“Rahn!” Corin yells, his face contorting.
His eyes are wide, the pupils so dilated that I can barely see the warm chocolate color. A muscle in his jaw twitches in time to his shaking hands.
I smile. They came for me. Now I must help them.
“It’s all right,” I whisper to him. “I’ll help you.”
I turn back to the sticky, wet mess, trying to gather up more of the liquid. He just has to taste it, then he’ll know, then he’ll understand. He’ll taste the security this life can offer him, the stability, the safety, and the food. None of us need ever be hungry again!
Corin’s stone arm suddenly locks around my waist, hauling me back. He smells of sweat and dirt and musk and smoke and fear and—
“Rahn!” Corin shouts. His face is red, on fire. “They’ve converted her!”
“It’s all right.” I look up at him, furrowing my brows softly. And it really is all right. He’s here, they all are. I can save them, we can all be together.
I need to save us all.
I push my hand upward, aiming for his mouth. The liquid drips from my fingers; need to move quicker. I try to press my sticky fingers against Corin’s bruised, ripped lips, but hands seize me. Pain shoots through my shoulders. My head jars as I’m ripped backward. Corin’s arms disappear. Coldness replaces his warmth, like a serpent around my waist.
Arms wrap around my torso. I should fight them, but I can’t; fighting is bad. I’d be intending to hurt them, if I fought them. I am a good person. The Enhanced Ones said I would be a good person, if I embraced this life. And I am, that’s what I’m doing!
“Please get off me,” I whisper. My voice is calm. Wonderfully calm.
“Get out of here now!”
That’s Rahn’s voice—I recognize it immediately—and I turn to see the leader of my old pack. He looks even older. The lines around his mouth are deep and make tracks in his leathery skin, running under the rims of his black glasses. He doesn’t look much like Corin, his nephew. Rahn’s hair is darker, his skin tougher, his frame smaller.
Whoever is holding me starts to force me backward. I should fight him. But I can’t. I’m a good person. I’m a perfect being. I should not fight.
Fight him!
My head hurts. A gun goes off a few feet away, and I scream as a figure at the end of the corridor falls down, limp.
“Smash the augmenters!” someone shouts. I recognize the voice, but can’t think whose it is.
To my left, Corin steps toward the cupboard. His shoulders are broad, and his upper arms ripple with bands of muscle. I watch as, almost in slow motion, he sweeps his bulky arm across the first shelf, pushing the vials to the edge of the shelf, and—
I scream as the glass shatters all over the floor, as the liquid pours out. I try to lunge forward, but the arms of my captor stop me. I scream again. I cry. I shout. But no one listens to me, least of all Corin. He continues until every vial is lying in a sticky mess on the floor.
“No! No! Please, no!”
“They’re comin’,” Rahn shouts. I see more Untamed figures behind him, ones I recognize: Esther and Yani. Behind them, are the Enhanced. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Gunshots go off. I cry out. The sounds are too much.
In one swift motion, arms haul me against another body. I don’t know whose body it is, only that it’s not an Enhanced One. My stomach turns. Then the Untamed are running, taking me with them. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Corin turn and shoot behind us. I catch a glimpse of the Glock. I flinch at the sounds of death. Of course Corin wouldn’t miss.
“Have we got everyone?” Esther shouts. She’s a few years older than Corin, but she shares the same sturdy build and warm coloring.
“Keelie’s dead,” a low voice says.
My head burns, there’s too much color. Nausea grabs hold of me, refusing to let go.
“That way!” Rahn shouts. I see him pointing toward a door to the left. Corin reaches it first and yanks it open.
Outside, it’s dark and cold. I scream as the coldness hits me. Unease erupts in my chest, along with a throbbing pain. My whole body shudders and convulses. I can’t see. My eyes—everything’s dark. My fingers burn with iciness, the fire spreading, spreading, spreading….
“What’s happening to her? What’ve they done?”
“You should’ve left her. It’s too late.”
Everything is black. Everything is dark. Everything has gone. The air is too thick and far too clammy. It is poison, and it’s seeping into my body. My skin soaks it up. This is wrong; I should feel fear. These people have guns. They’ve taken me from the Enhanced Ones. They’ve stolen me—catapulted me back into my life of fear, danger, and instability.
I retch as my vision bursts back. I can feel tears welling up. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to stop them. How do I stop them?
“Where’s the truck?” Rahn shouts, just as Esther pushes past him.
“Give her to me,” Corin snaps, turning the man who’s holding me.
“I don’t—”
I break free.
One fist, that’s all it takes, and then I’m running, my legs moving, almost mechanically.
Immediately, hands grapple at my shoulders, but only for a second before I get the speed I need. Corin’s right behind me. But I’m faster. I jerk my head up. I can see the Enhanced Ones’ compound there, we’re not far away. Corin’s hot breath is on the back of my neck.
I scream for help.
A hand slams down onto my left shoulder, fingers digging in painfully. I shriek as I’m whirled around.
Corin dives at me, his arms fighting their way around my waist. More figures appear behind him.
“Get off!” I shout. I try to turn my head backward, toward the building, but I can’t. “Help me!”
Corin’s grip tightens. His hands are warm. I don’t know what he’s done with the Glock.
Glock… Clock….
Life is like a clock, don’t you think? Time always comes around. It was only a matter of time before we had both you and your mother to boost our power.
“Let me go!” Huge tears plaster my face. I need to stay where my mother is; Raleigh said I’d get to see her soon.
But these people don’t obey orders. They’re wild. They need civilizing, the Enhanced are right! They need help.
“You’ve got to come with us,” Corin snaps. I flinch. He pulls my trembling body against him, until there’s no room between us, and I can feel his heartbeat, like an eerie countdown. Then he drags me backward, his arms locking under my ribs.
I throw my weight downward, trying to make it harder for him—trying to stop him—but he barely stumbles. His arms thrust me up higher.
“Leave her!” Rahn shouts.
I turn and catch a glimpse of the leader pulling on Corin’s shoulder, right behind me.
“Leave her! They’ll be comin’ out after her any second, we need to go! Cut our losses! It was stupid comin’ anyway, we knew she’d be converted—”
“No!” Corin’s word rings through my head for several seconds. “We’re not leaving you, Sev. We’re not letting them get another one of our people!” I can feel him shaking as he looks at me. “You are coming back with us, whether you like it or not.”
Nearby, an engine starts up. More angry voices. My head snaps toward the building, toward the open door. But there are no Enhanced there. Raleigh’s not there. He’s not going to save me. He promised I was safe with the Enhanced….
“Leave her!” Rahn waves a Glock about, and its metal flashes somehow in the darkness. “She’s gone.”
“Come on, Sev!” Corin’s fingers get tangled in my hair as his expression contorts with anger and frustration, his face burning. He’s the only one who’s lost his dark glasses; they always wear glasses when they’re in the presence of the Enhanced, trying to hide who they are. “You are not one of them. You’re one of us—”
“No, you’ve got it wrong!”
Our face
s are only inches apart. The vein in his neck throbs in time with his flaring nostrils.
I shake my head. Blood pounds in my ears. “I’m not going with you.”
Somehow, his arms just drop away from around me, plummeting down, as if he was shot.
But he hasn’t been. He’s still standing, like a menacing figure of darkness and strength. His feet are shoulder-width apart. His hands, now clenched into loose fists by his sides, are hooked onto his belt loops by each thumb. His head is at an angle. After three painful seconds, our eyes meet. His are imploring, begging me as the lost emotions surface within them.
I see the scars on his face, his sunburnt skin. I cringe. How can he want to keep living like that? How can any of them? Rahn’s always drilling it into them that the most important resources are shelter, food, water, and warmth. And aren’t those just the things that the Enhanced Ones are offering us, offering us all?
I take a step backward, forcing myself to look away from him. “Leave me behind. Or join us.”
Corin and Rahn stare at me.
I stare back. No one’s moving. I should be running. I should be getting back to the building. I should be saving myself—that’s exactly what I should be doing.
But I’m not.
I breathe hard. Why the hell did I give them a choice? I should just make them stay… They need help. Giving them a choice makes it seem like this life isn’t as good, like they have the chance of escaping it, with little effort….
“Look, Sev,” Corin steps closer. He raises a hand, pointing at me with a shaking finger. His finger is stronger than Rahn’s. “You are not an Enhanced. You are Seven. You hate the Enhanced. We all do. They’re freaks, unnatural, they’ve got no humanity. You do not want to be one of them.” It sounds like a warning.
“She’s a lost cause,” Rahn hisses at his nephew. The familiar truck pulls into view behind him, its brakes squealing. “We need to go now.”
Corin shoots him a dirty look, and, still, I haven’t moved. A lost cause…and he’s talking about me? I snort. The Enhanced Ones know I’m not a lost cause; they saved me. No one is a lost cause.
“Remember your old life? Our people went missing because of them. They’ve killed our families. They killed my parents.” Corin’s voice has a hard edge to it. A sharp edge. A dangerous edge. An edge that makes it impossible to look away from him again.
I shake my head, but my gaze doesn’t leave his. He’s wrong. The Enhanced aren’t murderers. They don’t intend to kill people. His parents’ deaths, like all the Untamed deaths during conversion attacks, must have been accidents; the Enhanced wanted to convert them. I look at Corin, my bottom lip quivering. He doesn’t understand. None of them do. I need to help them. It’s what Rosemary says we have to do. Our duty. I have to help them.
“We need to go, now.”
The Untamed start to retreat toward the truck, all except one. My chest hitches. I shouldn’t let them go. I need to help them. It is my job to help them all.
“Corin, leave her. She’s been converted. There’s nothin’ left in her. We have to go now.”
Corin’s watching me carefully. His face is softer now. Despite the darkness, I can see the contours of his face clearly. My vision really is great. I can see the patches of ragged sunburn, the ugly, red raw skin, and the faint scars along the left side of his face that he got when a wildcat attacked him as a child. I saw the whole thing. The way the claws ripped mercilessly through his skin, dragging the blood out.
I ran straight for him then, even though the cat was there. Somehow, I frightened it away, before it pulled his muscles out. I saved him. I was scared, and my terror made me protect him.
And I don’t know why but it’s all I can think about now. And Corin’s all I can see. His Untamed face. Something pulls through me, but I don’t understand it. I should be trying to get Corin to Raleigh, but I’m not. I don’t know why. I’m selfish, I don’t want to help the Untamed, even though it is my job, my duty.
I don’t understand. I can’t think properly. I know what I should be doing, yet I’m not doing it because it doesn’t feel right. Nothing feels right. There’s nothing to feel at all. The augmenters are blocking it, and there’s nothing there. I’m not in control. I’m not in control at all. I should be scared—I need to be scared—but I’m not. I should be shaking, but I’m not. It feels horrible.
Horrible. A negative emotion. I latch onto it, and I know I shouldn’t, because feeling horror is an Untamed way of life. I shouldn’t be able to feel it. But I can. It’s strong now. It’s all I can feel. And feeling it—feeling something that’s raw and true—is good, even when I know it shouldn’t feel good to feel something so bad.
“Sev, you don’t belong with the Enhanced,” Corin says. “You’re one of us.” He steps up to me and puts his arm around me. His body is sweaty. “Let’s go.” But he doesn’t move.
I frown. I don’t belong with the Enhanced? I’m not a perfect person?
“You’re Seven,” Corin says. “You’re an Untamed.”
Part of me screams to fight him, to protest, to do something. And the other part just doesn’t understand. I’m lost. I’m lost because of the Enhanced. And they’re not out here. Raleigh’s not here. He’s not trying to save me. There’s only one person who’s trying to save me, even if he has it wrong.
I gulp, and suddenly my eyes are watering. The sensation burns me, and I know it’s not right. I shouldn’t be able to cry. I shouldn’t be able to feel sorrow or loss or anything that would make me cry. But I am. I’m crying. And I’m shaking now. Stress pours through me, and I remember something…something Raleigh said about my system not coping with stress.
I wrap my arms around myself, moaning.
“Come on,” Corin says.
I let him lead me away.
After throwing up six times, my head is a little clearer. I can still taste the spicy cake, rippled with grains of disgust, on my tongue, and it won’t go away.
Never let yourself be Enhanced. Once it’s done, there’s no going back.
I gulp, feeling like I’m going to gag. There’s no going back… It’s always going to be a part of me, I know it is. Can feel it. My heart pounds heavily, and clammy sweat dribbles down my spine; the Enhanced part of my subconscious isn’t going to die quickly. If at all.
And the worst part is that I don’t know if I made the right choice. I can’t tell. No. Of course I did. I can breathe now, I can think.
Half a minute later, I pull myself back into the truck—it’s one of the old Mitsubishi L200 pickups that Kayden, Finn, and Three stole six months ago. I tell Rahn that he can continue driving—the nausea’s gone, for now. Rahn gives me a look—a cross between dubiousness, irritation and annoyance that makes his eyebrows almost disappear under his dark glasses—but he starts the engine. Esther and Kayden—a red-haired, thirty-two-year-old man who’s the most skilled hunter in our group—are also hunched together in the front of the truck, and they both turn to look at me. Then they glance away in unison.
I lean back against the inside of the truck’s wall. I want to close my eyes, to block all this out, but something’s stopping me.
“Do you want to lie down?” Corin’s voice is as cold as a dead snake.
Rahn steers the truck back out onto the dusty road as I shake my head. Corin just nods, his eyes unfocussed, and looks behind us. I turn and look at the backs of Esther and Kayden’s heads in the truck’s cabin. Neither turn to look at me; I can’t blame them, if it was the other way round, would I want to look at them? I know the answer instantly. I’ve thought about it enough times, what I’d do if my brother or sister, or any of us, became Enhanced and we managed to rescue them.
I never thought I would need rescuing.
Never let yourself be Enhanced. Once it’s done, there’s no going back.
A few minutes later, I follow Corin’s gaze. The track we’re leaving behind is dusty and dark, a blanket over the scarred earth. No one follows us.
I frow
n, feeling tears well up. I sniff loudly. I don’t belong with the Enhanced. Yet now I don’t belong with the Untamed.
I’m in between, lost in the dark void where neither world will acknowledge me. Corin won’t even look at me. I swallow hard. How long’s it going to take, until the effects of the augmenters are completely out of my system? A couple of days? A week? Longer? I shudder. My mother once told me a story about a woman her father rescued from an Enhanced Ones’ compound; the woman never was the same—a shell of her former self. I can hear my mother’s voice now: Once your humanity’s been siphoned out, you can’t get it back, even if you’re removed from that environment.
Is that what I’m going to be like? Did I make the right choice in leaving the Enhanced? I’m not sure. I’m going to be hungry again. Thirsty. In danger. Yet it feels right, and I don’t know why. My head’s still too fuzzy.
My lips taste rubbery, and I’m starting to sweat. I can feel the blue gown sticking to me. I pull at the fabric. The Enhanced Ones’ fabric. I clench it in my fist.
I look around at my rescue party. Rahn, Esther, and Kayden in the front of the truck, Corin, Elf, and Yani are seated in the truck bed with me. I try not to think of Keelie. Seven people came to rescue me. And only seven of us are returning. I look at Corin, then at Elf. I think they both saw Keelie’s death. Elf sits in a heap in the corner. His huge hands cover his face. His shoulders shake. Corin is still staring back out at the dark landscape we are leaving behind. It’s full of doom, evil, and artificiality. But it’s spreading.
And soon, we’re not going to be able to outrun it. We all know it.
The Enhanced will take over. It’s inevitable. It always has been.
Lesson five: Don’t ignore the facts. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is death.
The rest of the Untamed are waiting as we get back to Nbutai—our village. They’re all standing outside their huts, watching with narrowed eyes—eyes that have colored irises and white sclerae, eyes that look so different from mine.
We all get out of the truck in silence. Esther jumped out first, and now she helps me walk, though the look of disgust on her face doesn’t evade me. Weakness grabs me, and my knees feel almost acidic; her arms are probably the only things that stop my face smashing into the ground.
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