Read After the Fear (Young Adult Dystopian) for Free Online Page A

her eyes, and she leaps up and turns on the woman, leaving me to flop back to the floor. Side-on, I watch the three pairs of dancing legs which signify the red men are still trying to take down their foe.
    I sense, rather than see, Blondie finishing the fight. My right eye is now swollen completely shut, my hip sending biting pain through my side, and my fingers hang limply from my hand. All I can do is lean up on my elbow to recover my breath. The man hurtles towards us—thankfully out of arrows—but I can’t respond. I have nothing left. Instead, I involuntarily spit what tastes like blood from my throat.
    Blondie steps over me and meets the man head on with a knife she must have stolen from someone else. Once upon a time, I would have been disgusted with anyone prising a weapon from a dead person’s hand, but I have lost all sense of that now. All perception of who I was, what was right, how I would act in a deadly situation.
    Turns out, I would kill to save myself. The man I murdered still stares at me with bulging eyes when I close my own; his image bright under my lids.
    I lean my head back down on the sand. Blondie and the blue man are grunting with exertion. Far across the arena, the two reds have their blue backing away. It won’t be long until they bid him goodbye.
    Something dashes past my face and hits the sand. It’s Blondie’s knife. She’s unarmed. The crowd’s jeers echo around me like the rumble of thunder. The girl’s gaze scurries over the sand to find another weapon.
    ‘Please find one, ’ I think in my head but it comes out as a whisper. Blondie backs away, the man slowly advancing, eager to press his sudden advantage. I’m going to die if I don’t help, I realise. I try to clamber up, but my legs won’t obey, and I stumble. Just as I close my eyes to stop myself from seeing Blondie get killed, there’s a sharp tug at my hair. She’s leaning over me. When she swings round, my silver hair pin glints in her hand.
    With a sickening squelch, the large pin plunges into the man’s eye.
    He falls. The crowd erupts. This time they don’t stop cheering.
    I take in the remaining people on the sands. Me, Blondie, William and the two men.
    All reds.
    My next breath fills my body. It’s glorious in my lungs, gliding down my burning throat and running into every swollen finger. We’ve won.

‘FIFTY-TWO PEOPLE were chosen to pay the Nation’s Debt from twenty-five cities this month. Ten have already gone on to work at the Demonstrator camp. Forty-two battled for their lives. And only five have survived the Demonstrator tryouts!’ Ebiere Okiro’s satiny voice glides through the Stadium as she steps delicately around the bodies with her head held high. The trail of her elegant purple dress sweeps across the sand in her wake.
    ‘The tryouts will return to Juliet in two years. Meanwhile, enjoy your tax-free month everyone, as I can reveal that one of the winners is from this very city! Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for your new Demonstrators!’ I tune out as she reads the names of the two men, one of whom leans on the other for support up on the big screen. Then the image changes to William’s twisted body.
    ‘William Wilson from Echo!’
    I want so much to get to him, but my body won’t move. So instead I lie here, watching Ebiere weave her magical voice through the crowd.
    ‘Alixis Spires from Alpha!’
    A close-up of Blondie appears on the screen. She’s still standing near me, and it’s weird seeing her silhouette in the corner of my vision, yet her face so huge on the screen. I didn’t think the crowd could get much louder, but they manage, shouting down praise and adoration for my fellow team member. Blondie must have fought really well, or maybe they just loved the hair pin ending.
    She’s looking at the screen, and the camera must be in the same direction because her image is staring straight ahead, her mouth arcing in a sad smile. She nods to receive the applause and I