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Several different things could happen after you take the Trial. You get a perfect score—1500 points. No one’s ever gotten this—well, except for some kid a few years ago who the military made a goddy fuss over.
Let me guess daygot a hundo percent
The soldier reaches up and sprays one long, red, diagonal line on our door. Then he sprays another line, making an X. I curse silently under my breath and start to turn away— —but then the soldier does something unexpected, something I’ve never seen before. He sprays a third, vertical line on my mother’s door, cutting the X in half.
Interesting
“See you later, Ms. Iparis,” he says, tipping his hat. I stopped trying to convince him to call me June—he’ll never change. Still, it’s not so bad being called something proper. Maybe when I’m older and Metias doesn’t faint at the idea of me dating . . . “Bye, Thomas. Thanks for the ride.” I smile back at him before stepping out of the jeep.
Girllll
Metias ignored me and placed another cool towel on my head. “I’ll be inducted either way,” he said. He fed me a purple slice of orange.
Now Ms Liu you cab see how this is confusing
Now Thomas takes a deep breath. I already know what he’s going to say. “I’m sorry. Metias has been killed.” That’s when the world around me goes silent.
Straight to the point huh
I want to ask about Metias, about what happened here. But her icy demeanor stops me.
Girl at least let her grieve
“You should have taken me with you,” I whisper to him. Then I lean my head against his and begin to
I told you to go right ahhh scene
In my mind, I make a silent promise to my brother’s killer. I will hunt you down. I will scour the streets of Los Angeles for you. Search every street in the Republic if I have to. I will trick you and deceive you, lie, cheat and steal to find you, tempt you out of your hiding place, and chase you until you have nowhere else to run. I make you this promise: your life is mine.
And also i will fall in love with you *snickers*
Day killed my brother. I know this because we found a stolen ID tag lying halfway up the third-floor stairwell, which led us to the soldier pictured on the tag, who stammered out a description of what the boy looked like.
You dont think its sus hes the most wanted cdiminal and has never killed? Why would he start now?
Day was there, in the hospital. He was also careless enough to leave the ID tag behind.
Hmmmmm
But the biggest thing that doesn’t compute for me is this: Day has never killed anyone before.
Exactly!
The man now furrows his bushy eyebrows at me and claps a hand on my bare shoulder. It lingers there for a while. “How are you feeling, my dear?” he asks. His words distort the scars on his face—a slice across the bridge of his nose, and another jagged mark that goes from his ear to the bottom of his chin. I manage a smile. “Better than expected.”
He looks stereotypical evil
Chian laughs. “A good boy, that Metias was. A great apprentice. Imagine my disappointment when he was reassigned to the city patrols. He told me he just didn’t have the smarts to judge the Trials or organize the kids who finished taking them. Such a modest one. Always smarter than he thought he was—just like you.” He grins at me.
Probably because the trials are rigged!
I roll my eyes at that. The Colonies want us to think that letting them take over is a good thing. Like they’re annexing us or doing us some kind of favor. That’s how they see us, a poor little fringe nation, as if they’re the more powerful one.
Delusion; what about the poor people June
hear stories about plague victims, which areas the police seem most nervous about, and which have started to recover. They talk about the best places to find food, the best places to find fresh water. The best places to hide during hurricanes. Some of the beggars look too young to have even taken the Trial. The youngest ones talk about their parents or how to pickpocket a soldier. But no one talks about Day.
Its called loyalty
Then there’s a voice telling me to get up. When I look to my side, I see a boy holding out his hand to me. He has bright blue eyes, dirt on his face, and a beat-up old cap on, and at this moment, I think he might be the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen. “Come on,” he urges. I take his hand.
Girlllll
He laughs again. But when he speaks, his voice has a sad tinge to it. “Money is the most important thing in the world, you know. Money can buy you happiness, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks. It’ll buy you relief, status, friends, safety . . . all sorts of things.”
Boooooo; Day you cant be serious!
I taste the wine on his lips. He kisses me gently at first and then, as if he’s reaching for something more, he pushes me against the wall and kisses me harder.
Oop-
The commander shakes her head at my silence. “Okay, Iparis,” she says to the Girl. “We’ve tried your tactic. Now let’s try mine.” She turns to the dark-haired captain and nods once. “Cop her.” I have no time to stop what happens next. The captain lifts his gun and points it at my mother. Then he shoots her in the head.
Gasp!!
THE WOMAN THOMAS SHOOTS HASN’T EVEN CRUMPLED TO the ground yet when I see the boy launch himself from the rooftop. I freeze. This is all wrong. No one’s supposed to get hurt. Commander Jameson did not tell me that she intended to kill anyone from the house—we were supposed to take them all back to Batalla Hall for arrest and questioning. My eyes dart to Thomas, wondering if he feels the same horror I do. But he remains expressionless, his gun still drawn.
Thomas you rank ass bitch
The Girl doesn’t move her gun away. “How old are you?” “Fifteen.”
Not me pretending it says eighteen - gotta age these characters up
A series of images begin to run through my mind. The red numbers. The three-lined X mark on my family’s door. The medic trucks that took Eden away. Eden’s eyes—black and bleeding. They want something from my little brother. Something to do with his illness. I picture the three-lined X again. What if it was no accident that Eden got the plague? What if it’s no accident when anyone gets
Theyre probably doing some environmental racism type shi
The Day that killed my brother is a cruel, ruthless criminal. But who is the Day I met on the streets? Who is this boy that would risk his own safety for a girl he didn’t know? Who is the Day that grieves so deeply for his mother? His look-alike brother, John, did not seem like a bad person when I questioned him in his cell—bargaining
Or i dont k now the day that doesnt kill pwople??? Theres one fucking outlier!!
Moments later, we’re intercepted by a large man with a scar from his chin to his ear. Chian. He grins broadly at the sight of us and puts a hand on my shoulder.
New prediction maybe chian is good? Maybe he helped Day out?
Thomas gives me a long look. Then, finally, he releases me and moves away. I can read the displeasure in his eyes.
Nasty rank ass mf
DANIEL ALTAN WING. The front page of his Trial document comes up. The score still says 674 / 1500. I scroll to the next page. Day’s answers. Some of the questions are multiple-choice, while others require several sentences to answer. I skim through all thirty-two pages before I confirm something very odd. There are no red marks. In fact, every single one of his answers is untouched. His Trial looks as pristine as mine.
Oh shoot i was right!!
That’s when they thought he died. The reasoning for all this becomes clear—they wanted to develop those tissue samples into something, I don’t know what—pills, contact lenses, whatever could improve our soldiers, to make them run faster, see better, think smarter, or endure harsher conditions.
Maybe thats the plague? Baby a bitch is lost
I sit back on my heels. I’ve never questioned the annual vaccinations we’re required to have—never had any reason to doubt them. And why should I? My father used to work behind those double doors, working hard to find new ways to combat the plague.
Gasp! Maybe your dad died because he said something about spreading the plague!
Then a photo pops up of someone I do recognize. The blurry image shows a girl with long hair—longer than the bobbed cut I remember. No vine tattoo yet. Apparently Kaede is a Patriot.
Interesting
Ah. Here is what’s really bothering him—I guess he found out about the kiss. I can’t help grinning, even though my face screams in pain. “Awww. Is that what’s got you down? I’ve seen the way you look at her. You want her bad, yeah? Is that something you’re also trying to earn your way up to, trot? Hate to burst your bubble, but I didn’t force her into anything.”
Oh shoooooottt
Maybe the other photos are classified. What if Commander Jameson took them out to spare me the pain? I shake my head. No, that’s stupid. Then she wouldn’t have sent any photos with this report at all. I stare at the screen, then dare to imagine the alternative. What if Commander Jameson took them out to hide something from me?
Jesus june took you only 60% of the book
These black marks look like rifle grease. Almost like the streak of grease that was on Thomas’s forehead when I first saw him that night.
Girlllll
My father nodded. “But we can’t destroy it. We have to safeguard it—for all we know, this might be the last coin of its kind in the world.” He folded my mother’s fingers over the coin. “I’ll make a metal casing for it, something that covers both sides. I’ll weld it shut so the coin’s secure inside.”
The pendant!
Our father left early the next morning, before the sun even rose. We would see him only one more time after that. Then he never came home again. This memory flashes through my mind in an instant. I look up at June. “Thank you for finding this.” I wonder if she can hear the sadness in my voice. “Thank you for giving it back to me.”
Hes probably not dead
D L W G W U N O W M J W U T C E E L O F O O M B I frown. It makes no sense. I scramble the letters over and over again in my head, trying to come up with various combinations of words. When I was little, Metias played word games with me—he’d throw a bunch of letter blocks onto the table and ask me what words I could form with them. Now I try playing this game again. I play it for a while before I stumble across a combination that makes me open my eyes. JUNE BUG. Metias’s nickname for me. I swallow hard and try to stay calm. Slowly, I line up the leftover letters and try to form words with
...more
Ok this is a little silly
I look the same. But I am a different person inside. I’m a prodigy who knows the truth, and I know exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to help Day escape.
“Ah, there’s the announcement now.” Thomas glances back to the movie screen and points at the commercial that comes on. “We’re moving up Day’s execution time.”
Uh oh!
“What is it?” June replies. Then, words that seize my heart. I doubt she planned for this. “Ms. Iparis,” he says, “you’re under investigation. Follow me.”
Gasp
“Execute him! Kill him now! Make sure the square broadcasts it!”
“You need more time,” John says. “They want an execution? They’ll get one.” He starts running away from us. Back down the hall.
Oh so we doing this
“Each day means a new twenty-four hours. Each day means everything’s possible again. You live in the moment, you die in the moment, you take it all one day at a time.”
And its better than Daw
