The Disappearances Read Online Free Page A

as scared about the Disappearances as everyone else, but she refused to let on, refused to let them cower her. Because that’s how things had been with the System: people afraid all the time, not going out after dark, worrying about what lay ahead. There was something terrible happening, of that she had no doubt, but she wasn’t going to let it affect her. She wasn’t going to let things go back to how they were. She’d rather die.
    Maybe not die, she corrected herself. But she certainly wasn’t going to run scared from the Disappearances like everyone else. She was just beginning to see her life as something worthwhile, something worth waking up in the morning for.
    Until the change, there hadn’t been any sport in the City, not openly anyway. There hadn’t been any dancing, either, any music, any real conversation. People had been too scared, had limited themselves to furtive whispers followed by the clenching fear that confidences would be betrayed, that the System had heard, somehow. Now it was common to see people clustered on street corners arguing about things; now people were invited round to other people’s houses for supper; now old guitars and accordions had been dug out from wherever they’d been hidden and music could be heard everywhere once work was done for the day.
    Gabby’s parents saw it as the beginning of the end; Gabby saw it as a miracle.
    She increased her speed; the pottery workshop where she worked was just a minute away now. She wondered if Clara was already there; they had both been up late last night, which was why Gabby was late now, why she had slept in, in spite of her mother’s attempts to rouse her.
    So when Clara had told her about the shadowy strangers in the hospital, her voice trembling as she spoke, Gabby had listened, but only partially; had reassured Clara but not in any meaningful way. Because when she’d begged Clara to tell her what she knew, Gabby had hoped and expected to hear that the Disappearances were something else completely, that the others had run away, found something more exciting, somewhere better. So she had listened to Clara only half-heartedly, had told herself that probably Clara was making it up, that it couldn’t be true because … Because …
    It was only as she turned the corner that she noticed the shadow under her feet. Only as the workshop came into view that she felt her heart start to thud in her chest, felt her legs speed up. The Informers. Clara had told her that they knew everything, that they had tracked down everyone who knew, everyone who had seen them. Everyone except Clara.
    It couldn’t be true. And yet, as she heard the footsteps speed up behind her, Gabby felt a cold veil of terror fall over her. Because she knew now without a doubt that she was being followed. Because through the fug of fear, she realised that what Clara had told her was true. Because suddenly she knew that she was running for her life.

3
    What she needed to do, Evie thought to herself as she walked to work, was to just stop thinking about things so much. She had always thought too much, always questioned things too much. Maybe she should just learn to accept what was in front of her; maybe then she would actually be happy.
    She and Raffy were happy here, there was no question of that. And it wasn’t like she wanted to marry anyone else. The truth was that marrying Raffy made total sense. And the last thing she wanted to do was mess things up, to jeopardise anything.
    The truth was, Raffy and Evie had found that, in spite of the Settlement being a warm, open and welcoming place, it hadn’t been that simple to be accepted into it and the last thing she wanted to do was set them back again. Raffy and Evie had been interviewed, questioned at length; they had met various groups of people, had undergone a trial period, had been put up before the camp council for approval. As Benjamin had said, the township belonged to the people who lived in it; they alone could