Chapter Text
“Well, here it is,” I say to my best friend, Kelly Romana. “I’m off to the Place.”
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” she mutters, staring at the floor, her light brown hair covering her face.
We are in my room, my bags piled around us. This Tuesday morning is the last time I’ll see Kelly before I get flown away.
“You know I don’t want to leave you,” I say carefully. This is not a lie. I don’t want to leave her. But I am actually thrilled to be going to the Place. I feel awful to feel so excited when she looks so depressed, but what can I do? I’ve been waiting for this moment since I was born.
“You should just stay,” Kelly blurts out. She seems shocked that she’s said it at first, but then her eyes gleam, and she gets into the idea. “I mean it,” she continues. “Just because you’re born with a jewel on your nail doesn’t mean you have to give away your childhood for some twisted System.” Her eyes aren’t just gleaming now, they’re glowing, and I take a half step back from her. “Seriously! That jewel doesn’t mean anything!” I run my thumb instinctively over the familiar bump on the middle fingernail of my right hand, feeling the blue jewel there. “I’m practically as smart as you anyway! So why do you get to go there? Everyone should have an opportunity! Just stay, and screw the System!”
“Kelly…” I start slowly. “You know I can’t do that.”
The frenzied light leaves her eyes. Now, they darken.
“You can’t,” she growls, “or you won’t?”
“Kelly—”
“Forget it!” she yells, pushing away the arm I had stretched out to her. “I should have known this would happen! My mom warned me, you know. The first day of first grade, when I told her about you. She said, ‘Sweetie, don’t go around making friends with the Jeweled. She’s just going to leave you.’ But I told her no, there was no way you would do that. I convinced myself—” her eyes are shining with tears now “—that somehow I’d find a way to make you stay. But now you’re going just like my mom said.”
“Well, maybe you should have listened to her,” I snap, getting irritated. “You knew I was Jeweled; you knew I was going to leave. So stop being such a baby about it! It’s the System; I have to!”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” she says quietly.
“Yes it does.”
She looks at me with such a scornful, disbelieving look that I feel self-conscious. No one ever looks at me like that. “You just don’t get it, do you?” And those are the last words she says to me. I stand mutely in my room and listened to her stomp down the stairs and slam the front door.
I really don’t get it. I have no idea what she’s feeling. I was brought up knowing I’d be sent to the Place, because I was special. Because I was Jeweled.
I guess I’m a mutant. I’m not really sure what the PC way of putting it is. The whole Jeweled thing started around maybe a hundred years ago. Babies started being born with jewels on the middle fingernail of one of their hands, either red or blue. At first, people just sort of ignored it, thinking, yeah, it was strange, but it didn’t mean anything. Then the babies started to grow up, and they ended up being a bit more special than people had originally thought.
The babies born with blue Jewels were highly intelligent, without fail; the babies with red Jewels were astoundingly athletically gifted. Once the government realized this, they jumped right on it. Don’t ask me how they did it, but soon the government created the System: “All children born with a jewel in the United States are required, by law, to be sent to a training facility their sophomore year of high school and begin field work at the age of sixteen.” Most parents, naturally, disagreed with this. But then they found out how much money they’d be making, and most of them shut their mouths.
Besides, it was quickly proven that Jeweled children were ideal for field work. The blue Jewels were too smart to get caught; the red Jewels were too fast and strong. So it wasn’t like they were in real danger, really.
Now most of the rebellions against the System are by non-Jeweled kids and parents. The government ignores them, of course; they’re just jealous. All the Jeweled kids can’t wait to be flown out to the Place. Its real name is something like “Exclusive Training Facility For Jeweled Children”, but we all just call it the Place.
Most Jeweled kids go to expensive private elementary and high schools, their parents knowing that they’ll get all the money back tenfold when their kids get to that facility. I’m no exception. I’ve been going to private school since first grade, which is where I met Kelly.
The Jeweled kids at my school mostly all stick together. Blue Jewels hang out with other blue Jewels; red Jewels hang out with other red Jewels. My mom told me on the first day of school to try and only befriend other Jeweled kids, because if I make friends with non-Jeweleds, I’ll just have to leave them behind. I chose not to listen to her. You see where that got me.
Anyway, once the System was invented, they got more creative. They decided that every Jeweled kid should have a partner, someone that would be their Half. One blue jewel and one red jewel together would make a Pair. Pairs were chosen completely at random, and most of the time they didn’t know each other beforehand.
Then they decided to get even more creative, and made Teams. A team consisted of six kids in total: three Pairs, with three girls, three boys, three red jewels, three blue jewels. There would be a girl-girl pair, a boy-boy pair, and a girl-boy pair.
I’ve spent most of my life thinking about who my Half could be, and what our relationship would be like. It can go many ways. A person can fall in love with their Half, be best friends with their Half, be their Half’s mortal enemy, or just work together for the allotted five years and then part ways.
I decided a while ago that I wanted to be a part of a girl-girl pair. This idea is reinforced even more by Kelly’s reaction to my leaving. I have a sinking feeling that I won’t be hearing from her much.
The plane leaves at noon, so my mom drives me and we make it there at 11:45. Cutting it a bit close, but hey, that’s my mom. She hugs me goodbye and says that even though my dad couldn’t be there, he wants me to know how proud he is of me. I don’t know why. It’s not like I’ve done anything to get here except being born.
I board the plane, noticing that nearly everyone on it is from my grade, and Jeweled. I look around for a vacant seat when I hear someone calling me over. It’s Jasmine, a girl who went to my private school and was in a few of my classes. She’s a casual acquaintance at best, but I’ll take her over sitting by myself. My mind made up, I walk over to her and sit down next to her. She’s got a blue Jewel, like me.
“This is so exciting!” She squeals.
I nod and smile, trying to match her enthusiasm. Kelly seems to have nipped all my excitement in the bud.
“I hope my Half is a boy,” she gushes. “Then we could fall in love and get married and have babies…”
This was a mistake.
“If we have a boy, I’ll probably let him name it, because I’m not big on boy names, but if we have a girl, we’re naming her Marissa, no exceptions.”
I kind of let her ramble on like this for a while, until I stretch and pretend to yawn. “Hey, listen, I’m kind of tired. Planes wear me out. I’m gonna listen to music and rest, all right?” Thankfully, she nods, and turns to the person across the aisle to talk their ear off. I turn my back to her and smirk as I slip my ear buds in. Poor sucker.
I guess I was more tired than I thought, because when I wake up, we’re landing. True, it wasn’t a particularly long flight; just under two hours. But still.
We all go outside and there’s a lady directing people into different lines. I go to the girls with blue Jewels line, and soon, we’re headed towards the Place.
The Place is actually five different buildings, all about as big as, if not bigger than, my private school. The building we enter is the sophomore building, for us newbies who are just going to start training this year. The other buildings are for juniors, seniors, 19-, and 20-year-olds.
We’re given a brief tour of the building, being shown the various training rooms, the Cafeteria, and some of the Dorms. The Dorm rooms are really nice, with a little common room when you enter, and two doors that split off into the Girls’ Dorm, and the Boys’ Dorm, each with own bathroom.
Once we’re done with the tour, we’re taken to a lady who is going to give us the name of our Half. We’re all nervous and excited. You can feel the tension crackling.
She reads off the names in a monotone. “Chloe Burke,” she reads out after the first three girls had gone off with their Half.
I step forward.
She inspects her computer screen, and says, “All right, you’re a part of a boy-girl pair…” My heart drops a little, but I try not to let it show. “…And your half is…Ryan Gray.”
My mouth drops open.
She walks over to the director of a group of red jewel boys. “Is Ryan Gray with you?” I hear her ask. I then watch her pull a boy out of the group and walk him over to me. “Ryan Gray,” she says, “this is your Half, Chloe Burke.”
His smug face breaks out into a grin just as mine plummets. He raises a blonde eyebrow and stares into my yellowish eyes with his clear blue ones. It seems like he’s about to say something before I blurt out, “No.”
“Excuse me?” the lady narrows her eyes at me.
“I just mean, wow, what a coincidence,” I say with a fake smile and as much enthusiasm that I can muster. “We went to the same school.”
The lady raises her eyebrows in surprise. “Well, that certainly is unusual,” she states, before looking back down at her computer. “Apparently, the other two Pairs on your Team are in the Dorm already. I’ll find someone to take you there. Tara!” she calls at an unsuspecting girl who can’t be much older than 21. The girl jumps and walks over to us.
“Yes, Ms. Larken?”
“Take these two up to Dorm 187, please.”
“All right!”
As we start to walk away, I turn back and see Jasmine mouth “Lucky!” at me. I have to laugh at her total misunderstanding of this situation.
As we follow Tara down the hallway, Ryan falls in step next to me. “Heeeey, Chloe,” he greets me mockingly, just the way he used to in seventh grade. He flirted with me a lot that year, and I’d kind of fallen for it, pathetically. Then eighth grade came and it was like I didn’t exist anymore. Which was perfectly fine with me.
“Shut up, Ryan,” I snap back at him. He smiles, apparently pleased with himself.
When we make it to the Dorm, Tara knocks timidly on the door, and it’s immediately opened by a stunning blonde woman. No way she’s sixteen; she must be our female Team leader. “These must be our boy-girl pair,” she says.
“That’s right!” Tara chirps.
“Well, I’ll take it from here. Thanks, Tara,” Blondie dismisses smoothly.
“You’re welcome!” With that, Tara all but skips back down the hall.
Blondie lets us in, still smiling, but when she closes the door she rolls her eyes. “I can’t stand that woman,” she mutters. “How the hell is she so chipper all the time?”
“Was that Tara?” asks a tall, dark, and handsome guy who must be her Half, the male Team leader.
“You guessed it,” Blondie huffs. “Have a seat,” she says to me and Ryan, gesturing to the furniture in the common room. Two of the chairs and one of the couches are taken up by two girls and two boys, who must be the other two Pairs in our Team. I sit in the last available chair; Ryan sits on another couch.
“Well, now that you’re all here, I might as well introduce myself,” Blondie says. “I’m Erica, and that’s Adam. We’re your Team leaders; we’ll oversee your training, and you’ll answer to us during Tasks, but other than that, you really won’t see us much. Now, why don’t you all go around in a circle or something and introduce yourselves.” As she waves her hand around, I notice the red jewel glint on her fingernail. So she’s the beauty and he’s the brains. Although really, he could be both.
There’s an awkward silence for a few seconds, then a strawberry blonde girl clears her throat and says, “Um, hi. I’m Ashley Peach. I’m from Seattle. I’m an Athletic. And um…I’m really looking forward to getting to know all of you and becoming friends!” Someone scoffs, but Ashley just smiles.
Good for her, I think. It must be hard speaking first in a room of strangers.
“I guess I’ll go next,” the girl next to Ashley says. “I’m Natalie Short. Intelligence. I have a brother.” We wait for her to go on, but apparently she’s done. She brings a creamy brown hand to her raven black hair self-consciously, and I finally realize it’s my turn to speak.
“Uh, I’m Chloe Burke. I’m an Intelligence. And…I’m looking forward to being friends with you all too.” Ashley flashes me a smile, and I return it.
“I’m Ryan Gray,” Ryan says. “Athletic. And I guess I’m glad to meet all of you, except Chloe.”
“Why aren’t you glad to meet Chloe?” Erica asks lazily.
“I already know her,” he answers.
“We went to the same school,” I elaborate.
Erica raises her eyebrows and exchanges a look with Adam. “Well, that’s weird. Next?”
“I’m Matt Chang,” a cute Asian guy with glasses introduces himself. “Intelligence. If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m not that thrilled to meet any of you.”
The Spanish-looking guy, who Kelly would have described as “hawt”, sitting in the chair next to him rolls his eyes. “Alex Martinez. Athletic. I think this whole Pair thing is bullshit.” When he finishes, he glares at Matt, who glares right back. This kind of unsettles me, and I can tell Ashley is jarred, too. Aren’t you supposed to be thrilled to meet your Team, and your Half?
“Well, aren’t you all just little balls of sunshine,” Erica says sarcastically after an awkward pause. “Anyway, be ready to get up early for training tomorrow. Come on, Adam.” With that, they’re gone.
“You think they’ve always been like that?” Alex asks.
“Who? Like what?” Ashley questions, seeming eager for conversation.
“Erica and Adam. Like they have a thing for each other, but they’re not doing anything about it.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for Pairs to date,” I butt in. “Cuz most of the time they break up, but then they still have to work together.”
I see Natalie nod, but Alex just rolls his eyes again. “Whatever,” he says. “They just need to bang already.” Then his phone rings, and he answers it and starts speaking in rapid Spanish as he retreats to the Boys’ Dorm.
This seems to be the queue for everyone to take out their phones, and one by one, Ashley, Matt, and Ryan all leave the Dorm, I guess to meet their friends. Natalie goes to the Girls’ Dorm with her book, leaving me alone in the common room. Only now do I take out my phone.
I dial Kelly’s number and listen to it ring. Then I hear her voice say, “Hey, it’s Kelly. I’m not here right now, so leave a message after the beep and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.” Beep!
“Hey, Kelly, it’s Chloe,” I say into the phone. “I really miss you. Today’s been crazy. You won’t guess who my Half is: Ryan Gray. It’s awful. There’s one girl on my Team who seems nice, but everyone else seems like they’d rather be anywhere else. Basically, it just sucks, and I really wish—” The message cuts off. “I really wish you were here,” I finish in a whisper.
To keep from feeling so depressed, I take all my stuff to my room and set it up. Because I’m the girl-boy pair, I get the single bed on the right wall, while Ashley and Natalie get the bunk beds. Natalie’s reading on the bottom bunk. I take a hint from her and read my own book until I’m ready to go to sleep.
“TRAINING TIME! TIME TO GET UP!” These are the words that rudely awaken me at 6:30 AM. Lucky I went to sleep early last night, or I would be murderous right now.
It doesn’t take me long to get ready, and I’m sitting in the common room with Ryan and Matt by 6:45. The rest of them join us at around 7:00, and Erica and Adam lead us to our training room, which is filled with athletic equipment. “All right, so you’ll be training with Mallory and Jason’s Team,” Adam tells us as we walk in. “Taylor over there is your Athletic trainer, and Jamie’s your Intelligence trainer. Have fun!” Then they leave with who I assume are Mallory and Jason.
“They don’t stick around long, do they?” Matt mutters.
“Okay, I just want to tell you, since this is your first week, training is going to be different than it usually is,” Taylor starts. “We’re pretty much going to give you free reign in order for you to get to know everyone, and for me and Jamie to asses your strengths and weaknesses. You’ll be split into different groups every day: Monday will be random, Tuesday is a group of boys and a group of girls, Wednesday is an Intelligence group and an Athletics group, Thursday is female Intelligence and male Athletics in one group and vice versa, and Friday you’ll be working solely with you Half.”
“Intelligence, come with me!” Jamie calls out. “Athletics, stay with Taylor.”
Natalie, Matt, three kids from the other Team, and I follow Jamie out of the room and into another one. This room has various stations all over it. We’ve heard about these. They resemble real-world problems that could come up in Tasks. Some of them are math, some are language, some are just knowledge. “Today, I’m not picky on what you do,” Jamie tells us. “You might as well all work together on these, and get to know each other, like Taylor said, because you’ll definitely be spending a lot of time together. Go for it.”
I shrug and go over to one of the stations. A girl from the other Team, the only Intelligence girl on that Team, follows me. “Hey,” she greets me. “I’m Dessy. Well, I’m Desiree Parks, but all my friends call me Dessy. Not that I have very many,” she adds as an afterthought.
I giggle. “Hey, I’m Chloe. I’m glad someone is interested in making friends. Practically everyone on my Team is completely antisocial, or just a jerk.”
Dessy clicks her tongue, shaking her head back and forth. The top of her hair is close to my color, a super dark brown, but where it ends by her shoulders, it explodes into stripes of different colors. Her eyes are huge, and the most perfect combination of green and brown I’ve ever seen. “My Team’s okay. The boys seem nice. The girls seem kind of like the popular type who are likely to ignore me for the rest of eternity, but they’re hot, so that’s a plus.”
She pauses for a moment and then widens her eyes. A slight blush creeps over her tan freckled cheeks as she stammers, “Hehe. Um, did I forget to mention? I’m a lesbian. I usually end up saying it way too early in a conversation. Which, in retrospect, is probably one of the reasons I don’t have that many friends.”
I just laugh. “Hey, I don’t judge. And I don’t know why people aren’t tripping over their feet to be friends with you, you’re hilarious.”
She grins at me. “Well, awkward introductions safely out of the way, want to try this station?”
The station involves us being in Italy and having to communicate with locals to try and find a drug den. Italian is my specialty language (even though I’m fluent in pretty much all of them), so I take over the station while Dessy tells me all about her Team.
She’s a part of a girl-girl pair, with a girl named Elizabeth Cook. Elizabeth, according to Dessy, is a “vapid, overconfident, cheerleader with great hair”. The other girl, another Athletic, seems slightly better. Unlike Elizabeth, this girl, Alice Cannon, didn’t care when Dessy announced she was a lesbian, and actually clapped. Dessy says she doesn’t really know much about the guys yet.
I find the drug den, and we move onto the next station. This one has a lot of math, and I let Dessy take over. I tell her about Ryan, and everyone else on my Team. At the next station, we run into Matt and a boy from Dessy’s Team, whose name ends up being Evan Dorsey. We collaborate, me doing most of the talking, Dessy doing the math, Matt cracking all the codes, and Evan taking over when we need to know random facts. Every time he knows something we don’t, his light green eyes glint underneath his sandy blonde hair.
I feel a bit guilty about leaving out Natalie, and the blue-haired boy on their Team named Tyrone Adams, but they seem to be doing fine. Soon I forget about them, and then it’s time for lunch.
We eat with the Athletics, but they eat at one table and we eat at the other. I point out Ashley, Ryan, and Alex to Dessy, and she points out Jack Livingston, Alice, and Elizabeth. Elizabeth looks just like every stereotypical cheerleader type you can think of, with long blonde hair tied in a ponytail, a perfect body, and just the right amount of makeup. Alice is a bit different. Her body is perfect, too, but her hair is dark, and she has on dark purple lipstick. Jack has dark skin and very white teeth that seem to glow every time he opens his mouth.
After lunch, the Athletics go to the Intelligence training room and we go the Athletics training room, because it’s important that we can do everything in case we need to.
Dessy and I head over to the rock climbing wall and have a race for who can make it to the top. I win. I laugh at her from the top while she desperately clings to the wall. “Climbing is not my strong suit!” she calls up at me.
“I can see that!” I call back.
I lower myself down to the ground and unclip my harness. When I step out of it, though, I trip and am about to fall on my butt when I feel someone catch me. Dessy? No, that doesn’t make any sense; she’s still on the wall. Then who—?
“Whoa, there,” a distinctly male voice says from behind me. Evan. “Careful.”
I quickly free myself from his arms and regain my footing. “I would have been fine,” I mutter, feeling myself blush.
“Yeah, right,” he snickers. “Maybe I should stick around, you know, make sure you don’t lose you balance again.”
By this time, Dessy’s reached the floor and gracefully gotten out of her harness. “Well, we can’t stop you if you want to tag along,” she says.
“But,” I cut in, “I’m not sure you’ll want to do what we’re doing next.”
“Yeah?” He raises his eyebrows. “And what’s that?”
I smile wickedly. “Dancing.”
Surprisingly, he stays with us as we go to the dancing station. There’s fast dancing, slow dancing, hip-hop, and even ballet. Dessy clicks the ballroom dancing option, and the floor lights up. A screen pops up and tells you what you’re supposed to do.
The lights attract the right of the people in the room, and soon everyone is picking a partner. Dessy pairs up with Matt, Natalie shrugs and pairs up with Tyrone, leaving me and Evan. Crap. This isn’t what I had in mind.
Evan looks at the screen, and then extends his hand. “M’lady?”
I roll my eyes, and put my hand in his. “Yeah, yeah.” Then we glance back at the screen and start dancing.
It isn’t as bad as I though it would be, and it actually ends up being pretty fun. Dessy takes the role of the guy, and leads Matt all over the floor, which is even funnier considering how tiny she is. Tyrone is hopeless, and trips over his own feet and falls flat on his face. At this point, Natalie takes a step back from him and says, “I didn’t do it.”
As for me and Evan, the initial awkwardness goes away, and we both end up being fairly decent. I giggle when he twirls me around, and we end the dance with him dipping me dramatically. I’m laughing and out of breath, but he still seems totally composed, and just smiles, his eyes looking into mine. Suddenly I feel self-conscious again, and I let him bring me back up from the dip. I run over to Dessy and she whispers, “You guys killed that.”
“In a good way or a bad way?”
“In the best way possible.”
I grin. “Well, you weren’t too bad yourself, leading Matt like that. I never would’ve thought he’d agree to it.”
She shrugs. “Eh, we’re just trying to fulfill a stereotype. The lesbian leads the gay guy.”
This catches me off guard. “Gay guy?”
“Oh, come on, Chloe, what straight guy would let himself be led by a girl?”
“I can think of, like, one…maybe.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’ll have you know, I have excellent gaydar. I’ll bet you one dollar that Matt’s gay.”
I hold my hands up in surrender. “Hey, I’ll take your word for it. I have terrible gaydar.”
“All right then.”
We do a few more exercises until I’m exhausted and training is over. I go right back to the Dorm and flop down on my bed. I’ll have to get up again for dinner, but right now I just want to sleep.
Unfortunately, Ashley has other plans.
“Hey, Chloe?” I hear her say.
I groan into my pillow.
“I know you’re tired, but can I ask you something?”
I sit up. “I guess. What?” I notice dismally that Natalie is already asleep on the bottom bunk. Dammit.
“So, you and Ryan went to the same school, right?”
I nod.
“I was just wondering if you and he, ever, you know…?”
I blink. I am literally too tired to even comprehend what she is saying right now. “What?”
“Do you like him?” She says slowly.
“What? No. Ew. I barely know him, and from what I do know, he’s a total jerk,” I answer, finally getting what she’s saying.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. 100%. If you want him, go for it.” My eyelids start to droop.
“Oh, I don’t like him,” Ashley says quickly. “Elizabeth does. I just wanted to make sure for her.”
“Yeah, well, tell her to butter her own popcorn,” I say, sinking back to my pillow.
“Huh?”
But I’m already drifting off to sleep.