Fragmented

by Madeline Dyer

  “Jed is right,” Manning says. “She’ll be dead with no help; she’s close to leaving us for a journey to the New World as it is. Anyone can see that. She ain’t got long. Wanna save her? Join us, and our healers will, aided by our Seers and the power of the Gods.” He fixes me with that same spiky look. “I ain’t asking you no more after this, woman. You joining us, or are we gonna drop you off on the other side of these woods?”

  “We’re joining you.” The words come out of my mouth before Corin has time to say anything else.

  I nod and look around at the Zharat men. Mart glares at me, pulling his red hair back from his face so I get the full power of his glare. I look away. My eyes settle on the injured man who grabbed my ankle, who stopped me from going to Corin, who stopped me from standing up into a bullet’s path. Jed. That’s what Manning just called him. I look at his leg. He’s got bandages tied around the top of his right thigh now, but redness slowly seeps through them.

  The Dream Land showed me these people for a reason, so we could save them from the Enhanced. So we could get away with them.

  We’re meant to join them.

  Manning smiles, then nods at Corin. “You should get lessons from her on making quick decisions, man,” he says, a hard edge to his voice.

  I turn to Corin, but he looks away. I watch as a small muscle in his jaw pulses. I rub at the back of my neck. It feels stiff. I glance around at all the boxes, the gear, aiming my torchlight at the bulky shapes. There are a lot. Part of me wonders how they managed such a big raid without getting caught.

  “Where’d you raid?” I ask. My eyes fall on a bundle of blankets near the back doors, and—with a jolt—I realize that the dead Untamed man is inside them.

  “New Eber-Elrayi,” one of them says. “Fifty-one miles from here, west.”

  Corin coughs. “So why weren’t all of you here in the lorry? Why were you on foot near us? What were you doing?” His voice has a dangerous edge to it.

  Manning stretches his legs out. “Coincidence, man. They dropped us off. We was dissecting a body. Over at the Gates.”

  “The Gates?” Corin says.

  “Dissecting a body?” I sit up straighter, thinking of how they jumped up and down, broke the Enhanced Ones’ bones back there. “Another Enhanced?”

  There’s only so much augmenters can fix.

  Manning tilts his head forward, makes his gaze more severe. “Not an Enhanced. She had been one of us.”

  “And do you always destroy your own people’s bodies?” Corin’s frown matches the tension in his voice.

  “No,” Manning says. A slow smile crosses his lips, makes me edge closer to Corin.

  “Only the ones who deserve it,” Jed says. “The ones we want to make sure do not reach the New World.”

  I gasp. I can’t help it. The men all look at me. Corin elbows me, but it’s not in an irritated or annoyed way. Maybe it’s supposed to be comforting.

  “Why would you do that?” Corin asks.

  “Her soul was damaged, man.” Manning yawns. “Girl pretended to be a Seer, pretended she’d been in the Dream Land. We had no choice. If we left her body intact she would’ve damaged us all.”

  I freeze, then drag in my next breath too quickly. My lips taste salty as I breathe in. The air makes a raspy sound against the inside of my throat.

  “What do you mean?” Corin asks. He glances across at me for a brief second.

  Several Zharat men laugh.

  “Any female Seer is a fake,” Jed says, moving his head a little. I see deep lines around his eyes, though his tattoos mask them a little. “Sent by the demon spirits to taint the real Seers, to trick them, to hurt them. If a female Seer lives among people, she will only bring destruction. They have to be killed. I am surprised you do not know this. Well, I suppose that explains why you run-arounders are so short on numbers if you trust and believe female Seers.”

  Manning nods. “Had to get rid of her, quick, for all our sakes. Burnt her at the stake, as Elmiro guided us, then cut her up. Sent her through the Gates.” He shakes his head. “Just luck that we was in the same area as you, man.”

  “What?” Corin says. He sits up straighter, and his hand finds mine, by my side. He squeezes my fingers, and my palm tingles. “You’re saying women can’t be Seers? And you kill them?”

  “Of course women cannot be Seers. It is unnatural,” Jed says the words as if it’s the most absurd thing that’s ever been questioned. Then his gaze crosses to me, then Esther. “Why, are you saying one of your women thinks she is a Seer?”

  “No,” Corin says. But he answers too quickly.

  I gulp, try not to look at them. My fingers burn in Corin’s hand.

  “Good,” Manning says, and his eyes settle on me. “Else we’d have to kill her.”

  We stop some three hours later for them to send off the dead Zharat man’s body. I’m still holding the packet of food Manning gave me two hours ago. I tried to eat it, but the texture just wadded against the roof of my mouth, and it tasted stale. I couldn’t swallow it; I didn’t seem to have enough saliva left.

  “Ten minutes,” Manning says as the Zharat jump out the van. “Not back within ten and you’ll be left behind.”

  I look at Corin. After a few seconds, we both stand up, stretching. He’s a bit wobbly, and he glances down at Esther. We’re the only ones left in here now—even Jed, though injured, hobbled out.

  I look out the lorry doors. One of the Zharat leans against a trunk nearby. His eyes are narrowed, watching us. Behind him, there are trees. We’ve parked in a wooded, shaded area. Looks like we’re in the rainforest again. The air’s humid. I think there’s a river nearby, and that’s where four of the men, Manning included, are taking the dead man’s body. Earlier, I heard them going through all Spirit Releasing Words and other preparations for his send off. It seemed like a lot more than we do for our dead.

  I have no idea where we are exactly, but the Zharat obviously know. I listened to some of their conversation earlier, and this seems to be one of their regular raiding routes—though it still didn’t seem like they raid towns often. Only every six months or so for bare necessities. As they talked, I got the impression there are no Enhanced towns anyway near the Noir Lands, so they always travel far in their lorries, taking at least a week, there and back. It seems risky to me. If there are no Enhanced in the Noir Lands, why can’t they be completely self-sufficient there?

  “Follow me,” Corin says under his breath.

  His eyes meet mine, then he drops his gaze—studying Esther for a few seconds—before heading out of the lorry. He turns back, helps me down, then heads to the right.

  The other Zharat are all to the left, smoking some strange-looking cigarettes. I can smell the smoke from here. Kind of spicy. My nostrils curl, and I think of Corin’s lighter. The one that smashed against my thigh, though my shorts are now dry. I can’t tell if they smell though, I’m too blocked up. I gulp, unsure whether to tell Corin about his lighter. He hasn’t asked for it back yet.

  “Nine minutes,” a Zharat man calls after us as I follow Corin.

  Corin keeps turning his head, checking how far away from the lorry we are. We can just about see the open doors and some other Zharat. I watch as he counts them several times, probably checking none have gone back in the lorry, alone with Esther.

  We don’t go far. Corin stops, steps close to me. So close I can smell his scent: sweat, mixed with something musky. A little cigarette smoke.

  “Do you see?” He grits his teeth for a few seconds. “This is exactly why we shouldn’t have gone with them. This, and the Noir Lands. If they find out you’re a Seer, we’re done for.”

  I push my tongue up against the roof of my mouth. It still feels dry. I look at Corin. He means I would be done for, not all of us. It would only be me they killed. But I know that thought isn’t setting in; I don’t feel scared. I just feel uncomfortable.

  “Sev!” Corin grabs my arms, shakes me a little. “Are you not listening? This is
serious—they could already suspect and—”

  “They won’t find out.” I press my lips together. “I can hide it.”

  Can you?

  “And what if you have a Seeing dream and need to warn us of something?” His eyes bore into mine.

  That’s something I thought of about an hour ago. “I’ll tell you, and you can tell them.”

  For a second, Corin shows no emotion. Then his lips tighten. “I am not pretending to be a Seer.”

  The anger in his voice gets to me. It’s the old anger. The prejudice toward Seers, the prejudice he used to treat me and my family with.

  “Not even to save us?” My lips start to tingle. I squish them together again, but it makes the sensation worse.

  Corin exhales hard, then releases my arms. The movement seems to hurt his injured arm.

  “We need to get Esther better,” I remind him. “That’s only going to happen if we go with them. And you need medical help too.”

  “But they live in the Noir Lands.”

  I don’t understand what he’s alluding to, but I think of what our old leader Rahn said when I was young. Everything comes at a price. Compromises and sacrifices are part of life. I pause, then repeat my earlier point. “Corin, Esther needs help. They’ve offered it. We’ve accepted it.”

  Corin’s jaw twitches twice. “No. We need to tell them now, we’ve changed our minds, and we want to be dropped off. There’ll be other Untamed about who can help us.”

  “Really?” I raise my eyebrows. “Because we haven’t seen any others, have we? We don’t even know where we are now. And the Dream Land told me to go east. To find them—the Zharat. It’s obvious. We’re meant to go with them. The Gods and Goddesses and spirits have said that.”

  Corin jerks his thumb behind us, toward the Zharat men. “But according to them you’re a fraud, not a proper Seer. No, it’s too dangerous.” He breathes out through his nose, hard. “And the Noir Lands too—no.”

  “What’s wrong with the Noir Lands?”

  “You’ve not heard of them?”

  “No.”

  Corin pulls his hands through his hair. “But Faya was always talking about them, when we were little. The stories she told. The Bee and the Witch?”

  I stare at him, waiting.

  “The Old Man and the Chivra? The Skywalker?”

  “Corin, I don’t know those stories—”

  “But you must. I was about six and—”

  “So I was three years old.” I shake my head. “Just get to the point.”

  For a second, he seems surprised at my blunt tone, but then his nostrils flare. “The Noir Lands are bad. They’re full of spirits. Really evil ones. It’s like the Turning—but every day, there. Babies get snatched. And people get…taken over. It’s dangerous. People go mad, can’t think rationally. And the land isn’t normal—doesn’t follow the rules.”

  I gesture around us. “But the land after the battle changed, didn’t follow the rules.”

  Corin shakes his head. “It’s more than that. If we go to the Noir Lands, we’ll lose ourselves.”

  “And if we don’t we’ll lose Esther for sure.”

  “But you heard what he said. It takes days to get to the Noir Lands. And Esther’s not going to last that long.” He flinches. “There’s no point in going. We’re the ones who’ll get stuck there. When Esther dies on the way, they’re not just going to let us get out and leave. These people are demented.”

  “If,” I correct.

  “What?”

  The wind picks up a little, and I swallow hard. “If Esther dies on the way. Not when.”

  “It doesn’t invalidate my argument though. The Noir Lands are bad. And we both know what you’re like when the going gets tough.”

  Heat flushes through my body, and I struggle to push it away.

  But it wasn’t me who wanted to become Enhanced again, I remind myself. It was because I got caught and temporarily converted; my memories of the augmenters and how it felt to be calm and safe—to have no worries—had been controlling me. And the Marouska-imposter had been feeding me small amounts of augmenters too, keeping me addicted. It wasn’t really me who made all those plans.

  But it feels like it was. Because I remember. I remember everything. How I was sure it was my decision. How maybe it was… How maybe the augmenters had nothing to do with it… Because the Enhanced Ones aren’t on the run… They have food, shelter, water—

  Stop it.

  I swallow hard. I am stronger than that. Still, it doesn’t make Corin’s words sting any less.

  Corin lets out an exasperated sigh, but he doesn’t apologize. Of course he wouldn’t.

  “I don’t think we’re in a position to turn them down.” There’s a hard edge to my voice, and I wonder whether part of me just wants to go there to prove Corin wrong—no matter how tough it is I won’t turn to the Enhanced lifestyle. A part of me needs to prove myself. Corin needs to know I’m strong. “Anyway, I’ve already said we’re going. The Noir Lands can’t be as bad as you think—probably just exaggerated in stories. Things always are.”

  Corin doesn’t reply, so I reach for his hands, try to draw him in closer. He’s reluctant at first, and I feel the walls go up around him, but he doesn’t pull away. I take that for a good sign.

  “Fine. Whatever.” Corin grunts, then snatches his hands from mine before turning away.

  I stay where I am, watching him trudge back to the lorry.

  I follow half a minute later and climb in. Corin’s moved Esther so she’s lying across the space where I was sitting. For a second, I don’t know what to do, and I just stand there, my feet numb. I feel silly, getting upset about this, but I can’t stop my bottom lip from wobbling. I look around, then touch the crystal Seer pendant around my neck, absentmindedly.

  “Nice jewelry.” Jed’s voice makes me jump. He’s back in the lorry—I hadn’t noticed—and is lying down again, but partly propped up on his elbows. I think someone’s changed the bandages around his thigh because they don’t look as red now. “Calcite crystals?”

  I stare at him, my fingers clenching the pendant tighter. I nod slowly.

  His eyes are on me, not on the pendant—on me. Direct eye contact. Jed’s are darker than Corin’s. My mouth draws into a straight line, and I bite my bottom lip. My throat feels tickly. I don’t know what to say. What if he knows what it is? My Seer pendant… Oh Gods. I need to hide it, put it under my top. The Zharat Seers must have them—or something similar—so what if he’s recognized it?

  Any female Seer is a fake. Sent by the demon spirits to taint the real Seers, to trick them, to hurt them. If a female Seer lives among people, she’ll only bring destruction. They have to be killed.

  “You two married?”

  Manning’s voice makes me jump, pulling me out of my disturbed sense of being. No one’s spoken much for the last few hours. Mostly, the men slept. I couldn’t sleep though. I just kept glancing across at Corin, hoping he’d smile at me, hoping he’d see we really didn’t have a choice. But, in all the time we’ve been traveling again, he hasn’t looked at me, much less smiled.

  But Manning’s question makes him react.

  “Sev and I aren’t married.”

  “She married to someone else?” That’s Mart, the boy. He looks at Corin. It’s then I notice the boy’s wearing a gold ring on his finger. A wedding band. I stare at him, trying to see him as older. But no, no matter how hard I try, I can’t. Fifteen is the oldest I can place him at. Maybe sixteen, at a push.

  “No,” Corin says. “But she’s my girlfriend.”

  And he looks up at me, at last. His eyes are softer than I’d been expecting, but his brow still holds tension. I wonder if he’s got a headache.

  Manning leans forward, looks at me. He’s sitting cross-legged in front of me—and his posture emphasizes his round stomach. Jed is next to him.

  “How old are you, woman?” Manning’s voice is slow.

  “Seventeen.”

  �
��And you never been married?”

  I shake my head.

  Manning’s lips twist together a little. “Never procreated?”

  “Babies?” I raise my eyebrows. I shake my head. “No.”

  The men exchange looks. Jed sits up a little straighter. Manning doesn’t say anything else, but I notice the way he regards me. The way all the men now look at me. And I don’t like it. It makes my skin feel dirty, just under their observation. It makes me feel wrong.

  Corin shifts over to me, puts his arm around me, pulls me closer to him. I turn my head to find him glaring at the Zharat. I swallow hard and try to ignore the way the Zharat men are still looking at me, like I’m a piece of meat.

  We don’t make any more stops for the rest of the day—at one point, a driver radioed through and said it wasn’t safe to, which didn’t make me feel better. Still, no one has said anything more about my unmarried, childless state, and that’s got to be something.

  “Best we all go to sleep now, before we enter the Noir Lands,” Manning says. He looks at me. “Our den’s on the far side. Opposite border.”

  No sooner has he said the words when blankets are handed out and the men are all moving, stretching out on the floor.

  “Stay this side of me.” Corin points at the small space between his body and the wall. The Zharat men are lying down on his other side, but their eyes are on me. I don’t like it. “It’ll be all right,” he says, but his voice is thick.

  I lie down slowly. My back hurts, and my mother’s pendant burns against my skin. It’s under my shirt now; after Jed seemed interested in it, hiding the pendant seemed like a good call. Corin puts his arm around me, and I listen to the sounds of the engine. My stomach clenches, a little painfully. The roof of my mouth tastes strange as I stare up at the ceiling of the lorry. There are a few cracks in it, and, along with the slats at the top of the walls, some light streaks through. But the light’s getting darker. Nighttime? I suppose it must be. I’ve lost all sense of time today.