Read Online The Vanished by Sarah Dalton - Free Book Online Page B

back in Area 14. It was like an unreal fairy tale. Blemished girls didn’t live in fairy tales. We were yelled at and trodden on and told that we’re useless. I didn’t deserve to be wanted or loved. Yet here I was with the boy I loved, walking snuggled up to each other without a care in the world. I wrapped my arm around his back and sunk my body into his side. We fit like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Everything was right. I forgot about my worries. I walked Daniel back to the hospital carefree.

11
    A dead boy floats in a lake.
    The water is still and black. Soft ripples spread in concentric circles as the boy’s arms open wider and wider. There is no noise.
    The picture freezes. It shakes and then the world around me explodes in a boom. There’s a rata-rata-rata; a horrible, relentless noise. I cover my ears, but it’s too late for my eyes because they’ve seen it and they can never forget it – the sight of the bodies lying lifeless in cars. Blood soaked clothes. Blood stained helmets. Blood splattered windshields.
    There’s a boy in front of me. His face is perfect and smiling. His eyes dark and kind and I know this boy. He’s trying to tell me something, but I can’t hear over the gun shots. Then the world falls silent again and I sigh with relief because then I will hear his voice but I can’t. I can’t hear him. He’s silent. The world is silent. I can’t hear anything.
    And his face changes, starting at the lips which swell and protrude into something pink and glossy. The skin stretches tighter and hair grows longer and into a red curly mane. There’s a sneer on those lips, one which results in a familiar stomach turn, and I feel the scream in my throat trying to escape. But I can’t make a sound. I can’t even gurgle. My hands move up to my throat and she smiles.
    She leans forward, her piercing eyes finding mine, searching me; searching my soul. She leans forward until our noses almost touch and then she whispers something in my ear. I hear the sound of her voice, but I wish I hadn’t.
    “This is all your fault,” she says.
    *
    I woke up to soaked sheets and shouting outside my trailer window. Bleary eyed and shaken, I climbed out of bed and pulled the curtain back to see Sebastian shouting at a bulky man outside the market.
    “What’s going on?” Kitty wandered into my room, rubbing her eyes. She looked long and lean in small shorts and a vest top. I tried to suppress a twinge of jealousy. We’d been trailer mates since Ali sorted out my accommodation. Before we’d shared a spare trailer together Kitty had been living in the barn. She had always preferred to be away from people but was trying to become more accustomed to being around people. It was her way of learning how to fit into society.
    “I think I need to go out there. It’s Sebastian.” I rammed my feet into boots, still in my unattractive flannel pyjamas.
    Kitty squinted out of the window. “What are they fighting about?”
    “That’s that I intend to find out.” I barged past her in the tiny space I call my bedroom, which doubled up as the living room and the kitchen, to open the door and step out into the freezing cold.
    “The Clone pushed me,” shouted an angry man. “He shoved past an’ put his stinkin’ Clone hands on me fer no good reason. Why should I calm down? He’s filth.”
    “I did no such thing,” Sebastian shouted back. The two men were face to face, just inches apart, while a group gathered round. “We bumped shoulders, you old fool.”
    The man, who was short and stocky with brown hair greying at the temples, pushed Sebastian with both hands, shoving him backwards. Sebastian stumbled for a few steps before regaining his balance. “Who you calling an old fool, boy ?”
    “Who are you calling boy?” Sebastian squared up to him. I’d never seen him look so furious before. His cheeks were bright pink and his eyes wide and feral. His jaw was set which made his usual soft features appear