Untamed Series, #1

by Madeline Dyer

  It’s then that I see my father: a tall, broad frame. Dark coloring, like me. Heavy eyebrows emphasize his brow, make his eyes look darker. He’s watching me, his body rigid. My brother and sister, Three and Five, stand either side of him, their hands on my father’s arms for support. As I make eye contact, Three looks away, his gaze dropping to the ground.

  The silence speaks for itself. Marouska, a rather round woman, steps forward. She has a bowl of soup in her hands, which she hands to Rahn. He takes it, pushes at his dark glasses, and nods his thanks at her, then disappears into the nearest hut. The biggest hut.

  “Come an’ eat,” Marouska says to the rest of us. She has a strange accent. She’s not from these lands, but she’s been here longer than I have.

  I shake my head. Elf also declines the invitation. Shrugging, Finn tells everyone he’ll have our food. My eyes narrow. So he survived that raid then.

  Slowly, I make my way over to the shack I share with my mother and—

  No. Not my mother. Not anymore. Just my father, brother, and sister. I gulp.

  It is tidy inside; Five must’ve spent her afternoon tidying it again. She’s always doing that. Or she’s tidying her own appearance. One or the other. Very proud, my sister is. Vain, my brother calls her.

  I change into my own clothes, feeling both glad and anxious as I discard the blue gown. It falls onto the floor. I kick at it for good measure, then pause, part of me expecting it to kick back. Except the Enhanced aren’t violent, are they? They’re good people… No. They’re unnatural people. They’re not even people. I shake my head in desperation.

  Sighing, I sink onto the three-legged stool. It belongs to my father. I let my head fall into my hands, my arms struggling to support it. I can’t stop shaking. I just want to sleep. Sleeping sounds like a good idea…if I had the energy to move.

  A few minutes later, there’s a knock on the side of the shack, then Esther pulls back the door cover. I peer at her through my bleary vision. She’s holding a torch, and the bright light highlights the way her face is furrowed and how she’s biting her lip. I beckon her in.

  “You sure you can’t eat?” she asks. She squints at me, frowning. She’s been sent here, probably by Marouska—it’s obvious.

  “I’m sure.”

  My hands shake in my lap. I try not to think of Raleigh and what he’s doing; whether he’s coming up with a plan to rescue me. I don’t know whether I want to be rescued. Not again.

  I watch as Esther crosses the shack. She stands in front of me. Her build is sturdy—like Corin’s—and her short, cropped hair makes her look fierce. But she’s a genuine, real person, I remind myself, the Enhanced Ones aren’t. I’m not. Not at the moment. The augmenters are still in my system, controlling me. The thought doesn’t make me feel any better.

  Neither of us speaks for a few moments. Maybe she doesn’t know what to say. Maybe I don’t. Or maybe we both know that silence is healing. Neither of us wants to talk about what has happened. Just thinking about it makes me squirm. I can feel my face reddening.

  The augmenters were controlling me. It wasn’t really me they saw. It was the Enhanced me. But, still, I can’t shake away the memory of my greed; how I was scrambling about trying to gather the sweet, beautiful liquid. And Corin saw me like that. Shame clouds my vision, and I blink rapidly. I don’t want to give anyone an extra reason to think I’m weak.

  And Keelie’s death—it’s my fault. If I’d run faster and hadn’t been caught by the Enhanced, there’d have been no reason for the Untamed to break into the compound, seeing as Rahn wasn’t going to rescue my mother.

  I close my eyes for a second, trying to block out everything. But I can still taste the augmenters. The slight spiciness of the Benevolence, the sweetness of the Calmness. And the cake. I’m craving it like I used to crave the small pieces of sugar cane my father occasionally gave me when I was little.

  Never let yourself be Enhanced. Once it’s done, there’s no going back.

  “They’re going to be after us even more now,” I whisper to Esther. I don’t know why I’m telling her—giving her another reason to hate me, just like the rest of her family. I think of her brother, Corin, and I wince.

  Esther’s still standing by the wall, her shadow falling over me. The torch is dimming, like everything in this world—like the chances of the Untamed surviving.

  “Did you tell them where we live?” Her voice is already accusatory.

  It’s the first time any of them have asked me that. I’d thought the question would’ve come from Corin or Rahn as soon as I got in the truck, but no. Not Rahn, the suspicious leader who holds prejudices like they’re his knives. Not Corin, the arrogant young man who thinks he’s important and exploits his connections to the leader.

  I shake my head and turn toward the window. “But I said I’d lead you to them—I won’t though.” I blink hard, trying to clear my head. “And I didn’t tell them where you live.”

  You… I should’ve said we. Why didn’t I say we? I pinch the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger.

  “Well,” Esther says, “that wasn’t the best of raids.” She laughs sarcastically, but it sounds as fake as the Enhanced Ones’ feelings—as my feelings?

  I just nod. My memories of the actual raid have paled and faded until they’re practically non-existent. I barely even remember leaving for Nbutai with my load.

  I fix my eyes on the blackness outside, trying to picture the landscape, the lie of the desert, the contours of the mountains. But my vision isn’t as sharp now. The Enhanced, they could be out there. They could be hiding. They could be waiting. They could set our houses on fire…except murder is not their intention. Conversion is.

  I look at Esther. She squeezes her lips together. At this angle, she looks more like Corin. She nods once.

  “They’re always going to be after us.” Her voice is crisp. “We just have to remain strong. We can survive this. Our families have survived over two hundred years of this already. We are not going to be the last. We can’t let the whole of humanity become robotic machines. We will survive this.”

  Hands shake me, jerking me from my sleep.

  I blink into the harsh light. “Wha—”

  “Get out!”

  Three’s face looms in front of me, but only for a second. Then he’s turning away from me. A blinding flash of light illuminates his back. I hear a scraping sound as my brother grabs at a half-made radio with spider-wire legs.

  “Seven! Hide! They’re coming! Get to the rocks in the south!”

  My feet trip as I jump up. Bedclothes are everywhere. Three’s gone, leaving me on my own. My father? Five? Not here. For a second, I don’t know what to do. My stomach hardens, my chest tightens. Who’s coming? The Enhanced? My breath hitches. I don’t know whether I should be scared or pleased.

  I head for the doorway. The sky’s a pale peachy color with a golden hue and hints of soft blue. What time it is? It can’t be that early already. It can’t.

  I skid to a stop, in front of the other huts. I taste dirt in my mouth; my teeth feel heavy.

  “Run, Seven, hide!”

  Three’s shout is near, but I can’t see him, no matter where I look. I can hear movement, all around me. Rustling and steps and things being dragged…but no one’s here. It’s deserted. I can’t see them, but I can hear them? The effects of the augmenters? I don’t know. All I know is something bad’s happening, and I can’t see a thing. I can’t make sense of anything.

  Keep running, Seven. Keep running.

  My breath catches in my throat. Tension runs down my spine as I force one foot in front of the other. I speed up, my knees jerking as I gag on the night air. I keep going. I don’t have a weapon. My hands feel empty. They’re aching.

  They’re coming.

  I choke, tears stream down my face. My heart pounds, blood races around my body. I clench my shaking hands to me, trying to see the others, but whenever I focus on something, it becomes a swirling haze.

&
nbsp; The roof of my mouth feels too dry, sandy almost. I turn; the ground gets grittier beneath my bare feet. Bare feet? I baulk. My shoes? But the hut’s too far away…they all are… I’m still running, my feet are still pounding the ground, and I can’t stop. Dust is everywhere; I can feel it on my skin. Like the darkness around me—a blanket of nothingness.

  It’s just sand and rocks. The shacks have disappeared. Have I run that fast? That far? I am the fastest, but I was barely running.

  But there’s no one here. I turn, looking around. The horizon’s uncut, everything’s okay, but the huts have gone, and—

  “Hello?”

  I keep running, screaming and screaming, but no matter how loud I shout, my voice is like a lost whisper, buried within the world that’s trying to engulf me. Tears pour down my face. It’s cold, too cold here, too dark. And I’m alone. All alone.

  What the hell? I clench my icy fists tightly. My eyes sting. All around me, the air is like pinpricks of glass, cutting into the tiny pores of my skin.

  “Dad? Three? Help! Help me, please!” My voice sounds odd, strained, too quiet, yet it echoes.

  I rake a hand through my sweaty hair. My fingers catch on a tangle. I tear it out. I falter, turn, look back. Icy winds wrap around me. My skin burns. All I can see is the sand and the rocks. Figures? No. I squint harder, my heart racing. Pain shoots through my chest, tugging at my heart. I swallow hard, trying to remember, trying to remember anything. I can feel bile rising in my throat. I gag, my cold hands gripping my even colder bare knees for support. Can’t stop shaking. Can’t see properly.

  I swallow sand, feel it grate against my throat on its way down. There’s a rushing sound in my ears as I steady myself, trying to see, trying to see anything.

  I look down at my hands, at the broken skin of my fingers. Blood. Dried blood. What the hell?

  I listen hard, trying to ignore my racing heart and the sand that’s moving all around me. I step forward slowly, one foot, then the other, but still I’m panting, panting hard. My skin tingles.

  Murky shapes rise out of the darkness. Dark silhouettes. Several of them. Moving, swaying slightly. I clench my fists, and my teeth graze my bottom lip. I taste blood. More blood.

  Run, Seven. Run now. The voice is loud. Too loud.

  I flinch, frozen for too many seconds. My collarbones ache, unease rips through me. My head’s jarring, everything hurts. What’s happened? I can’t remember…can’t think… The Untamed rescued me, and—and they drugged me? Abandoned me here because I’m a liability? No, I saw Three…we were in our hut….

  I cough up some sort of sour, foul-smelling liquid. The wind chaps my lips, drying them in an instant.

  “A liability,” I whisper. Me? I gulp.

  To my left, the black rocks stand there. I look ahead. And the shacks are there: their irregular structures standing up on the horizon, like soldiers. I take a step backward, even though those people are coming. I freeze. I stare at the shacks… I frown.

  We…we relocated our village? In the middle of the night? In, what, half a minute? A minute? Two minutes? Without me noticing, without me helping?

  I shake my head, gripping the side of my face with my cold, cold fingers. I look straight ahead, trying to blink everything into sense. But it doesn’t help. The shacks are there. Our shacks. There are six of them. But there should be seven; Rahn lives on his own. He hates being with other people. Even when we went on a week-long raid a few years ago and had to set up camp in the bleakest part of the mountains, he’d insisted on his own abode.

  Rahn always lives on his own.

  But there are six shacks ahead. Only six. My skin crawls.

  “Dad?” I start running toward the rough buildings, stumbling over the ground. “Three?”

  But everything’s dark, and it’s getting darker. I can’t see. It’s too—

  I shriek, throwing myself to the left. Land hard on my shoulder, roll over, the flames catching at my feet. I smell burnt flesh as I stagger up, wiping sand from my face.

  Fire? I narrow my eyes at the flames in front of me—walls of reds and oranges. The heat’s burning. I can feel the skin of my face smoldering, can taste more bile.

  I scream, choking on the sooty air. I force myself to move, to get away. Need to get away. Far away. Quickly. Smoke billows toward me. I shriek.

  And—

  It’s gone.

  I freeze. Completely. Until all I can hear is the dying wind as it caresses my crying skin. I turn, wary, my body pumping with adrenaline. I can still smell burning, but the fire’s gone. Darkness swims around me, but the darkness is lighter than before. I can see more clearly. The sky’s purple. Dark purple. I feel even sicker. This…this isn’t right…this can’t be real…it doesn’t feel real… I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.

  Run, Seven!

  I run.

  Far too soon, I reach the shacks. Everything inside me squirms as I drag open the drape to my family’s shack. It is dark inside. There’s a strange smell, like honey and mint, and rotting flesh and—

  I scream.

  Dark skin. Dark eyes. Dark hair. Blood glistens from his ear, pouring out, pooling onto the dry floor. Only it’s wet now. Wet and sticky.

  Blood.

  Bodies.

  I clamp a hand to my chest. My fingers zap any warmth from my frame. With my other hand, I push my hair out of my eyes, lift my head up straighter, force myself to look behind my brother’s body.

  For minutes—or maybe hours, I don’t know—the world stops.

  Dead. They…they can’t be. This, this isn’t real…can’t be real. But dreams aren’t this vivid. And bad dreams never go on for this long. I pull at my hair, scrunching it up on the crown of my head, pulling so hard it hurts, each follicle burning. Still, I don’t wake up.

  I retch, coughing and spluttering, bending down so close that I see the bullet in Three’s head. Weakness fills me, I try to move, try to get away, but I can’t…can’t do anything…nothing will work.

  Somehow, I turn my head, see the purple sky: new orange streaks pull through it. I turn back; something catches my eye. It’s a Luger. On the floor by my sister’s head. A Luger… My Luger, the one Rahn lent to me. It’s definitely the same gun: the one the Enhanced now have, because they must have picked it up when they took me.

  I should run. I know I should run. Need to get out of here. But I can’t.

  I look back at Three’s body. He can’t be dead. He can’t. Neither can my dad. Or Five. But they’re here. Their bodies are here….

  I feel numb.

  “This isn’t happening,” I whisper, and my words echo all around me. “This can’t be happening.”

  Dizzily, I back out, a strangled cry escaping my lips. I clamp a hand over my mouth, and then I’m running. Running toward the next shack. It’s taller than ours and is a little more sturdily built. I start to lift the thick cover over the doorway, but then I stop.

  I know what’s inside there.

  I don’t want to see Corin’s body. Or Esther’s.

  I crash to the floor. Mud covers me in an instant, smothering my skin. It’s cold, sticky, and—

  Mud. I stare at it. Mud…in the desert? But this is mud. I dig my fingers into it, feeling the way it sticks to my nails, to my bloody skin. It’s sloppy, gloopy, and—

  “They’ve killed themselves,” an unknown voice shouts.

  I jump, then cower in the mud, letting it plaster my body. It’s glowing now, the mud, slightly purple too. I taste grit at the back of my mouth.

  “These ones have as well.”

  The Enhanced. I know it’s the Enhanced. They’re here.

  Killed themselves… The Untamed wouldn’t do such a thing…unless it was to escape the Enhanced. Being dead is better than being unnatural robotic machines fueled by artificial feelings. At the sound of my father’s voice, I bite my cheeks until I taste more blood. Too much blood. Everywhere, I see blood.

  Breathing hard, I look around. It’s almost li
ght now. Another Enhanced shouts something, but I can’t make it out. I need to get out of here, before they find me….

  “Go now,” I whisper the words. But my body doesn’t move. I clench my fingers into tight fists. My bones crack.

  The sky is changing color again. Dark swirls of navy blue appear and mix with the oranges and purples. I blink several times, like I’m seeing it for the first time.

  “No….no….no!”

  The Turning. The seasons are changing. It’s the Turning.

  My throat squeezes. Need to get under cover. Can’t be outside. Not in the Turning. Need to find cover.

  I clench my fists to me, squeezing mud from my palms. It sprays out like jets. I turn my head toward the nearest shack. It’s Corin’s. I can’t go in there.

  “Shania’s body hasn’t been accounted for. She’s still out here.”

  Dark spots swarm around me. Oh Gods, they’re going to find me. And I don’t know whether that would really be a bad thing or not….

  Hide, Seven. Hide now.

  I push myself up, but my legs are too soft, too sticky…can’t stand… I fall, crashing back into the mud, swallowing several gulps of it. I try to spit it out, gagging more. Can’t breathe.

  “Did she definitely escape with these Untamed?”

  “Yes.” There’s a pause, and I hear labored breathing. “I remember the red-haired man.”

  The red-haired man. Kayden. I haven’t seen his body yet.

  His body. I nearly choke. The other bodies. They’ve killed themselves. My vision darkens. They’ve killed themselves because of the Enhanced.

  “Keep looking for her.”

  “She could have killed herself too.”

  There’s a slight pause, then I hear footsteps. I look up toward the sky, and—

  What. The. Hell?

  A bison stares back at me. His eyes are dark—two bottomless pits in the sky, waiting to swallow me up—and he’s watching me. Never looking away.