After the Fear (Young Adult Dystopian) (32 page)

He stops still and even from here I see his face change. He sets the Demonstrators all-too-familiar fitness drills and sprints over, stopping an arm’s length away. His blue eyes run over my body. It makes me smile. Instead of admiring me, he’s checking for injuries.

‘How’s your stomach?’ he asks, serious now. I grin, pulling my shirt up to show him my smile of a scar. His eyebrows raise and he exhales slowly.

‘I don’t want to say it, but—’

‘I should have seen it coming. I know.’

He chuckles and steps forwards. Although I want so much to greet him properly, to repeat our perfect kiss from days ago and hold him close, breathing in every part of him, I throw a glance to Shepherd Fines’ watchtower.

Dylan follows my line of sight, steps back, and straightens his back. This is the reason he hasn’t visited. We’re all too aware that Shepherd Fines cannot know about us. Not with my final fight so imminent.

‘Something has happened,’ I say, my voice low and grave.

‘Did he hurt you?’

‘No, it’s not that. It’s . . . I found something. In the Stadium. I’ve known for a while something was up but couldn’t figure it out.’

I breathe in deeply and glance around. The trainees are too far away to hear us, but I still whisper. I tell Dylan everything from seeing William on Shepherd Fines’ digipad to why no one who is chosen ever arrives at the camp to ‘work’. I tell him how Shepherd Fines is the only reason I’m still alive. How the Demonstrations are just a distraction. I end on my fear for Alixis’ baby; that he or she will end up as another number for the January sales.

Throughout my rant, Dylan nods solemnly. Eventually he runs his hands through his hair, massages his temples, and then looks directly at me, eyes blazing decisively.

‘What they’re doing is awful, Sola.’ He sighs. ‘But you can’t fix it.’

My expression must say it all. He continues, faster now.

‘Aye, I know you want to save the world, but you have to look after yourself. Keep Shepherd Fines on your side until your tour ends. Don’t mention the sales, and the other Shepherds will believe you didn’t see anything. Get back to Juliet and eventually you’ll be forgotten.’

I chew on my nails, shaking my head. ‘Fine. That’s me sorted out. What about William? What about Alixis’ baby?’

As much as I hate myself for it, the bottom of my eyes begins to sting. There must still be some medication in my system making me emotional. I duck my head and speak to my boots.

‘I hate this,’ I say sheepishly, aware I sound like a child. ‘I’m so angry
all
the time. I hate Shepherd Fines, he terrifies me, but I’ve tried so hard thinking he’s a good person that I can’t give up now. I really hate Coral, but she killed her
mother
last week. Worst of all, I hate myself for everything I’ve done. I can’t breathe with all this
hate
! I just want—I just want to be
me
again.’

I half expect him to answer how I would—to say I need to grow up and that you can’t always get what you want. Instead, he tucks his finger underneath my chin and lifts my head so that I’m looking into those endless blue eyes.

‘Aye. You want to see the stars.’

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 huge 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.