Divided Page 5

  His own hands burn the side of my face. I try to twist away, got to get away. I feel something in my neck click and move, and then I’m covered in foul-smelling sweat, drenched.

  The pain intensifies. I’m screaming. My throat’s raw.

  Give in! End the pain! Go along with it, do what he wants!

  No. Don’t. Prove who you are. No Untamed Seer would give in or willingly allow him to do this. Fight him! Get control back.

  But I can’t—the voice doesn’t understand. I can’t get control back…only the Gods and Goddesses can destroy the Promise Marks—destroy Raleigh’s control over my soul—and they’ve destroyed my contact with them because I didn’t save the Zharat, or my brother—because I didn’t try and—

  “Shania!”

  The mouse digs deeper.

  Something clicks inside me.

  No.

  I lunge forward, diving through the maze of dots, my head exploding and—

  I projectile vomit everywhere.

  My insides heave, raw.

  When I’ve finished, I look up through bleary eyes, exhaustion pulling at every part of me.

  Raleigh moves. He’s in front of me. There’s a strange look on his face, then he tilts his head to the side. He’s annoyed.

  Annoyed that I’m resisting him and his control, still resisting the augmenters. But I’m doing it—somehow, I’m doing it. I’m stopping him from getting my powers.

  “I think we’ll have a break,” Raleigh says, his words slow and careful. Yet there’s something else in them too. Something calculating and cold. “You must be tired…and you’re not in the best condition… No. You need to rest… But I’m close. Made great progress, we have. I can feel your powers already—they’re strong. You’re strong, Shania. And I’ll reach them soon. But the Untamed in you is too strong, too potent.” He indicates around us with his fingers. “We’ll resume this when you’re in better condition. When we can work together—better for both of us.”

  He shakes his head.

  “I’ll book you in for another conversion process. Something a little stronger than waterboarding this time.”

  Raleigh takes me straight to my cell, controlling my body. I expect him to give me more augmenters, but he doesn’t. And that’s good, I remind myself. I need to be myself. Have to be.

  But how can you be yourself when augmenters are already in your system? When you’ll have another conversion soon?

  A conversion.

  Oh Gods.

  The cloth over my face gets tighter. It presses against my nose, trying to force it down. I can feel their hands all over my body, pushing me onto the platform with cold fingers. I know better now than to resist. But they don’t believe me. They aren’t taking chances, they say….

  The water slams against me.

  My body’s crushed deeper into the platform.

  My throat constricts. I taste bile. I turn, trying to pull away. More water hits me.

  I breathe deeply and look at the ceiling. I’m lying down. I don’t remember lying down. My tongue feels fuzzy—no, my whole mouth does.

  “Rest,” Raleigh says. “Try to let the evilness escape from your body. Don’t hold onto it. It is bad, and you need to accept that. If you do, it will make the conversion easier.” He crouches down, and I see myself in his eyes. I look pathetic. “I don’t want you to suffer.”

  I flinch as he places a cool hand against my sweaty, clammy forehead. His fingers are like metal bars, pressing into me, marking me, branding me like an animal.

  “We’ll do this. We’ll save everyone, I promise.”

  Those words ring in my head as I listen to his footsteps disappearing down the corridor outside. I wait until it’s silent out there—or about as silent as it can be because something’s clicking continuously—before I force myself to stand. I haven’t got long. No idea how soon he’s going to come for me again, how soon I’m going to be strapped to a bed, tortured. The thought makes my stomach turn, and what little contents is still inside sloshes about.

  Moving is harder than expected, but my legs just about take my weight, though they wobble. I look around the cell again. The metal bucket for toilet needs. No window. Just the door—the only exit. I try the handle, but it’s locked. I rattle it harder, listening for a telltale click or change in the pressure of the handle as I move it, in case there’s a weak spot.

  There isn’t.

  Breathing hard and slightly dizzy, I turn and look at the walls. Red brick and cement. From top to bottom. One air vent sits at the top of the far wall. I stride toward it, pull myself onto my tiptoes, so my forehead’s an inch from the vent. Cool air hits my skin; it’s an outside wall. And just knowing that makes me feel better. I’m at the edge of the building—one wall separates me from freedom.

  Visions of me running out there, through desert sand and dust, fill my head. How far could I get before Raleigh realizes and exerts control over my soul? Would a larger distance between us make it harder for him to command my movements?

  I try to move the air vent. But the metal bars are firm, not going to give. So I turn my attention to the filler around the metal grid, run my fingers over the bumps and lumps, try not to see the gold splashes on my skin. They’re stationary now.

  But seeing them makes me think of Raleigh. Is he watching what I’m doing now? He’s still got my eyes, hasn’t he? Or does he automatically know what I’m doing given that he commands my soul?

  Except he’s not controlling me now.

  Because he thinks I’m safe in here? That he can rest? That he doesn’t need to exert control and use up his energy when I’m imprisoned?

  I try to pull chunks of filler out, but the only bits I get off are small, tiny crumbs. I curse as one of my nails bends right back, pushing sharp pain into the soft, fleshy underside, and snaps. A line of red appears. My eyes water, and I breathe deeply, but it only makes my head hurt more. I press my thumb over my broken nail. Tears pierce my eyes, and then Elia’s face flashes in front of me.

  I jump, wrap my arms around myself, squeeze tightly. I’m shaking, shaking so much. My knees knock against each other.

  Oh Gods. I need to stay calm—mustn’t think about what Raleigh tried to get me to do…what he’ll make me do next time. Because I know he will succeed.

  Or maybe I’ll do it willingly, if they’ve fully converted me by then.

  The thought makes me freeze.

  No.

  That can’t happen.

  It can’t. I need to concentrate, concentrate on being Untamed. Have to.

  My brow furrows. The wall. The vent. There’s got to be a way out of here. Has to be. I just need to get out and join Corin. It’s safety in numbers, and together we’re stronger.

  But there isn’t an obvious way out. I test every brick that I can reach, convinced that one might just move back—shift a few inches—if I press hard enough. But no secret exit reveals itself.

  I sit on the ground, my back against the far wall, so my eyes are on the door. I take several deep breaths, but everything’s swimming inside my head—like I’m not getting enough oxygen, and everything’s fuzzy.

  My skin starts to burn—a thousand pins driving into my flesh—and I wince, lean back, my head against the bricks. My eyes get heavier, so I close them, block out everything. At first, the telltale signs of panic start to take over: the fear of not being able to see, the way energy jumps into my fingers, how my toes start to buzz.

  And the aroma of roasting meat wafts over me. Lamb.

  Instantly, I relax a little.

  See? It’s good here.

  My lips move a little, and I wet them, feel saliva pool in my mouth. The Enhanced haven’t fed me yet, not given me any food in all the time I’ve been here… How long has it been? Those bad dreams I had, were they in the night or the day? I can’t tell, everything’s merging together, but my stomach groans for food. So it must be time to eat—and they’re cooking for me. For all the Untamed.

  I hear sizzling—sizzling
of fat in a pan—and the sound distracts me, makes me forget what I was thinking. Because all I can think of now is food. It’s what I need. I’m so hungry.

  I breathe in deeper—immediately able to breathe more easily—and my body shakes with the anticipation of food. Meat and vegetables. Potatoes. Maybe even cake for desert.

  Burning meat.

  No! It’s burning! And I see it in the pan—a slab of meat, with smoke rising from it and—

  My body jolts, and I—

  “It’s too charred,” a voice says, stops me from opening my eyes. “We can’t eat that.”

  Pain flashes through my head, makes me gasp. My eyes—I can’t open them, can’t… Oh Gods, what is—

  A young woman, right in front of me. Sparkling, blue Untamed eyes set in the whitest skin I’ve ever seen. Shoulder-length reddish-blond hair that curls slightly in the humid air—because it is so humid. The air is thick and alive, and mosquitoes buzz and—

  My body jolts—something scrapes, and my eyes spring open, freed. I inhale hard, feel pain in my lungs. I jump up, look left, right—look for the woman, that Untamed woman—but she’s not here.

  It’s just my cell. Brick walls.

  My heart pounds. I’m still here, and the air is—

  The air is clear. A little sweeter than before? Air freshener? But there are no smells of food. No cooking. No burning.

  Yet I smelled it. I did.

  And I saw a woman—a woman who wasn’t here.

  I try to picture her, hold her in my mind. Red-blond hair. Blue eyes. But that’s all that comes to me. No face…no distinguishing features…no idea what her nose was like or….

  I touch my head gingerly, wince at the pain. My vision blurs as I stare at the walls; the bricks are dancing.

  My eyes widen…that woman…was she a Seer? Someone trying to help me? Someone who knows I’m in trouble, knows how important I am?

  I reach for my Seer pendant, but my fingers touch bare skin. Emptiness grabs me, and my vision gets smaller.

  A Seer? Trying to help me? Trying to contact me?

  I’m not alone… It’s not the—

  I press my lips together—they’re buzzing slightly, make me feel off. Off and sick. I try not to think of how I vomited earlier, but now that putrid odor is all I can smell. I look down at my clothes, see the stains on me. Feel sicker than ever and—

  I clap a hand to my mouth, try to breathe.

  Air.

  I need fresh air.

  My legs shake as I stand, and it takes me too long to reach that tiny air vent. But the weak breeze against my forehead doesn’t help much. I try to lift my head higher, and the back of my neck creaks. I wince as fresh pain grips me, as waves of fogginess try to take me.

  But through it all, I think of one thing: hope.

  There’s a Seer out there, and she contacted me…when she was cooking?

  But next time—next time I won’t lose the connection. I’ll make her help me, make her contact the Gods and Goddesses for me, get these Promise Marks removed and—

  But the Enhanced are going to win.

  I shake my head, don’t know where that thought came from.

  “Not so long as there’s hope,” I whisper back at the nothingness around me.

  Not so long as there’s hope.

  And there’s always got to be hope.

  “Being Untamed is bad. It is wrong. And it is evil.”

  There are three men in here now, with me. In my cell. Three Enhanced men, and they keep saying those words over and over again. I’m not sure how much time has passed since I saw the blue-eyed Seer. Could’ve been hours, or maybe even a day. No one’s fed me still, and my stomach feels strange and swollen. The smell from my toilet bucket isn’t helping.

  These Enhanced haven’t tied me up, and they haven’t made any move to do so. They’re standing by the locked door, and I’m sitting against the opposite wall.

  “Do you agree?” one now asks me. They all look the same.

  I shake my head, and my stomach rumbles. But I feel stronger—stronger in myself. I’m resisting the augmenters. And I’m doing it well. There’s no pull for them within me. Nothing.

  I don’t want them.

  Because I need to be Untamed.

  And I will be Untamed.

  I will not make it easy for Raleigh to use me to end my people. No. A slight smile tugs at my lips.

  My stomach moans.

  One of the men steps closer to me. “You can’t have any food until you agree, until the Untamed part of you has left. Food just feeds the badness within you. Come on, Shania. You have to try.”

  So, starvation—that’s the torture method this time.

  “And you can’t have any water. Not until you are pure once more. Water will make the evil parasite grow bigger. And we need it to shrivel up and die.”

  Dehydration too.

  “Nor can you sleep again, Shania, not until you’ve been saved. Sleeping fuels the badness in you, and we can only let you sleep once you have accepted that being Untamed is bad and once you have purged it from your system—once you are truly a Chosen One again. After that, you may have food and water.”

  The first man smiles again. “We will crush the badness in you, and you will expel it.”

  The balls of my cheeks plump up a bit, and I bite my bottom lip quickly. I want to laugh—the urge is there as I look up at them.

  “It will work,” one of the Enhanced says. “Because we won’t leave here until you’ve surrendered to us fully, until you are pure.”

  “And when you’re so tired that you’re hazy, when you’re so hungry that you will try to eat the augmenters we give you—eat them like they are food—and when you’re so dehydrated that you’re dizzy for our lifestyle, you’ll agree because you’ll understand then. You’ll accept that there is badness in you and only then will you start to get better.”

  “Repeat after me: being Untamed is bad. It is wrong. And it is evil.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “Being Enhanced is bad. It is wrong. And it is evil.” I don’t even know why I’m saying the words, why I’m not just staying quiet.

  “No, being a Chosen One is good. You’ll soon see it, you’ll understand it clearly when you realize it is the Untamed within you that is denying you of your basic human rights.”

  I shake my head again as I stand. “That’s you denying me basic human rights, not the Untamed within me.”

  I hold their gaze—all of them, collectively—for as long as I can. We stand like this for a while, and the man on the left continues the mantra that I’m supposed to agree to.

  My chest tightens. This is easy; compared to the waterboarding, this is a piece of cake.

  Cake.

  My stomach rumbles. Shouldn’t have thought of that.

  But this is still easy. I could go for days, couldn’t I? Without sleeping, eating, drinking….

  You’ll need water though. Else you’ll die.

  But they won’t let me die. Raleigh won’t. If I refuse long enough, until I’m in a bad condition, they’ll have to stop this. And I just need to contact that Seer with the blue eyes, get her to help, and then the Gods and Goddesses can sort everything. I’ll get my soul back, and I’ll escape.

  I fold my arms. “You won’t win. I’m not one of you.”

  “Everyone can be a Chosen One. And you shall be. You poor creature, you cannot see that this is a disease you are suffering from.”

  A disease.

  I feel a sense of darkness rise within me, sharp and pulsing. Then I spit at them, sudden, quick.

  Two of the men flinch.

  “And you like being violent like that, do you? Can you not see that violence is wrong? It is bad. It is the monster within you.”

  My lips twitch, and I’m tempted to shower them with more of my saliva. “Spitting isn’t violent.” I ball my hands into tight fists, unsure of where my sudden confidence is coming from. “You want me to show you what is violent?”

  I
take a step forward.

  “Don’t,” one says, his voice low, even, measured. “You’re running lean. Jeremy, top her up.”

  The man nearest to me pulls two vials out of his lab coat pocket. Two dark blue augmenters.

  No.

  My mouth dries.

  He steps nearer.

  “I’m not having them,” I say.

  “You have no choice. Augmenters are a staple of a good life. And, Shania, my dear, you need to learn how to live a good life.”

  I keep my fists steady, by my side. “What are they?”

  “Just Tiredness, for now,” the man says, holding up the dark blue vial in his left hand. “We can add in Hunger later if we need to weaken you a little more. Are you ready?”

  I stare at him, then my gaze crosses to the other two. They all smile at me. My mouth dries even more. Tiredness? Hunger? But I thought their augmenters only gave good emotions…did good things…not….

  “You can’t give me those—they’re not positive attributes.” But my voice is too high, my confidence is seeping.

  “Oh, they can be positive. There are times when someone needs to sleep so they can rest. Tiredness fixes insomnia and even anxiety in those who are prone to worry at night. It prevents broken and disturbed sleep, encouraging natural, restorative rest. Tiredness is a powerful augmenter, and it fixes many, many things. And Hunger is needed for appetite stimulation at times, to save someone who is sick and needs energy.”

  I try to keep my breathing even.

  “And these augmenters will help fix you.” Smiles, all around.

  “I’m still not going to agree.”

  “We’ll see.”

  The men all come at me at once. I yawp and kick out—glad that my body is mine, that Raleigh’s not making this even harder for me and easier for them—but there are three of them. Hands clamp over me. A fist in my hair, my head yanked back, pain at my scalp.

  “Open wide.”

  One of them forces my mouth open. Cold glass against my bottom lip. I try to step back, try to twist my head away, but the dark blue augmenter fills my mouth. Fingers press my lips together.

  “Swallow.”

  I hold the liquid in my mouth. I managed to resist the augmenters before that were in me—that are still in me—but the more there are, the less me I’ll be.