THE FEARLESS

HOPE:CHAPTER 5

                                                                Seven Years Later

                                                                              CASS

When I look at myself in the piece of mirror fixed to the wall above my sleeping mat, even my restless night can't dull my excitement. My shirt and trousers, although patched and faded, are clean, and the worn leather of my boots gleam in the light from the oil lamp. My armband is blue, embroidered with the words Hope Junior Patrol. If my assessment goes well, today will be the last time I wear it.

On the mat beside mine, Jori stirs and sits up. 'Please can I come and watch you do target practice?' he says as he kicks his blankets back, the same question he's asked a hundred times a day since he found out I was graduating from the Junior Patrol. His breath forms clouds in the chilly air.

'No, Jor.' I twist my mousy curls back into a knot, wishing, not for the first time, that I'd inherited Mum's flaming red hair like my brother did.

Jori pushes his lip out. 'But I want to!'

'No. It's too dangerous.' I help him tug his favorite bright green T-shirt down over his head. 'But you can join the Junior Patrol when you're twelve, and then you'll get to learn to shoot a gun yourself, eventually.'

Jori rolls his eyes. 'But that's ages. I'll be old.'

'Are you trying to say I'm old?' I lunge at him and he shrieks, trying to dodge away, but I grab him and start tickling him while he squirms in my arms and giggles.

Then the Meeting Hall bell starts to ring, signaling breakfast. Jori wriggles free, still giggling breathlessly, and I chase him out of the apartment to the rickety communal stairs. If these apartments had been finished, we'd've had lifts, but whoever owned the island before Sol's dad only got as far as putting in the shafts. Hope's maintenance crew has boarded them over so no one falls down them.

Outside, the slowly lightening sky is iron grey, an icy wind gusting off the sea, and I can hear the waves crashing against the shore. Sadness tugs inside me. Despite the cold, winter used to be my favorite time of year before we came to the island. Mum and Dad's too. Now, it just means me and Jori wearing every item of clothing we own in bed to keep warm because I can only spare enough fuel to light the stove for a few hours in the evening.

'There's Sol!' Jori says, breaking into my thoughts. I look up and see a tall, broad-shouldered figure walking across the courtyard. My face heats up, and all thoughts about Mum and Dad are driven from my head. Damn.

'Sol! Sol!' Jori shouts. Sol turns, and my heart sinks a little.

'Jori,' I hiss.

'What?' Jori says. I sigh inwardly. I can hardly tell my seven-year-old brother that last night after we'd been to our final Junior Patrol meeting, Sol asked me to go for a walk down to the jetty, and despite the sinking, here-we-go-again feeling in my stomach, I'd agreed. Or that, when we got there, pink-faced in the light from his lantern, he stammered, 'Cass, I was wondering if . . . that is if me and you might—' He cleared his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing, then gazed at me with a helpless expression while I wondered what on earth to say.

The thing is, I like Sol. But the thought of us being a couple – of Captain Denning marrying us at the Meeting Hall, of having his kids and us getting old together – makes me feel restless and trapped.

It's ridiculous, I know. Even if I make it through my assessment, I'll never leave Hope. The barterers have to come to us, bringing their boats over to a specially reinforced area by the jetty where we trade goods, scavenged from the abandoned towns and cities and empty houses, or swapped with other barterers. This place is going to be my home forever, so why not settle down with Sol? With no one from outside allowed onto the island – a consensus reached once we hit one hundred residents to try and conserve resources – who else is there? Sol and I should be like a pair of boots so battered and old they've molded themselves to the shape of your toes and heels. We should fit perfectly.