Authors: Lindsay Cummings
The Fear Trials (6 page)
M
y adrenaline takes over. My vision tunnels, and the train is all I can see.
My father reaches the train first. He leaps, all fire and fury, and climbs onto the back of the car. He reaches out to help me, but I don't need it.
I land beside him. We climb the ladder to the top and crouch there. Wind whips me in the face as the train soars across the tracks. It passes the Graveyard, a massive mountain range of trash on the edge of the city.
“We'll go car by car!” My father yells. His voice is nearly lost. “You take one, I'll take the other!”
“And if we find them?” I yell.
The train veers to the left. I nearly fall off, but my father grabs my arm, steadies me. He looks me in the eyes, and in this moment, I know that we are both thinking the same thing.
“Kill the girl,” he says.
He lies on the edge of the roof and peers down, inside the open door of the car. “Not in this one,” he says. Then he stands up, runs and leaps onto the next car.
I follow. I'm shaking, and I'm terrified that the wind will throw me off. But I think of Peri, how afraid she must be, and it makes me brave.
I sprint for the next car and leap, just as my father did. My knees bang metal as I land. But I've made it. I crawl across the wide metal roof, grab the edge, and peer through the open door.
There's a group of people, huddled together in the shadows. For a second, I think I see Peri. The girl looks up at me, and my heart sinks. It's not her. I stand up, sprint down the car, and leap to the next one.
My father passes me. “No luck!” he screams.
The train is barreling across a bridge, heading toward Cortez. It will stop for a few moments, before it turns back around.
We have one car left.
She has to be there.
I leap, crawl to the edge, and peer inside.
At first, I think it's empty. I slam my fist against the roof and scream, so angry I'm seeing red.
And that's when a figure moves out of the shadows. Her hair is crimson. As red as fire. Beyond Trace, curled up on her side, is Peri. Her eyes are closed. She could be asleep. Or she could be dead.
I don't think. I swing inside the car. I roll to my feet, and dive for Trace.
She screams as I slam her against the wall.
“You're going to die!” I wind up for a punch, but she whirls me around so she has the advantage.
“I didn't have a choice!” Trace screams. She punches me across the cheek and I taste blood. “She had to be kept safe!”
Peri is dead. Trace has killed her. But then Peri moves. She opens her eyes, blinking sleep from them. When she sees me, she smiles. “Meadow?”
I try to run to her, but Trace holds me back. “She's not yours! You can't touch Anna!”
I freeze. “
Anna?
That's not Anna. That's my sister!”
But Trace isn't listening. She's dragging me towards the edge of the open car. She's going to try and throw me out. I struggle, but she's too strong. She's trained for this.
Where is my father? He should have been right behind me.
“Wake up, Trace!” I scream. “You're delirious. That's Peri. She isn't your sister. Your sister is
dead.”
I bite her hand, taste her blood, and she releases me. I whirl around, kick her knee from the socket. She falls, but stands back up, pops it back in place, and laughs. “I'm a better fighter. You won't win.”
I advance. I grab my father's dagger from my thigh, swing it wide, and miss.
“Pathetic!” she says. She spits out a mouthful of blood, and her eyes are wild. We circle each other like sharks. “You don't deserve to have a family.”
“You don't deserve to be alive,” I say. She freezes. Her eyes flit to Peri and back, and before I can stop her, she's rushed to my sister and pulled her into her arms.
“Don't touch her!” I scream.
But she grabs a knife from her belt and presses it to Peri's throat. “Don't move. If you come any closer, she dies.”
Peri whimpers. She's got tears running down her cheeks, and her gray eyes are boring into mine.
My voice is hardly a whisper. “Don't hurt her. Please.”
“When this train stops, I'm leaving. I'm taking her with me, and if you follow, I'll slit her throat.”
“But she's . . . she's not Anna,” I say. “She's got her own family. Just let her go. Anna wouldn't want to see you this way, Trace. Stop. Please.”
“You don't know what Anna wanted!” Trace screams. She presses the knife against Peri's throat. A trickle of blood runs down my sister's neck.
The train is slowing down. I glimpse a town in the distance. Cortez. I have seconds before we reach the station.
“You don't have to do this, Trace,” I say. My fingers tighten on the handle of my father's dagger. “You can let her go, and we can go separate ways. You can live.”
She laughs again, a cold cackle that makes my hair stand on end. “What are you going to do if I don't hand her over, Meadow? Are you going to kill me?” She spits again, a mouthful of blood. “You don't have the guts.”
The train comes to a stop. Trace edges closer to the exit, dragging Peri with her. “I'm leaving now.”
“You're not going anywhere,” I say. This is the moment my father talked about. This is the moment where everything is about to change. “Peri. Close your eyes.”
I grit my teeth and throw the dagger. It whirls, handle over blade, and lodges itself in Trace's throat.
She gasps. A fountain of red. She stumbles back, eyes wide, clutching for the dagger, but it's too late. I hear her throat rattle, a final breath, before she sinks to the floor.
P
eri is strong.
She doesn't cry the entire train ride home. She doesn't even cover her ears when darkness falls and the alarm begins to wail.
By the time we are in the dinghy, halfway out to sea, she is sound asleep in my father's lap.
The moon shines on her. She could be an angel, were it not for the barcode on her forehead.
My father breaks the silence. “You did it.”
I run my hands through my hair. “Where were you? I needed your help, and you weren't there.”
“I had faith that you could handle it.”
“And by handling it, you mean murdering Trace.”
He sighs, focuses on paddling through the maze of boats. “You were born in this world, Meadow,” he says. “To survive in it, you must do things, sometimes, things you don't like.”
I wipe away a tear, disgusted. Tears make people weak. “That's just it,” I say. “I
did
like it. She deserved to die.”
He stops paddling. We drift for a while, rocked gently by the waves. In the distance, I hear a gunshot. Peri flinches in her sleep. I stroke her hair, and even though I just took a human life, everything feels . . . right.
“There are things in the Shallows that you will never understand,” my father says. I can see our houseboat on the horizon, a black shadow. “There are things you must do, people whose lives you must take, if you are to live to see another day.”
He looks at Peri.
“If that's what it takes . . . to keep her safe,” I say.
“Kill or be killed.” He hands me his dagger. He had removed it from Trace's throat and cleaned the blade. In the moonlight, it sparkles. “Take it.”
He holds it out to me, handle first.
“But . . . I failed the Fear Trials,” I say.
“It isn't about the Fear Trials, Meadow,” he sighs. “It never has been. It's about having the courage to
do
something, to take a risk, when it matters most. You saved your sister today, at great cost. You chose to save her life by taking another. You're ready.”
I reach out, slowly, and take the dagger.
For the first time in my life, I feel strong.
W
e celebrate all night.
Peri's return, my passing the Fear Trials. They are reasons to be happy, to smile and dance and sing. Even for Koi.
My mother does not join in. She sits at the table, watching all of us, a smile on her face. It never reaches her eyes.
In the early morning hours, my father leaves for work. Koi and Peri curl up on the mattress and fall asleep. But I lie awake for hours, feeling different, like I am not myself.
Finally, my eyes grow heavy, and I fall in and out of sleep. At some point, my mother lies down beside me. She strokes my hair, and wipes tears from her eyes. I think they are happy tears. Tears of pride.
In those strange half-moments of sleep, I feel my mother's hand on my wrist. She presses her lips to my forehead, the way she has always done. “You can't escape destiny, Meadow,” she whispers. I lift my wrist, see the glint of silver. Her seashell charm.
I smile, and sleep finally pulls me away.
Â
In the morning, my mother and father are gone. Koi and I sit on the deck, watching Peri play with one of my father's fishing poles.
“You know what? It's a good day,” Koi says. He looks up at the sun and smiles.
“Koi, you're crazy.”
He shrugs. “It doesn't matter. What matters now is that we're together. All of us, and we won't let anything like that happen again.”
He's carving a seagull into the side of the cabin. It almost looks real, the way its wings are spread in flight, the way its head is cocked to the side.
“This world doesn't offer us happiness,” Koi says as he works. “We have to create our own.”
I look at Peri, listen to her laugh. I look at my mother's seashell bracelet, the way it glints under the sun. I think of my father. How he's taught me to be strong, even if it means he doesn't show love. And then there is Koi.
“I have all I need to be happy,” I say. And I mean it.
“Daddy!” Peri screams. She points at the sea, clapping and giggling.
“He isn't supposed to be home, yet,” Koi says, looking at the sky. The sun is high. We have several hours until dark.
Koi and I rush to the railing. We watch my father paddle, his strokes fast and uneven. He's paddling the dinghy all over the place, almost as if he can't see straight.
When he gets closer, I notice he has something on the floorboards. A thick bundle of cloth.
We drop the ladder. My father docks, pulls himself on board, and collapses onto the deck. His eyes are bloodshot. He is gasping for air, he can't catch his breath.
“What's wrong?” Koi asks. “What is it?”
My father drops the bundle onto the deck, in front of my feet.
I kneel down. My heart starts slamming against my rib cage. This is wrong. I don't want to open it. Don't want to see what's inside, because my father is shaking his head, saying “No. No, no ,no.”
I open the bundle.
I see my mother's brown leather boots. The boots she wears every day, the ones she was wearing last night when she left the boat.
“Why do you have these?” I hear myself say.
But I know. I know because there is a dark stain on the boots and the cloth.
Crimson. The color of . . .
“Your mother,” my father says, and for the first time ever, my father loses it. He looks at me with cold, empty eyes. “Your mother is dead.
I
t is the key to survival, the key to life. My father's old dagger.
“Peri!” I call out over the waves to my little sister. An old can bobs up and down in the water, mesmerizing me for a moment. Beyond the Shallows, the sea is packed with boats. Some of them are still afloat, with their masts stretching like arms to the sky. Others are half-submerged, shipwrecked and covered with moss.
Among the boats are other things. Old tires, half of a rusted car, plastic. A body lies facedown in the waves, her hair spread out like seaweed.
Behind me, in the city, the Night Siren wails. It starts low, then whoops higher and back down again. Everyone on the beach hurries into the shadows, knowing all too well what happens when the sun goes down.
It isn't safe anymore. I call out to Peri again. “It's time to go!”
She holds up a tiny hand and gives me the signal: two grubby little fingers held high above her head.
Two minutes. It is always two more minutes with her.
The sun is sinking, a massive orange ball melting into the sea. It sets fire to the sky, and everything is dancing in colors. Reds, oranges, yellows. It reminds me of blood, it reminds me of my mother.
Peri comes running up to me, kicking a spray of sand behind her. “I found a periwinkle!” she squeaks, sounding like a startled seagull. “Like me!”
“Yeah? Let's see it.” I cast a glance over my shoulder, at the few people who still litter the beach, before kneeling down to her level. Peri's big gray eyes, the color of sea foam, widen as she places the tiny shell in my outstretched palm. It's twisty and fat, with a sharp point at the top. A mollusk sticks out. Though it has barely enough meat for anyone to eat, I'm still tempted to shove it into my pocket. But somehow the Initiative would find out. As sure as the tide comes and goes, the Initiative will always discover our secrets.
“It's a good one,” I say, smiling down at her. “But we can't keep it.”
The thick black numbers tattooed onto her forehead crease in frustration. 72050. Peri's Catalogue Number, just one number different from mine. Our barcodes show the Initiative where we are,
who
we are, every moment of our lives. As Peri grows, it will grow, and it will never fade or wrinkle because of the healing nanites we all have in our blood.
“Tell you what.” I point the tip of my dagger toward the shell. “We'll mark it. That way, next time you find it, you'll remember.” I etch a small heart into the side of the shell. It's crooked, and hardly legible. I drop the mollusk on the sand, let the waves take it away. Peri smiles triumphantly. She's a miniature version of me. Silver hair that hangs in loose curls to her waist. Like our mother's.
“Okay, time to go.” She grabs my hand and tows me along the sand, humming the tune to an old lullaby under her breath. Soft, so no one but the two of us can hear it. Peri knows the value of silence in the Shallows.
At the far end of the beach, a jetty of large rocks juts out into the ocean. Waves crash on the rocks, and we get soaked, but it doesn't matter. The heat of the summer clings to me like fog.
Peri goes first, clambering on hands and feet up the jetty and over to the other side. I climb down after her and my breath catches in my throat.
Pirates.
They'll do anything for extra Creds. The Initiative pays them to guard the shore and take care of minor problems, as well as find and report the citizens who break the four Commandments of the Shallows.
Commandment One: Honor the Initiative.
Commandment Two: Thou shalt not attempt to cross the Perimeter.
Commandment Three: Honor the Silent Hour.
Commandment Four: Thou shalt not harbor useful items from the days Before.
“Pay up,” one of the Pirates says. He stands from his spot by a blazing campfire. They are cooking fish.
We could never afford an entire fish. Whatever we gather is sent to the Rations Department, and mixed and pureed with other nutrient-rich foods for distribution.
“We don't want any trouble tonight,” I say. I press Peri closer to my side. “We just want to get to our boat.”
The Pirate laughs, and the two men with him join in. They are all covered in tattoos. One of them has an Initiative tattooâan open, unblinking eyeâon his neck, just below his chin. “You want to go to sea, little girl, you gotta pay.”
My hand finds the dagger on my thigh. There are only three of them. If I were alone, I could end this at once. But Peri tugs on my shirt, and I see the fear in her eyes. I cannot risk her safety. Not now, when the Dark Time is so close. And I have nothing to give the Pirates, nothing to buy us passage.
But Peri does.
She wears a pair of too-large tennis shoes, and the laces are still intact. Something like that is precious, and it kills me that I will be the one to take them from her.
“I'll give you the laces,” I tell the Pirates, pointing at Peri's feet. “Then you'll let us go.”
The largest man lets out a whistle. His breath is rotten. “I'm feeling generous tonight, little girl. Next time, you better come prepared. Understood?”
I nod my head. “Next time you might not get away with your life.”
He thinks it's a joke.
I stoop to untie the laces. Peri frowns, but does not cry.
She's strong, my little sister.
The Pirates snatch the laces and go back to their fish, laughing. Peri and I pass safely and run down the beach. We yank the palm fronds and seaweed from our boat. It is a tiny dinghy, large enough for only two people. I quickly untie the line, push the boat into the waves, and we leave the shore behind.
“Meadow? Will we eat tonight?” Peri asks me as I row, weaving through the maze of waste and litter. The wind blows her hair back from her face, and I notice how her cheekbones stick out, how her eyes are slightly sunken. She's losing more weight.
“Yes.” I nod, looking away. The way she's studying me, as if I am the only thing in the world worth loving, makes my heart fill with guilt. If she only knew what I do to make sure she can eat. To make sure that all of us survive.
Two miles from shore, I stop and stare out at the black sea, feeling my shoulders burn from the effort of rowing. The dinghy bumps up against our houseboat. It is quiet here, a still night, the waves lapping the boat, the same way they always have. When my mother was murdered, I thought the world would end with her. But it goes on.