After the Fear (Young Adult Dystopian) (35 page)

Coral smirks suddenly—a long, slow, thin-lipped smile which has Mr Winters written all over it. Standing there, watching my enemy walk away with an already-victorious swagger, a fog clears in my head. It’s been building up since the night of the Demonstrators’ party, when I found out about Mum. When I thought Mr Winters might be my father.

He’s not.

Dad is my dad, and I know it. The same way I know my mum may have had her faults, but she was still kind and loving. She still sang to me while I was in the bath. All those memories are real.

***

I SCOWL AS I STEP OUT from behind the curtain and face the makeup girl. I’m wearing my school uniform, but the trousers are so tight they’re practically leggings. The shirt is shimmering silver and the tie has been made loose and un-adjustable. So instead of having the knot at my collar, it hangs around my chest, which is also on show thanks to this too-small shirt.

At least they’ve left my running boots alone. I shove my feet into them angrily.

‘We should have made the shirt cropped,’ makeup girl says. ‘Your stomach is too good not to show it off.’

‘Shirt’s fine the way it is, thanks,’ I practically snarl, thinking of the grinning scar that runs down my side—courtesy of Mr Winters.

When I sit, she hums and gets to work behind me. I start to recognise the tune between tugs and pulls at my scalp.

It was Mum’s favourite melody. I think it came from an old film soundtrack or something. She sang it on the morning of her death. Dad hummed it the morning I was chosen.

I join in, forgetting about how stupidly I’m dressed or how much I don’t want to die today. Instead, I let the song’s bittersweet nostalgia carry me away. When makeup girl stops, I smile.

‘What’s your name?’ I ask softly. There’s a pause.

‘Why do you want to know?’ She sounds cautious.

I shrug. ‘I don’t know. It’s just that all this time, I’ve never asked you what your name is, that’s all.’

Her comb runs slowly through my hair. ‘If I tell you, will you let me make you pretty?’

I scoff. ‘Yeah, why not?’

‘Yes! Ok, it’s Rochelle. You’re going to look amazing!’

***

AFTER I’VE BEEN painted, plucked, and preened, Rochelle secures my hair pin with some clips and steps back to admire her handy work.

‘Wow. I’m good.’ She beams.

I thank her and leave without looking in a mirror. If I could, I would stop by every room in the Medic’s Cabin and memorise everyone’s name, but I need to meet Dylan before my time is up. I scan out of the main doors and step right into a huddle of Herd officers. The same three who had just been with Coral, in fact. I apologise and try to swerve around them, but they cluster around me once again.

‘Miss,’ one of them shouts. ‘Miss!’

‘What?’

‘We’re escorting you to the spinner landing pad.’ He speaks loudly, as if I don’t understand English. Through their bodies, I glimpse Dylan waiting by the edge of the field.

‘Look, I just need five minutes.’

A wide hand weighs on my shoulder. A warning.

‘We have orders to escort you to the landing pad,’ he repeats.

‘I’m not ready,’ I spit out.

‘Well,
we
are.’ He raises his eyebrows, daring me.

I briefly consider taking them on. There are only three of them; I’ve fought worse. Yet, they’re armed and I’m not. And if I get injured before my fight then I’m pretty much dead.

Dylan’s looking over now, alerted by the fracas.

‘Please,’ I beg as we begin to walk down the path across the field. ‘I just need to see somebody!’

The officers ignore me as if I weren’t anything more than a passing fly. Dylan walks briskly to catch up to us. I’m stepping backwards, pushed along by the officers as I try and see over their shoulders.

‘Dylan!’ I call.

We reach the gate. As the beep of the scanner goes off, I launch myself against the Herd officers.

I can’t leave without saying goodbye. I don’t even notice I’m shouting it until I hear my cries. For the first time all day, I hit that terrified wall. My heart pounds. I can’t breathe. I need to get to Dylan. If I can say goodbye, everything will be all right.

Hands grab at me. Hold me back. One officer loops his arm around my waist, and I’m lurched backwards. I reach out for Dylan’s running figure.

‘Don’t fight them!’ His beautiful voice carries across the field. I dig my heels into the ground as they drag me away.

I go to shout I love you. The words won’t come. All I can do is hyperventilate and reach out. My body is shaking, using all its energy to break free. It’s no use. The second I’m through the gate, it slides shut and locks Dylan on the other side.

He curls his hands around the bars as I’m hauled into the spinner.

He stands there, crushed. Those lips I’ve kissed so many times part as he stares at me through the bars. His head shakes, eyes darting around to find a way to reach me.

The terrible machine shudders awake, and my chest aches as I’m lurched into the air. Words are so formed on my tongue that I can practically taste them. Yet, I’m silent as I watch his image fall away from me. The spinner pulls me higher into the air, and soon it’s too late.

I’m flying away from him. His face becomes a blur. Then, just like that, he disappears from view.

I hadn’t expected it to end like that.

I HARDLY RECOGNISE my home as the spinner looms over the blackened earth that surrounds city Juliet. My fight isn’t for an hour, but the darkening streets are already infested with swarms of people cramming into the Stadium. From up here, they look like dark clouds morphing and moving through the roads.

Only a Herd officer and the pilot accompany me. Coral left in a separate spinner, and I’m not sure if Shepherd Fines is even watching. We swing through the city, and I spot new skyscrapers. The unsightly scaffolding I noticed a month ago has disappeared, as if the whole city had entered an ugly cocoon for a while but has emerged as a bright, beautiful new creature. Shiny, glass walls make up the Juliet Hall instead of the grey brick we’ve had since I was born.

I gasp. On the side of a block of offices, another amplified image of my face covers a billboard. On the building opposite, Coral’s Debtbook profile picture shines on a similar-sized digital poster. We fly by too quickly for me to fully read the words underneath our faces, but I recognise ‘showdown’ as we go by.

How strange it must be for Dad or any of my school ‘friends’ to see my face looking over them every single day.

We swoop lower, only to see the streets lined with multi-coloured lanterns instead of streetlights. They join together like children holding hands and run around the city. The atmosphere smells familiar but different, kind of like a familiar perfume on the wrong person.

As we touch down, I realise too late that I will never fly again. This city will be my home until the day I die, whether that’s today or in the years to come. It’s as though I’ve lost something then. I sulked over being torn away from Dylan for the whole flight, and now I’ll never get to savour that experience again. I’m trapped beneath this milky roof of pollution—forever.

More Herd officers meet me from the spinner. We take the lift down, and on every floor, it stops to reveal a flock of scrabbling people shoving their digipads into the shaft, trying to get a picture.

‘Sola!’ ‘Miss Herrington!’ ‘Coral!’ they shout. Some don’t even seem to know who they’re cheering for. The Herd officers close around me, not allowing anyone to gain entrance to the lift or to touch me with their grasping hands. What do they want from me? I have nothing left to give except my life.

As we near the ground floor, a Herd officer turns to me and grips my arm.

‘Be careful now. An officer leaked what time you’d be arriving. We’ve already had someone try to assassinate Miss Winters.’ I shrug as he blathers on. ‘It’s ironic considering she’ll probably be killing her assassin in her next Demonstration now that he’s caught.’ The officer looks to me, eyes wide. ‘Oh . . . if she wins, which I’m she sure won’t.’

Guess I can tick tact off my list of Herd officer qualities. Thankfully, the lift beeps open.

Any fear I had dissolves as I step out of the lift and walk through the crowd of Juliet’s inhabitants. The Herd officers make a tunnel around me, moving as I do, pushing back anyone who oversteps the mark. As I move forwards to sign a digipad, there’s a sharp sting at the back of my neck. I briefly catch a young woman sobbing with joy over a lock of my hair before she’s carried away by the surging crowd.

Rubbing my neck, I curse under my breath.

Right, no more signing digipads. No more eye contact. I walk until we reach the familiar back door of the Stadium. When it slides shut behind me, all the noise, light, and life from outside is squeezed out of the passage. The dank corridors echo only my footfalls as I walk through the foul-smelling guts of the Stadium.

In here, I’m not nice. I’m not kind or caring. I’m not even Sola Herrington.

I’m a Demonstrator. A Demonstrator who will do everything it takes to survive.

THE CLAWING ANGER grows with each passing minute. I imagine Coral laughing back at the camp tomorrow, telling anyone who’ll listen about how she finally got rid of me. I remember how she tricked Tabby, the life to which she’s subjected Alixis’ son, the moment she lied and told me my only surviving parent had died. Finally, I think of Dad—all alone and waiting for my return.

Iron and soil. I can already smell combat in the air. The hatred inside me forms that gleeful creature, desperate for one last kill.

I’m led to a room with a closed gate instead of the open archway that I would usually stand underneath. It takes a moment to recognise why. I’m being presented as the contestant, not the Demonstrator. That makes sense, as people have paid to see Coral kill me, but it still feeds the rage inside and makes me want to eliminate everyone in that crowd.

I grind my teeth, becoming more and more like an animal waiting for its release. The crack of my knuckles reminds me of Shepherd Fines clicking his tongue. I keep my head down. Glare at the gate.

Of course, Ebiere bates the audience with her carefully chosen words designed to whet their appetites.

‘Three months ago, two young women began risking their lives to pay back their Debts! Thanks to their sacrifices, Juliet is quickly becoming the richest city in the country!’ Cheers rattle to life with this comment.

‘Yet underneath the talented fights and smiles for Debtbook, a storm was brewing between your very own Demonstrators. You have the downloaded footage of Sola Herrington killing none other than Coral Winters’
own
father!’

Have they forgotten I didn’t have a choice?

‘You’ve kept up with the Debtbook statuses! You’ve seen Coral attempt to attack Sola once before! Now, for the first time in Shepherd history, you will be privileged to see not one, but two Demonstrators combat to the death. . . . The other cities are tuned in on their digipads, but only you will get to see this live!

‘The school-girl Demonstrator has consistently refused a gun in the Stadium. She casts away her sword as if she loathes to kill. For the final twist in this warped battle of jealous rivalry, Sola Herrington must prove she is worthy of paying back her Debt indefinitely. To do this, she will embrace the rules she has given herself. She will fight unarmed!

‘Daughter of the disgraced Liaison Albert Winters will fight with both sword and the trademark one-bullet gun. I leave you with this question: when the fighters are this well-trained and the stakes are so deliciously high, who will walk out of the Stadium alive? Who will you welcome back into your city as a hero?

‘Brought to you by the Shepherds, I present Sola Herrington Versus Coral Winters in a final Demonstration!’

I stand, breathing in time to the climactic music. I roll my shoulders back, rotate my neck. In a way, there’s irony in the fact I’m going to step out under the same gate as I did on the day of my tryout. I’m standing on the same trodden-down soil, near the now-empty weapons bench. Back then, I was about to make my first ever kill. Now, I’ll make my last.

The gate rises.

And it clicks.