After the Fear (Young Adult Dystopian) (15 page)

Dragging my gaze down, I take a step back, still holding his hand. He seems to understand.

‘Come on,’ he says softly. ‘Let’s see if they’ve won.’

As we walk back over the field, I wonder who ‘they’ are. What’s worse, I wonder if I even want them to win.

I SHOULDN'T BE SURPRISED that Coral survived. She’s stronger than me and I somehow managed it. I don’t ask anyone to fill me in on what happened, but when I return to the screen, Ebiere is announcing the winners. Coral soaks up the audience’s applause just as her clothes soak in the blood. The man who she stole the weapon from, Jamey Kendra, is still standing against the wall, and when his image comes on the screen the audience’s noise turns into laughs and heckles. A teenage boy stands on the other side of the arena, face sober, hand gripping his arm. Blood oozes from between his fingers.

Just before daybreak, the sound of the spinner interrupts my nightmarish sleep. Rain splatters into the camp and bounces off the side of my pod. I squint through the little lines in the sky, painted on by some artist who decided the picture didn’t look quite right. It’s like watching a day of my past as the figures trudge through the fields and towards the Medic’s Cabin. I remember thinking back then that I would never again be the same person. I was right, but it wasn’t exactly the death of me I had expected.

The three tryout survivors are accompanied by Herd officers and a female Demonstrator I can’t make out properly; Coral is striding almost beside her, seemingly unaffected by the rain or the blood caking her brown uniform. Jamey holds back with the other swaying teenager. When they reach the nearest point in the path to my pod shaft, I recoil from the side. I don’t know what I’m expecting—for Coral to sense me, look up through the torrent and smile like her father had done, perhaps? But of course they walk past without wavering, oblivious to the girl watching from above.

***

I DON’T SEE CORAL until two days later. They stay in the Medic’s Cabin for a whole day, and I’m so busy with my training countdown that I hardly have time to even think about her.

Five more days, then four. Dylan is back to being our trainer again, thankfully. Gideon was okay when Dao had won a Demonstration, but in between he was cranky and sniping and made so many comments about Alixis’ weight that I wanted to take the plastic sword he held and whack him round the head with it.

I still hate those words, ‘persistence and resistance,’ but as I ran through that wall Dylan keeps talking about this morning it kind of made sense. Persist with your goal. Resist the pain.

I also made it to thirty-seven laps. Yes, it killed and yes, I’m aching but I did it. Also, when I fought Dylan I would have grazed his stomach had I not been distracted by how gorgeous he looks when he’s concentrating.

Anyway, I’ve thought of a signature move, although how feasible it will be on the sands I’m not sure.

Now I’m sitting in between Alixis and Dylan in the refectory, my hair still damp from the Wetpod. There’s a flicker of thick, red hair in the entrance.

Coral makes the white uniform look like it was designed for her lithe figure. She stands, hand on hip, assessing the room like it’s not good enough. I could almost laugh at her act; where else does she think she’s going to eat? I load a forkful of brown mush into my mouth.

Watching from the corner of my eye, I see Coral deliberate over which of the identical foil boxes to pick up, before finally choosing two: one each for her and Jamey. She surveys the hall once more.

I don’t look away quick enough.

‘Why is that girl staring at you?’ Dao asks through a mouthful of food.

‘We kind of know each other,’ I mumble.

‘Did you see her tryout?’ Gideon asks from the other side of the table. ‘She was one of the best I’ve ever seen. Good endurance, fast reactions, fights with cunning. How do
you
know her?’

‘We’re best friends, aren’t we, Sola?’

That sleek voice sounds from behind Gideon. I tense, hating my name in her mouth. It doesn’t belong there; she’s stolen it from me.

When I look up, she glances to Dylan, curling her mouth into a smile. I’m wishing with all my might that she’ll get the hint and go away, but she slides her foil box onto the table and sits down delicately next to Gideon. Instead of tucking her legs underneath the table, she crosses them slowly to the side for us all to see. Poor Jamey hovers behind her. There are no more free seats.

‘Nice to see you again, Dylan.’

Dylan doesn’t even react, simply keeps eating his food as if she had never arrived. I smile inwardly.

‘Do you know how rare it is to have people from the same city survive the tryouts consecutively? Not to mention the fact that you’re friends,’ Gideon remarks with raised eyebrows. ‘You could probably get Shepherd Fines to put you in the same pod, you know.’

Alixis looks to me sharply, narrowing her eyebrows.

‘Er, no thanks,’ I reply. ‘Jamey, isn’t it?’ I speak past Coral, making Jamey start when I say his name. He nods. ‘You can have this seat, I’m nearly done.’

‘Yep.’ Coral continues as if no one has spoken in the meantime, ‘Sola and I have loads in common. Now I’m an orphan, too, I guess we have even more.’

I narrow my eyes, unsure what game she’s playing. Whatever it is, I’m not going to enter into it. Dao looks surprised. ‘I didn’t know your parents had died, I’m sorry,’ he says to me.

Heat rises in my cheeks. Some of the other Demonstrators are glancing our way. I guess they could pick up on the tension from a mile off.

‘They haven’t,’ I say to Dao. ‘Well, my mum passed a while ago.’ I pause, the words still hurting even after all this time. ‘But my dad is very much alive. He works for the Shepherds, actually. Well, he’s not a Liaison or anything but he’s working his way up.’ I smile. Talking about him feels good, not painful like I expected. Imagining him with his briefcase and that worried face he pulls when he’s thinking, I decide that as soon as I get away from this table I’m going to check his Debtbook profile.

Coral’s eyes widen, her face changing. The facade seems to fall away, revealing her open, anxious expression. She chews on her bottom lip.

‘Oh, no,’ she whispers. ‘I-I thought they would have told you.’ She looks up through her long lashes at me. My body goes cold. I swallow, and the clink seems to echo around the room.

‘I’m so sorry, Sola, but your dad died two weeks ago.’

HER VOICE suddenly seems far away. Like I’ve heard the gate again, but much, much worse.

Someone lets out a strangled howl. It starts rich and full of pain, but trails off as a breathless whine. Empty, void of energy, emotion, pain, hatred.

It’s mine.

The table is dirty. I see every speck on the white surface like the grainy sands of the Stadium. I think I might be choking because I can’t breathe. I hope I am. I want to faint; I wait for the oblivion. Yet the world is still the same around me. Alixis has covered her mouth, eyes wide and full of sadness. Dylan is shaking his head, scrambling around on my digipad left on the table. Coral still faces me, her bottom lip red and raw from running her teeth over it.

Then I’m not thinking about Dad. I see the news report of Mum’s murder, interrupting our Debtbook profiles on the screen in the kitchen. I see the body first, before they say her name. Her favourite fur coat draped on the cement. I giggle nervously, and ask Dad why Mum’s sleeping outside although I’m old enough to know better. There’s the smash of his mug against the kitchen floor.

‘Sola!’A hand on my shoulder, shaking me. My head swims as I turn to Dylan.

‘He’s not dead. He’s alive.’ I think the words come from my mouth, but Dylan is repeating the sentence, pounding the rhythm into my mind. He shoves my digipad in front of me. Dad’s image stares back at me. There’s a status underneath his name:

Roberto Herrington is at Juliet Harvest Hall (work)

It’s dated today.

I gasp; my body craving air. My senses rush back to meet me. It’s like I’ve woken from a nightmare; I’m in that millisecond when you realise there wasn’t a killer in your flat or you haven’t seen someone you love fall from a great height.

‘Oops, my mistake,’ Coral says through giggles. ‘I guess it’s just me who’s an orphan then.’ She stabs her fork through the lid of her box.

Silence. My shoulders heave as I suck in breath. Everyone’s eyes are on me, and it’s like I’m on fire—a horrid heat infecting my face. Anger is spreading through me like a rash, itching and mauling at my skin.

Seconds pass. Coral’s deliberate eating seems like the only movement in the room. I know she, too, is waiting for my response, but I won’t bring myself down to her level. Wishing I had something to bite down on, I swivel my legs from under the table and stand slowly.

‘See you,’ Coral says, like it’s only natural I should leave. Leave
my
place and
my
food and
my
friends. She doesn’t even look up from her meal.

That’s when I flip.

That animal inside me claws its way out and I’m not going to stop it.

Faster than I’ve ever reacted in training, my hand closes around my cutlery knife. At the same time I launch myself onto the table. Skidding on my knees for less than a second, I swing my leg underneath me and give Coral a sharp kick to the shoulder, knocking her to the floor just as I knew it would. Before she has time to react I’m bearing down on her, pinning her arms underneath my knees, holding the dirty knife edge millimetres from her throat.

Gasps surround me. I don’t care. Someone yells something about a Herd officer.

‘Say one thing about my family.’ My voice is practically a growl. ‘Go on. Say it. Another trick about my dad. Maybe that my mum deserves to be dead?’ The knife is shaking with the force of my grip. Coral’s determined eyes stare into mine, and I know she’s assessing whether I’m serious or not. As I press the knife closer, her gaze flickers down, trying to see it. A tear which I hadn’t noticed lands in a fat splash on Coral’s cheek. She flinches. Even now, Coral still manages to seem repulsed by me.

‘I’m giving you your big chance. You don’t have anything to say?’ I whisper, leaning my head down.

It takes a second. Her gaze darts around, mouth open, taking tiny breaths. Everyone is either too interested in what’s happening or too scared of startling me to intervene. Coral looks back at me. Her mouth sets, her eyes narrow and
finally
, she makes a tiny shake of her head.

It’s enough.

I withdraw the blade, and in the most controlled movement I can muster, slide it across the floor. It skids, makes a clinking noise as it hits a chair leg.

When I get to my feet, Coral leans up, rubbing her shoulder. I step over her.

‘I was just having a giggle, Sola,’ she calls after me, and I smile at her genuine annoyance. Alixis is by my side within seconds, clapping her hands together in my honour. A protective gaggle of Demonstrators cluster around Coral, but the people sitting at our table give me a mixture of nods and wry smiles as I pass through the refectory. Although I’m desperate to reach the exit without looking behind me, I’m just not cool enough. I bite my lip and sneak a backward peek at Dylan.

The boy I can’t help but adore sits watching Coral try to brush off what just happened. He scoops up the last of his food, pops it into his mouth, and chews as if he were enjoying a snack during a good film.

The creature inside me laughs at his devilish grin, and I do, too.