The Fearless by Emma Pass

ruins. Now I’m here, I’m glad of the moonlight. Without it I could easily smack my head on a beam or fall down a foundation hole.
    As I duck through a doorway, the Shudders fence rattles in the place where I came through. I freeze, listening for the crunch of footsteps across the rubble-strewn ground; the bark of a Patroller’s voice as they shout,
Who’s there
?
    Nothing happens. It must have been the wind. I let out a slow, shaky breath, trying to see where I am. I haven’t been here in years, and everything looks so different in this eerie, silver light. At last, I spot something I recognize: a dented metal sign advertising a restaurant, lying at an angle against a pile of rubble. I’m on the street that runs through the middle of the ‘town’; under my feet are paving stones, almost buried by the sand that’s blown here in winter storms, and all around, leafless saplings have taken root and struggled up through the rubble, many more of them than I remember. Shivering, I thread my way through piles of brick and stone, carefully making my way down to the cinema, which is at the bottom of the street.
    Behind me, I hear a skittering sound, like a stone being kicked. I look round, but I can’t see anything. Perhaps it was just a piece of brick falling from a building.
    Then, as I start walking again, I hear the sound for a second time. This time, it’s more distinct.
    Footsteps, light and quick.

Chapter 11
CASS
    ‘Who’s there?’ I hiss. I’m certain it’s not the Patrol. They’d march up, grab my arm, demand to know what I was doing here.
    No answer. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. What if it’s a Fearless?
    Don’t be stupid
, I tell myself.
The Patrol searched the Shudders top to bottom after they found Myo, remember? There’s no one else here
.
    So why do I feel as if I’m being watched?
    I crouch, feeling around for a lump of brick.
    ‘Whoever’s there,’ I say as I straighten up, ‘Stop messing about or I’m going to chuck this brick at your head. And I’m a great shot.’
    I grip the brick harder, feeling its sharp edges dig into my palm and fingers. I’m almost certain that someone’s playing a joke on me. Maybe Rob. It’s exactly the sort of thing he’d do.
    The footsteps start again, coming towards me, then stop.
    ‘I mean it,’ I snarl.
    ‘Cass, it’s me,’ a small voice says.
    Jori?
    ‘Where are you?’ I say.
    My brother emerges from behind a pile of concrete blocks just a few feet away. He’s still bundled up in all the clothes I put him to bed in, and my spare scarf is wound around his neck.
    ‘For God’s
sake
, Jor.’ I hold out my hand to help him over the rubble. ‘I told you to go to sleep!’
    ‘I couldn’t.’
    ‘Did you follow me?’
    He nods. ‘I saw you go through the fence.’
    Goddammit, he must have been right behind me when I left the apartment. And there’s no time to send him back. If he gets caught . . . ‘I s’pose you’ll have to come with me, then. But you’ll have to be careful.’
    ‘Come where?’
    ‘The cinema. I’ve got to look for something.’
    A smile flickers across his lips.
    I frown. ‘I guess that means you can tell me the best way in there?’ I say, and he gets such a guilty look on his face that any other time, I’d laugh.
    ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’ he says.
    Still frowning, I shake my head. ‘No. But you shouldn’t come here, Jor. It’s dangerous.’
    I know my words will probably have no effect, though. Nothing stopped
me
. ‘Come on,’ I tell him, lighting the lantern. ‘Before we freeze to death.’
    The cinema looks almost exactly the same as it did when I last came here, a few days before my twelfth birthday, and two weeks before Mum walked into the sea. The lobby and the steps leading up to the auditorium are coated in a thick layer of dust and seagull crap, bundles of cable hanging from the ceiling from when the building work was abandoned. Shafts of moonlight coming through holes