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With Maggot’s dismissal, we head back to our ‘rooms’ in the tunnel. But we’re smiling. All of us, not just the free-running crew. We’ve got more guards—those with good aims—and a communications team. Our engineers made the radios for us and rigged up a sound system across the city. Bhavesh and the older Griffin siblings got the speakers in place at various points around New Zeralzi last week. We’ll be using that to order all the Enhanced to the rink tomorrow who we don’t lure out with the parkour display.
I smile. I know I shouldn’t think of it as a display.
It could be life and death—well, death in the sense of conversion. And conversion is worse than death.
For hundreds of years, the Enhanced have been hunting us down, converting us into them. They believe all emotions need to be controlled and only be positive, because negative emotions are the source of all things bad in the world. They take augmenters—highly addictive chemicals that were created to only allow people to feel god things. Augmenters give you mirror eyes. I heard one Enhanced spout off a load of crap about the eyes being the doorway to the soul of something and how that needs to be guarded, so they made augmenters have mirrors. That and it’s easy to see which of us are Untamed. Which of us are resisting. Which of us are still bad and evil.
Which of us still have our humanity.
Kazem and I leave, head for our sleeping place. Most of the ‘bedrooms’ are on one side of our tunnel complex. The tunnels even out into rooms in places with dry-stone walls. Yeah, the tunnels are properly built and everything. Manmade. Shweta reckons they’re from before. Before the first augmenters were created and before the first Untamed turned themselves into the Enhanced. Before the War of Humanity.
When we first found these tunnels, guided by a Seer from the Yarrow group who’d had a prophetic dream, they were full of cobwebs and rodents. There were a few small animal skulls. Hares. And plenty of droppings. Every tunnel smelled damp, and those on the northern side were flooded. It took a while to make it all habitable.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this tomorrow,” I say, as Kazem and I get changed.
“I know,” he says. “Mad, isn’t it?”
I nod, and we climb under the covers together. His arms are sturdy, strong around me, and we hold each other close in a way the others don’t understand. They think we don’t have sex because of the rules here, but neither of us feels that way—not to anyone—but we’re still together. We don’t need sex to make a relationship. We’re happy as we are.
Of course, the others here say that that won’t work. I’ve heard them talking about how ‘sexless relationships’ can’t work. That once we’re situated in the town, we’ll start sleeping with each other. Once we’re free of the rules which a couple of them have called ‘inhuman.’ I even heard speculation about me and Kazem from some of the men: “I wonder how long it’ll take for the two of them to finally jump each other.”
I didn’t like the way those words made me feel. It has worried me a little, I must admit, the thought of being in New Zeralzi properly. Because what I feel for Kazem may even be love, and here, the two of us are certain about each other, and we’re close. But out there, things could be different. What if he decides he wants to do more than just hold me? What if it is the rules that are keeping us ‘sexless’ here and he doesn’t actually feel the same way as me? I mean, would I try it out even though I’ve never felt sexual attraction? I’m curious, sure, but my curiosity is more about the idea of sex. When I hear the other women gossiping about it, I want to listen and find out more. But as soon as I’m part of the equation, I just don’t want to do anything.
Kazem has assured me that out there, he’d still feel the same as he does in here—he says we’re soulmates because we both feel the same way and the Gods and Goddesses must’ve guided us together. He’s even said he’s glad for the no-sex rule here because it means he doesn’t stand out. But what if he feels the need to try and fit in when we’re out there, when these tight restrictions have been smashed to pieces?
I guess I’m just worried about things changing. About losing him, if he wants to find someone else.
Kazem tightens his grip on me, and I rest my head against his chest, listen to his heart. Our legs entwine, and I breathe deeply, easily, happily.
“I can’t wait for a shower tomorrow,” he says. “In one of their powerful jet showers or whatever they are. Gods, it will be like cleansing my whole soul in that.”
Cleansing. I shudder as I think of the stabbing that revealed the Beast. That was the first time he ever came out, took control. Ysabelle should’ve been more careful really—if you suspect there’s a dangerous animal, you don’t stab it for fun. You stab to kill.
That was the first and only time I unleashed the power inside me—I don’t think of it as a Beast now. It’s the Darkness. The thing in me. And it’s still here now. I assumed that everyone would see it—just as Ysabelle apparently always had—but after the clansmen were all dead, apart from one baby who somehow survived, and the Beast returned to my core, and I woke to find myself bleeding but somehow free of the binds, I traveled. On my third day, I found the body of my friend Selma. Apparently, my Beast had reached her too. She was lying broken on the woodland floor, her arms at unnatural angles. An animal had ripped into her leg, pulling chunks of flesh and muscle away, and flies were buzzing round her.
But finding Selma’s body wasn’t the worst of it. I left the baby behind, left her there to die. The Beast may have killed the clan, but by leaving, I killed the baby, and it’s something that still haunts me. I can never forget what I did. That baby could’ve lived.
After the massacre, I found Maggot’s group on the seventy-ninth day. They welcomed me, Maggot with her blunt voice, and Celena with her kind smile—who had not yet realized how I’d usurp her—and Kazem with his curious, kind soul. And so many Untamed, and not one person thought I was bad. They were kind. None of them mentioned the Beast inside me, so I figured either they couldn’t see it like the clansmen could or that I’d squashed it deep.
For years, I lived with Maggot’s group, all of us at Yarrow, until we found the tunnels under New Zeralzi and realized the advantage it gave us. We believe we’re the biggest surviving group of Untamed, since the Yarrow group absorbed what was left of the Marriballii tribe the year before I joined them—the biggest group in Section Five, definitely, possibly out of the whole world—and half of us is ideally placed to take over a town. When we succeed, we’ll bring the rest of the Yarrow group in. And sure, word will get out among the Enhanced that we’ve beaten them in one place, but that means other Untamed will hear it about too. They’ll either come to join us and we’ll grow in numbers or they’ll take over more towns themselves. And that’s what Maggot reckons we’ll need—bases to operate from when the mysterious Seventh One of Light wins the war.
It still surprises me, really, how everyone here—and among the clansmen—are so sure that this Seventh One exists. That she will win the war for us. But ultimately, I know it’s just a nice story. Something people over in this section tell themselves to make themselves feel better. When I lived at D’Elinous, until the ambush, I never heard of this Seer. No one had. I doubt she’s even real. The thought of her is just a comfort, and I’m sure deep down that everyone knows this. Otherwise why would any Untamed go on killing-sprees among the Enhanced, when supposedly the Seer’s going to handle it all?
No. It’s just a story. We have to face reality. If we’re going to win, we have to do it ourselves. And that means killing.
I swallow hard and try to stop the Beast stirring inside me. He’s hungry, ravenous, starved for so long. He wants me to kill. But those screams—the clansmen massacre that I did. That’s exactly why I can’t. Why I haven’t killed since.
Why I won’t.
Why a small part of me—the most unrealistic part of me—wants to believe this Seventh Seer exists, that the augury will hold true. Because I don’t want to kill.
But, practically, I know I’m going to have to.
We’re going to get this town back. We’ve been working hard. We’ve worked it out to the tee.
Anything goes wrong and we’ve got a plan. We have thought of every possible thing that could happen. And whatever does, we’ll be victorious. Because it all involves killing. And tomorrow I’m going to have to break the promise I made to myself, ten years ago, when I vowed never to unleash the Beast again.