A Dangerous Game Read online

  I make up my mind in a split second. I run for it, pocketing my knife on the way. Elf shouts my name—stupid! I skid on the gravel, stooping down to reach it and—

  I see his face above me, at the window, and let out a squeak. It’s the Enhanced man—of course it is. I freeze. His hand reaches out the window, toward me, and he drops something.

  Paper—folded up. It lands next to me, blood-stained. Fresh blood.

  “Take it!” the Enhanced hisses. “Take it, and you’ll understand.”

  And then he’s gone—gone farther into the office and—

  “Keelie!” Elf yells.

  My heart does a funny loop-the-loop motion. What harm can it do? I pick up the paper and pocket it, then grab my gun, and run back to where Elf’s now partly hidden himself from sight of the office window.

  “Got the keys?” Elf’s staring at me as I tuck my Luger back into my waistband. He hands me the spare pair of glasses from his survival bag, and I put them on. “The truck… Where are the keys?”

  I stop, my head throbbing. My hands pat at my pockets, but there’s no set of keys there. Just the knife. I curse. Of course, I threw the set at the man. And I didn’t have a chance to gather up the others.

  I shake my head. “Come on!” I shout too loudly and wince; we still need to be quiet. We need to get away unharmed, uncaught.

  We leave. Elf and I both know the drill, and we’re twins of the stars: we don’t always need to communicate out loud. I just know what he’s going to do, and he knows what I’m going to do. We’ve always been like that.

  But he didn’t know when you were getting caught.

  I push that thought away.

  Several blocks away, we slow to a more relaxed walk. The buildings are closer together here, and each wall is lined with windows. Walk steadily, that’s what we need to do. Walking in an Enhanced compound is both my least and most favorite thing to do. With every step, I expect them to jump out, to realize who I am—what I am—and grab me. But the thrill of danger it sends through me is like a drug, it feeds me, nourishes me. Its presence says I’m alive, and I live to feel adrenaline coursing through my system. To feel the beat of my pounding heart, to know that I’m dancing with danger.

  We walk out of the town as if it’s the easiest thing to do. The buildings disappear behind us, and, soon, we’re back in the wilderness, the wild desert; it always amazes me how quickly the Enhanced Ones’ settlements start and stop. There are no outskirts, where the sand-colored buildings become farther and farther apart. It’s almost like a line has been drawn, and they build on one side and not on the other.

  Elf and I move for the cover of the rocks and low vegetation, walking carefully.

  The sun beats down on the back of my neck, and I feel sweat forming. Elf glances across at me, then scans the area again. I do the same. New Kimearo is in one of the southerly valleys of the Titian Mountains. Ahead, the land gets steeper, rising to make the great mountains along the horizon.

  We’re not far from the meeting point now.

  “Right. What the hell happened?” Elf looks at me, a sense of urgency on his face now that we can speak freely.

  “I told you, there was an Enhanced in there.” I kick at a loose stone, watch as dust rises.

  A sideways glance tells me that Elf does not look happy.

  “And your gun? It was outside the window. How?”

  “He disarmed me. No—don’t look like that.” I wipe my sweaty hands against my jeans. “He was strong, a better fighter than most. What were you doing? Didn’t you see him throw it out of the window?”

  He shakes his head. “I went back around the other buildings—thought I heard something. I thought you’d be all right.” Then he swears. “I should’ve gone in there, not you.”

  “Elf, I can handle it—I got away, didn’t I?”

  He scowls as I sum up the rest of the events, briefly. I expect him to have some sort of crazy reaction when I talk of how I kissed the Enhanced, but he doesn’t. Just glowers.

  I check behind us. The town’s fading in the hot, shimmering air. It looks surreal.

  “Rahn’s going to want to know about this,” he says after a long moment.

  I smile. Now the adrenaline’s subsiding, I’m starting to concentrate on how best to tell the tale.

  “Don’t exaggerate it,” Elf warns. “We can tell when you do that, and it just annoys people.”

  Rahn, Nico, and Yani are already by our vehicle—one of the blue L200s—behind the boulders near First Rock when Elf and I arrive. It’s one of our less-used meeting places, an hour’s walk from New Kimearo.

  Rahn, Nbutai’s leader, stands with his back against a boulder, and his arms crossed in front of his chest. The sun dances off his dark glasses. Next to him, Nico and Yani are looking at one of the foxhole radios Three made. Nico has the earpiece against his right ear, and he’s frowning. I guess the signal’s still not good.

  “About time,” Rahn snaps as Elf and I join him.

  I look in the truck bed and see they’ve already moved my motorbike into it. We brought it along and stowed it by the rocks a little way off in case Rahn’s group needed a quick exit, so they wouldn’t leave Elf and I without an escape option—just as well when we didn’t obtain a new vehicle. But they should’ve waited until we were back before moving it.

  “You secured it all right?” I ask, pushing the sleeves of my jacket up. I don’t want my bike falling over.

  “Of course,” Nico says.

  “Why’d it take you so long?” Rahn jabs a finger toward me. “We got here ages ago. We were thinkin’ you’d been caught and were listenin’ out for the broadcast.” He shakes his head. “Where’s the new truck?”

  “Didn’t get it.”

  “You didn’t get it?” Rahn tilts his head to one side, slowly. “So all this has been for nothin’?” He jerks his thumb at Yani. “He nearly got caught in the distraction. We only just got out of there in time.”

  “Keelie got caught,” Elf says.

  The effect that Elf’s words have on the three men couldn’t be more different. Rahn scowls and immediately looks back down the slope toward the town, no doubt scanning for approaching Enhanced Ones. Yani takes his glasses off and wipes the back of his hand across his tired eyes, then makes the thank you sign to the Gods and Goddesses—presumably, pleased I’m here, not that I was caught. He makes that sign a lot, particularly after the Turnings when our group’s made it through the spirits’ rages because it’s never a guarantee; nothing about the spirits can ever be guaranteed. And Nico rushes up to me, encloses me in a sweaty hug, and presses his lips against my forehead.

  I pull back, peeling myself from Nico’s sweaty body, trying not to breathe in his stale odor.

  “What happened?” Rahn points at me.

  I tell them all quickly. My hands still feel oily, and I wipe them on my jeans. “And look.” I pull the Swiss army knife out of my pocket. “Got this too—it’s even got a tin-opener.”

  Rahn peers at me once I’ve finished speaking.

  “You seduced an Enhanced?” He looks like he might be sick.

  I put the knife away and fold my arms. “I did it to get away. Last resort.”

  “I don’t like this,” Rahn says. “Why did he let you go?”

  And why did you leave him alive?

  “And how’d he know your name?” Nico asks, his tone dark. He steps closer to me, and, for a moment, I think I’m in for another hug. “They don’t have profiles on us, do they?”

  Everyone’s looking at me now. I rub my arms. Sand sticks to the fine hairs there, and I try to brush the specks off.

  I shrug. “I don’t know the answer to either of those questions.”

  Rahn shakes his head. “You don’t know him, do you—that Enhanced man?”

  “Of course not. It’s not like I meet up with the Enhanced in secret, is it?” I straighten up, and something in my back clicks.

  “It’s no one we’ve lost to them? No one who might kno
w us?” Yani asks, but we all know there’s no one from Nbutai who’s been caught in recent years—there’s no one it could be.

  “So you didn’t get no truck, and you nearly got yourself caught by an Enhanced who knew who you were? That right?” Rahn asks.

  I nod, and my hands go automatically to the pockets of my leather jacket again. I pat them down, but there’s nothing—nothing but the knife and the folded note the Enhanced gave me. Frowning, I pull it out.

  Rahn grunts at me. “What’s that?”

  “It’s what the Enhanced gave me, when I retrieved my gun. He dropped it out of the window. I told you.”

  “What’s it say?”

  It takes me a moment to stop my fingers from clenching it. I unfold it carefully. The paper looks old, like it could tear along the creases if I’m not careful.

  It’s blank.

  “Nothing.” I show it to them.

  “Nothin’?” Rahn shrugs. “Throw it away. Could be a tracker or somethin’. We don’t want nothin’ that’ll give away our location.”

  “But it’s paper,” Elf says. He leans across and takes it from me and turns it over. “It’s just paper. Their technology’s not that advanced.”

  “They can make augmenters—that’s advanced enough,” Rahn snaps. “And what about their sensors at some of their cities that pick up if you’re Untamed?”

  “Yeah, but that’s all that’s advanced: anything to do with capturing us,” Elf says, his gaze briefly on Yani as the older of the Milton brothers leans against the truck. “Look, the firearms, the vehicles—they’re all the same types that have been around for years. They’re not developing new ones—or, at least, not many—because augmenters and things that detect us are their main focus.” He pauses, and I wonder if he realizes that he’s invalidated his own argument. “I don’t really see how they could make this paper into a tracker.”

  “We can’t risk it.” Rahn grits his teeth. “One mistake, and we’re dead. We have to assume he gave that paper to Keelie for a reason. And what’s their number one purpose concernin’ us? To convert us. Of course they’re makin’ new technologies to do that, to help them.”

  “But he let me get away,” I point out.

  “After you stuck your tongue down his throat.” Rahn doesn’t attempt to hide the disgust in his voice, and Nico doesn’t try to hide the look of absolute fury on his face. “And he still tried to convert you. Just throw that paper away.”

  “But Three always wants paper—says he needs to draw out circuit boards and make notes on how he makes the radios.”

  “He should know that off-by-heart,” Rahn says. “Writin’ stuff down is for kids.” He glances at me. “Fine. Keep it. Give it to Three.” But he doesn’t sound happy about it. “Now, we’ve got to go.”

  By the time we return to Nbutai, the sky is darkening, and I can only just make out the outlines of the huts. Our village is hidden away in a crook in the Titian Mountains, and the spirits and Gods and Goddesses protect us. They protect all the Untamed—all of us who won’t give in to the Enhanced and their ‘perfect’ lives—and they warn our Seers if our locations have been compromised.

  I shut my eyes briefly, willing myself not to be transported back to that day. For a second, I see Caia-Lu’s face in front of me—she hadn’t been active for nearly a year, we don’t know why, what she’d done to make the spirits and Gods and Goddesses turn their backs on her, on us. Unless it was something external blocking Caia-Lu? Grief can do it. But Caia-Lu wasn’t still grieving, was she? Yet we had no active Seer at D’Elinous; that’s why the Enhanced were able to ambush us.

  “I don’t like it. It doesn’t seem right,” Elf says. He hasn’t shaven for a few days, and he pulls at the short hairs sprouting from his chin. “That Enhanced let you go—even helped you with the door and reminded you about the glasses. It doesn’t make sense.”

  We’re in our hut—the one we’ve shared with our sisters for the last five years after we built the new huts following a bad storm—and we’re tucking into Marouska’s soup.

  Elf points his spoon at me. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where’s your bag? Your survival kit?”

  I turn to look. Then I realize it’s still in the dealership office. “I must’ve left it there.”

  “Was your name on your bag?” Elf says. “Or on anything inside it?”

  I frown. “My compass has a K on it. But it was at the bottom of my bag. He wouldn’t have seen that. And he knew my name. Keelie, he said.”

  Elf frowns harder. “What about the food-packs? Marouska would’ve written your name on it so you got the right one.”

  “But weren’t they all the same?” I’ve got a fish allergy, but I’m pretty sure all the food-packs had bread and dried meat in them this time.

  “There’s got to be some way he knew your name. That would account for it.”

  Except that even if my name was on the food-pack, it still didn’t leave my bag—not in the time I was in the office. The Enhanced will probably have analyzed it by now, looking for clues as to our location, but we’re careful to keep nothing in the bags that links them to Nbutai.

  Elf shovels more soup into his mouth.

  “So why did he let me go?” I muse.

  “And why did he give you blank paper? You still got it?”

  I slide the paper from my pocket. I haven’t had a chance to take it to the Sarrs’ hut for Three yet.

  “I don’t like this. That man’s not acting normally—not for them. Not after you kissed him.”

  I laugh, folding the paper up. I put it into the pocket of my jeans carefully. “Maybe that’s the secret? Seduce them, then they see us as people—you know, people who have their own rights and can live how they want—and they’ll let us get away.”

  “It’s worth knowing,” a light voice says, and I turn toward the entrance to see Five standing there.

  She invites herself into our hut and sits on the edge of my bed. Her long, bare legs stretch out in front of her, and I see the color rush to Elf’s face as he so obviously looks away. I know for a fact my brother’s interested in Five, but he’s got the idea in his head that the four-year age gap is too much, especially when she’s older. According to him, girls always want an older man. By that logic, the only girl he believes might be interested in him is Seven, but I can’t see that ever happening. Seven’s too shy, and Elf’s always lusting after the older Sarr sister.

  “So, was he a good kisser?” Five asks me, her lips twitching. News spreads fast here.

  I shoot her a look, but she just grins, then lies back. She holds up a hand, and I see her nails are painted with the red polish that Elf got her a while ago when he was raiding.

  Five sighs, exasperated. “Come on, Kee. Was he a good kisser? Maybe if we made them all our lovers we could live harmoniously? Kiss away their desire to convert and all that.”

  “They’re monsters.” Elf’s voice is quiet. “Touching them…kissing them is disgusting.” He glances at me. “I’m surprised you had the nerve.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “It was a matter of life and death.”

  Elf just shrugs. “Don’t go getting any ideas—either of you.”

  The corners of Five’s mouth twitch, tugging the smile out of her. Elf frowns, and she makes an excuse to leave rather quickly.

  “What was that about?” I turn on Elf. “Five was only joking—as if we’re going to become their lovers.”

  “It’s not something we should joke about.” Elf yawns and places his soup bowl at his feet. “And it’s late, no time for chatting and joking anyway. We need to be fresh tomorrow, prepared for anything and everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if that Enhanced showed up here looking for you, Keelie. Wouldn’t be surprised at all.”

  The Untamed woman is in a pale blue room, sitting at a table. She’s not restrained this time, because these people insist that they are nice, that before it was for her own good. They had to make sure she did
n’t run before, but now they know she won’t.

  “Here it is.” The man hands the woman the vial, and she tries not to look at his mirror eyes, tries not to feel the fear.

  Her fingers seem to stick to the augmenter, but she’s shaking. The battle is raging within her.

  “Drink it up.” Another man beams at her. His teeth are perfect, and he has a silver ring through his left eyebrow. The artificial lighting catches the ring, and a myriad of colors is reflected on the opposite wall.

  “Come on. Drink it.”

  She doesn’t drink it. She never does—not voluntarily.

  They know what they have to do.

  And I don’t want to watch.

  But they always make me watch.

  “Such a shame.” The first man shakes his head. “But it’s for your own good.”

  Then he nods.

  “Take her to the conversion room. We’ll do her again. She’s strong, but she’ll succumb to us in the end.”

  I wake up, bathed in sweat, gulping down air as if I need a hundred times the usual amount. It takes me a few moments to breathe normally.

  I look across at Elf, consider whether to tell him. I used to tell him all the time, right after the nightmares started. But my screams also woke him and Bea and Mila, and I couldn’t not tell them.

  I listen. It’s still dark—I can’t see Elf clearly, but I can hear his deep breathing. He’s sleeping. I listen harder, and then I make out the sounds of Bea and Mila breathing too. Mila’s eleven now, and Bea’s been teaching her the names of the different plants and which ones are edible. Bea’s memory is amazing—she knows far more than I do, and she can always remember exactly where each plant is. Or where anything is. And taking Mila out to learn about the plants is something she does most evenings—she prefers to have structure, a routine to follow, when she can.

  I sit up slowly and wipe my sweaty hands on my blanket. To my right, I see Caia-Lu’s Watcher Doll. It’s not a real one now—not a token connected to the spirits, a token to guard us, because it can only be real when a Seer uses it. I don’t know how it ended up in my bag when we escaped. The last I saw of it, Caia-Lu had it, and then she disappeared.