The Fear Trials

by Lindsay Cummings

  “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.

  Chapter 19

  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.”

  Chapter 20

  My 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 fam
ily.”

  “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.

  Chapter 21

  Peri 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.

  Chapter 22

  We 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.

  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.

  Excerpt from The Murder Complex

  Read on for a preview of

  THE MURDER COMPLEX,

  available June 10, 2014

  Chapter 1

  Meadow

  It is the key to survival, the key to life. My father’s old dagger.

  “Peri!” I call out ove
r 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.