me, as if he knows I’ve chosen the less than luxury version. But I don’t want him getting used to gourmet food, not when very soon I plan to be out there, in the wilds again. Don’t want the dog becoming a fussy eater—he’ll need to eat what we can find.
“Do you like the porridge?” Raleigh asks as we eat at a small table at the side of the kitchen. Again, there’s no window in here. He’s being careful of that. And there’s also nothing I can use as a weapon either. The dishes are plastic and the spoons are wooden.
I nod, and I remember how Marouska used to make it. My father said hers was the best uji he’d ever tasted. “So are we going to the gym after this?”
“Not so soon after eating, Shania! We don’t want to make ourselves sick. No, I’ve got a surprise first.”
A surprise. I stare down at the remaining porridge in my bowl. It’s going lumpy.
“Don’t look so worried,” Raleigh says. “You’ll like what I’ve got planned for you. You’ll like it a lot.”
We go to a room with an enormous screen. His private cinema, he calls it. And then he corrects himself. It’s Zahlia’s, he says. But he outranks her, and, when he’s in her city, he’s in charge.
He shows me a film. A romantic comedy. I don’t like it, nor do I like how close Raleigh sits next to me, or that we’re the only ones in there, when there are hundreds of seats. My dog’s in with us though. And that makes me feel better.
Finally, hours later, Raleigh gives me a neon orange tank top and black shorts to change into, and then we reach the leisure center. There are no windows in the gym.
He sets me up on a running machine, a
nd then I just start running. He’s making me run—I know that—but part of me enjoys it anyway. I run for half an hour, and then I try out different machines. I like the rowing machine and the lift platform—though I find I’m weaker than I thought, and Raleigh makes me stop. When I see the sign for the pool, I’m glad he doesn’t suggest swimming. I shudder, remember the black lake.
I want to shower, but apparently that’s not on the schedule.
We eat again.
And then an Enhanced girl about my age comes over, introduces herself as Stacey. She says they’ve set up a clothes shop for me in the next room, and she’ll help me pick out some new outfits as my gym clothes will need washing and I needn’t wear my overalls all the time. She says it like it was my choice to wear the overalls in the first place. I glance at Raleigh, and he nods.
Feeling strange, I go with the girl. Raleigh doesn’t come, but I feel him exerting power over my soul, my body, making sure I can’t run off.
“You’ve got a great figure already,” Stacey says, smiling as we reach the clothes room—again, no windows. “You won’t need many physical alteration processes when you are finally able to become a Chosen One.”
I nod vaguely, then smile.
Stacey’s calmer around me than the other Enhanced I’ve passed in the corridors today. The others seemed wary about me being Untamed. But not Stacey. I wonder how many augmenters she’s been given, how many it took to override her—her fear? But fear is negative, and the Enhanced shouldn’t feel it.
But Dr. Andy was definitely scared when I saw him. Worried I’d harm him because I’m evil. Maybe he was running lean. Maybe the daily augmenters aren’t enough to overcome their fear of us, to make them happy around us. Maybe they run lean quicker when I’m around….
Stacey picks out a long dress for me, and then some ridiculously high heels, and a couple of scarves. I choose the simplest of the clothes on offer—the ones easiest for escaping in: shirts, shorts, jeans that don’t restrict movement. Keep the choices practical.
“You can have more than one posh dress,” Stacey says. “Raleigh won’t mind.”
To please her, I slide a navy blue chiffon dress off a hanger. She’s still talking—saying she can book me in for waxing treatments, if I want them—but then I see some tennis shoes, and her words float away. My chest feels lighter as I run my fingers over the shoes. I examine the soles. Sturdy. Stacey’s face drops when I pick the tennis shoes over a second pair of heels.
I’m delivered back to Raleigh, and the last stop in the day is that chair-machine again. Raleigh checks my Seer status.
It’s still the same.
But he’s not angry. He just smiles, and the expression looks so fake on him that I shudder. “Don’t worry, Shania. Your grief must be healing now. Soon, your powers will come back. Soon. I promise.”
Two more days of Raleigh being kind, of him giving me ‘fun’ days, follow that first one. Two more days of him acting strangely, of me feeling nervous. Two more days of other Enhanced Ones trying to be my friends—those who are brave enough to mix with me, the wild girl, or given enough augmenters so they don’t fear me—and two more days of Raleigh testing me at regular intervals and still finding that I’m not a Seer. Two more days of me looking around the compound, going to new places, and creating a mental map of the layout. Two more days of me searching for windows or any weapons. Two more days of me eating well and building my strength.
Two more days in which I wait for Jed to come back and own up to what he’s done. Two more days in which he doesn’t.
And I don’t like it.
Raleigh drops me back at my room at the end of this third ‘fun’ day, and I curl up with the dog.
“What’s going on?” I whisper to him. “And when are they going to fix the augmenters?”
The terrier looks at me, his eyes big and wide. I’d thought the new augmenters would be ready by now—so does that mean the new lot didn’t pass the testing? I tried to ask Raleigh, but he just said he didn’t know. And I was sure that was a lie. It had to be. He’s the leader. Of course he’d know.
It makes me uneasy, and it’s no surprise to me when, that night, my dreams are waiting for me.
There’s a girl running, ahead of me, down corridors. She wears a pale blue pinafore—the exact same shade as my en suite’s tiles—and golden sandals. Every few minutes she looks back at me, checks that I’m still following, but no matter how fast or hard I run, I can’t catch up. She stays just that little bit ahead of me.
“Come on!” the girl cries. A sing-song voice. It’s a game. “Come on, don’t be slow! We’ve got to run.”
We pass no one else as we run. No doors. No windows. It’s just a corridor. A long, rectangular tube that stretches on and on.
My breathing gets harder. An hour I’ve been running now, chasing her.
“Stop!” I call after her. “Please.”
But she doesn’t stop, and then she’s gone. Disappeared.
I can’t see her ahead. It’s too dark or she’s not there.
My skin crawls. A tingling at first, but then it gets sharper, harder. I look down. See the gold Promise Marks on my forearms…see them moving. Like insects crawling about. My stomach tightens, my throat dries.
The floor tilts. I throw my arms out, try to catch myself, but the floor’s soft as it comes up, as it—
It wraps around me, a cocoon that gets tighter and tighter.
Squeeze!
My breath bursts from me. And, when I try to drag the next gulp of air in, the floor presses against my mouth. Stiff fibers, and then they’re inside my mouth, rubbing at my tongue, my teeth—abrasive, horrible.
I scream, but the scream gets stuck, and I try to fight the fabric around me.
I hear footsteps, a soft murmur—from outside, outside my web.
My nails tear at the fabric; something warm touches my head.
Light.
Sunlight.
I’m outside.
Automatically, I look up at the sky. Blue. Not a cloud in sight.
No bison.
Of course, there wouldn’t be. Even in my dreams I can remember.
The land is flat, the color somewhere between dusty orange and blush pink. There are buildings. Concrete buildings, huge blocks piling up around me.
I jump back, out of the way of one, and—
The ground shakes.
“Sev! Wake up!”
I whirl around, see him—Corin.
He’s here.
It’s him.
Then he’s got my hand, and we’re running. Running fast. Faster than either of us should physically be able to go. We’re like lightning, weaving between the buildings, the electricity poles, the—
We’re out in the open, the soft desert.
Corin’s hand burns stronger. My head turns toward him.
His eyes are mirrors.
Mirrors.
I go cold, try to pull my hand from his, but he holds on tighter.
“We have to be together,” he says. “I told you we’d always be together, Sev.”
A cage. A cage around me.
Run!
“Come on, this way! Show me the way!”
The way?
“The way to—”
Stop it!
A flash of white light. My head pounds, and I’m—
I’m falling.
Plummeting down, down, down.
No….
I try to—
See the ground coming up at me.
Empty!
See the ground getting closer….
Where are they?
The ground stops. Everything stops. I stop.
I’m suspended in the air.
In darkness.
Nothing but nothingness for company.
You’re doing it, aren’t you?
The darkness is my friend.
Minutes pass.
How are you doing it?
The darkness is soft.
A blanket, but
not like the carpet that squeezed me.
A blanket of thoughts, comforting me.
HOW ARE YOU DOING IT?
I jolt awake—properly awake and—
Something’s over my mouth, something….
I scream into the thing—the hand—try to move, kick out.
Bright light and—
Needles in my head, diving deeper and deeper.
I try to twist, try to—
What the—
My Seer powers?
The chair. I’m in the chair.
And Raleigh stands in front of me. A wicked look plasters his face. “This isn’t good enough, Shania.”
“Your powers are still blocked.” Raleigh shakes his head, his earlier kindness gone. Now, there’s something dark and dangerous in his voice, his face, his manner. “This isn’t right, Shania. No, no, no. Your conscious mind is…” He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. “It’s your grief. Has to be. But you’re not even trying to get over it. And with all I’ve done for you as well, getting your dog back and the fun days—and you’ve looked so peaceful in your sleep! No—this is just selfish, holding onto your grief, using it as a shield.”
I twist around as much as the chair with the wires will allow—at least the needles are no longer in my head. I’m still in my room. The new room. But the chair’s here—that machine.
The dog? Where is he?
How has this… Raleigh. Oh Gods.
“You’re being selfish.” Raleigh steps closer, stoops a little, until his face is directly in front of mine. “You shouldn’t be able to hold onto grief this long, this strongly.” He shakes his head. “Get over it now and get your powers back. I know you can do it.”
I force my neck to turn, manage to look to my left. See a shape on the floor, see—
It’s the terrier. My terrier. Just lying there.
My heart jolts.
“What have you done to him?” My voice is high, and my words tumble out.
I flinch, try to move, but the chair holds me in place.
“Raleigh—what have you done?”
“He’s just sleeping.”
“He’s not sleeping!” Somehow, I get an arm free and point at my dog. “He doesn’t sleep through anything!” I yell.
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