After the Fear (Young Adult Dystopian)

by Rivers, Rosanne

  What I said to him on that trampoline sounds magical when he repeats it. I smile, relishing in the warmth of his finger still hooked under my chin.

  He casts a glance over his shoulder at his trainees. ‘Will you meet me tonight? By the Wetpod. We can’t talk here.’

  ‘Our scan chips will show we’re together on Debtbook if we go in there. I’m worried about—’ I pause. I don’t exactly want Dylan to know I’m scared of what Shepherd Fines might do to him if he found out about us.

  Dylan takes his hand away and his gaze skims my face. My heart lurches.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll figure something out. Just be there at midnight.’

  I nod. ‘You don’t get to tell me what to do though, remember?’ I say it like a joke, alluding to our fight that led to the most amazing moment of my life so far. Dylan gives a firm shake of his head.

  ‘I don’t get to tell you. I do get to ask.’

  We stand there for a moment, grinning our sad smiles.

  Just then Tabby steps out from behind Dylan’s legs. I jump, which in turn makes her startle.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mutters, head down. ‘T’others are asking for yer.’

  Dylan gives me one last, amazing nod before taking hold of Tabby’s shoulders and marching her back to the group. Tabby’s words remind me of what she said to me in the Medic’s Cabin. Where are the others?

  I wish I didn’t now know the answer.

  I COULD KILL DYLAN RIGHT NOW; it’s freezing out here. I try to see through the gloom and pull my blue jumper tighter around me. It’s still unwashed, because the servers will confiscate it if I leave it out for cleaning. No movement. January frost surrounds me, tainting the whole camp, stealing my breath away and turning it into icy mist.

  Leaves rustle behind me. I spin.

  Dylan leans out from behind the back wall of the Wetpod, his hair silhouetted against grey surroundings. My heart flips at his wide grin. He beckons me over. Aware of every whispering sound around me, I run lightly on the grass to him.

  Once I’ve tucked myself against the back wall, Dylan checks around the side of the building. I have to stifle a giggle at that, thinking that we might as well be wearing balaclavas and carrying swag bags over shoulders. As soon as he turns to me, though, I can’t hold myself back. We’ve already wasted too much time. I leap close to him and wrap my arms around his neck. By some magical, unspoken agreement, he takes a firm hold of my waist. My smile is echoed on his face. This time, I won’t wait for him to kiss me. I stand on tiptoes and brush my lips against his.

  He kisses, too, pressing himself closer and moving his hands up my back. I breathe him in, smelling and tasting him all at once. When I run my hand through the bottom of his hair, gently stroking my short nails across his neck, he shivers in what I hope is delight.

  Dylan pulls away for a second, yet the cool touch of his nose against mine is like we’re still kissing. His eyes run over my face before he nudges me gently with the tip of his nose and finds my lips once more.

  Eventually, I pull away. He sways forwards and holds me tighter. I chuckle.

  ‘Is this why you asked me to meet you here?’ I whisper.

  He murmurs a ‘mmm’, but it sounds more like a purr, as if he’s imagining us doing this all night.

  ‘No. That wouldn’t be very gentlemanly would it?’ His breath turns into cold haze around us. The hot touch of our arms wrapped around each other contrasts against the ice-cold chill, making me crave him even more.

  Reluctantly, I step backwards so that his hands slide from my waist. He tickles my sides as I draw away.

  Dylan closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, as if composing himself. My skin and lips are alive from where he touched me.

  ‘Come on then,’ he finally says. He takes my hand in his and leads me around to the outer corner of the Wetpod, where a thick drainpipe runs down the building and into the ground.

  With no further warning, he grabs hold of the tiny ridges that support the pipe, and hauls himself up.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I ask, my voice no longer a whisper. He grunts as he pulls his strong body onto a higher ridge.

  ‘Avoiding the scanners.’ He cranes his head to look down at me. ‘And I’m not telling you to come with me, but it’s going to be mighty lonely looking at those stars on my own.’ I see a hint of a laugh before he turns back and continues climbing the pipe like a koala.

  I stare up at the never-ending Wetpod. It stretches into the sky, leaning as if it were about to topple. One wrong foot, one weak moment, and it’s a long, final drop to the ground. Yet the thought of slinking back to camp and returning to my pod shaft without following Dylan is an empty one. Deep down, my mind is already made up.

  I climb.

  My fingers slip on the ridges as I strain to keep hold. Dylan is already way ahead of me, and there’s no way I’m letting myself fall farther behind. I steady my breathing and imagine I’m in the Stadium. Persistence and resistance. And don’t look down, in this case.

  I think back to when I was a little kid and used to ride the lift up to the highest floor in my block of flats so I could be closer to the sky. This is like that. Apart from that I have no walls to keep me safe here, I’m breaking the rules in the Book of Red Ink and, once I reach the top, I’m going to be alone with a man I really, really like.

  I get a pang of anxiety, which is not good considering I’m about thirty feet into the air. What’s Dylan expecting? He’s three years older than me. What if he has no idea he was and is my only kiss? What if he’s expecting . . . more?

  My fingers slip. Crap. I slide down a few feet before desperately grabbing onto the last ridge. I cling on so hard I’m practically straddling the pipe as I try to catch my breath.

  ‘You okay down there?’ Dylan calls down. The sound is too loud. It does nothing to calm my raging heartbeat.

  I don’t know. Am I okay? When I’m with Dylan, all I want are his hands on me, his lips on mine, his voice in my ear, and to hear that amazing laugh. He makes me forget the hate and despair which consume me every other second of the day. But . . . I don’t know.

  With a mixture of fear and excitement so intense that my body seems to thud with my heartbeat, I follow Dylan up and over the top of the Wetpod.

  The top ‘level’ is exactly how I’d imagined it: open, with an oval pool built into the roof. It’s as if I could stretch up on tiptoes and touch the sky. Small blue lights shine from the bottom of the pool, illuminating the still water. If I lean over the rooftop’s edge, I can see the fields stretch out before me. They meet the gate and the landing pad. I can even see the fence that marks camp’s perimeter in the near distance. The willow trees sway through the silver darkness. I think of my fight with Dylan and grin.

  ‘How did you know the way up here?’ I ask.

  ‘I’ve climbed up before,’ he says.

  My heart flips painfully, my mind taunting me with visions of him and another girl standing where we are now. I look away.

  ‘On my own,’ he adds. I hope he couldn’t read my expression. In my peripheral vision, I see him trying to catch my eye. I look up as he walks towards me. His hand curls around mine, leaning in close so that my jumper touches his polo shirt.

  ‘Do you want to get in?’ he asks.

  ‘I don’t have my costume.’

  ‘Never stopped you before.’ He’s smiling, I can tell from his voice. I can’t help but beam, too.

  ‘All right,’ I say, looking up. ‘Just look away until I’m under the water.’

  He squeezes my hand, chews on his lip, and turns, but keeps his eyes on me until the last second. It occurs to me that Dylan’s seen me in my underwear before, when we swam together just one level underneath this one, but tonight is . . . different.

  I pull off my jumper and trousers and sink into the glorious warm water. I can’t watch Dylan get undressed, so I lean my back against the wall nearest to him, looking over the water and away from the door. There’s some rustling, followed by a h
uge splash as he jumps over my head and dive bombs into the pool.

  How does he do that—make everything so fun yet intense at the same time? I kick off from the side and swim over to where he’s surfacing.

  He nods his head for me to follow and backstrokes to the side of the pool. His clothes are close to the edge, and he hunts through the pile. After a moment, he pulls out his digipad and taps a few times.

  ‘I know this isn’t exactly what you wanted, but . . .’ Leaning back, he holds the digipad up to the sky. I gasp. His screen has transformed into a midnight blue, with all of the stars illuminated in the image of the sky. They hang on the screen and behind it, I see them blinking through the layer of fog in the real world. When he moves the digipad, the image moves, too.

  I take the screen and walk slowly through the shallow end, giggling at the constellations as they form before my eyes.

  ‘How did you—?’

  ‘I hacked into some of the forbidden digipad files. This is a really old one.’

  His hands touch my waist under the water as he stands behind me. We explore the sky together, trying to see the stars from the digipad in the polluted sky above. It doesn’t matter that we don’t find them.

  When I’ve allowed the images of Hercules the hero and Draco the dragon to burn crooked lines in my mind, I set his digipad on the edge of the pool. Now there’s nothing left to distract us, I twist slowly to face Dylan. His hands lightly glide over my waist as I turn. I meet his eyes. A second later, he’s kissing me. I explore his back with my hands; his bare skin is like a hot lamp.

  I wrap my arms around his neck, kissing him deeper.

  Forget floating in the water—this is what it feels like to fly. I never imagined love could be this damn good. He walks with me until my back touches the cool wall. My heart flips continuously.

  Once I get the urge to wrap my legs around his hips, I pull away, breathing heavily. I rest my head on his wet shoulder.

  As I look around the twinkling camp, I sigh.

  ‘What am I going to do?’

  It has to be clear from my defeated tone that I’m talking about the bodies I found. Dylan strokes my hair.

  ‘I don’t like to say it,’ he says softly, ‘but there’s nothing you can do.’

  ‘You know, I even think the other cities are safe,’ I say, voicing something I’ve been considering for a while. ‘The Shepherds don’t want us to travel, because their secrets would be harder to keep if the cities communicated. So they’ve created this hatred between us all. We’re so terrified of each other we’ve created our own borders we can’t cross.’

  Dylan murmurs something that sounds like an agreement.

  ‘Our scan chips aren’t a way of keeping us safe. It’s so the Shepherds would know if we dared to try to travel between cities. All of this, just for some stupid Debt that the Demonstrations don’t even pay back.’

  I shake my head against his chest, thinking of the poor people who’ve been sold to who-knows-where. ‘What do you think? ‘ I ask Dylan, realising I’ve never actually heard him voice any opinion on the Shepherds or the way we live.

  ‘I try not to think about any of this stuff,’ he says.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there’s nothing we can do.’

  I look up at him.

  ‘Think about it,’ he continues. ‘All of us are suffering because of this Debt, even the Shepherds. It can’t be easy, trying to keep a country together. What if we gave up, and the whole nation became slaves, or servants or test subjects to bigger, richer places? At least this way, some of us are happy. And maybe people born after us have a chance for a future.’

  ‘But surely we could find another way? Maybe if someone else took over? I mean, Shepherd Fines mentioned an uprising . . . ‘

  ‘Aye, and he was right. An uprising, revolution or whatever would mean more deaths and would cost more than our nation has in the bank. Then all of those people sold would have been for nothing. Who would lead us then? Another bunch of people faced with a bigger problem.’

  I rest my head back on Dylan’s chest. He holds me tighter and kisses the top of my head.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ I murmur. ‘It makes sense to wait this out, but I’d still rather fight, if I had the choice.’

  Dylan’s stomach moves against my own as he laughs.

  ‘Aye. No one fights like you do.’

  I’m about to respond when something shifts in the air. I tense. One look up to Dylan tells me he feels it, too.

  Someone’s watching us.

  I look to the door.

  Tabby stands in the threshold, clouded in the gloom. She hangs her head when I look over, her hands twisting together. I’m about to breathe a sigh of relief when another shape appears behind her.

  Shepherd Fines.

  He just takes one look at us. He nods, almost to himself, and turns back down the stairs. Dylan still holds me tight, and we’re both left looking over at the child I saved from the tryouts. The light reflects on her wet cheeks.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ It’s half a whisper, half a sob. ‘She told me she’d find t’others what were chosen if I told on you.’

  Neither of us answer, and Tabby scuttles away after Shepherd Fines. It doesn’t take a genius to work out who ‘she’ is.

  Dylan swears, his voice breaking the silence. The water splashes gently as he turns away. Another curse, this time louder. The pool’s hard edge scratches my thighs as I haul myself out. The winter air bites every goose bump.

  ‘Are you going after him? Tell him you still love him. Tell him I forced you if you have to.’ Dylan hisses.

  ‘No. I’m going to be honest.’ I struggle into my clothes.

  ‘Honesty is going to get you killed! Is that what you want?’

  I pause at the doorway. ‘No, Dylan, it’s not. But there’s no way for us both to get out of this. Just be careful, okay?’

  With that, I shuffle my feet into my shoes and leave the light of the pool behind.

  MY KNOCK on Shepherd Fines’ office door barely makes a sound. For a moment I don’t think he’s going to let me in, but the door slides open. I squint through the bright light and step in blindly.

  Shepherd Fines sits behind his desk, head down. My favourite copper wire lamp lies smashed on its side, broken fragments of rose-tinted glass spread across the floor like they’re reaching for the exit. A tiny sliver of blood slides out of Shepherd Fines’ clenched fist. My instinct is to help him, but I hold back, knowing anything I do will be wrong.

  A lifetime later, Shepherd Fines looks up. Pain flashes in his eyes, only to be replaced with fury. When it’s clear he isn’t going to speak, I take a deep breath.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sir. I didn’t want you to find out like . . .’ I trail off. My excuse sounds weak even to me.

  His eyes narrow. I continue.

  ‘I know you believe you like me, and I like you, most of the time. I think you’re funny and energetic and great to be around. But you remedy everything with control. I mean, you tried to drug me! What you and the other Shepherds do, I know it’s not your fault, but it’s wrong.’

  ‘The Shepherds do not need advice from you.’

  I flinch at his tone. It’s like all the hours spent together have disappeared. All that time laughing over his anecdotes, drinking late into the night together, and even our ‘relationship status’ on Debtbook—none of it matters. He sits before me as only what he is: a Shepherd. My ruler. One of the seven people who control everyone in this country.

  ‘I wasn’t—’

  ‘I didn’t let you in for a discussion. The twist in your final Demonstration has been decided. You will fight another Demonstrator. Coral Winters.’

  I laugh because he’s joking. He’s joking. He has to be joking.

  ‘She will be armed, you will not. She will have a gun, you will not. She will live.’

  He doesn’t need to finish the sentence.

  ‘You—you can’t . . . I have followers!’ My voice is s
tronger than I feel.

  He clicks his tongue. ‘Followers don’t approve when the final Demonstration seems unfair. You have refused a gun throughout your tour. You hardly ever fight with the weapon you’re given. The hatred between you and Miss Winters is common knowledge. I’m afraid the crowd will see this as your chance to prove what you’ve been preaching this whole time.’

  Another knock at the door. It slides open, and Coral herself steps in like an evil spirit summoned because we dared to speak her name.

  ‘Was I right?’ Coral asks sweetly. For some reason, I envision her curling her tongue around Shepherd Fines’ ear. I think I dreamt it once.

  ‘Yes. Thank you, Miss Winters,’ Shepherd Fines says, although his voice is poisonous.

  ‘You’re injured! Shall I get a medic?’ she asks, stepping towards Shepherd Fines.

  ‘I’m perfectly well. Is that all, Miss Winters?’

  Coral looks from me, back to him, and hesitates. Perhaps she hoped she would take my place once I was usurped as his favourite. Or perhaps—I recognise the flicker of fear in her expression—she’s afraid. Afraid of leaving us alone in case he changes his mind.

  ‘This means that Sola and I will fight, doesn’t it?’ Her usually controlled voice goes up at the end.

  He nods.

  ‘Fantastic. I’ll do you proud, Sir. No one should make you look like a fool.’

  I can’t tell whether Coral is trying to manipulate him or speaking from the heart. Her face is serious as she bows her head slightly. Her hair tumbles over her shoulder and with a quick, hard glance to me, she leaves the office as soon as the door reopens.

  The silence traps Shepherd Fines and me together once again.

  ‘Sir, do you wish for me to die?’ I whisper. No games. I’m not playing him. I only want to know. He looks away quickly, his face stressed as if swallowing a particularly large painkiller. But as soon as I register the expression, he’s staring at me coldly again.

  ‘Stop it, Sola. Stop treating me like an idiot.’ Each word is pronounced perfectly, his flat voice full of control. ‘Pretending to like me. Pretending we were friends. I protected you once. Now, you are no longer my concern.’