The Testing (The Testing 1)

Without another word, he turns and walks away. I watch until he disappears into the tall grass before retrieving my identification bracelet and my Testing bag. The sun is starting to set. I need to get back to Tomas, but I take a moment to think over everything I heard as I empty the brown bag. Yes, there is a small, unmarked vial corked with a black stopper. Carefully, I unwork the stopper and take a sniff. It smells faintly of roses.

I shove the vial deep into my pants pocket and look at the other items. More water. Instead of bread and cheese, I find a small container of raspberries, a heaping bundle of wild carrots, and several small yellowish fruits that I think are pears. The wild carrots and raspberries are plants I might find here in this area. I wonder if the pears are as well. I move away from the fence, and after a fifteen-minute search, I find not only a pear tree but also a thick bush ripe with raspberries along with several spots where an abundance of wild carrots grow. The bag isn’t food just for me. It’s food to be shared. The man beyond the fence must also know I never told Tomas about the bread and cheese. The man knows a great deal.

He implied he also knows my family’s secrets. Was he talking about my father’s nightmares? Or that Zeen is smarter than all of us and that knowledge was hidden from Dr. Barnes and his Testing officials? That leaders of Five Lakes conspired to keep their graduating students safe? Knowing there is a chance I might be asked about those things in my interview makes me break out in a cold sweat. Or maybe this is all just another test. Maybe the man is trying to scare me into drinking the liquid in the vial and failing.

This is a problem I will have to address at some point. But not now.

Arms filled with supplies, I trek back to camp and wait for Tomas’s reaction to the bounty. I’m not disappointed as he helps me put the food on the ground and then picks me up and swings me around. The shadows of the past two days disappear, and it feels like we are back home in Five Lakes—safe and happy and whole.

We eat the last of the roasted meat and fill our stomachs with juicy raspberries and pears. We plan to collect more tomorrow before heading into the city. I check Tomas’s backside, which seems much improved, and my own arm, which doesn’t look so good and hurts like hell. I wash the wound clean in the pond, swallow a couple of pain pills to ward off the worst of the sting, and slather on more ointment knowing deep down that it will not do much good. But I have to try. Right? Tomas helps me rewrap my bandage, teases me about the berry stains on my mouth, and kisses them away. He is so like his old self that I find myself yearning to tell him my secrets. But I can’t. Not yet. First I need to know. “What happened with you and Will after I left?”

“Will told you what happened.”

“A lot more happened than either of you mentioned.”

I feel Tomas stiffen. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“No,” I assure him. “But I know you and Will weren’t exactly getting along when I rode off.” Tomas moves his arm from around my shoulders, gets to his feet, and stares into the distance, doing his best to shut me out. Which hurts. I scramble to my feet and touch his shoulder. “Look, I know it’s hard to trust someone under these circumstances, but I trust Will.”

“You shouldn’t.” Tomas’s eyes meet mine with blazing passion. “Didn’t your father warn you not to trust anyone?”

Tomas’s words stop my heart. He knows that someone is listening and that if by luck they hadn’t been paying attention to our conversation before we reached Tosu City, then not taking care with his words now might put my father—my whole family—in jeopardy.

Swallowing hard, I say, “I trust you. And my father warned me that competition might blind some people, but that doesn’t mean Will is one of them.”

“How can you be so sure? Because he makes jokes and was upset when his brother didn’t make it through the first round? So what? You don’t know what he’s capable of. When we found your snares, he unpacked his bag to look for his knife. In the bag he also had a purification kit, a medical bag, a pair of binoculars, and a map book like mine.”

“And?”

“The numbers don’t add up. We were allowed to choose three items. Three that we could add to two personal items. The knife. The gun. Add them to the others.”

I do the math. “Maybe he found the knife or binoculars along the way.”

“They both have Testing logos etched into them. Just like your gun. My knife. Which means he ran into at least one Testing candidate.”

The girl we buried flashes in front of me. I shake the image away. “Maybe a candidate lost their bag or he saw one asleep and decided to take their things.” Not exactly an admirable choice, but one I can almost live with. “Look, people do strange things under pressure. Just because he had a few extra possessions doesn’t mean he hurt whoever he came across. The two of you met a candidate while I was gone and nothing happened to him, right?”

“Yeah.” Tomas drops his gaze and says, “Right.”

With all my heart I want to believe him. But I’m not sure I do. Tomas, who from my earliest memories has always been calm and collected, is filled with tension and anger and despair.

Trying to sound upbeat, I add, “I know you don’t trust Will, but I want you to consider that there might be another explanation. The United Commonwealth is looking for a new generation of leaders. Even leaders have to trust sometime.” My tone, if not my words, seems to calm Tomas, and we settle back onto the ground to prepare for sleep—Tomas’s a

rm wrapped around me, my head resting against his chest. But there is one question I have to ask before closing my eyes. One test I need Tomas to pass. “What was the other candidate’s name?”

I feel Tomas’s heart quicken under my cheek. His muscles tense. After a few moments, he whispers, “I don’t think he said. If he did, I don’t remember.”

He is lying. He would have asked for a name. He would have given his own in return. Habit. Common decency. The Five Lakes way. My stomach clenches with disappointment, and I fight the urge to retreat from his arms.

It is not surprising that both of us only pretend to sleep.

The snares are successful. Two rabbits and an opossum. While Tomas cleans and sets the game over a fire to roast, I gather more fruit and greens for our journey into the city. There are no morning kisses or gentle looks. Tomas is withdrawn as we pack up camp and begin to ride, which gives me lots of time to think.

The sky is overcast. My eyes drift more than once to the fence line as I look for signs of my mysterious benefactor. I’m not surprised when I don’t see him. But I do believe he or someone he knows is watching. Rebels? He spoke of not being a member of the United Commonwealth. Of not agreeing with its methods of Testing. And yet he chose only to offer food and a vial of an unknown drug. Other than the friend who will keep the drug hidden, there is no offer of further assistance. No offer of escape. If he and the people like him could sabotage United Commonwealth skimmers, surely they could find a way to circumvent the penalty for escaping the test. Of course, according to the man my presence here is proof of their inability to beat the Testing officials. Still, even knowing the odds were against success, I believe there are candidates who are sufficiently scared, hungry, or ill and would leap at the chance to flee.

Or would they? We all left families back home. Families bound by the laws of the United Commonwealth. The government compensates our families when we leave for The Testing. I wonder if the law states what would happen to a family whose Testing candidate chose to escape.

A large metal arch towers over us as we follow the main road that travels around the outer rim of the city. The buildings stand taller than those in the city we passed through days ago, but these look to be in far worse shape. The scorched nature of some of the wreckage tells the story. This city was bombed.