Fragmented

by Madeline Dyer

  I reach him, grab his hand, his wrist. A pulse. Need to find a pulse. My vision blurs, too many tears. No. No. No. This can’t be—

  But being dead is better than being Enhanced.

  I’m shaking too much.

  I turn around, look back. I know I’m leaving myself vulnerable to the Enhanced, but they still aren’t looking at me. They haven’t noticed I’ve moved.

  “Corin, no…no…” I swallow hard, turning back. Got to find a pulse. Got to.

  I’m muttering the words, over and over again. His wrist feels strange. It’s bleeding… No, it’s coming from his arm—no, higher up. He’s—

  “Corin!”

  I try to stop the blood, but there’s too much, and my hands are slippery with it; I can’t apply enough pressure. Oh Gods. I need—the rucksack! I pull it off, slide the strap down my bad arm, pull the zip. Material. Lots of fabric. I search through it, pull out a shirt, try to tear a strip off it, need to stop Corin’s bleeding.

  Fabric tears, grates on my ears. My fingers shake as I try to wrap it around his upper arm. But the blood soaks the cotton in seconds—how can there be so much blood?

  Oh Gods.

  More gunshots go off, the air’s filling with them. Gunshots and ragged breaths and the sounds of the engine fog my ears, make me feel sicker. But I do it, I manage it—I tie the cloth.

  “Corin?” I stroke the side of his face, down to the stubble over his chin, and I’ve smeared blood there before I realize just how covered in it I am. I swallow hard, feel my pulse quicken. “Corin?”

  He stirs. The muscles across his face have slackened, relaxed.

  “Woman!”

  I see the Enhanced man coming toward me at the last second, see the knife in his hands, the knife that he brings down—hard.

  I scream, roll over, somehow manage to pull Corin with me. Dirt fills my mouth, and then I’m scrambling back up, see the knife stuck in the ground, and the Enhanced—

  I grab Corin’s Luger. I shoot the Enhanced. He falls, eyes on me, but all I see in them is a girl with matted hair who screams and clings to a gun and the barely-moving man.

  My lips taste strange as I press them together, breathing hard. Can’t catch my breath. Heart rate’s too fast, like it hasn’t got time to pump properly between each beat.

  “Sev?” Corin’s voice.

  Jolts run through me, and I turn. See his eyes on me, feel my chest weaken. A thousand feelings wash through me. Before I can think what I’m doing—think what I should be doing—I grab him to me, his head against my chest. My arms shake as I hold him, leaning over him, in the dirt.

  Oh Gods.

  “We… Where’s the gun?” Corin’s voice is a thick mumble. “Where are the—”

  The sounds of squealing tires fill the air, burn my ears, and I’m crying, holding Corin against me.

  The rumble of the engine is louder. So much louder. Too loud.

  A lorry pulls into view. Two headlights coming toward us.

  Then it turns and stops. There’s a loud click, and the back doors fly open. Men jump out. They’re Untamed. One, two, three, four—I start to lose track. My head feels too strange.

  What the hell?

  “Come on!” someone shouts at me. It’s the man who grabbed my ankle. He’s still on the woodland floor, but trying to crawl forward, dragging himself with his arms, a leg trailing behind. “Get in—quick! The Enhanced will be back!”

  My head pounds. I look around, and that’s when I realize the Enhanced are all dead, lying motionless. I count their bodies. Twelve. Dead—and then…then the newly-arrived Untamed are charging at the bodies, jumping on them, feet pounding them.

  Bones crack, and blood spurts out; some of it gets me. I freeze, my stomach twists. And I watch them. Watch the men crush the bodies underfoot until they’re unrecognizable. Just flesh and blood and broken bones and bits of fabric.

  One man sees me looking. “There’s only so much augmenters can fix.”

  My lips start to burn as I stare at the bloody masses. They’re dead. They were already dead….

  I have to look away. Look at Corin; he’s watching the men destroy the Enhanced bodies too. All color has drained from his lips.

  The Untamed man with the braids shouts to three of the new arrivals. I catch the words Yes, that’s the woman and Get ’em in too before my ears go fuzzy.

  Then they’re coming toward me. For me and Corin. My arms tighten around him. He’s moving feebly, slurring words I can’t understand. The men get nearer. My eyes widen. They’re not taking him. They’re not taking him anywhere. Not without me.

  They stop in front of me.

  “Come with us,” one of them says. “Come on, you’re in shock. He’s injured. You need to get him help. We’re offering it. You helped us, we’ll help you. Come on.”

  Corin tries to sit up on his own, but ends up crashing back into me. He lets out a long moan, grabs my hand, squeezes it so hard my eyes water. “Get Esther. She’s over there…the trees.”

  “There are more of you? And you did not call them to help us?” the man who grabbed my ankle shouts. He’s nearly by the van now, leaning heavily on another man. I don’t know how he heard Corin.

  The other men are staring at me. Even the ones who are picking up the body of the dead Untamed man and taking him toward the lorry.

  “You coming with us?”

  “Get Esther…” Corin mumbles. His words sound thick, strange, not his voice. “Get her….”

  “Esther. She’s hurt, unconscious.” I look at the men. “She’s over there…somewhere.” I point behind me, but I’m too disorientated, can’t remember which trees it was I came through.

  “Right,” one of the men says, but I can’t tell who. All their faces are just blurring together now. Maybe it’s their tattoos. They’ve all got them. Intricate designs, animals, patterns, creeping over skin. The only man who looks different is the one with the braids. “Eelan, go and get this Esther woman. And you, help these two into the lorry. Be quick. The Enhanced could be back soon, with numbers. We need to be long gone.”

  It smells funny in their lorry, and it looks like a cattle wagon: a twenty-five foot steel body, aluminum sides with breathing slats at the top, and metal dividers inside. My nostrils curl.

  I look toward Corin. He’s lying down, against the side of the vehicle bed, where two men lean over him, examining him. I watch as they tear off the bottom part of his trouser leg, then use the material to wrap his upper arm. The fabric turns a dark red color in seconds.

  A gash across his arm. And minor cuts to his head. I try to step nearer Corin, but elbows shove me back. Not roughly though. Just like they didn’t see me.

  “Clear some space for the other woman,” one man tells another. “Eelan’s got her now. Can see him. Almost here. And make sure we’re ready to leave.”

  My eyes blur as men bustle past me. I step closer to the wall, then press my back against it until my spine aches. Cold.

  There are so many men, everywhere. And they’re all Untamed. So many of them. I pick out their tattoos, and the more I look, the more of them I see. They’ve all got them—matching designs: silhouettes of animals inked onto necklines, creeping onto jaws—but the Untamed man who grabbed my ankle has got more.

  Boxes are shoved up against me—big cardboard boxes and plastic crates—and I sidestep, then crash into another man. He turns on me. His eyes scan me. Then he grunts.

  “She the one you were saying something ’bout, Manning?”

  “Aye.”

  “What? Her?”

  The new voice is a sneer. From a boy. Fourteen years old. Or fifteen. Something like that. I watch as he turns toward me. He eyes me up and down, his bottom lip sticking out, and then he makes a huffing noise. His facial features look too small for his head, and he reminds me of Finn, a boy I never liked at my village. Finn’s dead now, and I feel wrong thinking badly of him.

  “Aye, Mart. Her,” the man with the braids says—the one called Manning
? “If it wasn’t for her charging in, Jed and I would be dead. Not just Iro.” He steps closer to me, and I stare at the debris caught in his braids. Little pieces of sticks, dried blood, leaves. “Thank you, woman—what’s your name?”

  Before I can say anything, the boy—Mart—grunts, pulls at his red hair. “But she looks weak.”

  “Your name?” Manning points at me, ignores Mart.

  I swallow hard. “Seven Sarr.”

  The injured man who grabbed my ankle repeats my name, but his accent makes it sound like S’ven Sarr.

  I wince. For a second, I expect them to question me. But you can’t be called Seven! Seven is a number, not a name. But no one does.

  Manning smiles, then offers me his hand. “Elwood Manning, Zharat Chief.” He tucks two braids behind his right ear. The skin there’s all bumpy, looks infected. “This ignorant man is Mart, my son. Them men over there be Miles, Masterman, and Kai.”

  He points behind him, at another group of men, then another, and he’s rattling off more names. I can’t follow. Manning, oblivious, carries on. They’re all men though. That’s one thing I do notice. I’m the only female here. And I don’t like the way some of the men are looking at me.

  Manning nods. “And there’s Eelan with your other pack member. Esther, you said her name was?”

  I nod just as another man appears in the lorry bed. Esther is over his shoulder. He marches straight forward, shoves two of the men out of the way, then places her next to Corin.

  Corin appears to be fully conscious now. He shouts something, reaching for her.

  “What’s the screamer called?”

  It takes me a moment to realize Manning’s referring to Corin. I tell him his name, but my voice sounds weak—weak, just like Mart said. I’m shaking, and Manning guides me toward Corin and Esther. Tells me to sit with them.

  “Right.” He turns back to the rest of the men. “Strap everything in place. We’re leaving. I want the usual drivers.”

  The floor is hard and has some boards over it. I sit on it, feel splinters rubbing into the back of my legs. All around me, the men are fixing the dividers in place, reaching for huge straps and ties, securing all the boxes. Not that well though—several sway precariously.

  “Sev.” Corin reaches for my hand, pulls me toward him. He’s sitting up now, leaning against the wall. His eyes are dark, and he’s breathing hard, nostrils flaring. The cuts on his head have stopped bleeding. “What the hell did you think you were doing? You could’ve been killed. That was stupid, reckless, charging in there like that.”

  I stare at him. My chest rises and falls slowly. He glares at me.

  “Have you any idea how differently this could’ve turned out?” Corin continues, and I don’t know how he can talk so much after what he just went through. “We didn’t know they had a whole army coming for them. You had no idea when you went charging in there, leaving me and Esther with no weapons! You just went right against Rahn’s survival lesson: If attacked by the Enhanced, save as many people as you can, and get as far away as possible—not run into a bloody conversion attack—”

  “Hey—you should not talk to your leader-woman like that,” Manning says. His voice is suddenly really close, and I turn to find him right behind me.

  “Leader?” Corin glares past me. His grip on my hand gets tighter, then he lets go completely. “I’m the leader, and she disobeyed me, my orders.”

  “Disobeyed?” I shake my head, then point back at the men. “I had to help them.”

  Manning makes a sound that’s remarkably close to a lion’s roar as he points at Corin. “You ain’t a leader, man. The leader’s the most courageous, the bravest one in a pack. And she’s braver than you, that woman. You didn’t do nothing to help. It was all her. You came in, got taken out within seconds. We owe our lives to Seven, so you treat her with respect.”

  It sounds like a warning, the way he says it, and it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  Corin shakes his head. “There’s a difference between bravery and foolishness.” He leans in closer to me, eyes narrowed, and I see the full tension—the anger—within them. It makes me feel strange. “You could’ve got yourself killed.”

  I breathe out through my nose. “I had to help them.”

  And I know I’m right. The Dream Land showed me.

  “Just ignore him,” Manning tells me. “He’s probably concussed. Injury does that to people. You can sit over here, with us, if you want.” He points at a container.

  “No, Sev’s sitting with me,” Corin says. He doesn’t look at me though.

  I stay where I am, watch the rest of the men push the last boxes back into place. Then four men jump out. I listen to their footsteps as they move around outside. A few seconds later, I hear doors slam.

  Manning hands out electric torches. Corin doesn’t take the one that’s offered, so I take it instead. The chief pulls the lorry’s backdoors shut, and darkness descends for an instant before torches are flicked on. I struggle with mine for a few seconds.

  The engine rumbles up—a loud, throaty sound that reverberates through me—and, a few seconds later, we’re moving. The lorry lurches to the left, bumps over uneven ground, then speeds up. The engine gets louder, and the wind whistles through the slats along the top edges of the walls. I flinch at every sound.

  I gulp, look up at Corin. But he’s leaning over Esther, holding her. The circles of torchlight jump around a few seconds later. Blood starts to seep through Esther’s makeshift bandage. For some reason, it makes my stomach curdle. I look away, and spots of bright light burn my eyes, then hover in front of me, like stamps over my vision, as I look around again.

  My rucksack’s here. One of the men must’ve brought it. It’s covered in Corin’s blood. And the clothes inside, they’re falling out.

  “Wait, did you say you were Zharat?” Corin says suddenly. His voice is loud—it has to be so we can hear his words over the roar of the engine.

  “I’m the Zharat Chief,” Manning says. Another man points a torch beam at him, and Manning lifts up his shirt, revealing a rather paunchy stomach covered in more tattoos: eagles and bats. I’m not sure what the action’s supposed to convey, but, five seconds later, Manning lets his shirt fall back down, and the fabric bunches in his lap.

  I sit up straighter, look around. I count the men. Twelve in here, including Manning and the dead man. The injured one—the one who grabbed my ankle—is only a few feet from me, lying on his back groaning with pain. And there’s the boy too, Mart. And the drivers. Was it four who got out? I struggle to remember. But that puts it at seventeen Untamed.

  “The Zharat? As in one of the last big tribes of Untamed?” My voice sounds strange.

  I stare at them. My skin starts to tingle. This doesn’t feel right, doesn’t feel real. It can’t be real. We shouldn’t be anywhere near their lands. Except we don’t really know where they live. But we can’t have just stumbled into them by coincidence.

  Except it wasn’t coincidence. It was the Dream Land. The bison showed me, told me which way to go. And the spirits helped, by altering the land after the battle? And was that why they wanted us to leave the temple, so we wouldn’t miss them? My head spins, and I lean back against the wall. The sharp jolty movements hurt my spine.

  Manning smiles. “You run-arounders always be so surprised when you find us. The last ones we found thought we was ghosts. They thought they was in the New World when we brought ’em back to our den.” His laugh is too high-pitched, makes my mouth dry.

  “Your den,” Corin says. “Is that where we’re going?”

  “Aye.” Manning sits down, stretches his legs out. “Takes a couple days to get to the Noir Lands though.”

  “The Noir Lands?” Corin’s face turns fuchsia; the hue makes his sunburnt patches look more orange. He shakes his head, starts to cough, a hand flying to his mouth.

  I stare at him. “What are the Noir Lands?” I start to say, but Corin’s not looking at me, he’s just sta
ring at the Zharat. I don’t think Corin’s even realized I’ve spoken. I wrack my head, searching for information on the Noir Lands, but nothing comes to mind.

  “Yes, we live in the Noir Lands,” Manning says. “Safest place.”

  The chief turns and looks at the injured Zharat man, the one who grabbed my ankle. He nods at him, then turns back to me. The sharpness of his eyes reminds me of a porcupine.

  “Now, woman, we can drop you off on the way, the three of you. Or you come with us, and our healers will help ’em.” He gestures at Corin and Esther. “If you come with us, you join us. Permanently. We can’t have no non-Zharat knowing where our den is. Understand?”

  My mouth dries, and my next breath makes a squeaky noise. I stare at him, then look around. They’re all watching me, all the men. All the Zharat men. I frown. The bigger forces of this world guided us to them, and now we’re not only being offered medical help, but permanent residence too. I make the thank-you sign to the Gods and Goddesses and spirits, still breathing deeply.

  Manning’s waiting, staring at me.

  “We need to discuss this,” Corin says. “I need to think about this. I’m the leader of our group, not Sev. And we need to talk about this. Hell, the Noir Lands.”

  “No,” Manning says. “No leader takes time to think, to discuss. Time doing that’s what gives the Enhanced the advantage, time to sneak up. Time gets you converted, man. A leader makes quick decisions. Just like what this woman there did: made a quick decision, confused the Enhanced, got us the upper hand. We’re only here now ’cause she didn’t do no thinking about what to do, she just acted. A sign of a true warrior.”

  The boy—Mart—grunts, then mutters something about how females can’t be warriors. Manning ignores him, just looks at me.

  “Your answer?”

  “Hey!” Corin says. He sticks his arm out, points at Manning. “This isn’t the sort of thing that can be decided quickly. This is important, we don’t know anything about you.”

  The injured man on the floor, the one who grabbed my ankle, raises his head. “We are the Zharat,” he says. His voice is strange, comes in thick bursts that emphasize his heavy accent, makes him seem older. And he does look older, in here, than he did outside. At least in his thirties. “We are the ones who are surviving. Not you run-arounders. You would be stupid to turn this offer down. And your other woman will die if you do not get her to our healers.”