Untamed Series, #1 Read online

  Untamed

  Madeline Dyer

  Contents

  Untamed

  Praise for Madeline Dyer’s Untamed

  Also by Madeline Dyer

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Preview

  Chapter 1

  “A fantastic dystopian tale. Highly recommended for fans of strong heroines and intriguing sci-fi worlds.”

  Pintip Dunn, New York Times bestselling author of the Forget Tomorrow series

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  “This book proves Dystopian is not dead. Not dead at all. […] Bring on the sequel!”

  T.A. Maclagan, author of They Call Me Alexandra Gastone

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  “From start to finish, this book kept me on the edge of my seat. [...] If you’re looking for a suspenseful dystopian read that's full of surprises, check it out!”

  Sue Wyshynski, author of The Butterfly Code

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  “Untamed is a fantastic dystopian survival story, filled with twists.”

  The Literature Hub

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  “This is one of the rare books that doesn’t gloss over the different aspects of being human - of succeeding, failing, wanting things, struggling, and trying your best - and is why it is such a stellar read. I fell into Seven's world, and was right there with her for the entirety of the book (and then I started it again, because I didn’t want it to end!). Highly recommended.”

  Dr. Jessie Voigts, WanderingEducators.com

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  “From the first line, Untamed pulled me in. This is the sort of book that is incredibly difficult to put down… as a person who rarely reads fantasy/sci-fi but grew up with it always on the nightstand, Dyer’s book reawakened in me a buried love for the genre.”

  Jen Knox, author of After the Gazebo

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  “The fast-paced action of Untamed really drew me into the story […] readers who enjoy dystopian novels would enjoy this book.”

  The Story Sanctuary

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  * * *

  Untamed

  Copyright © 2017 Madeline Dyer

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Madeline Dyer asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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  Second edition, January 2017

  Published by Ineja Press

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  First published in 2015 by Prizm Press Publishers

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  Edited by Deelylah Mullin

  Cover & Interior Design by We Got You Covered Book Design

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  Print ISBN: 978-0-9957191-0-1

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957191-1-8

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval systems, in any forms or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without the express written permission of the author, except for the purpose of a review which may quote brief passages.

  * * *

  The author can be contacted via email at [email protected] or through her website www.MadelineDyer.co.uk

  For Mum, Dad, and Sam

  “Your mother’s gone.”

  The leader grunts at me, then places his fuel can in the shade of the largest boulder, next to mine. He turns to where his nephew is shrugging the emergency packs onto the dry, rocky ground, and both men pant hard. Dust rises up.

  I frown, and my ears crackle. My legs feel too soft, insubstantial. My mother’s gone?

  Corin Eriksen—the leader’s nephew—peels off his button-up shirt revealing a threadbare T-shirt. I watch him tie the damp material around his thick waist.

  “You listenin’ to me?” Rahn, the scrawnier of the two men, pushes his dark glasses back up his nose and jabs a gnarled finger at me. He always wears those glasses. Well, he’s got several pairs actually, slightly different styles, but he always has to wear some sort of eye protection because he has weak retinas or something. The rest of us just wear our sunglasses when we’re raiding. Mine are now folded over the neckline of my shirt. Corin’s aren’t visible, probably in his pocket.

  I look at the two of them for a few seconds, then frown. Covered in beads of sweat, their hair hangs in sweaty clumps over their foreheads. Rahn’s finger remains where it is—inches from my nose. It looks like the old tree root I tripped over earlier.

  “She’s gone, Seven,” Rahn says. He withdraws his finger, then places his hands over his knees, leaning forward, still panting. “She ain’t comin’ back.”

  Gone…

  I shake my head and turn away. The town of New Kimearo is down there in the distance, rising out of the sand. I fix my gaze on the stone buildings. Blocks. Dark masses. It’s flatter down there: a sort of valley in the southern part of the Titian Mountains.

  “Seven, did you hear me?”

  My stomach rumbles loudly. I grab my survival bag from the desert ground and empty the contents at my feet. A compass, three squashed energy bars, a map, a pack of water purification tablets, some toilet bags, two boxes of waterproof matches, and a wind-up torch. My foil jacket isn’t there. I curse. I always keep it in my leather rucksack. Numbly, I pick up one of the bars, peel back the dry paper, and take a bite of cardboard-tasting nothingness.

  “Look at that.” Rahn nods his head toward me, then turns to Corin.

  “Eating is a method of distraction.” Corin rubs at his nose, where the skin’s crimson and flaking off.

  “Or maybe she ain’t that bothered, maybe she’s goin’ to choose them too. Like mother, like daughter.”

  My spine clicks. I glare at them, and the remaining half of the bar drops from my hand. I focus on the tiny specs of sand coating it as it rolls down the slope, stopping at the boulder that shades the fuel cans.

  Gone….

  “This…this is your fault.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. “This—you did this. You hate us, you always have…” I clench my fists and stand up straighter. I’m the same height as Rahn. “I know you did it. This is your fault.”

  The muscles in Rahn’s neck flinch twice, and his head snaps toward me. The sun glints off his dark glasses. “How—”

&nb
sp; “Finn’s driving the truck around the long path.” Corin’s voice is neutral as he pulls a water bottle from his pack. He’s a few feet behind Rahn, still shielded from the town by the rocks. “He shouldn’t be long. We need to be ready to move fast.”

  Rahn nods twice, then turns back to me. “Seven, Katya’s a lost cause. We had nothin’ to do with her choosin’ them, because that’s what she did.”

  I stare at him, my eyes feel heavy. My mother wouldn’t choose them. I know she wouldn’t. Rahn’s lying. They were getting food, Rahn, Corin and my mother. Now they’ve left her behind. They think it’s some kind of joke, pretending she’s chosen them. But she wouldn’t, she’d never join the Enhanced. None of us would.

  Nausea washes over me. My fingers burn with ice.

  I look back down at New Kimearo, three miles away. The southern part of the town is there, those buildings… I can see them, there. Smaller ones and bigger ones. Dark gray stone. Electricity wires stretch from one block to another.

  My mother’s down there. I breathe evenly through my nose. It wouldn’t take me long to reach her. I’m the fastest runner we have—a long line of good genetics made me this way—and Corin and Rahn wouldn’t be able to stop me from getting her. If I left my pack here, and—

  “She’s with them, Sev.” Corin’s voice is lower, quieter. “She chose to join them. You can’t go after her. We can’t get her back—”

  “We always try! No matter who it is—”

  “Not when they choose it.” Rahn’s hands fly up in the air, as if tiny strings have jerked them up. He looks like one of those puppets from the shows Kayden and Faya performed when I was young. “There’s no hope. Even if we go after her, she’d fight us. If we have to fight the Enhanced and Katya, to get her back, we have no chance at all. And you know it.” His smile is triumphant.

  I shake my head. Electricity snaps through the left side of my body. We can’t leave her. If it was me down there, I know my mother wouldn’t give up. She always promised that if I got caught she’d rescue me before the Enhanced converted and replaced me with their artificiality. She promised it to all of us. My brother and my sister promised it too. Our whole group always promises. So why are Rahn and Corin saying this?

  “Lookin’ at it from a practical way, it could’ve been worse.” Rahn brushes his hands on his shorts now, leaving behind huge smeary orange marks. “Someone else could’ve switched. At least she’s not a big loss. She wasn’t a great Seer anyway.”

  I gulp hard, tears blurring my vision. Not a big loss? I want to scream at him, shout at him, hit him—this is my mother we’re talking about! And I know my mother—she wouldn’t have given up. All her life, she’s been drilling into me how bad the Enhanced Ones are. She would not join the people who ambushed our villages and forced everyone to convert themselves into pathetic excuses of humanity. Kidnapping children, forcing augmenters down their throats—stuffing them with so many artificial feelings that they no longer know who they are, only that they’re with the ‘good’ people now. No. I shake my head. My mother wouldn’t join them! She wouldn’t join the people who killed her oldest child. The people who make us live like this, in fear, as they hunt us down, pretending what they’re doing is for the greater good.

  My mother would never voluntarily become an Enhanced. She raised me, and my siblings, to hate the Enhanced. I grew up attacking Enhanced bases, trying to save the freshly converted with her. It never worked—the addiction to the Enhanced Ones’ life, and their augmenters, is too strong; a person can never go back to how they were before. But it was the attempt to save everyone that proved who my mother was. She never gave up.

  “Sev.” Corin steps around Rahn and looks down at me. I feel a jerk of something through my body, like a scalpel’s running along my veins. Corin’s eyes are dark and warm, like chocolate—the only part of him that isn’t burnt and angry and raw. “It was what she chose.” He shrugs, and the bands of muscle around his thick neck ripple. “We’ll wait for Finn. Then we’ll get back to Nbutai.”

  Behind him, Rahn nods, then he turns slightly and sits in the shade of the boulders, folding himself into a rangy knot of arms and legs. I stare at him. I don’t understand. He shouldn’t be sitting down. He’s our leader; he should be making plans, discussing tactics of how we’re going to rescue my mother.

  Biting back tears, I move to the side, melt against the edge of another rock. I slide down it, the clamminess of my skin pressing into the jagged surface, skin abrading, until I can feel the fine sand sticking to my legs. I sniff loudly, the tang of fuel tainting the air.

  I’ll cry later. Not in front of them. The traitors.

  I glare at the side of Rahn’s head. He’s facing the grainy surface of the large boulder, his huge nose jutting out in front of him from beneath his wrap-around sunglasses. His nose is massive. I narrow my eyes, until all I can see is that monstrous construction protruding out from under his sunglasses. I could easily hit that beak-like target if he were the mark during gun practice.

  I watch as he flexes his fingers. They’re resting on his knees now. I grit my teeth. He set her up, he must have. Any of them could have—Rahn, Corin or Finn.

  “It’ll be for the best.” Rahn makes a sort of cackling noise under his breath. “You’ll see.” He turns toward me. The bright light flashes from his glasses, and I flinch. “After all, what’s the good of havin’ a Seer who can’t even warn us ’bout stuff?”

  What’s the point in having a prejudiced leader? I narrow my eyes at him, tasting bile at the back of my throat.

  My fists burn as I watch the two men. I want to jump up, slam my fist into Rahn’s face. But I can’t. I know better than to attack our leader.

  I wipe at my face angrily, but Corin notices.

  “Save your tears for someone worth crying over.”

  My face burns—I can feel the color rushing to it like the heat of a fire pressing against tender skin. “But she didn’t choose them!”

  “She did,” Rahn says. “You weren’t there. Walked straight toward them, she did. No hesitation.” He sighs heavily; I know he’s lying. “We tried to stop her, but she was determined.”

  My knees sink even deeper into the hard ground. I clench my fingers tightly, dragging them across the rough stone. I watch three of my knuckles split open, like the old leather of a roadkill carcass. Redness oozes out.

  “She chose them, Sev,” Corin snaps at me. He sits down with a sigh, his legs wide, and his bare, muscular arms rest on his knees.

  “She wouldn’t.”

  No. If she’s joined the Enhanced, it’s because Rahn and Corin and Finn let her be caught. Or maybe they got her killed, and this story’s a way of nursing their guilt.

  I clench my jaw so tightly my gums throb. I think of my father, back at the village. I try not to think how he’s going to react. Or my brother, Three. They’ll be angry. Blame themselves. My sister will scream and scream and scream. We need to get back quickly. The sooner we’re there, the sooner we can all set off, the whole group of us. We can storm into New Kimearo and get her out. I haven’t got a chance on my own.

  “Where’s Finn? He should be here by now. It doesn’t take long to fill up from the stone pool. And he’s got the truck.” Rahn’s voice breaks the silence.

  He pulls the smallest foxhole radio from his pocket and clicks the button. No sound comes from it at all. He glares at me.

  “And your brother needs to do better than this.” The radio jerks in his hand. “How’re we supposed to stay alive if we’ve got no communications—no way of knowing if our people have been caught? We need back-up ones too. The radio Finn’s got is probably a dud. This ain’t good enough, Seven. Tell Three that we ain’t got time to play at this.”

  I look at the ground, refusing to rise to his bait. It isn’t my brother’s fault—Three had to improvise, making these foxhole radios after Corin smashed the decent ones that transmit and receive in a fit of anger a few months ago. It had taken my brother two days to make each
of the new foxhole radios. I’d seen the blisters on my brother’s hands from the coating that the Enhanced treat their copper wire with to stop us from using it, but Rahn didn’t care then, and he wouldn’t care now. He’s just annoyed because all we can try and do now is tune into the Enhanced Ones’ channels and listen out for their announcements—such as when they capture one of us. Because of Corin, we’ve got no way of contacting Finn directly, but Rahn nearly always takes it out on my brother.

  Corin stretches his arms out. “How long do we wait?”

  “Bit longer.”

  Finn. Tall, lanky. Huge ears. The unsolicited image of him invades my mind. At eighteen—a year older than me—Finn thinks he’s a man—that he can boss anyone around. I’ve hated him ever since he emptied a toilet pot over me when I was six.

  From the pocket of his khaki shorts, Corin pulls out an unopened pack of cigarettes, unwraps the box, and carefully takes one out. Then he grabs a lighter from his pocket. It’s a new lighter—the fluid almost reaches the top.