I shake my head at the dog.
“Maybe I’m going mad,” I say to the dog. He pants, looking up at me. “Or maybe this is normal for a Seer.”
That evening, once the small fire has died down, we all sleep in the car. It’s cramped inside; Corin’s taken his place by the window, but his frame is wider and more muscular than Kayden’s. And Three and Esther aren’t exactly small either; both are strong and muscular. Then there’s me. The skinny, tall seventeen-year-old with a child’s body. I cross my legs, stick my elbows in, making my frame even narrower. Esther’s leaning against me, and I’m sure my side’s going to be dead by the morning. I want to move, to stretch, but I can’t.
Given my mood today, it is no surprise when I find myself in the Dream Land.
I am lying in a field.
It doesn’t feel right. It’s a strange transition. My mother told me that usually Seeing dreams start where your real life leaves off. I frown. Maybe this isn’t real? But the bison’s above.
It’s daylight too. No. It’s brighter than daylight. A lot brighter. The light is white, pure white—the type that blinds you. I squint and shield my eyes as I get up. I look up at the sky. It’s white, apart from the bison watching me. Why a bison? I study its shape. I think it’s a wood bison—the type found in the Taiga land, but I am not sure. I frown. Why is a bison associated with Seers?
Suddenly, the wind picks up; my skin feels raw. I look up at the sky. It’s no longer white. It’s a swirling mass of pale, pastel colors.
The Turning?
Quickly, I turn and look around. Everything in the land around me is moving. Small rocks—rocks that I hadn’t noticed before—moving through the air. Moving at me.
I scream and throw myself at the ground. But it’s sharp—the ground is made up of thousands of thorns that tear at my skin.
Run, Seven, run while you can. The voice booms out from the sky, resounding through the contours of the land, and I scream. Run, Seven, run! He is coming.
Raleigh? I gulp.
He will always be able to find you… Choose your companions carefully, Seven. Some are not worthy… They will lead you down the wrong path… They won’t mean to…but they cannot help it… Keep a clear head…a clear head, Seven. Be yourself, not them… Be who you are… Let what you are on the inside shine on the outside… Don’t try to change your fate… We all need you.
I am running. I can’t run fast enough. My feet hit the land quicker than I knew they could. But this speed! It’s crazy. But it has to be crazy. I have to get away from Raleigh. I have to escape him. Escape him and the Enhanced.
They’re coming, Seven. The Enhanced Ones are coming. They’ll always be right behind you until you choose a side. A proper side. No dancing in between the Untamed and the Enhanced. Wake up now, Seven. For they are coming. Raleigh is coming for you. You. It is you who they want. You. If they have you, they’ll have all the Untamed. Run now, tell them all to run, now, while you all still have the chance.
“Rahn!” I shout as I jerk awake. “Rahn, we need to go now.” My arms fly out as I try to push Esther’s weight off me. “Rahn!”
Someone mumbles something, and then Corin and Three both bolt upright, clashing heads. In the near-darkness, I see Corin shove my brother away from him, hear him mutter something under his breath. Rahn turns in the driver’s seat, looking at me. The pale moonlight reflects off his dark glasses.
“What have you seen?” he asks, rubbing his neck.
“Seen?” Marouska looks at me.
“She’s a Seer,” Three says.
“A Seer?” Marouska frowns. I thought she knew. She mustn’t have remembered; lots of things happened quickly before and during the attack at Nbutai.
“Are you okay?” Esther’s looking at me.
I nod. “We need to go now. Raleigh’s coming for me.”
I look around, trying to peer out of the window. I feel strange. Jittery. The bison’s words still pound my head: They’re coming, Seven. The Enhanced Ones are coming. They’ll always be right behind you until you choose a side. A proper side. No dancing in between the Untamed and the Enhanced.
I swallow hard. I’ve chosen a side. I’m Untamed. I’ll always be Untamed now. I have to be.
But Rahn’s survival lesson echoes in my mind, and it makes me feel sick: Never let yourself be Enhanced. Once it’s done, there’s no going back.
The lesson’s right. I’m not the same. The augmenter is in my pocket.
And the bison knows what I’ve been thinking, about how the Enhanced will be the only people who survive. All this time I’ve been insisting to myself that I am Untamed, yet what if I can never truly be Untamed again?
Once it’s done, there’s no going back.
I shake my head. But the bison said I need to choose a side. I focus on that. That means it’s still my choice. I can still be Untamed.
But now Raleigh’s coming for me. I gulp. The bison said if they have me, they’ll have all the Untamed. Oh Gods. My heart hammers against my ribs. I hug my arms around my body, ignoring my shoulder. I never used to be bothered about the dark before, but now it causes unease in me; it watches me squirm, while knowing all the things that are out there, just waiting for my first mistake.
“Raleigh?” Corin says, his voice deep. His shoulders tense up. “We should’ve killed him when we had the chance. No matter how many bullets it took.”
Rahn clears his throat, looks at me. “You’re sure about this? We need to go now?”
I nod.
Raleigh, and the Enhanced, is always going to be after me until I choose a side. Why me? What’s so special about me? Why am I the key to all the Untamed?
“Right,” Rahn says. A few seconds later, he turns the ignition. “Where do we go then, Seven?”
I freeze. “I—I don’t know. Just that we need to keep moving. Raleigh’s after me. Not you, not at the moment… It’s me he wants—” I gulp back tears. “I’m putting you all in danger. You should leave me.”
As soon as I say the words, I wince. I don’t want them to leave me on my own. The Enhanced would get me… I gulp. The augmenter feels heavier in my pocket. What if I choose the Enhanced because I am on my own?
If they have you, they’ll have all the Untamed.
There’s a long silence. My heart palpitates. Rahn’s actually considering it.
“We’re not leaving you behind,” Three says. “I’ll always be with you.”
“We all will,” Rahn says. But his voice sounds strained, like he’s got a lump of soup stuck to the roof of his mouth and he’s trying to swallow it down. “We are a group.”
Esther nods. Marouska doesn’t say anything. Neither does Corin. He just gets a cigarette. Rahn doesn’t even say anything as Corin lights up, in the car.
Three leans forward, across Esther, and takes my hand in his. “Don’t worry, Seven. Raleigh will never get to you again, that is a promise.”
“No. He won’t,” Corin says. And there’s something about the determination in his voice that rings in my ears for hours after he’s said the words.
We drive on through the night. Just as it’s getting light, we stop so Three can take over the driving.
“I don’t mind driving,” I say.
But Rahn won’t listen. Neither will anyone else.
Three drives more carefully than Rahn does, and we crash over fewer potholes and take fewer turns at sharp, crazy angles. It could almost be considered a relaxing drive if I wasn’t terrified that Raleigh was going to jump out from behind every tree.
“Oh, the Gods!” In the mirror, Three’s eyebrows shoot up. “There’s a car.”
My heart slams into my chest. All of us turn, peering. My shoulder stings. He’s right. There is a car. We haven’t passed a single car on the roads in all our journeying. Yet now there’s a car. The bison’s words echo through me again, and I shudder.
“Is it followin’ us?”
Three looks in the mirror again. “Don’t know. It’s speeding up.”
“It’s them,” I whisper.
Rahn shakes his head. He’s now sitting in the back, on the opposite side from me, with Corin and Esther squashed between us. “We don’t know it’s them.”
But we don’t know that it isn’t.
“Speed up,” Rahn tells Three, then adds under his breath something about how he wishes he were driving.
Three puts his foot down. I grip the door handle as though it is life support. My fingers tingle. Only my window and the windshield still have the glass intact, and the friction slows us down. The wind is cold, adding an ominous atmosphere. The engine roars around us, fills my ears.
“It’s okay,” Esther says, but her voice doesn’t reassure me. Beneath her soft tones, she wobbles.
“It’s getting closer,” Three says.
Corin leans forward to where the rifle is on the floor. Due to its size it’s usually not the most popular gun, and Three—or Kayden, when he was alive—normally uses it, but here it’s Corin’s first choice. “We’re going to have to shoot it. Everyone, get under cover. Sev, hold the dog. Three, put your foot down!”
Esther leans forward, trying to press herself into the seat. I do the same, hauling the dog into the space between my feet. He’s shaking, and his big, droopy eyes catch hold of me. Esther squeezes my hand. She’s murmuring something under her breath, over and over again.
“Marouska, get down!” Rahn shouts as Corin takes his first shot.
There’s a clank as he hits something. Maybe the metalwork of the car. He fires several more shots, and the sounds make me hunker up. My shoulder sears in memory. Then we hear the clank as the rifle runs out of ammunition. The other magazines are in the back, wrapped up with the other supplies.
“Marouska, give me your gun.”
“No, I’ll use it.” Marouska turns in her seat. She’s not stooping low at all, and there’s no glass in her window. Wind howls through our car’s frame.
“I’ve got a better aim,” Corin says. “Give me that gun.”
Something hits my door. I let out an instinctive scream before I can stop myself. Esther tries to pull me toward her, but the dog leaps up in her face. Then he’s on Rahn’s lap, howling into his ear.
“Everyone okay?” Three yells from the front.
I see Corin twist around. The dog howls again.
“Marouska, give me your gun. Now.” There’s a pause. “I’ve got the better shot!”
But it’s too late. I look up to see Marouska leaning out the window, firing the AK47 look-alike. The sight would be comical, were it not a life and death situation.
I frown; Marouska’s changed. A lot. Not physically—she’s still the round woman I remember, but she dresses in warrior attire now. And she’s tougher, stronger, and more confident. Fiery. Back at the village, it took Keelie a good few months to teach Marouska how to get a decent shot—and that was on a stationary target. Yet, here she is, shooting at the Enhanced from the window of a moving car…and she’s not missing. She’s hanging out the window, yet her weight isn’t overbalancing her. Incredible. Whoever says people can’t change is wrong. People can change for the good—and for the bad—adapting to their environment.
Another bullet hits the metalwork of our car. Esther and I scream. We cling to each other. Then we wait for the next impact, the next bullet, the next death.
“They’re not keeping up with us now,” pants Three, a few minutes later.
“I hit their fuel tank!” Marouska turns, grinning from ear to ear.
“Just keep drivin’,” Rahn says. “Do not slow down at all. How fast are we goin’?”
“One twenty-nine.”
“Not fast enough. We need to lose them. Lose them for good.”
When we eventually stop off for the evening, it’s because the engine’s overheating and warning lights have come on. We’ve only got about three miles’ worth of fuel left too, and Rahn’s reluctant to use that except in the most dire of emergencies. We’re well south of New Repliza now, in what Three says must be the outskirts of the Steele Forest.
The sky hasn’t begun to darken properly yet. We still have enough light to build a fire, sort through our resources, and maybe even catch a few animals and skin them before nightfall. Three and I are leaning against a huge tree trunk. The bark is rough against my skin. The dog is jumping up at him, but he’s ignoring him. I look at my brother carefully. His eyebrows are knitted together: he’s deep in concentration.
“Where’s Esther?” he asks after a few moments. He unfolds his arms, then looks around.
“With Marouska,” I reply. “Sorting the food.”
Three frowns. “Marouska’s changed.”
I agree, and neither of us says anything more.
“There’s a lake over yonder.” Rahn reappears through the trees. He and Corin were scouting the land, but Corin’s not with him now. “That path there, leads straight up to it. Quite a big one. Clear water, too.”
Three nods. “Any edible stuff out there?”
Rahn shrugs. “Some. But most of the ground plants are foreign to me.”
“Where’s Corin?” I ask.
“Checkin’ out the land past the lake,” Rahn says. He turns and looks back at the car. Esther and Marouska are still busy. “I suggest we all sleep in the car tonight. We don’t know how safe this land is.”
Three and I agree, though I know Rahn isn’t really bothered about either of our opinions. He angles his body away from us, as usual. To others, it might look like he was fine talking to us, but I know the signs to look for. They’re always there. Corin’s mostly the same now too, ever since I was Enhanced, then became a Seer.
A few minutes later, Corin returns. He limps slightly.
“No sign of a city,” he says. “Or any Enhanced. Though, there’s a small mountain over to the right—about two hours’ walk. We’d be able to see farther from the top of there.”
Rahn nods, then he turns to me. “Go run up that mountain and take a look. The sooner we locate an Enhanced city or town, the better—”
“Unless we just stay here,” Corin says. He folds his bulky arms over his chest and leans against the trunk of a larch. “It feels safe here, secluded. We could probably live self-sufficiently.”
Rahn shakes his head. “We wouldn’t survive for long. We don’t know the land. We have to find an Enhanced town.” Again, he looks at me. “The mountain. Are you goin’?”
After a few seconds, I nod.
“Good. Three, go and ask Marouska to sort a food pack for Seven.”
“She can’t go now,” Corin blurts out. “It’s getting dark.”
I look up at the sky. It’s still light, but I’ve heard the night falls quicker the farther south you are.
“And we don’t know this land,” Corin repeats Rahn’s own words back to him. “Or its animals.”
“She can take the dog with her,” Rahn says. He looks at me. “Be as quick as you can.”
Corin takes a step closer to Rahn and stares down at the leader. “I said no.”
There’s a long, long pause. Rahn gives Corin a sharp look. “Am I mistaken? Am I no longer the leader of this group? Do we now follow orders from a man who only has twenty years’ experience in this world and who makes decisions based on his own personal feelings and not the welfare of the whole group?”
Corin doesn’t say anything, but doesn’t drop his glare either. Three and I exchange a look.
“Well then,” Rahn says.
Corin shakes his head. “It’s too dangerous for her to go on her own.”
“Eriksen’s right, for once.”
“She’ll have a gun, and she’s got a knife,” Rahn says. “She can take the dog. He needs a good run, and he’ll protect her. If trouble comes, I think she can defend herself, despite her size.”
Three looks at me. “Or you could climb a tree.”
Still, Corin shakes his head. “She waits until morning—”
“We need to know now.”
“Just wha
t is the urgency with this?” Corin snaps, clenching his fists. “The Enhanced haven’t followed us. We actually lost them. We’ve found a place that’s untouched by human foot. A safe place. Security, and all that, at last. And you don’t want to stay here? You want to go back to living on the edge, next to the Enhanced? Yet, the other day, you said we need to be self-sufficient! Now you want the Enhanced? We don’t need them—”
“We do!” Rahn shouts. “How else are we goin’ to get fuel?”
“If we stay here, we don’t need a car.” Corin’s eyes narrow.
“And if we have no car, and they come for us, what are we goin’ to do?” Rahn shifts his weight until his feet are shoulder-width apart. He folds his arms over his chest. The shirt he’s wearing today is Corin’s, and it’s way too big for him—whereas it would stretch tightly over Corin’s muscles, the fabric hangs from Rahn’s frame. “There.” Rahn sounds triumphant. “My point exactly. As soon as Three’s got the food pack from Marouska, Seven will go and scout the land—”
“By the time she reaches the top, it’ll be dark,” Corin says. “She won’t see a thing. We’ll be no better off. And she could get hurt. I bet there are cats about. Is it really worth her getting hurt when she won’t even be able to see any Enhanced cities anyway?”
“Yeah, because the Enhanced don’t have electricity, do they? They don’t have any use for artificial lightin’.” Rahn snorts. “Shut up, Corin. You’re showin’ your naiveté. At this rate, I’ll be passin’ the leadership on to Three.”
Corin gives him a dangerous look and exhales loudly. “She shouldn’t go on her own. You wouldn’t send Esther on her own.”
Rahn turns toward him with such speed that I’m certain he’s going to strike out. But, after a few seconds, he still hasn’t.
Rahn raises his eyebrows above his dark glasses. “I don’t know why you’re so protective over Seven. After all, it can’t be for the obvious reason, can it? Because what were your exact words? Hmm. Let me see if I can remember? Yes, that it would be revoltin’?” He pauses, and I can already feel my cheeks reddening. Three tenses, then steps closer to me. Rahn holds a finger up to Corin. “But you’ve obviously got some reason why you don’t want me sendin’ her off on her own. So I won’t. But I want that mountain’s view checked tonight. So you’ll go with her. And no funny business, Corin. I know what you’re like with girls.”
Untamed Series, #1 Page 19