After the Fear (Young Adult Dystopian)

by Rivers, Rosanne

  The dagger I was holding slices into the woman’s neck.

  Just as I had planned. Just as I—oh—planned.

  A broken cry alerts me to where the man stands, his shield held up defiantly despite his other wrist limp at his side. He looks hopelessly from where the woman now lies back to me. It occurs way too late that they might have been a family.

  Or maybe it’s too early.

  He strides towards me, shield raised. He wants it over. If only I was Alixis. I could give him some kind of prayer or nice thing to say before he dies. But I have nothing. So I dodge the sharp rim of his shield and pivot on one foot so that I’m round the back of him.

  In quick succession, so that he would barely have time to register I’m no longer opposite him, I stand on the small of his back and grab his shoulders, using them to launch myself upwards. The moment that I’m at his height, I place my hands on either side of his head.

  As I break his neck, I’ve never hated myself more.

  ‘SOLA! MY DEAREST, you did so well!’ Shepherd Fines greets me with open arms, a bunch of exotic flowers sticking out of his fist.

  ‘No thanks,’ I say, pushing the bouquet away and clambering into the spinner. I don’t deserve flowers, or praise. One of the two Herd officers who escorted me to the Stadium asked for my autograph on the way back, and I nearly threw up all of his digipad.

  Shepherd Fines gives Ebiere the flowers instead, which she accepts graciously, of course. He climbs in next to me, shuffling up to the middle seat.

  I want that horrible thing inside of me to wake up again. At least when it’s there it relieves me of my guilt. I don’t see the people who I’ve killed every time I blink. My body’s numb, but I want it worse because I can still feel. When I’m filled with fear, everything I do makes sense. When that’s gone, what do I have left?

  I stare out of the side of the machine which takes us upwards, but the scenery has lost its magic. Everything is dull. I think that’s why I let Shepherd Fines keep his hand on my knee. After a while, it slowly creeps up to my thigh. I want to tell him to take it away, but I can’t let him see my face. It’s covered in tears and blood.

  ***

  I SPEND THE REST OF THE NIGHT in the Wetpod. Scrubbing and scrubbing every inch of my skin until I have taken off the old, filthy layer, and it is too painful to scour anymore. The shower in the little cubicle is steaming hot, and I gulp in air through the sharp lines of running water. I don’t look down to see the water running red down the drain.

  The cuts on my stomach and thigh are superficial, but they bleed more than their depth should allow. And despite already having two royal-purple arcs staining both eyes, I don’t think my nose is broken, just very, very bruised.

  I relish in the pain. It distracts me from the other hurt: the worse, deeper misery.

  Shepherd Fines tried to force me over to the Medic’s Cabin as soon as we touched down, but I only wanted one thing from him.

  ‘Sir, when is William coming back?’ I asked.

  ‘My darling, who?’ He spoke in a similar way to how you would address a favourite pet.

  ‘William. He was hurt during my tryout and went to hospital.’

  ‘Oh, of course. Yes, I was told about him before. There were some unfortunate complications with his healing. Don’t you worry yourself, Sola. He will be here, but the way you’re carrying on, it will likely be after you’ve gone!’

  Now, as I shampoo my hair for the third time to get rid of every grain of sand, I wonder what he meant by gone. Back to my father? Or to my—how would Alixis put it?—eternal resting place.

  Strangely enough, when I get to my locker and find a new uniform waiting for me, crisp white, ironed and still warm, some of my self-loathing lifts away. I’m not proud of what I did today, but this uniform reminds me that I’m here for a reason. That I’m part of a collective who all do the same.

  I’m acting like I’m disgusted by it all, and I am, but come my next Demonstration, I will do it all again. Because the alternative is my life.

  Selfish, selfish, selfish. Those are all the words I have for myself as I sprint across the empty field and head towards my pod shaft. I scan in to find Alixis sitting in the dark on her bed, her hands clasped together in front of her face and her head bowed. She looks up, startled.

  ‘Sola!’ Her arms are like welcome wings as she embraces me. I don’t move or hug her back, but not because I don’t love her. Because I can’t seem to do anything.

  ‘Let me guess, praying for me?’ I ask.

  She pulls away, still holding my shoulders, and examines my face.

  ‘Actually, I was praying for me.’ She smiles. Using the tip of her finger, she eases my face one way, then another. I giggle, which hurts my nose. I guess everyone is a tiny bit selfish in this place.

  ‘Hmm, you got a pretty bad head-butt, but I don’t think it’s broken. You’ll have those bruises for a while though. Huh, it looks like you’re wearing a head band and it’s fallen down over your nose.’

  ‘Or like I’m wearing war paint.’

  ‘Or like you fell asleep in your breakfast.’

  ‘Oh yeah, that purple breakfast we’re always having?’ I ask sarcastically but can’t help laughing. I sit on the edge of her bed and fling myself back so that I’m staring up at the metal bottom of my own bunk. Soon, there’s a dip in the bed. Alixis lies next to me.

  ‘So, are you well and everything?’ she asks. I can tell she’s trying to make it sound casual.

  Still staring upwards, I shake my head.

  ‘Actually, Alixis, there’s something I need to tell you.’

  ‘Ooh. Sounds serious,’ she whispers dramatically, turning her head to me. ‘Go on then.’

  I’m about to talk when I look to the trigger camera. The red dot tells me I probably activated it when I said the word ‘prayer’.

  ‘One second,’ I say, before getting up and climbing onto the top bunk. I pull the sheet from my bed, lean over to the camera and wrap the sheet as thickly as I can around the small screen at the end and the microphone panel. What I’m about to tell Alixis isn’t for anyone else’s ears.

  Alixis gasps. ‘We’ll be found out. Shepherd Fines is probably being alerted right now.’ She’s not berating me; in fact, she looks quite impressed. I climb down from my bunk and sit next to her.

  ‘Shepherd Fines had his hand on my leg for an hour today. Right now, I don’t care if I annoy him. Anyway—’ I take a deep breath. ‘—I realised today what’s important. I want to be a nice person, but I always put what I want in front of everyone else. That’s what got me here in the first place. I really like Dylan. I mean, I’m totally infatuated with him. We even kissed at Coral’s party even though she liked him first. But what I’m saying is. I love you, in a different way. And if there is anything going on between you and Dylan, even the tiniest spark of attraction on your part, then I promise I’ll never pursue anything more than friendship with him ever again.’

  I wait. There’s a second of stillness.

  ‘Pahaha!’Alixis claps a hand over her mouth, but it does nothing to stifle her fit of giggles. She shakes her head, rolls over to turn away and through the gasps of air and laughter, I think she’s apologising to me.

  ‘Sorry, Sola. That was rude. It’s just—’

  She laughs again, then makes a straight face so that it looks ridiculous and over the top.

  ‘Right, sorry. You’re just so funny when you’re serious.’ She brings up her hand as if to bob me on the nose, but obviously thinks better of it.

  ‘There’s nothing going on between Dylan and me,’ she says, her expression finally earnest.

  ‘What about all those times when you were whispering together, making plans, laughing?’

  ‘I don’t know when we were laughing.’ A sigh, laced with something I can’t place, comes from my best friend. I watch her sit with effort, staring at the side of the pod which looks down upon the playground.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sola. I wanted to tel
l you before but I had to keep it secret, not for me but—’ She looks over her shoulder at me, then to the smothered trigger camera.

  My stomach lurches. I sit up and allow her to take my hand. The way people do right before they look into your eyes and give you bad news. . . .

  She places my hand on her belly. It’s hard, but still round as if she’s eaten way too much.

  ‘Meet my baby.’ She breathes out slowly, her mouth a hopeful smile.

  A second of nothingness. I don’t think I heard her right. . . . Her baby?

  ‘You’re pregnant?’

  She nods, casting her eyes once more to the camera.

  ‘But who—how . . . how long have you—?’ Apparently the power of speech has deserted me. Alixis looks down, smiling now.

  ‘Three months. My fiancé is the father.’ She laughs, almost anticipating my open-mouthed response. I know from Debtbook that she’s twenty-two years old, but she still seems too young, too near my own age to be having a baby. Not to mention the fiancé.

  ‘Does he know?’ I ask.

  ‘Of course, he was there when it happened, you know.’ She raises her eyebrows at me.

  I roll my eyes. ‘Thanks for the sex-ed lesson. Seriously though, what’s going to happen?’ I don’t need to add with your tour or with your growing stomach.

  Her smile lessens.

  ‘I need to fight,’ she whispers. I can tell she’s said the words to herself a thousand times before. ‘Fight and finish my tour before I really show. Training is keeping my belly small for now. I probably have another month, maybe two until I can’t make excuses about being bloated any more. But, Sola, in the past people have finished their tour in two weeks! I’ve done research.’

  She looks at me with hopeful eyes; soft around the edges and pleading with me to agree with her. I’ve known her long enough to gather that even if I do point out that those people were probably in much better physical shape, not carrying a baby, and were about one out of two hundred others, she won’t give up.

  ‘You’ll need to train harder, but you could do it,’ I say with a deep breath. ‘Find a way to make the crowd love you in your first game, get lots of followers. Maybe I could ask Shepherd Fines to go easy on you?’ I’m basically thinking out-loud, remembering what Alixis once said about Shepherd Fines doing anything for me.

  ‘No! You can’t get him involved.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to tell—’

  ‘Please, not even a clue. He’s the one I’m hiding from. No hints, no nothing, even if it will help me. He’ll take her away,’ Alixis says.

  ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t—’

  ‘He will! I looked it up in the Book of Red Ink, and Dylan re-checked. It’s in there.’ She casts a worried look at the bedside cabinet as if the book itself will tell on us. ‘Act 66: All children borne by persons chosen to pay the Debt at a time when their Debt remains outstanding shall unconditionally and irrevocably become the property of the Shepherds.’ The words are learnt by heart.

  I wrap my arm around her shoulders, drawing her into me.

  ‘We won’t let that happen, okay? We’ll get Dylan to recommend you to begin your tour and we’ll train you harder and you’ll survive and go home and raise your baby.’ The words rush out of me. I try my hardest to believe them for Alixis’ sake.

  ‘Dylan won’t do it though. He thinks it’s a suicide mission. Oh, maybe you could ask him?’

  ‘I’ll do it tomorrow, I promise.’

  As I rub my hand up and down the top of her arm, a misplaced memory triggers. I think back to our first day here, when I thought Alixis swapped her blood test.

  ‘Alixis, what did you do with your blood vial?’

  She knows straight away what I’m talking about. I see it in the way her shoulders sag.

  ‘I didn’t mean to get the brothers into trouble. I knew they wouldn’t test them for pregnancy,’ she whispers. ‘Now they’re gone and I can’t help but wonder . . .’ Her eyes fill with water and she looks away. Regret pierces my middle.

  ‘You only swapped it with one brother, not both. And we have no idea what happened to them, it might not be anything to do with you. Now why don’t we get some sleep, we both need it,’ I say, trying to salvage the situation.

  ‘Oh, my Lord, Sola, I’m sorry. I was supposed to be comforting you after today not the other way around.’ She sniffs, pulling away so she can look at me. ‘Your fight was brilliant. Debtbook is going crazy over your no-gun thing. You should have seen Dylan when you fainted. He nearly burst a vein!’

  That thought makes me kind of pleased, despite everything else which is going on right now. Alixis launches into a list of baby names she likes as we get ready to sleep. She even asks if I would like to get into bed with her, joking that she doesn’t really sleep naked, but I climb into my own instead. Her presence brings me comfort but, for reasons I can’t explain, I need to be on my own right now. My head is full of facts and theories which I can’t make sense of.

  -I’ve now killed four people.

  -I can no longer ignore that Shepherd Fines wants something from me.

  -Alixis needs to start her tour soon.

  -I need to finish mine before I go insane.

  THE NEXT MORNING, the camp is fresh and crisp. Freezing cold, of course, but the rain from last night makes everything smell deliciously natural and full of promise. All that was once green, the oak leaves, the grass, has been well and truly ravaged by autumn, and a crisp layer of frost decorates the playground. I wonder if you only really notice these things after you’ve thought you might never see them again.

  Dylan’s waiting for me at the edge of the field as usual. While I approach, he looks at everything except my face. I stare at him, noticing the lines creasing his forehead, his pursed lips, and the way he breathes through his nose so heavily he sounds like a bull about to storm. When his gaze catches my nose, his frown deepens.

  ‘You should have seen that head-butt coming as soon as he leaned back,’ he says eventually, as if we were in the middle of a conversation about my Demonstration. I suppress a grin.

  ‘Not to mention that you broke your promise to try to survive by not accepting the gun. But there’s nothing we can do about that now.’ He looks out onto the field. ‘Forty laps, then we’ll work on how to distance yourself from your enemy without backing into a corner.’ He says the last bit pointedly. I swerve around so that I’m in his line of sight and walking backwards onto the field.

  ‘Dylan, this, right now, is my favourite part of having to fight yesterday,’ I say, half laughing and definitely grinning. I stay for a second on the balls of my feet before dashing away to start my laps.

  Alixis might be the pregnant one, but I seem to be having the moods swings. I’ve pushed all grim thoughts of yesterday away, replacing them with Dylan’s annoyed face and the idea of his watching my Demonstration on the screen.

  At ten o’clock, Alixis still hasn’t joined us. It occurs to me that she’s giving me time to ask Dylan about recommending her, but then I assume that she’s probably still in bed. I put my hand up for a time out, panting heavily and bent double after a round of counter-attacking Dylan. His bad mood seems to have thawed somewhat, and he nods, discarding his plastic sword and stretching out his neck. Yesterday, I thought I might never see him again. Now, as I watch his body move, hear his strained breathing, feel his presence so close to me, I’m so, so glad I have.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asks, stopping abruptly in the middle of a hamstring stretch. Adjusting my stare so it looks like I was watching something over his shoulder, I shrug and sit on the damp grass.

  ‘Nothing. Anyway, I kind of spoke to Alixis last night.’ There’s no easy way to broach this. Dylan looks warily at me.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I know. About her . . . little . . . permanent resident?’ I say it like a question, gauging his reaction. He relaxes his shoulders, heaving a deep sigh before sitting next to me.

  ‘Good. You can tell her to stop
pestering me about recommending her.’

  Ah. This might be harder than I thought.

  ‘Dylan, you have to. It’s the only way she’ll be with her baby.’

  He looks at me, his face stony. I can tell he’s annoyed, almost disappointed, that I’m trying to get something from him.

  ‘She won’t be with her baby. They will both be dead. She can’t fight like that.’

  He says ‘baby’ like ‘babby’ and although it’s cute, I can’t believe what he’s implying.

  ‘But the Shepherds will take him or her away!’

  ‘Aye, and help another family who can’t have kids, most likely.’ He sets his jaw, bracing himself for my answer.

  ‘That isn’t their decision to make, or yours. That’s her child. Please, give her a chance,’ I beg.

  ‘I won’t send her to her death.’ Dylan keeps his tone neutral and non-affected, then, ‘You need to practise fighting without a sword.’

  Without another word, he gets up, retrieves his sword, and stands ready. I moan inwardly; this boy isn’t going to give up without a fight.

  When Alixis finally joins us, the elephant in the room intensifies. During our drills, she keeps making ‘subtle’ eyes to me, nodding her head towards Dylan. It would make me laugh if it wasn’t so cringingly obvious.

  ‘I’m getting pretty good at defence, don’t you think, Sola?’ she asks.

  Oh dear, she’s actually winking at me.

  Dylan takes a deep breath, walking around the two of us as we parry. ‘Keep your knees bent, Alixis. Sola could unbalance you in a second if she wasn’t letting you win.’

  ‘She’s definitely getting better,’ I lie. Dylan stops still.

  ‘Look girls, give up. I’ve been fighting in Demonstrations for a long time. I know when I’m being ganged up on.’

  Alixis stops our match and waggles her eyebrows at me. ‘That sounds a bit rude, don’t you think?’

  For some reason, I hide my head in my hand, unable to stop my giggle.

  ‘Anyway, Dylan, I’ve been training all morning, and it’s bloody freezing out here. Are you going to recommend me or not?’ she asks bluntly.