“Good.”
He turns away and ducks under a low doorway. I follow him, stooping under the doorway too. Who actually goes to this shop? The short Enhanced?
We’re now in a dark narrow corridor with railings either side. The odd carrier bag is hanging up here and there, and Corin grabs each one we pass, leaving none for me. I push my hair out of my face, and force myself to keep up with his fast pace. He opens a door on our left, and we step out into a large, bright, airy room.
I know department stores have a wide range of stuff, but this one seems to have more than usual, and we’re only in a small part of it. On one side, there are cooking implements and appliances; on the other, folding chairs are stacked up to the ceiling. In the middle, there’s a display of fabrics and cushions. Near them is a double bed.
“Clothes are that way.” Corin points to the right. He steps in front of me and walks past the fabric display. There’s a doorway straight ahead; through it, I can already see racks of clothes.
I follow him to the doorway—another small one—noting just how broad Corin’s shoulders are. He’s the broadest man I’ve ever seen. Once we reach the clothes, he hands me a carrier bag, and we begin loading them in. Certainly easier than wearing them. After a few minutes, the pain in my shoulder grows beyond the usual throb. I grit my teeth.
Corin hands me another bag. I start to fill it, beginning with shoes at the bottom, shirts on the top. There aren’t many times when raiding shops is this easy. I turn to grab another shirt—and I freeze.
Corin stares at me.
He’s stopped what he’s doing; a girl’s flowery blouse hangs limply over his arm. The two bags he’s already filled sit on the ground, one leaning against his foot. He’s wearing the shoes I got him—well, the ones we both got, back at the other shop. They look worn out now, even muddy in places. The laces are frayed, and the toe of the left one is scuffed.
When I look up, he’s still staring at me. But he seems closer now. Much closer.
He moves his hand, as if he’s going to touch my face. I freeze. His expression is unreadable—if only I could actually see his eyes. His jaw is tight, square, and firm. His mouth, set in a strong line, shows tension. And he’s staring at me.
His nose twitches a little. My heart pounds. He’s going to—
He looks quickly down at the clothes, his face reddening.
“What about this blouse?” He holds up the flowery blouse that was draped over his arm. “Do you like it?”
“I—”
A throat clears to my left. Corin looks past me, freezes.
My heart quickens. I turn slowly. We are surrounded.
“Drop the bags, put any weapons on the floor, and turn around. Hands in the air.”
Corin jumps as the voice booms out behind us. I drop my bag immediately, pull the Luger out of my waistband and turn it on them, just as my father taught me. I hold it there and look to my left. Then my right.
Oh Gods. There’s no way out. They’re everywhere.
They deserve to die. I swallow hard. The Enhanced are a disease, taking us over, wiping us all out. Diseases are never good. They don’t make us better….
Except the Enhanced lifestyle makes us feel better. No pain. No terror. No anger. It wouldn’t be so bad to join them….
I bite my bottom lip hard.
Their eyes reflect light in multiple directions. It’s disorientating. I shift my weight from foot to foot. These Enhanced are tall, powerfully built, perfect. The image of them all stooping under that low doorway nearly makes me laugh.
“Put the weapons down.”
I glance over at Corin; his gun is on them too.
“Back to back,” he whispers, already moving. The flowery blouse is over his arm again.
I meet him halfway, and the warmth of his back against mine provides some sort of artificial reassurance as I stare into our fate. I do a quick count. Twenty of them. We don’t have enough bullets for all of them. Bullets… The word makes my stomach churn. They’re still people. But they murdered Kayden… My hand on the gun tightens.
My mother’s one of them now. If she were here, could I kill her? A tremor runs through me.
“Put the weapons down.” An Enhanced man steps forward, but I can’t see him very well. “We will not ask you again, Untamed Ones.”
My hand remains where it is. My Luger’s trained on a female.
Pull the trigger!
I hear the shuffle of Corin’s clothes as he moves. The blouse falls to the ground, slinking down his leg. For a second, I think he’s going to pull the trigger on himself—that’s what a lot of Untamed do, after all. Then I hear a clatter—he’s put the Glock down.
“You too,” another one says.
All eyes are on me. Corin should run—they’re not looking at him. But he doesn’t. Why doesn’t he run?
“Put the gun down. Violence is never the answer, you poor Untamed creature. We only want to help. To make you see that life is much more without negative emotions. We want to save you. But violence is never the answer.”
My eyes narrow. Try telling that to the one who shot Kayden.
“Sev, put it down.” Corin’s voice is thick.
“B—but, they’re going to get us.” I gulp. My ears burn. I try not to look at them, in their clean clothes and their well-fed, freshly-showered states.
“Put it down.” Corin’s voice is a little louder this time.
After a few seconds, I do. A man retrieves our weapons.
“Good.” The woman who speaks is wearing a ridiculous shade of orange. She steps nearer. “Take your glasses off.”
I bristle, but what difference is it going to make? They know what we are.
Corin backs up against me again, and more heat radiates from his body like the desert sun’s hot fingers rushing over me.
“No.”
The Enhanced share a strange smile. A few of them even nod, looking delighted.
“We know you’re Untamed,” one of them says. Her voice is like sugar-coated bubblegum; just the sound makes me feel sick. “Our people never steal. We don’t need to. We are the perfect society, stealing has been eradicated in our people.” She raises a fragile hand toward us; her silk clothes seem to flow around her arm. “Don’t worry, my dears, we know you’re scared. But we will help you. We will save you. It is our duty.”
She steps forward, until she’s only a few inches from us. Her long fingers pluck my glasses from my face. I blink in the harsh light. Her eyes burn mine even more. I feel a strange tickling in the bridge of my nose, like I’m going to sneeze.
Corin doesn’t say anything as his glasses are removed. I can tell he’s thinking, even though he’s behind me. He’s just giving off those vibes. Very distinctive, they are.
Thinking, that’s what I should be doing. If there’s a way out of this, then we need to be able to think. I need to breathe. I take a few deep breaths.
If we want to get out of this… Maybe I should’ve fought against Corin and Rahn harder when they came to collect me from the compound at New Kimearo. Then I wouldn’t be in this situation. I’d have been safe the whole time; I wouldn’t have been on the run, constantly scared.
And I wouldn’t have the guilt of stealing that augmenter raging inside me like a caged lion trying to claw its way out.
No. I have to fight. I am a Seer now.
“Ada, call a conversion unit. You take the girl,” one of them says. “We’ll have the guy.”
“No.” Corin’s hand latches onto my arm. It’s my bad arm, and something tears in my shoulder as he pulls me closer to him. I bite back tears. “You can have us if we stay together.”
Corin looks across at me briefly, then back at the Enhanced. His eyes are deep. I’ve never seen his face so pale; his skin is almost white, and it makes the sunburnt patches look like they’ve been stuck onto his face, like they don’t really belong to him.
One of them laughs. “Lovers.”
“Brother and sister.” Corin coug
hs.
More of the Enhanced laugh.
“You don’t look like you’re related,” a man says. “You’re about as opposite as two people can be.”
He’s right. Corin’s light; I’m dark. Corin’s muscular and broadly built; I’m tall and thin.
“I said we are brother and sister. Whatever you want with us, we stick together.”
The Enhanced woman in the orange dress shakes her head. “I don’t think you’re in a position to negotiate with us. You—the Untamed—have evaded us for long enough, stopping us from fulfilling our duty. You should be grateful that we’re still willing to give you this chance. We could just kill you.”
“Violence is never the answer,” I echo their words back at them before I even realize what I’m doing.
One of them laughs.
“Seize them.”
There’s nothing we can do as they close in on us. Hands grab me, and I try to fight them off, but I can’t—or maybe I don’t want to. I don’t even know anymore. They yank me forward, by my hair, and I scream. Another Enhanced One grabs my shoulder.
Pain. Everywhere. Just pain. I struggle to breathe, start to fall, but hands force me upward.
“She was shot in that shoulder!” Corin yells. I see him struggling against four Enhanced. He’s doing a surprisingly good job. “Don’t touch her!”
The Enhanced don’t listen to him. Of course they wouldn’t.
Corin fights hard, but I barely have the energy. All I can feel is pain down my right side and in my shoulder, kind of like I’ve been shot again, but with a bullet that numbs everything into a distant blur. Anyway…it’s…it’s easier to give in…but it’s not giving in…it’s survival…it’s what I want…what I need. And this will be the only way to survive… The Untamed life isn’t really living, only the Enhanced truly live.
“Let her go!”
Hands pat me down, and I squirm automatically so they don’t feel the augmenter in my pocket. Not that I need to hide it from them. They’d be delighted to find it. Maybe if they saw it, they’d be nicer to me.
Don’t betray Corin.
He shouts a string of the rudest words I’ve ever heard, but it doesn’t make the slightest difference. The situation we’re in has only one outcome.
I gulp, choking. I don’t want to remember what it was like to be one of them. I need the negatives to outweigh the positives. The Enhanced pretend they’re good, but they still kill. They are monsters. They killed Finn and Kayden, and they tortured and shot me.
Anger flares through me. My arms stiffen. Pain, fully alive now, rips through my shoulder. I crane my neck, get a glimpse of Corin. More people surround him than me, and I can barely see his face. Can’t tell which way he’s facing.
I swing around, trying to push them off me. Something jabs me in the back.
They’re going to convert us. We can’t get away. It’s like in the desert, nearly two months ago, but, I don’t know, is it worse? Can it be worse?
I know what they’re going to do. I know what it feels like to be them. And I know how good it was, but also how bad it was. Maybe that’s the worst part; I know they’ll help me forget the bad stuff they did to me. I would be happy again. I’d be with my mother. I’d have everything. I could forget all the murders I’ve seen. They’d help me. I’d be safe, for the first time in my life, truly safe.
But you wouldn’t be you.
My head feels like it’s going to explode. I can hear buzzing and see flashing lights everywhere I look. The roof of my mouth tastes furry, and my knees are weak as numerous hands push me forward.
Is it better to be me or not? Dead or alive?
“Kill us instead!” The words erupt from within me, and I gag.
What the hell are you doing?
My ears ring. My head feels too cold—ice cold—and the base of my neck stings. I feel sick. The Enhanced stare at me. But, I haven’t made a difference. They only laugh.
“We don’t want to become like you,” Corin shouts. “We’re entitled to make our own choices.”
I freeze. What if they kill him but not me? My stomach gurgles. I taste bile. The light in here’s too bright—their shiny eyes swarm around me.
“You don’t know what’s best for you. How can you choose between two lives, when you’ve not experienced both?”
“Sev has!” Corin shouts. “And she chose our lifestyle. The Untamed lifestyle. Not yours. You need to let us go. Now.”
“We deserve a choice,” I say. He’s right. We should each have a choice, the chance to decide….
Laughter rips from them in unison, then they drag me forward. I turn, trying to see Corin, but can’t. There are too many of them. They force me toward a different room, away from Corin; my feet stumble over the threshold.
This is right. This is right. Soon you won’t know what you were worrying about.
“Sev!”
My heart surges. I whirl around, kicking.
“Cor—”
Something hits me hard against my spine. Pain resounds through me in tiny vibrations, up and down my backbone, into my neck, my head. I lose my balance, fall against two more Enhanced Ones. My left hand ends up on the crotch of one, and I try to push myself away, but my body creases with pain.
Darkness starts to close in above me. I stoop, breathing through my nose—so loudly, I can hear it in my ears like claps of thunder—and turn around. My hands are clenched, ready.
Ready for what? They just want to help. They believe it’s the right thing to do. It is the right thing. You know it really.
“Don’t worry, my dear.” It’s one of the Enhanced men—one with long blond hair, dark skin, and multiple piercings. His voice doesn’t match his appearance. “This pain is temporary. You’ll soon be free of it all. You’ll live a pure, loving life of satisfaction. Do not be afraid.”
Why would I be afraid?
I manage to get to my feet somehow. “Get away from me.” My whole body trembles violently. There is nothing I can do.
“It will be easier for you if you cooperate. I can tell you want to.”
“No…no…no, I don’t. Get away from me.” I gulp. “Where’s Corin?”
I try to look at the next Enhanced One, but they all look the same suddenly. I can’t distinguish between them. They’re like copies, identical, all of them.
“Where’s the man I was with?”
“You’ll be reunited after the conversion.”
The conversion.
I can taste blood in my mouth. My teeth chatter. My tongue feels too big, like it’s swollen to three times its size, and I’m going to choke on it.
The conversion—just the word makes me shudder. I gulp, already feeling liquid pour down my throat as Raleigh’s grinning face looms in front of me. My throat restricts, my body convulses.
“Get away from me!”
I back away from the dark-skinned, blond-haired man. Hands seize me from behind.
“Get away from me!”
The cloth is lowered again.
Another wave pours down.
It’s not worth it…they’ll break you in the end.
“Join us, and this will stop.”
Save yourself. Give up now.
“I’ll never join you voluntarily!”
“It will be easier and less painful for you if you cooperate.”
I hear a loud click. A familiar loud click. I freeze. A gun. They paid attention, after all.
Death.
Terror pours through me. I—I didn’t mean it! I don’t want to die! I’d rather be like them and alive.
Another click.
I don’t know how I’m still standing. It’s the—they’re holding me up. How didn’t I notice? They’re so close. I can smell them: flowery perfumes, heavy musky scents, spicy aromas. I can see every detail of their faces: the follicles of their skin, the fine powders on their faces, my reflection in their eyes.
Click.
They’re going to kill me.
I turn, scream
ing. Hands fall away, shocked. I lunge forward, grab at the nearest woman, punch her in the face. It’s not the best punch I’ve ever thrown, but not the worst either.
“Restrain her!”
Another click. Oh Gods. Why don’t they just do it? Why play with me, making me think I can get away?
Because you don’t want to get away.
But I run, and I punch another one. Why am I hurting them? It’ll do no good; make them sure to kill me.
“Stop it!” I yell the words, both at them and myself.
Another click of the gun.
I turn, searching for the barrel. If I know where it is, I can avoid it. But I can’t see it. I look. I keep looking. I strain my eyes. Still can’t see it. I search more hands. Ten hands, eleven, twelve. But none of them grasps a gun. One hand is holding a vial of pale orange liquid. I must have imagined the gun clicks.
The vial creeps toward me.
“No!”
Something catches my eye. I blink foggily. And a lot of things happen. A flurry of movement. Something rushes up against me. A man pushes me backward, a wall against my back. I stand with my feet shoulder-width apart, and the Enhanced hold my arms against the wall. Nowhere for me to go.
The orange augmenter winks at me.
She’s holding it—the woman in front of me. Dark hair, light skin, shiny eyes. Her face is expressionless.
“Get it away from me,” I say, but my voice is weaker.
Tears pour down my face, mingling with blood on my top lip, but I don’t care. My eyes will only focus on the tiny bottle. It doesn’t look as beautiful as the Calmness in my pocket. This one looks sinister. My heart palpitates. I flush hot, then cold.
But the Enhanced are ignoring me. Of course they are! The steel fingers around my wrists get tighter. The augmenter is too close. Far too close. There’s no stopping it. Do I want to stop it?
Remember what it was like! Remember your room, your bed, your wardrobe, your teddy bear….
I scream again, and—
Click.
“I believe, though of course, I may be wrong, that she asked you to get that thing away from her,” a voice says.
I freeze, all the breath knocked from me.
That voice.
Untamed Series, #1 Page 17