Graduation Day (The Testing, #3)(77)
“Yes,” she says. “The dark-haired boy with the green eyes.”
Will.
“I saw him after I heard Dr. Barnes had been killed and asked him what he knew. He was worried you’d feel guilty after everything that happened and that you wouldn’t accept the credit for what you had done. He thinks you’re a hero.”
“I’m not.” After everything that has happened, it is the only thing I am certain of.
President Collindar smiles. “I had a feeling you’d say that. The decisions that leaders have to make are never easy. Including this one. You took a life, but just think how many more were saved.”
Not Zeen’s. Lives were saved. Yes. But not by me. By Will.
I look again at the bloody hole in Dr. Barnes’s shoulder and the three precise gunshot wounds in his chest. Symon must have caused the first as he ran to find me. Symon was injured when he fired. I am not sure he could have fired with the accuracy it would have taken to create the fatal wounds. But someone who was a known marksman, like Will, could have. His main skill lies with a crossbow, as he demonstrated in the fourth test, but I remember how he took down Roman and know his skill with a gun doesn’t lag far behind. Symon might have inflicted the three wounds that killed Dr. Barnes, but my gut tells me no. This was Will’s work.
Will wasn’t here when Dr. Barnes explained his bargain with President Collindar. He couldn’t have known that crediting me with the kill was the only way to end The Testing we both despised. Yet, that is what he did. The Will I knew during the fourth test would have taken the credit for his actions. He would have wanted whatever reward he thought would come with bringing down the president’s foe. Instead, this time, he passed to me whatever accolades he felt would be delivered. Because Will isn’t just the boy who shot and betrayed. Just as I am not just the naive girl from Five Lakes. Now I have to decide for certain whether Dr. Barnes was the man I believed him to be and whether President Collindar is the person she says she is.
Walking to the table, I look at the glass Dr. Barnes drank from, and the liquid that remains at the bottom. I put the glass to my lips and take a small sip.
The flavor makes me grimace as Dr. Barnes did. Metallic. Bitter. The taste that I remember from months ago in this same room. When Dr. Barnes watched and waited and hoped that I would be confident and coherent enough to pass through to the University. He hoped I would prove that The Testing was flawed and that by my hand and through his sacrifice it all would be ended.
“Are you ready, Cia?” President Collindar asks.
Everything Dr. Barnes told me was the truth.
“Cia, are you ready?” she asks again.
I look at the president and then around the room, my mind filled with questions. Only some of which I can answer. For the rest I will have to do what is necessary to obtain the truth.
“Come on, Cia,” Tomas says, taking my bag from the table. “Let’s go home.”
[page]Chapter 21
HOME.
On the outskirts of Five Lakes I sit under an oak tree that my brother Zeen helped create. My father and I have visited this site every day since I have come home. Today, I am here alone. In my hands is the Transit Communicator that Zeen once owned. The mate to this Communicator is buried next to him. Tears that I could not shed the night he died fall freely now that I am surrounded by reminders of him. The night of my graduation, we stood under an oak like this. On that night Zeen spoke to me the words that in the moments before he died he asked me to remember. Back then the two of us stood in the shadows together, both disappointed about our futures. Me, because I thought I hadn’t been chosen for The Testing. He, because he felt trapped by the boundaries of Five Lakes and the lack of recognition for what he had achieved. In that moment he told me, “Things don’t always work out the way we hope. You just have to pick yourself up and find a new direction to go in.”
Nothing about what has happened this past year has turned out the way I had dreamed of. Yet remembering Zeen’s words has given me comfort, and knowing he died to save my life has made me more determined to see that his sacrifice is never forgotten.
Above me, leaves rustle on the tree. Sunlight, bright and filled with hope, shines on the four grave markers beside me. Each etched with a symbol and a name so that the sacrifices of those who died will live in the memory of everyone from Five Lakes. Zeen Vale beneath two crossed lightning bolts. An arrow under the name Malachi Rourke. A stylized flower and the name Zandri Hicks. And Michal Gallen with the symbol of an anchor. He wasn’t from Five Lakes, but I insisted he be included. Honored for the help he gave and the sacrifice he made. Without him, change would not have come. And there has been change.
Three weeks have passed since that night in The Testing Center. I spent much of that time in the University Medical building getting treatment, talking to Enzo, who is still in the early stages of the healing process, sitting with Tomas, and watching Raffe through a window as he fought for his life. The medical team is amazed that Raffe has survived this long and that each day his vital signs get stronger. Caught in the blast that was meant to kill Symon, Raffe is determined to live. And now he has an even larger reason to fight for his life.
The president stood by her word. Three days after that night in The Testing Center, I accompanied her and her team to Decatur Colony. Since Tomas is not part of the president’s staff, he was not allowed to join us. I’m glad, because I am uncertain how he would have handled what we found there. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t a community twice the size of Five Lakes Colony with medical facilities more advanced than any I’d seen in Tosu City located on the outskirts of the colony. But unlike those wards, these contained patients in various stages of chemically induced mutations. Not as many as I would have thought, considering the number of Redirected students sent here every year. Four in each of the five stages being studied. Two male. Two female. Those in the worst stages arched their backs and extended their claws as researchers stood behind glass walls, taking notes. When I asked, I learned why there are so few. The others deemed beyond help were turned out onto The Testing grounds to mingle with the mutations that were created by war instead of by this lab.