Oh. That led to the next obvious question.
“What does that mean?”
Elias didn’t answer, just kept striding forward, pulling me with him past various platforms covered with tents.
Some of them stood open, the guys inside watching us intently.
In other cases, small groups of guys stood and talked outside their tents. They too stopped and watched as we passed.
As happy as everyone had seemed a few minutes ago at the Haven-wide meeting, some of them looked angry now.
One or two, including the wormy guy they called Speck, looked downright hostile.
A shiver ran through me at the sight of his baleful glare.
That guy hates me.
Suddenly I was glad to be heading for the relative safety of Elias’ tent.
Lowering my voice, I asked him, “So what are the Eligibility Trials? Eligible for what?”
“I’ll explain when we get home,” he said tersely.
Having no other choice, I went along with him quietly until we reached his private terrace high above the others. His tent was the only one I’d seen that stood alone.
Now that we couldn’t be overheard, I asked again. “What are the games about? What are the winners eligible for?”
There was a long silence before Elias answered. He bit his lip before speaking, and when he answered he avoided looking at me. Instead, he went to the wash basin and started scrubbing his hands.
“A mate.”
A mate? The unfamiliar word bounced around in my brain for a few seconds before I comprehended his meaning.
My heart plummeted to the tent floor. “You mean… for us? Ketta and Jolie and me? We’re the prizes in some sort of macho gladiator battle?”
What had I done bringing my friends here? We hadn’t found Never Never Land.
No, this place was more like a different book we’d read in Classic Lit— The Lord of the Flies.
The Wild Boys here were all grown up and ready to fight to the death for female companionship.
And my friends and I truly were prisoners with no rights, no choices.
“It’s not really like the gladiators,” Elias explained. “They don’t fight to the death, in fact the competitions are purposely non-violent. Occasionally someone gets accidentally hurt, but the games are more like races or individual sports where the winner has the fastest time or the greatest accuracy or agility. Generally it’s the strongest and fastest guys who win eligibility.”
“You mean who win a girl,” I snapped. “I can’t believe that’s what you’ve done with your chance to create a new society—gone back to the Dark Ages.”
I was so furious my voice was shaking, and my skin felt fire-hot.
“How can you call this place a haven? You’ve resurrected the ancient travesty of slavery. And you condone rape?”
Elias’ jaw dropped and his eyes went wide in apparent shock and horror.
“Of course not. Miri, listen to me.”
“Don’t call me that,” I spat.
Friends from time to time had shortened my name into a nickname like that, and I didn’t mind at all. In fact, I kind of liked it.
Elias was not my friend.
“Sorry. Mireya. Please give me a chance to explain. It’s not what you think at all.”
“Oh, so my friends and I are not the spoils of war? They won’t be competing for us?”
“No… they will compete for you,” he admitted. “For the chance to be with you. But you’re not guaranteed prizes, and you certainly won’t be slaves. They’re called the Eligibility Trials because that’s the prize. The winners have the opportunity to get to know a girl and let her get to know him. The girl isn’t forced to sleep with her champion—or even stay with him. She only accepts him if she chooses to.”
“And if she chooses not to?”
I certainly wouldn’t be choosing one of these tree-climbing brutes—no matter who won me.
“If she chooses not to, the guy with the next best score gets a chance to court her,” Elias said.
“This is barbaric. If I’d known about this, we never would have come here.”
“You’d rather have stayed back on your base and been a brainwashed little doll for the humans to play with?”
“Better than be a thing to be won and traded from guy to guy in some sort of twisted power game.”
“No, you don’t understand at all, Miri—Mireya.”
Elias shook his head rapidly, waving his palms in tight motions as if he was erasing the words still hanging in the air between us.
“The girls are the ones with all the power here. They’re practically goddesses, worshipped and protected and provided for. That’s the main reason you haven’t seen them around. They don’t have jobs like the rest of us at the Haven. We spoil them and take care of their every need—especially their mates.”
“What if a girl doesn’t want a mate? What if she rejects every guy on down the line to the last place scorer?”
His wide shoulders lifted and fell. “I guess it’s possible. Hasn’t ever happened. The girls here have all found someone they’re happy with.”
I stewed over it a few minutes. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I’d first assumed. But still, it was strange.
And I didn’t like that I was just now finding out about all this—and seemed to have no choice in the matter.
Or did I?
“Do I have a choice? Can I just skip the whole thing?”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” Elias said. “Until the winners—and as many runners up as necessary—get their shot, you’d be perceived as… available. There’d be no end to the unwanted ‘attention’ you’d receive. You’ll be safer and better off with a champion.”
For a few minutes I thought it over. I didn’t like it, but I liked the idea of leaving the Haven and going off on my own even less.
And I’d never be able to ensure my friends’ safety out there in the world.
Who knew? Maybe they’d be excited about the games.
Ketta had always been boy crazy—now she’d literally have dozens of boys to choose from, all of them competing for the chance to be with her.
She’d probably consider it a dream come true.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem… proper. It’s not exactly civil for guys to battle it out over girls.”
“Actually, the Eligibility Trials ensure civility,” Elias said. “When we first got here, after we’d constructed a dwelling and secured food, the fights started breaking out. Everyone’s red pills wore off, the hormones started surging, and the guys started looking around and figuring out that this game of musical chairs was going to end up with a whole lot of them winding up without a seat, so to speak.”
He rolled his eyes.
“They were so preoccupied with gaining the girls’ attention they hardly got any work done. And whenever a girl did select someone, and they paired up, there was resentment among the males who weren’t chosen—toward him and the girl. In one case, someone died. His name was Steven.”
“In a fight?” I asked, amazed and horrified.
“No. More like an assassination. He and his attacker both had their eyes on the same girl. His rival killed him to remove the competition. That’s when we put this system into place. The Eligibility Trials gave the guys a more regulated way to compete, and it kept the girls from being blamed for making the ‘wrong’ choice. It’s created a peaceful community. We all agree on the rules and abide by them. No one messes with someone else’s girl.”
“What about love and attraction?” I said. “Do those mean nothing?”
“Believe me, in a society where the guys outnumber the girls ten to one… attraction is not a problem,” he said. “At least on the part of the guys. As far as the love part, I guess that’s up to the girl. She decides whether she could come to love the guy or not. If not, she rejects him, and the runner-up gets a shot. It may not be the height of romance, but it’s fair.”
My anger had dissipated a bit, and thinking back on what I’d witnessed tonight, I conceded that maybe the Trials were a necessary evil.
As Elias and I were leaving the stage together earlier, several of the guys had shot him dirty looks. There had been more as we made our way up to his tent.
I’d assumed the harsh stares were directed at me, but based on what he’d just said, they might have been for Elias.
Were the other boys jealous?
Resentful that he was allowed to spend time with one of the “new girls” while they hadn’t been afforded the same opportunity?
I supposed it was the privilege of leadership, like the private platform and tent. They should know Elias had kept me so close for security reasons—not because he had any romantic interest in me.
He’d removed his shirt to wash, and now leaned over the water basin, the muscles of his shoulders and arms glistening in the low light.
“Elias?”
He looked up from the basin and back at me over one shoulder.
“Yeah?”
For some reason my nerves started to simmer.
“Are you going to compete?”
