After the Fear (Young Adult Dystopian) (14 page)

And . . . nothing. He doesn’t say a word. Well, I’m sure as hell not going to. Dylan stares straight ahead even though the screen in front of us hasn’t activated yet.

In the corner of my vision, I see his face, illuminated from the glow of the watchtower. The rays highlight his strong features, casting the rest into the shade. I could trace the line of light with my finger, drawing a perfect outline over his temple, the apple of his cheek, the apex of his chin, and then up that angled jaw bone. As I think it my fingers move involuntarily—a twitch I’m sure Dylan notices despite his fixating ahead.

A fanfare of trumpets interrupts my sneaky voyeurism. Up there on the screen, the red banner swirls across a background of yellow, reading:

October’s Demonstrator Tryouts—Two teams, Only Winners Survive! Hosted by city Indigo.

The banner disintegrates, revealing the live sight of city Indigo’s Stadium. With elaborate marble pillars circling the outside, it’s almost twice the size of the Stadium in Juliet. Electronic lights snake around them like ivy, making the place look like some monstrous fairground ride. I breathe in relief when I see the sands are still empty—still a grainy peach colour instead of that cruel, stained burgundy.

After a good amount of chanting from the audience, Ebiere’s tall figure appears on screen. Her hair is plaited with smooth extensions reaching to her waist and her dark skin looks more radiant than ever, complimented with a yellow tribal maxi dress. She brings her hand up in a dramatic manner, her eyes wide. The crowd falls silent, ready and eager to be seduced by her voice.

‘Twenty-five cities. Fifty-five people chosen. This month, the competition to become a Demonstrator is fierce. To survive, they must protect their team mates, fight their opponent with wile and cunning. Only a few will be strong enough to become your—’She takes a breath, her coffee-brown eyes running over the masses. ‘Demonstrators,’ she whispers into her microphone.

‘Now, you have mere seconds before you’re presented with the most anticipated Demonstration event in Indigo for years! Brought to you, of course, by your loving and protecting Shepherds. Let the tryouts begin!’

The crowd goes crazy. They have these strange handheld devices which, when blown into, emit the loudest, most invasive sound I’ve ever heard. It’s like a baby’s scream blasting through a bass speaker, making me cringe from the inside out. Everyone’s dressed in elaborate outfits, stuff I would expect to see on Coral and her family. For some reason, that annoys me. Indigo must be way ahead in the race to pay back their Debt.

The gate on the screen clicks and the sound is so familiar that it drains any warmth from my body. The gate slides upwards gracefully, the clicks not stoic and sinister like before but quick, giving the sound of nails rapping against a table.

It’s enough to send me back. I try to blink away the image of the sands, but the sight is painted under my eyelids. The picture on the screen blurs and flickers, morphing into my own vision.

I recognise the people in the arena. They’re dead, they’re all dead. A dagger flies at me. William’s squeezing my hand. There’s the stench of iron and rust and dirt and death. I want to squeeze back and say I’m sorry, but I open my mouth and nothing, there’s nothing. The dagger hits into him, but he dies there and then, and I’m sorry, but I’m glad that it’s over and Dylan’s sword is weighing me down—

‘Sola,’ William says, although he was dead but now he’s alive.

‘Sola.’

The voice isn’t William’s. I blink again. My head tingles, as though I’ve stood up too fast. But I’m not stood up at all; I’m slumped against someone.

Those blue eyes look down at me and burn through the fog in my mind. I latch on, using them as an anchor to pull myself back. Choking on the air as if I had drowned, I sway, finally managing to lean up and away from Dylan, getting purchase on my own chair.

‘Better,’ he whispers. I’m not sure if he’s instructing or praising me. I try to look once more at the screen, but the figures are hazy and bright dots keep twinkling around me. It’s only when I blink away the fuzziness and my breathing returns to normal do I realise Dylan is holding my hand.

Which of course makes my breathing go crazy again.

As the second team is released, Dylan turns to me, staring unashamedly and intently. I assume he wants me to look back, but my head won’t move. So I ignore his gaze and examine the team of blues. Some step out steadily, head raised, weapon firm in their hand. Others are more hesitant, eyes stained with tears and whizzing around as if they too could see the dots in my vision. An overweight man drops his weapon—a four-pronged metal blade in the style of a boomerang—and when he reaches down to get it a redhead from his own team pushes him onto his side and swipes it from the floor. As soon as he figures out what’s happened, the man struggles up to chase her, but it’s too late. She’s scampered away, out of the view of the camera and the reach of the now weaponless man.

Although the red team were released first, they stand huddled on their side like a collection of trigger cameras trying to cover all angles. The blues scatter and dominate the space, advancing slowly. When I see the man from before sweating heavily, skimming the ground for a weapon, I wish Alixis would say a prayer for him. He stares up at the crowd through glassy eyes, but the ones who notice send only jeers and boos his way. He must be thirty, thirty-three tops. Too young to die.

In fact, there’s no one who looks over forty. Just like in my own tryout. Everyone older must have been brought to the camp to work . . . although I haven’t seen anyone new arrive. I glance around as if any second a spinner might land with a dozen newcomers.

‘Are you all right?’ Dylan asks. His question is heavy, as if loaded with something else. My head is still foggy, but I nod anyway. Our eyes meet for a second.

We’re still holding hands, but our fingers are so lightly entwined I think a breeze could blow us apart. It’s as if neither of us wants to admit what we’re doing, as though we’re pretending it could have happened by accident. Alixis enters my mind, followed by a flush of guilt. There might not be anything romantic between Dylan and Alixis, but kissing Dylan and betraying Coral is what got me here in the first place. Have I learnt nothing?

I pull my arm away. There’s a second of resistance from Dylan before he opens his hand and lets me go.

On the screen, I’m about to feel sorry for the reds when a blue girl gets too close. Like a cracked nut, the red huddle breaks apart and a burly looking man rushes forwards with his sword raised. He takes the blue girl by surprise and cuts her down as though she were a crop.

Then it starts, really starts. The spectators’ roars double. Their noise-makers feed off the violence. The reds, now having lost the element of surprise, are charged by three blues, who tackle one man like they’re playing rugby. When they step away, the man doesn’t move from his mangled position.

Watching the fight is like watching water. One moment, the red wave is farther across the sands, rushing in and waning away, then the blues get a surge of energy and seem to wash through the arena. The weaponless blue man is ignored by just about everyone and takes to standing at the edge of the arena, arms wrapped around his waist. Most of me, the real me, wants him to survive. Yet there’s a horrible creature awakening which screams at him to fight, which thinks he deserves to die if he stands there like that, letting his team take all the damage. Letting his team become killers while he waits on the outcome like a coward.

I clench my teeth, and shame flushes the creature away. Or silences it, for now.

Men are slain by women, women slain by men. A child is caught up in a flurry of blades, and when they break apart she lies face down on the sands. The spectators don’t react to that, and the camera pans quickly away, bringing us the sight of a separate duel. Two men circle each other, hunched down, weapons raised. I recognise a spear in the red’s hand similar to the one I gave William. The name makes my chest hurt; William, why haven’t you arrived?

The blue holds two daggers, waving them around frantically as if performing some kind of intimidation salsa. The red rushes in on one side, causing the blue to strike out, but the move was feigned. The red ducks, swerves to the other side and strikes, hitting home in between the blue’s ribs.

Before he can celebrate too much, the red arches upwards, his mouth opening in a silent cry before he keels over. The camera spins to show his back. That four-bladed boomerang protrudes horribly from underneath his shoulder blade.

When the camera sweeps around the sands, I stare at the person who threw it. The person who stole it from the other man.

And no.

It can’t be.

Because Coral Winters stares at me. Her red hair tight in a ponytail, her tired face gaunt, with the glint of cruelty in her eyes I’ve seen a hundred times before. Her lips are slightly parted to show her teeth.

That girl who sent me here. Who I hate. Who I can’t watch die.

But I can’t look away, either.

She still holds a double bladed staff, and now she switches hands, raising it in front of her like a shield while her stare flickers over the arena.

There are more people fighting than in my tryout, which mean more bodies litter the ground. Coral’s tactic seems to be to watch other people fight, and then stick the victor in the back if they’re a red. The whole time I want to stop watching, but I’m drawn to her as if there’s a rope binding us together, even through the screen.

At one point I think she’s going to save someone’s life. She creeps behind a man who has his hands wrapped around a woman’s throat. Coral raises her staff and throws all her weight behind it, sending it through him, but it’s too much force. It slices through the man’s gut and pierces the woman’s stomach too, sending them both to their death.

That’s it. No more. I can’t bear it.

Blinking away swelling tears, I stand. The other Demonstrators’ legs are like claws which I have to battle through to get out of the row. There’s something rising in me, that creature again. It’s like I’m trying to run from my own body. I need to escape before the hatred and anger and frustration bubbles out of me.

A Herd officer watches warily as I hit the field. I sprint towards the Wetpod, knowing he won’t follow me in there. Before I get there that thing inside catches up; I lean forwards and vomit over the tracks.

‘Sola, please.’ A voice from behind me. Wiping my mouth with my arm, I straighten up. Maybe it wasn’t the Herd officer I should have been cautious of.

‘I tried to tell you,’ Dylan says, but I don’t turn to him. His footsteps stop a few paces behind me.

‘How?’ I croak out.

‘Earlier on—before we were interrupted.’

‘No. I mean, how? How was Coral chosen?’ I angle my body so that I can see him in the corner of my vision. He runs his hand through his hair, looks over the field as if the dark space will give him answers.

‘Her father has fallen from grace. It happened a few weeks ago after some sort of investigation. Apparently he’s been fixing who gets chosen in Juliet. When you were—’ He stops then, but I know what he’s going to say. When I was chosen it was fix, and an obvious one, at that. I guess if I had died it wouldn’t have mattered so much, everyone would have forgotten about me. But I didn’t. I killed and I survived.

Dylan takes a step towards me.

‘He’s going to be executed in a Demonstration along with her mother. They’re saying she was in on it. I think they wanted to get rid of the whole family, but they couldn’t exactly kill a teen in a Demonstration when she hasn’t done anything wrong. So they chose Coral for the tryouts.’ He sighs; I hear his breath catch. ‘I wanted to tell you, I did.’

We stand in silence for a moment. I can’t help but think that any second now Coral, my old best friend, could be dead.

‘It’s ironic, really,’ I say eventually.

‘What?’

‘The Shepherds have cherry-picked Coral as punishment for her father cherry-picking people for the tryouts.’ I deliberately use the word I heard Shepherd Fines use on my first night here. I remember him assuring Mr Winters it would all be brushed under the carpet.

‘Aye, it is kind of. I’m not saying she deserved it, but—’

‘Don’t,’ I say, turning properly now and meeting his eyes. ‘Just don’t.’

He nods, and once again that silence which always swallows us breezes through the field. He closes his eyes, bringing his hand up to pull on a tuft of hair.

It’s weird, but I’ve missed him. I’ve missed him and our awkward silences and how I never know what is going on in his head. How sometimes he says the right thing, but most of the time he doesn’t, and how it seems okay that nothing goes the way it’s planned to when I’m with him.

I cross the grass and close the space between us. I step so near to him that my head is nearly underneath his. It’s safer here, away from his gaze.

I want to touch him so much. To make whatever is between us real. But all this is tinged with fear. I’m afraid he doesn’t feel the same, afraid of hurting Alixis if he does. So I just turn my head so that it’s flat against his shoulder. My face burns where it touches his warm T-shirt which smells so perfectly of him. I’m shaking, and I don’t know whether it’s because of the cold, being so close to the only person I’ve ever kissed, or because of Coral. My breath turns into mist underneath his chin and each second stretches like it’s taking a lifetime. He’s not backing away; he’s not shrugging me off.

Hungrily, I run my palm over his arm, feeling his hairs stand up on end. Then I link my fingers through his. He responds readily, wrapping his thumb over my knuckles, his grip strong. When he leans the side of his face on my forehead, I wonder who is leaning on whom.

Alixis re-enters my mind, but I push her away; I need Dylan right now. He kissed me that night and started all of this and this moment I have to have his hand on mine, his skin warm against my own. When I look up, Dylan pulls his head back a fraction. Our faces are so close that if I went on tiptoes my lips would land on his in an instant. I sense him looking at me, and know if I meet his eyes, he’ll kiss me, but I can’t do it. I won’t. Not again.