After the Fear (Young Adult Dystopian) (9 page)

‘Okay.’ Alixis is more than a little out of breath. ‘But everyone outside of Alpha will hate me. Is there protection for that?’

There’s a pause.

‘You might be surprised,’ Dylan says, ‘but yes, Herd officers accompany you everywhere, and when you’re in the Stadium you’ve only the contestants to worry about.’

‘And there’s twenty-six cities right? That’s twenty-six fights,’ Alixis says.

‘Twenty-five fights. There’s no Stadium in Zulu,’ Dylan corrects.

Alixis continues to ask the questions I’m desperate to know the answers to. ‘So this is the only training camp then? And who decides when we’re ready to start?’

‘The one and only camp, aye. As for who decides, well that would be your trainer.’ This, Dylan says with a grin, and his eyes even flicker to me as he speaks. I look straight ahead, hoping he’ll think my cheeks are red from the running.

‘So, how come you aren’t still touring? Why are—you putting—it off—training us?’ Alixis pants.

Dylan loses his grin and looks out into the distance, his answer nearly getting lost behind us.

‘I’ve finished my tour. I’ve paid back my Debt.’

To that, neither Alixis nor I have a reply, so we keep running. Around and around in futile circles, wearing ourselves out, getting nowhere.

***

AT LEAST ALIXIS throws up first. I’m not sure how many laps we’ve done, but my T-shirt is soaked with sweat and I keep wiping more away from my eyes. Well, if I was worried about how I looked earlier I can now rest assured knowing I resemble a frizzy-haired lobster having some kind of heart attack. My mouth, throat and lungs all burn from gasping.

‘Getting tired yet?’ Dylan startles me by calling across the space which Alixis’ absence has left. I risk a glimpse over.

‘Are you?’ I ask. Our heavy breaths lap over each other’s, providing a steady rhythm to our steps.

The side of his open mouth curls just a fraction and he shakes his head.

‘Me neither,’ I say. Nothing could be further from the truth, but there’s a bud of defiance growing within me. Straight away, he picks up the pace. My legs scream in protest, and I push them harder to match him. That smug look on his face tells me he’s in his element.

‘You like running then?’ I ask casually, as if this is
so
easy. As if my whole body isn’t begging for me to stop.

‘It’s grand.’

That lilt in his voice reaches over the space and grips my heart; it’s so—perfect.

‘Actually, it’s my favourite part of being a Demonstrator,’ he says. That’s when I see it. A flash before he speeds ahead. His blue eyes narrow in a tiny smile and, in that second, I know he’s thinking about our kiss.

Those words are an exact echo of what he said at Coral’s party. The joke I quoted back to him.

He’s surging forwards. I can’t match him and he knows it. My legs tumble to a stop and laughter rolls from me.

He remembers.

Best of all, he wants me to remember. My energy floods back and I want to whoop and punch the air and twirl about. Then I remember where I am, that my life is basically over, that Dad is on his own in city Juliet, and that I’m a murderer. Instead, I finish the lap, jog over to where Alixis lies and help her up.

‘You feeling okay?’ I ask.

‘Yep,’ she says, brushing the grass from her clothes before giving me a strange look. ‘Are you?’

A giggle escapes. I blame the high from exercise for behaving like a little girl.

‘Yeah. Turns out, I really like running.’

***

‘PERSISTENCE AND RESISTENCE!’ Dylan repeats over and over again as we kill ourselves at fitness drills. ‘Those two things will save your life!’

My high has quickly evaporated and every inch of my body aches. It’s as though there’s a great big hand gripping every muscle, squeezing them until I can’t move. I cradle my stomach, which is as tight as a drawstring bag.

‘We get a gun, don’t we?’ Alixis asks as I ram down hits on her punching gloves. ‘So it’s not like we can
really
die.’

‘Aye you can die all right. You only get one bullet throughout your whole tour. Most try to keep it for their last Demonstration, and they’re right to. If you need to use your gun before that, you might as well give up there and then. So:
persistence and resistance
. Persist through the fight, resist the pain.’

If it’s possible, my body tenses further at the mention of a gun. I never thought I would be in a position to carry the same weapon which murdered Mum. If I picked it up, would I be like him? The man who shot Mum? It was random, her murder. Just a crazy guy who overpowered a Herd officer and killed the first person he saw.

I’m not trying to be noble, pretending there’s a difference in killing people with a sword, or a dagger or a hair pin, to a gun, but I’m just not sure I could do it. Shoot someone and see their expression. Wonder whether it was the same expression which Mum had when she died.

I keep my mouth shut, because I’m basically incapable of saying anything around Dylan. Yet thoughts of the gun linger in my mind. I know one day soon I’ll have to decide what’s more important: Mum’s memory or my own survival.

When the sun begins to set, Dylan leads us over the field, towards the semi-translucent building I saw on the way into the camp. It’s the only place set apart from the playground.

‘Spend at least an hour in here. It will ease the cramps in your muscles,’ Dylan instructs. He fishes two keys out of his pocket and inspects them in the diminishing light. ‘Here’re your locker keys. In there you’ll find your, um, swimwear and anything else you’ll need for the Wetpod. And don’t worry, there aren’t any trigger cameras.’

He passes the keys over.

‘Dinner’s in the refectory from seven till nine. That’s the long, flat building right next to the Medic’s Cabin.’ He points over the field, to where the lights are beginning to flicker on in the pods. ‘See you both tomorrow.’

As he turns to go, Alixis calls to him.

‘What’s happening tomorrow?’ She’s still out of breath and her voice comes out as a hoarse whisper. Dylan pauses.

‘The same again. I’ll meet you at seven for morning laps. Get breakfast at six if you want it.’ Right then it’s hard to believe he’s even got a playful side. Alixis lets out a dramatic sigh.

‘You’ll get used to it. If you don’t, you’ll die on tour and that’s just the way it is,’ Dylan says. His ‘th’s sound like hard ‘t’s, making the sentence seem less angry somehow and more manner of fact. With that, he’s off. I watch as he walks a few paces then breaks into a jog, cutting a diagonal across the field.

After spending all day with him, I suddenly miss his familiar scent. It’s fresh, like bedding which has been left to dry outside. A hollow emptiness creeps through me. It’s as though I’m on a sinking ship watching the rescue boat float farther away. But that’s ridiculous. Dylan’s not my beacon of hope; completing my tour and getting back to Dad alive is. I clench the key in my hand and head inside the Wetpod.

Dylan’s right. There’s only one way of getting out of this. I train. I kill. I go home.

DYLAN IS IN LOVE with Alixis. I’m sure of it.

For the past week, I’ve watched him run over to her every time she falls, vomits, or has to lie down. Fitness doesn’t exactly come naturally to her; her womanly curves are still as evident as ever and she can’t even finish one lap more than the day we started. Yet I see exactly why Dylan would fall in love with her, because in two short weeks, I love her too.

She moans nearly all the time, but when she finds something funny, she laughs so loud and for so long you can’t help laughing, too. I’ve never spent so much time with anyone in my whole life. We train, eat, and sleep in the same space as each other yet she hardly ever gets on my nerves. I also know that if I told her how much I like Dylan, she would be loyal to me, which only makes me feel worse.

Why can’t I stop thinking about him? I’ve only spoken to him alone once since I’ve been here. It was three days ago, when I had decided to stay in the Wetpod longer than Alixis because boy, is it amazing in there. I’ve never seen a Herd officer near it, and when I’m there I’m safe, hidden by the steam and depths of the pools.

Anyway, I had been swimming in the warm pool as usual before heading down to the steam tubes to hydrate my body. This level is literally full of steam, with various tubes running from floor to ceiling, big enough for about five people and teeming with aromas and heat dials. The moment I was about to leave, I noticed a figure approaching through the mist.

This doesn’t happen much. Occasionally, I’ll meet people in the pool levels or the hot baths but at that time of night the steam tubes are always empty. I was pretty startled, so I darted to where I’d left my towel.

‘Oh, sorry. I thought it was—’

I didn’t get to hear what Dylan was about to say, because he stopped cold as soon as he recognised me. We stood about two metres apart, letting the steam drift between us like smoke in the wind. I was glad I couldn’t see him properly; the men’s swimming trunks are long and loose, but just knowing he had his top off was enough to make me blush from my chin to my hairline.

‘You’re usually finished by now,’ he muttered, finally breaking the silence. I went to reply, but had no idea what to say.

My mouth worked for a moment, before I settled on, ‘Yeah, well training hurt today.’ It sounded a lot like an accusation, and I was worried it didn’t exactly make sense, either. I could make out Dylan nodding slowly.

‘You’re doing well, Sola, but you need to train harder. You never anticipate other people’s moves.’ His blue eyes darted to mine just as the mist began to clear. He cast his gaze downwards—sideways—anywhere but on me.

I could have giggled at how panicked he looked, but instead I was reminded of how he acted after he had kissed me. I sighed.

‘If I train harder, do you really think I can complete my tour?’ It’s a question that had been tugging at me since the first day of training—each time Dylan shouted for me to go faster, for ten more push ups, my knees to go higher.

‘There’s a chance you can, aye.’

‘So how come I’ve never met anyone who was chosen before? They disappear and never come back.’

He ran his hand through his hair as if he were trying to pull the answer from his mind.

‘There are so many reasons. Those people who never go into the tryouts, the older ones chosen to work at camp, they never pay back their Debt so they can’t come home. It’s just like being relocated for later life, really.’ He shrugs. ‘People like you and me, well, you’ve seen what happens. A lot of them die in the tryouts, if not they go during their tour. Folks can complete it, but the last fight is tough. After you finish the tour you—you don’t exactly feel the same. Some people return home under a different identity, some choose to stay here, working at the camp, or even continuing to demonstrate.’

I wondered which one of those is his reason for staying.

‘So, people have returned home then?’

‘Aye. Maybe just not in city Juliet or in your lifetime.’ He shrugged, still looking to the side as though I wasn’t standing right in front of him.

‘Okay. Thanks,’ I said, although I wasn’t really sure what I was thanking him for. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow then. I promise I’ll work harder to guess what other people are going to do.’

‘You do that,’ he replied, his lips barely moving.

‘I knew you were going to say that,’ I said, and even now I can’t help but cringe with the rubbishness of it. Note to self: don’t joke when nervous. . . .

Then we moved away. He went farther into the steam room, and I almost ran out to my locker. As soon as I got outside, I took a gulp of fresh air, wondering if I even breathed the whole time I was talking to Dylan. My skin was hot and tingling, and I was trying to persuade myself that my joke wasn’t
that
bad.

That was three days ago, and if I thought this encounter would progress anything for us, I was so wrong. It only makes it harder for me to watch him tend to Alixis in our training, while shouting at me to ‘put some effort into it’.

Yet even Dylan’s attentiveness towards her hasn’t lifted Alixis’ spirits today. As we walk across the darkening field having spent another evening in the Wetpod, she seems quiet. I towel dry my hair, and shudder as the cold blow gently across the nape of my neck.

‘Is everything okay?’ I ask.

‘Mmm?’ she turns to me, broken from whatever daze had taken her over. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. You’ve lost weight you know.’ She sighs.

My cheeks flush and I curl my arm around my tummy.

‘I didn’t really notice.’

Now she’s mentioned it, my stomach does feel different, not exactly smaller, but harder. It’s not a surprise seeing as Dylan has been forcing me to do two hundred sit ups in the morning and at night. Also, as stupid as this sounds, things have started to seem lighter. Like the other day when I pulled a refectory table closer to my lap. It was kind of
easy
.

‘You’ve really toned up this week too,’ I say, guessing the reason for her melancholy. ‘Anyway, we’ve got loads of time to get fit before our tour.’

‘I doubt it,’ she grumbles.