The Eighth Guardian (2 page)

I think.

I stand up and take three jumps to get the blood pumping. So close. And there’s only one way out. I leap onto the bomb.

Nothing happens.

I exhale.
I did it!
Not that they’d actually blow me up or anything, but I’m sure there would be consequences of some sort if I didn’t diffuse it correctly.

The exit is only a few feet in front of me; and I hurl myself forward, out of the maze, and onto the ground. A gong sounds.

I’m lying in the dirt, panting and trembling, when the woman with the stopwatch appears over me. “Seven minutes, four point three-eight seconds,” she says.

I push myself to a seated position. I have no idea whether that’s a good time or the worst time ever recorded. My gallery is there. Most of them have already turned away and are walking back toward campus. A few stragglers are hunched over clipboards. But that man is staring at me. Again. Making a note in his Moleskine.

I look away and get to my feet. Every muscle in my body protests. I would kill for a hot bath and my bed right now.

“You’ll be escorted back to campus,” the woman with the stopwatch says. Like all of the other test proctors who showed up on campus yesterday—or is it two days ago now?—I’ve never seen her before in my life. But in this moment I hate her.

I can’t believe I have to do this again next year.

My escort arrives. I know her. Katia Britanova. She’s a sophomore who lives in my dorm, on the floor below. She has an impossibly large array of Hello Kitty crap, although that pales in comparison to her Bowie knife collection.

“How was it?” Katia whispers as we start the long walk back to campus.

I shake my head at her. My left foot makes contact with the pavement, and soreness races up my body. My right leg makes contact with the pavement and wobbles. Katia hooks her arm under my armpit and steadies me.

“Is he done?” I ask her.

“I’m not really allowed to talk about—”

“Katia, come on. Is he done?”

Katia nods her head. “Finished about an hour ago.”

We trudge on in silence. Testing Day is over for me. Until next year. Dear God, help me. I have to do this again.

I really shouldn’t complain. I’ve known this was coming since I was fourteen, ever since I got a letter congratulating me on my acceptance to the Peel Academy, which was surprising considering I’d never applied. Or had even heard of it.

But my mom had. After the letter arrived, she locked herself in the bathroom and cried for three days straight. That’s not an exaggeration. She’s been known to do that. Plates of food pile up at the door. The phone rings for hours. Begging is pointless. Bargaining goes unanswered. Worry turns to anger, sours to contempt.

When a trustee of the school showed up a week later, dressed in a red skirt suit with an American flag pinned to her lapel, she whispered two magical words that made the decision easy for me: legal emancipation. I didn’t care who she was or what the school taught at that point. All that mattered was that it was my ticket out of Vermont. And then the woman told me that the school was run by the government and was by invitation only for a select group of students whose bloodlines looked promising, and I
knew
.

I was chosen because of my dad.

Katia and I pass through the iron gates leading to the main part of campus. She walks me past the building that houses science labs, past one of the dorms, past the administration building, and into the dining hall. Another sophomore, Blake Sikorski, stands guard at the door. He checks my name off a list pinned to a clipboard and nods his head toward the hall. Katia gives my shoulder a squeeze and trots down the stairs.

The dining hall is littered with sleeping bodies. Juniors and seniors lie around the room like fallen dominoes, their bodies twisted and broken into sleeping positions that can’t be comfortable at all. But when you’ve been awake for as long as we have and been through what we have, comfort is an afterthought.

I spot Abe in the back corner, sitting with his back against the wall. He’s awake but staring straight ahead like a zombie. My heart flutters. He didn’t have to stay awake for me. But of course he did.

He doesn’t hear me until I’m a few feet in front of him. His head turns, recognition dawns, and his mouth twitches upward.

“I’d get up, but—”

“Don’t bother,” I say as my legs buckle, and I fall to the floor beside him. “Holy cornflakes, that sucked.”

Abe chuckles. “What, no expletives?”

“I’m too tired.” I fold my hands over my chest and close my eyes. Abe hates swearing. Always has. He says it’s a sign of a small vocabulary. But I grew up in a house where four-letter words were pretty much standard protocol, so Abe’s used to hearing them from me.

Except now. I’m not kidding about the too-tired thing.

I crack open one eye and glance at the clock on the wall. A few minutes until four in the afternoon. So that makes thirty-four hours that I’ve been awake.

Peel’s graduation works a bit differently from most other schools. We don’t have caps and gowns; we don’t have long ceremonies and boring speeches. No, we have Testing Day. Once a year, a group of proctors arrives at the school without any warning whatsoever. It could be in September or it could be in May. Testing Day always starts at night, after a long, hard day of work, when you’re tired and ready to unwind. Then—surprise!—the fun begins.

The first part is a twelve-hour written test that stretches through the wee hours of the morning. You’re quizzed on physics, biology, history, geography, calculus, computer programming—you name it. There are also ethics questions. Stuff like: You’re locked in a room with a known terrorist who has planted a bomb somewhere in Washington DC that is set to explode in thirty minutes. You have a drill, a pair of needle-nose pliers, and a gallon-size bucket of water. What do you do? (Here’s a hint: The correct answer involves none of those things.)

After that come the physical challenges. They’re never the same, no matter how many years you go back. Every junior and senior at Peel is tested, although I don’t know why they bother to test the juniors. No one has graduated as a junior in more than thirty years.

Still, I can’t ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach as I think of the man in the green tie who watched me so intently today. His piercing eyes flood my memory and make me shudder.

“I couldn’t finish the first challenge,” I confess as I slide my head into that nook of Abe’s arm, an old, familiar spot.

“That’s fine,” he assures me. “This is just a warm-up, remember? We get to do this again next year.”

“I don’t think there’s going to be a next year for me.”

Abe’s eyes are closed, but he opens one and gives me the side-eye with it. “Of course there is. We’re juniors.”

“There was this man,” I say. “He was watching me all day.”

Abe opens the other eye. “There were a bunch of people watching us.”

“Not like this. This man was . . . intense. Creepy, even.”

“Then he’s probably CIA,” Abe says. “They’re all like that.”

I don’t say anything. I want to believe him. I mean, probably ninety percent of us go on to join the CIA. We’re drafted at eighteen, and I have to admit, it’s a pretty sweet deal. They move us to Langley, and we go to Georgetown on their dime. But weekends aren’t spent binge drinking at frat parties or cramming for finals at the library. Weekends are spent in Mumbai or Mosul or Manila, breaking into banks or climbing into bedroom windows. Well, after six brutal months of additional training and next to no sleep, that is.

We all assume that’s our future. Abe and I have always assumed it. We’ve been together for more than two years now, ever since the first week of freshman year, and we’ve been planning our next steps together for probably that long, too. Abe’s sure he’s going to be a technical intelligence officer in the science and technology arm (I’m dating a computer-engineering-stuff-that-makes-my-head-hurt genius), while I’ll be an operations officer in clandestine services. It’ll mean a lot of time apart, since he’ll be based in DC and I’ll be all over the world, but Abe’s even gone so far as to scout out the best areas in the capital for us to get an apartment to serve as our home base. You know, someday. (I’m also dating a poster boy for type-A personalities.)

“Hey,” he whispers, gently turning my head to look at him. “Stop worrying. You’re not graduating.”

“But—”

“One word,” Abe interrupts. “Tyler Fertig.”

“That’s two words.”

“Tyler. Fertig,” Abe repeats. “If he didn’t graduate as a junior, you’re not going to.”

I nod my head. He’s right. Of course he’s right. Two years ago, Tyler Fertig was a junior when we were freshmen. Pardon my French, Abe, but Tyler Fertig rocked the shit out of Testing Day like no one ever had before. He only missed one question on the written test—
one
—and outscored every single senior during the physical challenges. And yet at the banquet that night, where the names of the graduating students are called and blissful boys and girls trot to the stage to be handed an envelope containing an assignment, Tyler’s name was skipped. He was sitting at the next table over from me, and I can still picture his reaction. Shock, denial, then anger. He got up, pushed his plate across the table, and stormed out of the room. I never understood why he was so angry, but I guess I get it now. Testing Day sucks. He must have thought that for sure he wouldn’t have to do it again.

Abe’s right. I’m not graduating.

Tonight I’m going to sleep in my own bed, and tomorrow we’ll have Professor Kopelman’s International Relations class waiting for us. The fall is creeping to a close, and the holidays will be here before we know it. We’ll do Thanksgiving with my mom, Hanukkah with Abe’s family, then put in another quick appearance with my mom at Christmas. Just like last year. Just like next year.

I nestle into Abe’s arm a little more, and he rolls to the side and envelops me.

“I missed you today. I kept wishing you were there with me,” he whispers in my ear before he kisses my earlobe.

“I have to smell like a dead cat.”

He laughs and kisses my neck.

“We’re not alone,” I whisper, though I wriggle myself closer to him.

“We’re in a room full of hibernating bears.”

“I kinda wish I was one of them right now.”

Abe’s fingers interlace through mine. “I could get behind that plan.” He goes still and gets very quiet. But then a few moments later, in a voice barely more than a whisper, he says, “Love you, Mandy Girl.”

I close my eyes. “I love you too, Abey Baby.”

And then I’m out.

I’m woken by a high-pitched whistle screaming into my ears. I open the corner of one eye, and it protests in pain as light rushes in. I immediately close it. I haven’t slept long; that much is clear. Beside me, Abe grumbles.

“You have to be kidding, right?” He slowly pushes himself up. “Ugh, six o’clock?”

“A.m. or p.m.?” I ask. My body already knows the answer.

“P.m.,” Abe confirms.

“Juniors and seniors!” a voice booms. I force myself to open my eyes and sit up, then lean into Abe for support. Headmaster Vaughn stands at the front of the dining hall, hands on his hips. “Testing Day is at an end, and decisions have been made. You all have one hour to shower, change, and get back here for the banquet.”

People groan and grunt as they stand up. Abe stands first, then puts out his hands to help pull me up.

“I wish we didn’t have to go to this stupid banquet.” Abe holds open the door for me. A gush of crisp fall air cuts right through me, and I hunch my shoulders and shiver.

“Don’t you want to see who goes where?” I ask. We take the shortcut past the science building to the quad.

“What’s the point? I think I could tell you where every senior is going. Look there”—he points to Regina Browne as she pulls open the door to her dorm hall—“CIA. And there”—Steven DiFazio, entering another hall—“CIA. Oh, and look over there”—Becca Stein, Jacob Wu, and Maria Bazan—“CIA, CIA, CIA.”

“And what about this girl?” I point to myself.

“CIA,” Abe says with a smile. “But not for another year.” We’ve stopped in front of Archer Hall, my dorm.

“Are you sure?”

Abe raises an eyebrow. “Do you remember what Samuels said our very first day of Practical Studies ever?”

I do. We had been lined up against the wall, and Professor Samuels had gone up and down the line, critiquing our appearances—the way we looked—and making judgments based on them. That would not fly at any other school except for Peel.

Samuels got to me, and his face had lit up in a smile. “You, my dear,” he’d said, “are what I like to call ethnically ambiguous. The CIA will snap you right up in four years for sure.” And then he’d moved down the line.

I was confused at first—and a little insulted, if I’m being honest—but the more time I spent doing mock missions in class, the more I realized that maybe there was some truth to what Samuels had said. I inherited most of my features from my mother, who is Romanian and Moroccan by way of Spain (and then Brooklyn). I have her thick, wavy, deep-brown hair, her thin nose, her strong cheekbones, and her medium skin tone. I was surprised to discover that with the right clothing and a little bit of makeup, I could pass for a number of different ethnicities.