The Testing (The Testing 1)

Closing my eyes, I picture Zandri outside of the Five Lakes school—her eyes laughing, the gauzy dresses she favored smudged with paint, and her golden hair shining bright in the sun. It’s almost impossible to imagine her as Tomas describes. Dirty and disheveled and dead.

“She screamed when she spotted me and ran from me. I should have let her go. She might have lived if I hadn’t given chase.” Pain shadows Tomas’s face. Guilt weaves through his halting words. “But I had to see if she was all right. I knew you’d want me to.”

The words slap my heart.

“She wasn’t steady on her feet, so it wasn’t hard to catch up. When I did, she snarled and bit until I finally made her understand who I was and that I wasn’t going to hurt her. I never meant to hurt her.”

Tomas’s face is pale. His eyes filled with grief. “She was so relieved finally to find someone she could trust. Then Will appeared, and Zandri went crazy. She lunged at Will, and he pushed her back and yelled at her to stop. But she didn’t. She accused him of sabotaging their team in the third test and then started shouting at me. Seeing me with Will must have scared her. She said that I couldn’t be trusted—that no one could—and attacked. She had a stick that was sharpened to a point.

“She caught Will in the side, and he punched her hard across the mouth. Suddenly, I had my knife in my hand. She must have thought I was going to use it on her. Or maybe she wasn’t thinking at all. I don’t know, because I didn’t pay attention to her. I was too busy yelling at Will. Watching him pull out his gun. I threatened him with my knife. He laughed, which made me even angrier. I was glad I had an excuse to hurt him. I didn’t know I could be happy at the thought of causing someone pain. I don’t know why I listened to him when he yelled for me to watch out. But I did, and I turned.”

Tomas looks down at his hands. “The knife punched through her stomach. I can still feel her blood as it drained her life across my hands. The next thing I knew, Will was helping me lay her on the ground and she was gone.”

There are tears on Tomas’s cheeks. My arms ache to reach for him, to soothe the pain and grieve with him for the loss of our friend. But I don’t know how to cross the divide our secrets have built between us.

“Will grabbed Zandri’s canteen. I took the bracelet off her bag. We buried her in a dry riverbed.” He wipes the tears from his face and shakes his head. “I’ve replayed it a hundred times in my mind. If only one thing had gone differently. If I hadn’t taken out my knife. If Will hadn’t appeared when he did or yelled for me to turn. If you hadn’t left Will and me alone—”

Disbelief steals my breath. “This is my fault?”

“I don’t know.” Anger and guilt simmer in every word.

Tomas might say he doesn’t know, but I do. I can see the accusation. The bitterness. The hurt. Tomas is angry. Angry he took a life. Angry he was put in the position to do so.

Because of me.

But while my choice to trust Will was wrong, I was not to blame. Dr. Barnes and The Testing officials put us on that patch of cracked earth. Tomas allowed his frustration with Will to boil over. He let his emotions get the best of him and drew his weapon. He will have to live with that.

Some of what I’m thinking must show on my face because Tomas reaches out his hand and steps toward me. “I don’t blame you.”

“Yes, you do.” My words are quiet. Calm. The truth. My voice is as hollow as my heart when I say, “It’s getting late. We both need to get back. People are watching.”

Tomas doesn’t stop me as I walk around him and open the door, but his voice chases over my shoulder as I start to step outside. “You aren’t to blame, Cia. I am. But so is The Testing and every official who works for it. They deserve to pay for what they’ve done.”

The words make me stop and look back at the boy I have known and cared for almost all my life. He looks years older and wiser than when we first climbed into the skimmer that delivered us to The Testing. We’ve changed. The Testing did that to us.

“You’re right,” I say. “They deserve to pay.”

I want to be angry with Tomas. For his deception. For the terrible part he played in Zandri’s death. I want to hate Will. His willingness to trade others’ lives for his own success makes my stomach turn and my soul ache. Anger and hate are powerful, hot, energized. So different from the icy cold despair that fills me now.

I take a winding path through the University campus as I return to my residence. I tell myself that I am doing it to make sure anyone who sees me assumes I am out for a casual walk, but deep inside, I know different. Part of me wants Tomas to look for and find me. To convince me that we can still be partners. That our love is stronger than the terrible choices we have been forced to make. That I am not alone.

But I am.

By the time I arrive at the bridge to the Government Studies residence, all evidence of the final Induction task has been cleared away. No boxes or planks or tools. Nothing that speaks of the tragedy that occurred just hours earlier.

I step onto the bridge and peer down. This time I am not looking for Rawson; instead, I feel like I am looking for myself. Staring into the rocky void is like peering into a reflector of my emotions.

Shadows.

Emptiness.

A hole where once grass and flowers grew that has been transformed into a place where nothing thrives.

I close my eyes and see Rawson. Zandri. Malachi. My Testing roommate, Ryme. Other faces I have no names for, but whose empty eyes haunt me in my sleep. Lurking somewhere in the residence is Will. One who has been rewarded for murder and betrayal. How many others inside that building have killed without hesitation? How many have been rewarded for their treachery with the future leadership of our country? How can I face my fellow students each day wondering what horrors they are capable of?

The five scars on my left arm burn. The darkness of the void beckons, and for the briefest moment, I consider answering its call. I grip the steel railing and let the chill of the metal fill me. How easy it would be to let the emptiness swallow me. To find release from sadness at the bottom. To be welcomed by those I have lost and turn away from the problems I face now.

But I don’t. I take my hand from the rail and step back. This is one choice I will never make.