The Fearless by Emma Pass Page B

ever-present sound of the sea outside.
    ‘There’s nothing there,’ I say. ‘You probably heard—’
    Then I stop. I
can
hear breathing, steady and rasping and slow.
    I turn, holding up the lantern. ‘Who’s there?’ I say sharply, wondering if Myo had someone with him after all. But wouldn’t the Patrol have found them? Wouldn’t whoever was with Myo have come to
help
him?
    I hear a creak as something – or some
one
– moves. ‘It’s coming from over here,’ my brother whispers.
    ‘Stay with me.’ I reach into Myo’s satchel for the knife.
    Jori screams.
    Something barges past me, jolting the lantern and making it go out.
    ‘
Cass! Help! HELP!
’ Jori yells.
    ‘Where are you?’ I cry, whirling around.
    Jori’s screams cut off abruptly.
    I give up trying to find the knife and grab the torch instead, shining it in the direction Jori’s screams were coming from. There are two people at the back of the stage: a man with filthy bandages wrapped around his head and covering one arm, and a girl in a thin blue dress, her long, black hair hanging into her face. The man is holding Jori, one hand clamped across his mouth to silence him. In his other is a gun, which he’s pressing against my brother’s temple. Despite this, Jori’s struggling to get free, his eyes wide and terrified. The man grins at me, showing rotted, blackened teeth. A terrible smell comes off him in waves.
    That’s when I see both he and the girl have silver-coloured eyes with enormous pupils.
    ‘This one’ll do,’ he says in a growling voice that brings memories of that terrible night seven years ago flooding back.
    Before I can move, cry out, do anything, he leaps off the edge of the stage into the shadows, the girl flitting after them like a ghost.
    ‘JORI!’ I scream as they crash through the auditorium and up the steps. I run after them; my feet meet empty air as I plummet off the edge of the stage, and I land in a crumpled, winded heap, the torch flying from my hand and going dark as it skitters away across the floor.
    I haul myself to my feet again, taking in a groaning, sobbing breath.
The Patrol
, I think as I stagger up the steps and through the moonlit lobby.
The Patrol will stop them
. I keep shouting my brother’s name as I run back up the street to the fence. As I frantically tug the mesh apart, I hear a cry, then a muffled-sounding
crack
over by the sea wall. My heart leaps. The Patrol must have caught the Fearless and shot them as they tried to get off the island. I push through the fence and start running again, my legs going weak with relief.
    It isn’t until I get closer that I realize other people are shouting too. I see a cluster of lanterns; a small crowd of Patrollers gathered around a huddled shape lying at the base of the wall; other people running from the direction of the Meeting Hall and the Exchange. I reach the huddled shape at the same time as Rob and Sol, praying that it’s the Fearless man, that someone has Jori, and he’s safe.
    But it isn’t the Fearless man. It isn’t the girl, either. It’s Patroller Cary, his eyes open but sightless, his mouth frozen in an ‘O’ of surprise, a small, bloody hole in the centre of his forehead.
    There’s no sign of the Fearless or Jori anywhere.

Chapter 12
CASS
    I clap my hands across my mouth. Someone’s making a low keening sound which, when people start looking round, I realize is coming from me.
    ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Captain Denning pushes his way to the front of the little crowd gathered round Patroller Cary, and swears.
    ‘It – it happened so fast,’ Patroller Yuen says. ‘We heard screams from the Shudders, then someone running – Mike shouted, and there was a shot. By the time we got here . . .’
    She indicates the body on the ground, her face drained of colour.
    Captain Denning opens his mouth, then closes it again.
    ‘Who fired their gun?’ he says at last.
    The Patrollers around him shake their heads.
    ‘It was a