After the Fear (Young Adult Dystopian) Read Online Free PDF

blues.’
    I don’t know what to say and evidently, nor does he. So I take the sword with my bad, needle-injected arm as the boy grips my right hand, and hold Dylan’s gaze. I need to see those sharp blue eyes for a moment more.
    At the back of my mind, a stupid, not concentrating, girlish part of me thinks that at least I had a first kiss before I was chosen.
    I turn towards the archway. Walk underneath the threshold.
    The sands are already ruined with blood. Contestants scramble past us. I can’t see whether they’re reds or blues.
    The child’s grip tightens. I squeeze once.
    Here goes.
    I step out into the Stadium’s thick air.
    There’s only a second to register the sickening sight of death, the smell of rust and iron, and the crunch of the sand before a dagger hurtles towards me.
    No time to scream.
    No time to react.
    I just stare. Stare as the blade whizzes past me, missing my arm by inches, and plunges deep into the boy’s stomach.
    We’re losing. 

THE BOY shudders next to me. He looks down at the silver handle poking out from his small body. His desperate eyes plead for me to help.
    Never in my life have I been so completely lost.
    I go to pull him back into the metal room and away from the violence but I remember Dylan’s words. We can’t get cornered in there. I hook my arm underneath the boy’s shoulders, tucking my hand into his armpit, and glance around the Stadium. Darting figures ruin my frantic search for a Shepherd or Liaison. I know when the authorities see him they’ll understand how bad this is, how much of a mistake.
    Bad things only happen to people who deserve them.
    How can anyone think this boy deserves to die?
    But no one will help us. We’re alone with dancing bodies and manic shouts. In the stretched second it takes to scrutinise the Stadium, everything seems to lock into place. Leaning over rails, the spectators curse and yell. The cold air stinks like an overflowing rubbish bin left out too long; it circles the sands in a slow breath, making me shudder. Painful strokes of white light reflect in the blades of metal which clash together. The floodlights buzz above me; beyond that, the sky looks dark and purple, deeper than I’ve ever seen it.
    Colour and light flicker. I squeeze the boy’s hand with panic, but the colour is just the screen high above broadcasting the fight. That screen I’ve watched so many times before as a spectator. Now, it looks bigger, more threatening, as if it’s mocking everything happening to us. It’s saying this doesn’t matter, this isn’t true .
    I almost trick myself into believing that. I’m safe and nothing is real. Not the sand which whips up between people’s feet or the rips of flesh tearing. Not the blood which congeals in clots on the ground or the climactic music blaring from the speakers.
    Then I see my own face staring back at me from the screen, gazing slightly off centre.
    I snap into reality. This, down here, is the truth. And I’m in the middle of it.
    The boy is heavy, his weight practically dead as I try to put more space between us and the main fracas. Dylan’s sword drags my arm down and the tip makes a little line in the sand as I haul the child away.
    That’s when I see him.
    On the screen, a bulky figure presses towards us. I whip my head around and the huge man is even closer than he appeared. A wide blue cross sprawls over his shirt. It creases as he stealthily avoids a would-be punch from an attacker and backs away from a neighbouring duel. My stomach flips, letting me feel each painful clench. I should be running away but I’m frozen still. A girl near him falls, and his gaze wavers as he blinks the specks of sand from his eyes. Before long, his glare settles back onto the tummy of the boy who holds my hand.
    He wants his weapon back.
    It’s not this man’s fault. I know he’s trying to survive like everyone else. I just don’t care. I listened enough in biology class to know that if he pulls that dagger out,