Destroyed

by Madeline Dyer

  That’s important. He’s messing with me. Mind games, that’s all it is. All it can be. Because Siora and Quinn are Untamed. He wouldn’t let his children be Untamed would he? But Jed was. And Jed’s sisters too?

  I stare at Raleigh, try to read him, the lines on his face, the tightness of his jaw. He’s counting on me choosing Corin and Siora and Quinn. He’s counting on me surrendering everyone.

  Because he thinks he’s won. He thinks their conversions or deaths are the only two outcomes.

  Zahlia moves slightly to the left. My gaze snaps to her, but she stops. The other leaders are still frozen, staring at Karl’s body.

  I take a deep breath, feel my powers, the way they circle inside me. Weaker than before—not as much—but they’re there. They’re stable now… I hope.

  “I’m going to win.” My words are louder. “Humanity is going to win.”

  Raleigh sighs, disappointment on his face. “Oh, Shania. Keep up. You cannot kill all my people. You’re not strong enough. You haven’t got the heart to deny your children the lives they deserve. Don’t cause more deaths. Don’t make me kill all the Untamed. Let me save them, let them live, defy who you were meant to be, defy the death-bringer in you. It means nothing that the God of Death chose you, for I am a Seer of Life, and I choose you. I choose you to help me save them and end the bloodshed of this war. Give me the rest of your powers, be a good girl.”

  There is steel inside me, and it wraps around my powers.

  It makes them stronger.

  It makes me stronger.

  “No,” I say.

  Raleigh smiles and clicks his fingers. “Shania, you’re not strong enough. But my people are. Even if I die, I have won.” He laughs. “The Chosen have won. Look at you! So weak.”

  He can’t see. He can’t see what’s happening inside me. The steel, my body repairing, the gateway to my ancestors’ powers, all the power, strengthening. Because I’m strong. That was a blip, earlier—that’s all it was. All it can be.

  “It is up to you what happens with your people, your daughters. Whether they live as Chosen Ones or whether they die. Don’t say I’m not kind. Don’t say I don’t give you a choice.”

  I picture Esther, then Toivo. Barely a week old. Then Siora and Quinn. I stare at them in my mind’s eye. My daughters look like Corin.

  I shake my head, and I’m flying, soaring, reaching out. I’m ready.

  This is happening.

  The Sarr Seers rise.

  It may consume you.

  You won’t be able to reel it back in again.

  “But that’s okay,” I say. “It has to happen. This has to happen.”

  “What?” Raleigh asks.

  Corin turns to me, but I cannot see him.

  There is a pain in my head. Jarring. Momentum building, insects running, life pounding.

  So much life.

  I choose life.

  “Spirits!” I yell, and my energy floods out, finds them, fuels them.

  Raleigh laughs, brings his hands up to his face. Mock-despair flashes across his features. The other section leaders look at me, and—

  The wall explodes.

  We’re thrown back. I land in bricks, cement, rubble. Wood splinters, something cracks. Pain shoots up my spine. Dust fogs the air, but, through it, I see them.

  The Lost Souls are here.

  At last, they’re here.

  They fly through the dust, the bricks, like the haloed angels in stories long ago, stories I don’t know—but I know. I know everything. I know it all. My powers are a cloud around me.

  Raleigh screams, but I can’t see him. Can’t see anything, all I can see are the spirits.

  “Kill the Enhanced!” I scream, and my powers reach out—shaking, filling them with my commands. It doesn’t matter that I don’t meet the eyes of each one, they’re a collective, and my energy is feeding them, both giving them the power they need and guiding them, and I’m stronger now.

  The spirits descend, and I see it—I see it before it happens. The slaughter, the screams, the blood. The death.

  I jolt, lunge forward, grab Corin’s hand, and I run, pull him along as I sprint. My lungs burn, stomach churning. I duck, pull Corin down as a Lost Soul soars over us, teeth bared, ready.

  Corin shouts something, squeezes my hand.

  Lactic acid, suddenly in my thighs. But we’ve got to get out, I just feel it, know it, we’ve got to get away. As far away as possible.

  I run faster and faster—with Corin—and my foot hits something.

  I trip, fall, hit the ground hard—wooden flooring, shiny. It jolts me forward, momentarily separating me from Corin’s hand and my powers.

  No!

  I drag a breath in, drag the air back and—my powers open up. They open wide.

  It’s okay, my mother whispers.

  And it is.

  I feel it.

  I feel all the spirits through my powers, feel the death, the torture, the pain.

  I blink, and I see Sophie’s body as her soul is sucked away, until she’s empty and there’s nothing left. Nothing at all, she’s gone, her life in a thousand shreds. I am above her, I am a spirit. I look up, see the other section leaders, see the chaos. See Raleigh.

  Raleigh, next.

  “Sev?”

  Corin’s face blurs over me, jolts me, and I lose the connection—but I know it’s still there, because I feel it. My powers drain as they use them, as they kill. It’s not just the Section. They’re everywhere. Throughout New Kimearo.

  “It’s okay!” I yell at Corin, and I try to take a deep breath, but the air’s snatched from my lungs. I’m on the ground—why am I on the ground? I blink, but I can’t remember.

  Corin pulls me up, and we run. I’ve lost my gun.

  The building shakes—just like at our settlement. Grating sounds fill my ears.

  “Outside!” I yell, and we see the door, hurtle toward us.

  Bright light accosts my eyes, blinds me for a second, and I flinch.

  Then I see it.

  New Kimearo is a war zone.

  Enhanced Ones lie broken, bleeding, dying. The Lost Souls feed from them, run, fingers stretching out, touching, burning, sucking life away.

  The sky cracks, and rain lashes down. Soaks us in an instant.

  “The Turning!” Corin yells.

  But it’s not.

  “That way!” I point to the right. We need to get out of here, out of the town.

  We run, hunkering as gunshots go off—as the Enhanced try to shoot the spirits. They must have some weapons on them—some we didn’t secure—but there can’t be many.

  “Ammunition! We need more ammunition!”

  “There isn’t any!”

  “Stores are empty!”

  A smile graces my face, a smile Corin returns.

  We run.

  There’s a building to the right, and we cower against it as a troupe of Lost Souls swoop in. Power radiates off them—my power, I feel it, really feel it—and then there’s dust churning in the air.

  I turn. Corin’s face is close. Dirt plasters his skin, but the rain’s loosening it, making it run. His eyes look bright.

  “Sev.” He touches my face. Warmth, despite the rain. But I know what he’s thinking, what he wants to say. I don’t know how I know, I just do, as if he’s me, as if we’re the same person.

  “Raleigh pretended to be you,” I say, and then it pours out, and, inside me, there’s only disgust and darkness. “We kissed, and he held me all night. I woke up, and he was running lean or something, and the augmenters that changed his appearance had stopped working.”

  A muscle in his temple tightens, and his eyes fill with shadows.

  I wait. Wait for what seems like an age as we watch the spirits kill the Enhanced. As power lashes around there—and I feel it inside me, on a smaller scale, one step ahead. My mind’s moving so fast, directing them, but it’s automatic, and I’m not aware of it. It’s happening in a separate part of me.

&nb
sp; I look back at Corin. His jaw is tight, and his hands are clenched in fists in front of his chest.

  Oh Gods. He… I can’t think the words. I can’t.

  I should’ve realized it wasn’t him….

  You couldn’t have.

  “Corin?” My voice wobbles.

  He breathes out hard, breath rugged, and reaches for my hand. Squeezes my fingers twice. “If killing him only killed me, and not all the others, I’d kill him in an instant.”

  He pulls me to him, the movement hard, sudden. My shoulder catches against his, and my arm gets in the way as he puts his around me. He holds me. I feel the beat of his heart. He’s shaking.

  “He didn’t hurt you?” His words get lost in my hair. “That night, he didn’t….”

  I shake my head.

  “Right.” He pulls back, but his jaw is tight, and his eyes are like steel. He presses his lips together so hard color disappears from them. Then he exhales loudly. “What about Siora and Quinn? He said—”

  “They look like you. They’re yours. He’s lying. That story about an alternate future. He’s desperate. They’re our children. Yours and mine. Siora showed me her memory. It wasn’t made up.”

  Only Corin wasn’t in it.

  My eyes widen. No. That doesn’t mean anything—maybe he just wasn’t in the cave at that point. Because it can’t mean Raleigh was telling the truth. It can’t. Raleigh said the girls and I were in this world, not Death’s realm.

  Corin nods, breathes deeply. “He’ll say anything, won’t he?”

  “That’s what desperation does,” I say. “That’s—”

  Raleigh.

  He’s here. His face in front of us, his mirror eyes reflecting me and Corin back.

  We jolt and—

  Raleigh grabs Corin’s face with his hands, yanks him toward him, away from me and—

  Seer powers. I feel them, Raleigh targeting Corin and—

  No.

  So much power. Corin—he hasn’t got a chance.

  He can’t stop it. I know he can’t.

  Everything happens so quickly.

  I scream and lunge forward, but Raleigh turns on me as I spin, and puts Corin in front of him. The wind howls, the rain gets heavier.

  Corin’s gun is in his hand, and Raleigh’s fingers wrap around Corin’s, direct him to aim the gun…aim it at an Enhanced One who stands ten feet away.

  “One step closer, Shania, and he pulls the trigger,” Raleigh yells. “He shoots my man, and all the Untamed die.”

  My heart pounds, my mouth dries. Everything pounds through me.

  Get out. Get out. Get out.

  The Seer-travel—but I need to touch Corin for that.

  No, you don’t! You managed it before.

  But that took so much power, and the spirits require so much, and—

  “Call the spirits off,” Raleigh commands. The air behind him is hazy, darkening. “Call them off my people now.” He lifts Corin’s hand, and the gun rises up, and I stare at Corin as I see the Seer power run through him—and it runs through his body like Corin isn’t there—and his eyes…they’re not Enhanced, but they’re empty. No life in them. Only the life Raleigh puts there, the forces, the commands. And I don’t know how he’s doing it. “Call them off or he pulls the trigger.”

  I swear, shout at Corin, but my words have no effect, they bounce off him.

  “I said call them off!” Raleigh yells. “Call the spirits off!”

  My upper lip curls. The battle—we are winning. “No.”

  “If you don’t, everyone will die.”

  “Even your children,” I say, and I know it’s a lie, they’re not his, but I still try and use it. Appeal to him. But as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know they’re useless, either way. Family doesn’t mean anything to Raleigh. I think of what he did to Jed.

  But family means something to me.

  He’s going to do it!

  He’s going to make Corin shoot!

  Corin can’t fight Raleigh’s powers!

  Can’t fight Raleigh’s powers. The words tighten around me.

  But my powers—they’re….

  Corin’s finger tightens on the trigger.

  Body-sharing—that uses less energy than Seer-travel, doesn’t it? I’d be able to keep fueling the spirits. I need to body-share. I’m a Seer. I can fight Raleigh’s hold on Corin, his powers. Corin can’t.

  My heart pounds. But the rules have changed. I can’t body-share with Untamed. Only the opposite state. The Enhanced.

  The opposite state.

  I inhale sharply. Could it? If I’m….

  There’s no time to think.

  I pull the augmenter from my pocket, flick the lid off, and raise the vial to my lips.

  Sweetness explodes in my mouth, and I swallow it.

  Power floods through my veins as the augmenter touches every part of my body, choosing me, converting me. Darkness inside me, feeding on me, badness. I see it spreading through me, waves and waves of badness that feeds the beetles—so many beetles, because I am the enemy.

  The enemy.

  No. I jolt. To save Corin. It’s to save Corin.

  My powers bloom like a flower, and Untamed doors are the petals all around me as my body-sharing power takes over.

  I slip into Corin’s body. Corin, who never wanted me to—

  The force of Raleigh’s powers hits me—the pain and—

  I can’t feel Corin. I can’t feel him in here—not his mind, his soul. It’s just his body, his fingers around the gun.

  Raleigh’s eyes stare into me, strong, determined. But I know he hasn’t seen me. Only Corin.

  Raleigh presses Corin’s finger on the trigger and—

  I yank Corin’s arm to the side.

  The shot goes wide, hits the wall—not the Enhanced.

  The Untamed, they’re still alive.

  More powers fill me, and I wrench Corin’s body away from Raleigh’s, break the contact, the control, and drop the gun.

  “No,” Raleigh yells, and I know he sees me. He fires pain at me—pain that digs into me, and I scream, and Corin screams, and, he’s back. For a second, we’re two people, but then…then we’re not.

  I squash Corin down, take control completely as I face Raleigh. All around me, the spirits screech and scream as they kill Enhanced Ones. Gunshots rip the air. I see my body, lying lifeless by the wall, rain battering me.

  Power blasts from inside me, my Seer powers—more breaking into Corin’s body, flooding him, me, because he is me, we are one—and I throw power at Raleigh. Not enough to kill, but enough to hurt.

  Raleigh sends out a wave of his own, but he doesn’t do it in time, doesn’t block me.

  He falls, and I leap. My momentum’s thrown off-balance by Corin’s weight and height, but then I’m on Raleigh, pinning him down. Rain pounds against my back, Corin’s back.

  A screech—high-pitched. I look up, heart pounding, get water in my eyes. See a spirit explode. The sky is a chaotic mass—they’re all tendrils and mists and lone limbs, eyes flying.

  You’re not controlling them now.

  No!

  Pain in my head. Corin’s head.

  But I can fight it, and I do fight it, feel the Sarrs travel over to Corin, feel their power as they push the pain back, as they push the pain away until Raleigh’s powers aren’t hurting Corin, aren’t affecting him at all.

  I look up, try to see if there’s a spirit nearby. One I can control the moment I leave Corin’s body, throw all my powers into it. One who can kill Raleigh and—

  My powers slip.

  No.

  Raleigh fires pain and Seer power at me. My skin burns, blisters, and I jump off him, still in Corin’s body. My heart pounds. I shoot more white light at Raleigh—through Corin—just to injure him, to keep him there—because I’m… My powers….

  I hurtle back into my body. My head thumps against the dry ground, dust everywhere. I jump up, look to Corin, a few feet away from Raleigh.
>
  “Run!” I scream at Corin. Why isn’t he running?

  I see the confusion on his face, and—and the repulsion. The body-sharing?

  No. My eyes.

  My mirrors.

  Corin hasn’t moved, and I yell at him again, but it’s no use, he’s frozen, just staring at me. His eyes are wide and lost because of what I’ve done. But I had to.

  Raleigh picks himself up, and my attention bolts to him. I lift my hands, have them ready, powers at my fingertips. And the rest of my powers—the spirits… I need to restore the connection with them, need to feed them, command them.

  But there’s too much going on. My head’s too—I can’t…my powers…and I find them, and the route to the spirits, send my power to them, and—

  A streak of anger, in the air. Teeth, gnashing and—

  Jed.

  He grabs Raleigh, throws him back a few feet. The air rumbles. I see the shock on Raleigh’s face as he sees his son, then Raleigh’s shouting, but I can’t make out his words. Jed’s eyes burn with fury, getting brighter and brighter, the eyeballs bigger, until they’re bulging. His skin flakes off in sheaves, wraps around Raleigh. Raleigh screams, turns, pain contorting his face. I feel a wave of power from him. Rage and savagery fly through the air.

  A bright flash burns my eyes. I turn, my eyes stinging, and—

  “You body-shared?” Corin’s closer, and there’s blood on the left side of his face, makes his whole person seem more dangerous, even though his face isn’t angry. It’s…it’s nothing. There’s nothing there. No emotion, expression, reaction. “You body-shared with me?”

  I take a step back, into a puddle. My shoe soaks up the water, and my foot turns to ice. My chest feels too light, and, suddenly, I’m aware of how much my hands are hurting. “I had to.”

  Corin’s eyes darken, and his lips tighten. He’s got the gun again. “Thank you.” His voice sounds strained and—

  Jed explodes.

  Gold light, and anger, and pain. Wet stuff splatters against me, but it’s different to the rain. A foul smell. Shards of sharp, broken glass and wrath.

  “Excellent!” Raleigh roars, and he’s right behind Corin, facing me. My mirrors dance in his mirrors. “You’re surrendering!”

  “No!”

  “Your eyes,” he counters.

  “No!” I yell.

  He shakes his head. “Really? Even when you haven’t got a chance? Look what it’s doing to them, your army! You’re destroying your army.”