THE TEST BEGINS after lunch. We sit at the long tables in the cafeteria, and the test administrators call ten names at a time, one for each testing room. I sit next to Caleb and Beatrice and across from our neighbor Susan with her sister Cornelia.
Their father travels throughout the city for his job, so he has a car and drives her to and from school every day. He offered to drive us, too, but as Caleb says, we prefer to leave later and would not want to inconvenience him.
Of course not. So abnegation of him.
The test administrators are mostly Abnegation volunteers, although there is an Erudite in one of the testing rooms and two Dauntless in another to test those of us from Abnegation, because the rules state that we can't be tested by someone from our own faction. The rules also say that we can't prepare for the test in any way, so I don't know what to expect.
My gaze drifts from Susan to the Dauntless tables across the room. They are laughing and shouting and playing cards. They look so free. At another set of tables, the Erudite chatter over books and newspapers, in constant pursuit of knowledge. While I would love to have a book, but making a conversation about it?
A group of Amity girls in yellow and red sit in a circle on the cafeteria floor, playing some kind of hand-slapping game involving a rhyming song. Every few minutes I hear a chorus of laughter from them as someone is eliminated and has to sit in the center of the circle. Somehow I can imagine our whole family being instead of in abnegation in Amity. At the table next to them, Candor boys make wide gestures with their hands. They appear to be arguing about something, but it must not be serious, because some of them are still smiling.
At the Abnegation table, we sit quietly and wait. Faction customs dictate even idle behavior and supersede individual preference. I doubt all the Erudite want to study all the time, or that every Candor enjoys a lively debate, but they can't defy the norms of their factions any more than I can.
Caleb's name is called in the next group. He moves confidently toward the exit. I don't need to wish him luck or assure him that he shouldn't be nervous. He knows where he belongs, and as far as I know, he always has. Although I feel like hell choose Abnegation no matter what. My earliest memory of him is from when I was four years old. He scolded me and Beatrice for not giving my jump rope to a little girl on the playground who didn't have anything to play with. He doesn't lecture me often anymore, but I know Beatrice still receives his looks of disapproval.
Beatrice tried to explain it to him that her instincts were not the same as his or mine, but he doesn't understand her. These are the moment when I wonder if Beatrice is abnegation or not. "Just do what you're supposed to," he always says. It is that easy for him. It's the easiest for me. It should be the easiest for her too.
I close my eyes and keep them closed, while holding Beatrice's hand, until ten minutes later, when Caleb sits down again.
He is plaster-pale. He pushes his palms along his legs like I do when I wipe off sweat, and when he brings them back, his fingers shake. I open my mouth to ask him something, but the words don't come. I am not allowed to ask him about his results, and he is not allowed to tell me.
An Abnegation volunteer speaks the next round of names. Two from Dauntless, two from Erudite, two from Amity, two from Candor, and then: "From Abnegation: Kazuha Prior and Beatrice Prior."
We get up because we're supposed to, but if it were up to me, I would stay in my seat for the rest of time. I feel like there is a bubble in my chest that expands more by the second, threatening to break me apart from the inside. I follow Beatrice to the exit. We wear the same clothes and we wear our hair the same way. The only difference is that Beatrice may throw up, while I may just pass out.
Waiting for us outside the cafeteria is a row of ten rooms. They are used only for the aptitude tests, so I have never been in one before. Unlike the other rooms in the school, they are separated, not by glass, but by mirrors. I watch myself, pale and terrified, walking toward one of the doors. Beatrice grins nervously at me as she walks into room 6, and I walk into room 5, where an Dauntless woman waits for me.
She is not as severe-looking as the young Dauntless I have seen. She has a sharp face, dark eyes and raven like hair, she wears a black blazer—like a man's suit—and jeans. It is only when she turns to close the door that I see a tattoo on the back of her neck, a stag with ruby red eyes.. If I didn't feel like my heart had migrated to my throat, I would ask her what it signifies. It must signify something.
Mirrors cover the inner walls of the room. I can see my reflection from all angles: the gray fabric obscuring the shape of my back, my bruised hands, red with a blood. The ceiling glows white with light. In the center of the room is a reclined chair, like a dentist's, with a machine next to it. It looks like a place where terrible things happen.
"Don't worry," the woman says, "it doesn't hurt."
Her hair is black and straight, but in the light I see that it is somehow even red.
"Have a seat and get comfortable," she says. "My name is Cara."
I sit in the chair and recline, putting my head on the headrest. The lights hurt my eyes. Cara busies herself with the machine on my right. I try to focus on her and not on the wires in her hands. Thinking what is Beatrice doing right now? Is she also in the same position?
"Why do you have a stag on the back of your neck?" I blurt out as she attaches an electrode to my forehead.
"Never met a curious Abnegation before," she says, raising her eyebrows at me.
"Well here I am." and then I shut up. My curiosity is a mistake, a betrayal of Abnegation values.
Humming a little, she presses another electrode to my forehead and explains, "My friend was getting a tattoo of hawk and I didn't want to be the only one without a tattoo. So I randomly choose a tattoo." She presses some other electrodes, while I think about with faction will Beatrice choose.
She stands behind me. I squeeze the armrests so tightly the redness pulls away from my knuckles. She tugs wires toward her, attaching them to me, to her, to the machine behind her. Then she passes me a vial of clear liquid.
"Drink this," she says.
"What is it?" My throat feels swollen. I swallow hard. "What's going to happen?"
"Can't tell you that. Just trust me."
I press air from my lungs and tip the contents of the vial into my mouth. My eyes close.
YOU ARE READING
Cold Hearts | Tobias Eaton
Fanfiction"I'll break your heart." "I'll break your nose." That's how true love starts - with few threats and two Cold Hearts ----------------------- When we walk in, the Dauntless inside stand. They applaud. They stamp their feet. They shout. The noise surr...
