The Fear Trials (5 page)
Authors: Lindsay Cummings
W
hen I make it back to my father, he teaches me that anything and everything can be used as a weapon.
An old pipe, leaning up against the side of a building. A glass bottle with a jagged, broken edge. He points out every alley in the city center, shows me where they lead, and tells me the fastest routes back to the beach.
We pass by a girl my age, half-dead in an alley.
He kneels and whispers something to her.
“Yes.” It is such a struggle for her to speak, tears in her eyes, blood on her lips.
My father uses his dagger to finish her off. He stands, wipes the blood from it, and faces me. And I understand. Sometimes killing means showing mercy. I wonder how many people have passed by the dying girl, too afraid to save her from her misery. My father nods at me. “We train so that will never be you.”
“I understand.” We have choices. We can die, or we can choose to fight so that we may live.
We move on, and he leads me to the Library. There are scanners embedded in the doors. We press our foreheads to them and head inside. There aren't as many books as there used to be. My mother loved to come here when I was a child. This is the place where she taught me how to read.
Initiative soldiers stand around the room, rifles in hand. I keep my head low as we pass by and only relax when my father turns and we disappear down a row of bookcases. He stops in front of a shelf that is half empty, dust covering the sign that says HISTORY.
“There's nothing about the history
outside
the Shallows,” I say, running my hand over the cracked spines. “Don't we deserve to know?”
My father plucks a book from the shelf.
The History of the Shallows.
“It's because there's nothing for us outside the Perimeter. At least, that's what they want us to think.”
“But why?” I ask.
He watches me with sadness in his eyes. “Someday you'll discover that for yourself.”
He presses the book into my arms. It's heavy, covered with dust, and I sneeze when I open it and flip through the pages.
“Take it,” my father whispers.
I look up. My heart does a strange dance. “But . . . it's not allowed.”
“Some rules are meant to be broken. You could teach Peri to read if you had this on the boat.” He smiles and nods. “Take it and run, Meadow. You need to learn how to escape when they are chasing you. Think of it as a game.”
I am like a child being offered candy. I peer around the corner. There must be at least ten guards inside the library. If I screw this up and get caught, they will punish me. Shoot me, maybe.
I look back at my father. “It's best to remain calm,” he says, smiling. “Don't let the pressure get to you.” He turns away to browse the shelves, as if he doesn't know me.
I take a deep breath, press the book to my chest, and walk towards the exit.
The second I get close to the doors, the alarms go off.
“Stop right there!” a guard yells, but instead I'm running, shoving my way past the desk and through the doors to the outside. I stumble into the streets.
I don't know where to go. Left? Right?
It's a part of your test.
I cross the street, leap over the tracks, and disappear into the crowd. I duck into an alleyway, step behind a Dumpster. Even with the crowd of citizens, I can see the guards pouring down the street, searching for me.
I keep my head low and run. I pass by the Rations Hall, the Hospital, and the crumbling brick building with an Initiative flyer on the side. At the end of that building is an alley. This one leads to the beach.
I sprint as fast as I can, shoving my way through the crowd. I'm almost there when a hand closes over my arm.
“Hand it over, citizen!” I hear the click of a bullet being chambered, and I know I'm done.
But anything can be used as a weapon. Even a history book.
“I'm sorry, please don't shoot,” I say.
He presses the gun to my skull. “Turn around. Slowly.”
I almost do it. I almost turn slowly, but at the last second, I do what feels right. I whirl around, swing the book down, and hit the soldier hard. He drops the gun. Then I slam the book against the side of his head. I'm shocked when he falls to the street. I let out a crazed laugh and stumble back.
“He's down! Wilson's down!” a voice shouts, and I see another soldier coming.
I sprint the rest of the way and race into the trees. I don't stop until I reach the sand. I'm out of breath by the time I get to the dinghy, but I push it into the waves, throw the book in, and jump.
When I'm halfway out to sea, hidden from shore by the maze of boats and wrecks, I burst into laughter. It starts to rain, and the book is getting soaked, but I don't care. It will dry. I'll teach Peri to read.
I made it.
Completely on my own.
I
hear someone singing in the rain.
It's my mother. I sit in the dinghy and listen, relax into the sound of her voice and the pounding of the rain. She only sings when she's happy. I close my eyes and smile.
But then I really listen to the words of the song. And they chill me to my core.
Someone save me, I'm falling to darkness.
I met a man in the night who gave me a new start.
Someone save me, I'm losing my sanity.
The man's name was Death and he blackened my heart.
It's then that I hear another voice with my mother's. It's a girl's voice, and for a second, I think I might be going insane.
It's Trace.
I knock on the boat, three times.
The singing stops. My mother's face appears over the railing. She drops the ladder down, and I make the ascent.
I see Trace immediately, her fiery hair even brighter in the rain. Peri is sitting beside her under the awning, holding her teddy bear.
“What . . . what are you doing here?” I ask. No one has ever been on our boat besides my family. It's my father's rule.
My mother waves. “You made it back. With the book, I see. Good girl.” She stands up and puts her hand on my shoulder. “Your friend stopped by, and I invited her to stay. I thought it would be nice. We can celebrate today's victory.”
I pull her aside, whisper low. “If Dad knew you let a stranger on this boat, he'd throw you overboard.”
“She's not a stranger, darling. I knew Trace's mother, long ago.” She smiles and touches my cheek. “And your father isn't here today, is he? It's all right to have a little bit of fun, now and then.”
Peri giggles. Trace is teaching her the words to the song. I stiffen. This is wrong, against every rule, to let someone else onto our boat, which is supposed to be safe and private and separate from the outside world.
But Trace looks happy. So different from the girl who just yesterday could have killed me. She was hurting, then. Mourning. I would have done the same, so I smile and force myself to relax.
The rain stops, and the sun comes out, sharing stories about our past as it sets. Trace talks about Anna, and she smiles now and then. But the entire time, she watches Peri with a strange sort of hunger in her eyes. As if she thinks Peri
is
Anna, come back from the dead.
My mother is different, today, too. It's like she's herself again, steady on her feet, a smile on her face. She pulls Peri into her lap and braids her hair, and the four of us lie on the deck and watch the sky.
At some point my mother goes inside, to work in the engine room with Koi.
“I thought it was odd that you came over here,” I tell Trace. We're standing on the bow of the boat, watching the sun melt away. “But I guess I'm glad you did.” Peri giggles behind us. She's playing with her teddy bear, making it talk. “Peri reminds you of your sister, doesn't she?”
Trace nods. Her eyes are sad, the sun reflected in them like little pools of light. “Anna was everything to me.”
“It's not your fault,” I say.
She sighs. “If I could find a way to go back and fix my mistake, she'd still be here.”
“You can't think that way. Koi thinks that way.”
She shrugs and starts singing again, those same awful lyrics, that same chilling song. She watches Peri, and there's an alarm going off in my head. She shouldn't be here. This is wrong.
“You should go now,” I say. “My father will be home soon. He won't be happy to see you here.”
“I wouldn't worry,” she says. “I'll be gone before you know it.” She scoops up a hammer that lies forgotten on the deck, rusted from the rain and salt. She lets it dance across the tops of her hands. I've seen my father do that with his dagger.
“Did you know that there's over a million people in the Shallows? A million places to hide . . .” There's that crazy look in her eyes again. “
Someone, save me . . .
your engine room is pretty far down there, isn't it?”
I shrug. “Sure, I guess.”
“That's good.” She whirls the hammer again, then stops. Grips it hard in her hand and gives me a cold, deadly smile. “They won't be able to hear you.”
I don't have time to run. She slams the hammer on my skull. I crumple.
The last thing I hear, before the world fades to black, is Peri's scream.
O
ne time, when Koi and I were little, my mother brought home a rubber ball.
We played with it all day, until Koi bounced it a little too hard and it disappeared into the street, sucked away by the crowd.
“Stay here,” he told me. “I'll get it.”
He got lost. My father ran the streets searching for him for hours. The only reason he found my brother is because Koi
wanted
to be found.
So now, while I stand at the bow of the boat, sobbing as my father yells at me, all I can think is that Peri will not be found. Because Trace stole her, and there is a difference between being lost and being taken.
“I'm sorry,” I say. Over and over. Over and over.
“It's my fault! I let the girl on board!” My mother stands in front of me, shielding me from my father.
He paces around the cabin, uncovering hidden weapons. Stuffing them into a bag. “Meadow never should have spoken to her in the first place. People in this world are poison. Friendship is poison. It is
all
a lie.” He pauses by the door. “I'm going after Peri. No one leaves this boat until I return.”
I follow him out onto the deck.
“Let me come,” I beg him. There are tears in my eyes and I don't wipe them away. I deserve this shame. “I can help! Please.”
He shakes his head. “You've done enough already, Meadow.” He climbs over the railing and starts down the ladder. When he lands in the dinghy, he looks back up at me. “First your brother. And now you.”
“Don't . . .” I choke back a sob. “Don't say that.”
He pushes away from the houseboat. “Go inside, and pray that your sister isn't dead.”
I watch him until he disappears. Then I turn and head for the cabin. As I swing open the door, something stops it halfway.
My father's dagger.
I stoop to pick it up. Inside, Koi is consoling my mother. I can hear her muffled sobs.
They won't notice if I leave now.
I rush back on deck to my father's tackle box, lift the lid, and rummage inside until I find what I'm looking for. It's his old leather thigh sheath, the one he had as a boy. It fits my leg perfectly. I tuck the dagger inside, then turn and look out to shore.
The sky rumbles. Lightning cracks in the distance, lighting up the tallest building in the city. A storm is coming.
“I'm sorry,” I whisper, whether to Peri or my father or myself, I don't know.
Then I take a deep breath, leave my fear behind, and dive into the waves.
I
sprint the entire way to the city. I pass a group gathered in the middle of the street. For a second, I'm terrified it's Peri. That she's dead, and it's my fault.
I shove my way to the front, my heart in my throat. But it's only a boy being beaten to death by Initiative guards, his back a bloody mess. I wonder what he did wrong. I wonder why I care.
I run up and down the street, calling her name, checking in every alleyway, every building, every dark, shadowed corner that Trace might have chosen to hide in. I check again. She's nowhere to be found.
Finally, when the rain comes, I find myself sitting on the steps of our old apartment building. Staring up at the rain as it pelts my face. Wishing I'd never met Trace. Wishing the man that killed Anna had killed her, too.
“I thought I'd find you here.”
My father. He sits down beside me.
“You're too much like me, Meadow. You screw up and you want to redeem yourself, and it's a pattern that never ends. Someday it will destroy you.”
“So let it,” I say. I put my hands on my knees and rest my chin in my hands. “I wish I was dead.”
“You're more alive than I've ever seen you,” my father says. He sighs. “I'm sorry for what I said. I was angry. I was . . . scared.”
I finally look at him. There are dark circles under his eyes. He looks so tired. “You don't know what it means to be scared.”
He laughs sadly. “I'm terrified of losing my children. I'm so afraid that I train you to hate me, just to see to it that you'll be strong.”
“You said I'd never go into the city again.”
“You're here now, aren't you?”
I lean against his shoulder. He lets me. “I don't know where Peri is. I've looked everywhere.”
“We'll find her.”
He puts his arm around me and holds me, just for a second. Then he stands up, pulling me to my feet.
There's a whistle as the train approaches. We wait for it to pass. For some reason, I can't look away. There's something about it. Something about how fast it goes, how effortlessly it glides across the tracks.
Trace's voice comes into my head.
She'll never get to ride the train. I told her it was scary, but she didn't care. She wanted to so badly . . .
“The train,” I gasp. Of course.
“What about it?” My father asks.
“They're on the train.”