Something soft bumps into my arm. I jolt backwards, but it’s too late. A firm hand takes hold of my shoulder, and I’m turned to face whoever it belongs to.
‘Sola? What are you doing out here so late? What’s happened to you?’
I look up to see Shepherd Fines’ concerned face. Dylan strides out of the corner of my vision.
‘I-I—’
Thankfully, I don’t have to explain because the medic bursts from the cabin. She runs straight towards me, pulling her mask down. I flinch as she brings her arm up, but then she sees Shepherd Fines. Just as though she had walked in on someone naked, she leaps back. Her grey hair shimmers on her ducked head.
‘Sir, I’m so sorry to disturb you. That girl. She’s supposed to be on an IV drip until the morning but she barged past us and—’
Shepherd Fines holds up a hand, his eyes still on me, and the woman falls silent.
‘I think we can give the IV a miss, this once. Don’t you?’ He turns to her. His charming smile is back.
‘Of course. If you say so, Sir. We only wanted what was best.’ She teeters, glancing back to the safety of the cabin. There’s a slight squeeze on my shoulder.
‘Come along, Miss Herrington. I think you need a hot drink. Not to mention some shoes,’ he says, guiding me forwards for a few steps before dropping his hand to his side.
We walk in silence past the medic, who doesn’t seem to know whether or not she’s been dismissed. When we reach the metal stairs leading to the watchtower, Shepherd Fines gestures for me to go first.
I creep up the steps for the second time since I’ve been here. My anxiety warns me I’m treading on forbidden territory. He joins me at the top and opens the door using his finger on the scanner, not his palm. As he heads into his office, I sneak a look at his hand and my suspicions are confirmed; Shepherds don’t have scan chips.
But wow, do they have nice offices.
Once I step inside, I gasp. The place smells like ink and that sulphuric scent which a candle leaves once it’s been blown out. It’s incredibly bright, lit by half a dozen exotic, tongue-red lamps. They cast pink and orange streaks on the teal-coloured maps which stretch across the walls. The digiscreen I saw earlier tonight has been switched back to the inside, now deactivated. Apart from the desk towards the back of the room, there’s no other hint that this is an office. A red throw depicting dark outlines of elephants and camels covers a sofa to my side, and my feet are warmed by the tasselled orange rug beneath me.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I say, staring at the artefacts which litter the room. Shepherd Fines chuckles.
‘I’m glad you like it. Now, what can I get you?’
‘You really don’t have to—’ I trail off. Shepherd Fines wanders to where a large globe stands on cedar wood legs. Underneath the globe, five glasses sit in holders. The Shepherd removes two of them and balances them on a mound of papers on the desk. A second later, the globe has split in two, opening up to reveal an army of bottles huddled inside.
‘You’re still only seventeen, aren’t you?’ he says slowly, not leaving me time to reply. ‘No matter, we’ll have something non-alcoholic. Let me see.’ He waves his finger over the tops off the bottles, as if he were doing a magic trick, before finally settling it on the lid of a purple bottle. A silhouette of a tree decorates the side.
‘Great stuff. You’ll love this one, Sola.’
After pouring the liquid into two glasses, he clicks a switch underneath each glass which makes the purple drink steam. I remember when those glasses came out; only the richest people in Juliet could afford one. Naturally, that means I’ve never seen one up-close before.
The vapour swirls around the room. It smells warm and homely. Like cranberries and cinnamon. Shepherd Fines hands a drink to me and sits on the sofa, closing his eyes as he sips his.
‘Thanks,’ I say quietly, and also take a seat, mainly because I have no idea what to do.
The panic that grabbed me in the Medic’s Cabin is beginning to wear off, and now I’m uncomfortably aware I acted like a crazy person—storming out of the cabin in the dead of night with no shoes, tears dripping from my chin and a splatter of blood in my elbow where I ripped out the IV. Now I’m sitting in one of the most powerful people in the world’s office, sipping on a drink which tastes as amazing as it smells.
‘What is this?’ I ask.
‘Gekruide tea. It’s from a place you’ve probably never even heard of.’ He nods to me and laughs. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Mmm-hmm,’ I mumble through a mouthful of tea. ‘How have you got all of this stuff?’
As soon as the words are out, I grimace. Totally inappropriate or what? I haven’t exactly got a good track record of dealing with people in power; Coral and her dad have shown me that. Surprisingly though, Shepherd Fines seems excited by the question.
‘My dear, I collect an item from everywhere I go. Travelling is one of the perks of the job, and I always find the best wine, or dish, or’—he indicates to the floor and grins—’rug available. Anyway, enough about your humble Shepherd! When are you going to tell me why you were running around the camp crying?’
I hesitate, wondering what the answer is. Because of Dylan? Because I’m going to faint if I hear that gate again? Because I’m here? I look into my drink.
‘I don’t really like the Medic’s Cabin very much.’
‘No. I wouldn’t exactly go there for a pick-me-up either,’ he replies before taking a long sip. That’s strangely funny for him, but he doesn’t laugh like he usually does at his own jokes. ‘However, they know what they’re doing and we need to keep our Demonstrators fit and healthy, don’t we?’ He raises his forefinger from the glass and points it at me.
His answer causes a jolt in my chest, like when I’m on my way out and remember I’ve left something really important at home. Fit and healthy . . .
‘Oh, Sir, do you know what happened to William?’ I ask, realising what his words reminded me of. ‘He’s another red tryout who survived, I think. The medics took him, but he should be fixed by now. Will he come here?’ The words tumble out in a less than graceful heap. Shepherd Fines looks into the air, an overly confused expression on his face.
‘Was he one of those two brothers?’
I shake my head. ‘No. Well, yes, them too, but William first. He was the boy I helped survive.’ I add the last bit quietly.
‘Aha! Yes, I remember. The boy. He’s still being treated, I do believe. Yes. He will come to train as soon as he has recovered.’ He smiles as if the matter is closed.
‘Um, and the brothers?’ I ask, sensing I’m pushing my luck although I’m not sure why. I haven’t seen either brother since my first day here, when one of them told me he would ‘see me on the other side’.
‘How worrisome you are! The brothers are being taken care of, no need to be troubled. Now, how about you concentrate on yourself for a while? Reach that twenty lap landmark.’
Something niggles at me; it’s as if I’ve returned home to find the important thing, but totally forgotten what it was that I needed. I dismiss it. Shepherd Fines has a point: I need to forget about everyone else, Dylan especially, and I need to train harder if I want to get home anytime soon.
I drain my glass and set it on the floor next to my feet.
‘Well, thanks for the tea,’ I utter, feeling more awkward with each passing second. Thankfully, Shepherd Fines stands, which means I can, and claps his hand onto my shoulder.
‘Absolutely no trouble, my dear. I’ve got to look after my Demonstrators, I wouldn’t want to be like Dr. Frankenstein!’ He does an odd, pretend roar and sticks his hands out in front of him, like a possessed demon or something.
I just stare.
‘Ah, the books ban. Of course. Never mind,’ he says, looking slightly deflated. He runs his finger over the scanner, and the door behind me slides open.
‘Right then, run along. And next time I see you, I want you wearing shoes, okay?’
I nod. As if t
he floor were scorching hot, I scamper down the stairs, pausing at the bottom when I hear my name again. I look up to see Shepherd Fines standing at the threshold of his door, silhouetted by the glowing lights from inside.
‘Oh and Sola, I watched your tryout. You were good, possibly one of the best.’ A pause. ‘Great stuff. Good night then.’ With that he turns. The door slides shut behind him, leaving me in the shadows.
I’m totally imagining things, but I swear there’s similarity in what he’s just said and the way he described his collections.
I look around. I’m alone in the middle of the playground. At least I no longer feel as though I’m about to be dragged off a cliff top. In fact, all around seems still, secured and unmoving. I wonder: if I wanted to fall, would I even be allowed?
I’M ALREADY DRESSED and ready to grab breakfast when Alixis wakes.
‘I thought you were going to be in the Medic’s Cabin all night?’ she asks, turning on her bunk so she’s lying on her side, hands folded beneath her face. When she yawns, she doesn’t cover her mouth, and I see all the way to her tonsils.
‘They let me go early,’ I lie. ‘You ready for breakfast?’
‘I’m always ready for breakfast. Oh, you might want to close your eyes, I sleep naked.’
Before I can even register what she’s said, she’s pulled back the covers. I yelp, just to realise she’s dressed in the usual white pyjamas.
‘Ha, ha,’ I say although I doubt she even hears me amid her cackling.
Over our breakfast of grapefruit, sugar, and the mushy brown stuff which is served en masse every morning, I tell Alixis about my evening with Shepherd Fines.
‘Well, I’m happy that William’s doing well,’ she says through a mouthful of mush. ‘He’s the boy you saved, right?’
I nod, suddenly uncomfortable. We haven’t spoken about the tryouts. Even thinking about that night causes the man I killed to surface in my nightmares.
‘That would explain why you have so many followers on Debtbook. You’ve overtaken me by a mile. How many people did you kill?’
Her question takes me by surprise. I look up, open mouthed, before digging my spoon rather ferociously into my breakfast.
‘One,’ I mumble.
‘I killed three. You’d think that would get me more followers. Maybe I should’ve tried saving someone else.’ She sighs, before finishing off the last of her grapefruit.
I wish Alixis would stop obsessing over our followers. She’s so preoccupied with the theory behind Demonstrating—getting followers for an easy twist, reading up on those who have completed their tours in the past—that she’s forgotten our best chance of surviving is to be able to fight. Also, it seems horrid to talk about the people we killed as though they owe us followers.
‘Alixis,’ I whisper into my bowl. ‘Do you ever regret what you did, you know, at the tryouts?’
She ponders this for a long moment, so long that I almost think she hasn’t heard me. Until I see her swallow. She meets my eyes.
‘No, I don’t. Because I’m still alive. Do you?’
Shame creeps over me. I shake my head.
Alixis doesn’t comment, just looks around and takes a deep breath. ‘Talking of the tryouts, I don’t suppose you’ve seen the brothers who fought with us, have you?’ she asks, her casual tone sounding forced.
‘Actually Shepherd Fines mentioned something last night. He told me not to worry about them. Why?’
‘No reason, I just don’t know why they’ve both disappeared.’ She rubs her forehead, practically speaking to herself.
‘Why would even one of them disappear?’ I ask. Heat forms blotches of pink on my friend’s face.
‘Don’t ask me. Anyway, it’s great news about the boy.’ She smiles widely.
‘Yeah,’ I reply. ‘Great news.’
Why do I feel as if I’m lying?
We head straight to the field. In the distance, a lithe figure leans against the oak tree. Even from here, I can tell he is missing Dylan’s easy gait and strong frame. I check my digipad. 7:00am. We’re bang on time for training, so where’s our trainer?
My stomach flips continuously as we walk towards the person, as if any second Dylan will jump out from behind the tree. The man—I now recognise him as Gideon from last night—doesn’t even look up from his digipad when we approach.
‘Come back after twenty laps. You know the score by now.’ He speaks plainly, punctuating his words with little clicks from his digipad. I lean in to see the Debtbook profile of the boy from last night’s fight, Dao.
It takes a few seconds to notice Gideon scowling at me.
‘Twenty laps. Now.’
***
THE LAST TWO LAPS ARE KILLERS. Alixis has bowed out as usual, but I push my body forwards. It’s as if I’m running through thick goo, forcing each muscle to work five times as hard. I wonder if invisible hands have sprung up from the earth, pulling on my arms and legs. My lungs strain to keep me breathing, and each gasp sends sharp cold pain into my stomach, like the air’s full of tiny needles.
I keep going because I’m going to finish the twenty laps today. Dylan thinks I don’t try. Well, how is this for trying?
As pain screams up my body, I push. Stretching out my legs, I leap rather than run to the finish line. And then—
Twenty laps.
I. Did. It.
I’m still laughing when my knees buckle. The grass is all dewy and it cools my burning back. For the first time since I’ve been here, I get a tiny flicker of hope. I could actually do this. I could complete my tour. I could stay alive.
‘That’s better than I was expecting, fainter. I want twenty-three laps tomorrow. And you’ll be wearing these from now on.’
Gideon’s feet appear by my head. He throws down four black L-shaped things so that they land on the grass next to me. When I go to grab one, it pulls my hand down.
‘Weights,’ Gideon explains. ‘They go around your wrists and ankles.’
That’s it. That’s all I get. I strap them on angrily, yanking off my boots, scowling and thinking unpleasant thoughts about how this is all Dylan’s fault . . . somehow.
At least Mr Motivator over here has managed to put his digipad away. He calls to Alixis and waits in silence as she stumbles towards us. My legs are like empty shells as I drag the extra weight up with me.
‘Where’s Dylan?’ Alixis asks, at last.
‘He has a Demonstration in city Sierra. I’ll be training you this week. Although I’m not very impressed, Dylan usually has the newbies fitter than this by now.’
Something—aside from the insult—squirms at that. I don’t like the thought of Dylan training other people and not me. How long has he been doing this, I wonder? Mental note: try and find his Debtbook profile after training. I don’t know why I’ve never thought of it before.
Gideon paces in front of us, arms folded behind his back like the army general I saw in a historical film once.
‘Anyway, we need to move on from basic training. You’ll still participate in your endurance drills morning and evening, but this week you’re on defence. Next week you’ll learn to attack with precision and how to give the audience a good show. By your fourth week here, you should be able to combine all of these to conduct yourself appropriately within the Stadium. You must not kill too fast, or too slow. You must read the audience well, judge when they want brutality. Then, you’ll be ready.’
I take a sharp breath. Only three more weeks. I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready. I feel as though I’m picking the petals off a flower; like a damsel trying to decide whether or not somebody loves her: I want to live, I don’t want to kill again, I want to live . . .
‘So we could be home really soon then?’ Alixis asks, her eyes glimmering.
‘In theory. Although you’ll die in your first Demonstration unless you get very good, very fast.’ His eyes rake the field behind us. He’s not even paying attention. Alixis’ mouth opens as if to protest, but she looks away, blinking f
ast. I give Gideon my best scathing look, which must be terrible because when he finally glances at me, he looks as if he’s going to crack up. When he clocks Alixis’ expression though, he lets out a short sigh.
‘Look, don’t shoot the messenger. You’re not good enough, either of you. Finishing the fight alive can come down to who has the most energy left. If you can’t run this field forty times before you go out to fight, you’ll lose. Dylan has been soft on you, and it could cost you your life.
‘Persistence and resistance, remember.’ He finishes his speech.
I hate those words.
‘Anyway, let’s stop that from happening, eh?’ Gideon says, attempting a happy expression. His raised eyebrows and weird, open-mouthed smile is actually quite funny; being upbeat really doesn’t come naturally to him.
We spend the rest of the day learning self-defence techniques for when you have been disarmed. They run through my head like the recipe to a tasty dish, and I imagine them read out by a woman with a high pitched, cheery voice:
-To escape one bear hug, you bend, put all your weight to the floor, and elbow your opponent in the head until you are free.
-If you find yourself being choked face-on, simply sweep their hands away in a fast motion while applying one knee kick to their groin, proceed to punch them in the neck and face until they are on the ground.
-To evade one sword attack in a downwards trajectory, place yourself between the hilt of the blade and your attacker. To do this you will need to slide the arm closest to the weapon towards your attacker’s neck. Use one free hand to punch the face, and mix in a knee kick to the groin.
The drills go on and on until the sun casts a murky grey through the camp and my arms are as heavy as, well, the weights which I carry. Gideon’s right, though: the moves become instinctual, almost to the point where I’m worrying about someone so much as placing a hand on my shoulder to say hello. I think I would have them on the floor with a broken arm within seconds.
Annoyingly, though, when Gideon and I parry, I fail to see most of his attacks coming and end up winded twice. Dylan’s words from the Medic’s Cabin repeat in my ears, but I push them away. What does he know?
After the Fear (Young Adult Dystopian) Page 8
