The Test

Twenty

I wake to sunlight streaming through the window, burning my eyes. I check the time: 4 am. Ugh. I have two hours till breakfast, but there's no way I'm going back to sleep-not when there's a risk it won't be as dreamless as the last six hours.

I crack open my eyes a little more, smile at the sight of Alina resting peacefully on her sleeping bag, curled into herself like a spiral, hair obscuring her face. I'm surprised to find that I don't feel a stabbing, wrenching pain - guilt and regret and something I can't name - at the sight of her, as I have every other time. But I don't. And I doubt I ever will again, after our reconciliation last night. I can hear Vi snoring lightly above me, and my smile widens as I swing out of bed. For the first time in a long time, I feel content. Or at least, as content as it's possible to get when your parents are dead.

The memory of the truth shatters my calm contented gaze, and all too suddenly the sun is harsh instead of soft against my skin, burning into my eyes like the scalding tears already pricking the backs of my eyelids. But I am stronger than that now. I will not crumble. I will not fall. I will not fail.

I can't.

Who knows how long that will last.

I turn from the window, in one swift motion out the door and down the stairs, running across the courtyard, not caring who I wake. When I get to the barn, I grab the nearest rife that I can hold comfortably, load it and volley off a round of shots, the report echoing back around the room.

"Anya," a soft voice says, and my head snaps up. I see him standing on the stairs and blush to my toes; I forgot he sleeps up there, the unbidden thought creeping in that he has Sasha in tow. "Sorry," I whisper, chagrined. "I forgot about you sleeping-"

"It's not that," he says softly, coming down the stairs slowly and pushing on the gun to lower it, not meeting my eyes. "Is Sasha up there?" I ask, the bitterness in my voice surprising me.

"No," he whispers, taking the rifle from my slack hands and setting it back on the rack. "She isn't." He turns back around to face me. "But that wasn't what I meant. What I meant was, you don't have to take your pain out on the targets."

"What, you mean I should take it out on you?" I say sarcastically. I stick my chin up defiantly. "And who said I felt any pain?" I glare at him. "What if I don't?" What if I don't need you anymore? I think but don't say. The lie tastes bitter in my mouth. I will always need him - but he doesn't need to know that.

~

Bianca

Eight weeks earlier

I wake to darkness and the bitter taste of metal on my tongue.

Disoriented, I look around and try to assess my situation. I'm in a large, dim room, the only light coming in from an open door on the left of a large, dingy wall. A guard stands there, holding an assault rifle and glaring, dressed in black from head to toe except for a silver insignia on his chest that winks in and out of the light. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I can barely make out a messy knot of girls in dirty rags at one end of the room, another a little further down, and several more dotted throughout the room. I am huddled against a wall, one of many shoved in near the door and handcuffed to the copper pipes running along the bottom half of the walls. Their tentative whispers are broken by a guard down that end, who barks an order loud enough to make us all jump, in a voice harsh enough for shivers to trickle down my spine in horror. What is this place? Where am I?

How did I get here?

Why?

I remember little about my journey here, only the chaos and the darkness and the screaming of the Compound, and then the oppressive blackness on the inside of a blindfold, secured tight on my face; unfamiliar hands rough on my body as they bundled me into a van and drove away, leaving the one chance to warn the rest of them - warn my brother - behind.