SEVENTEEN years to Live

20 ●○► A PROBLEM

CHAPTER TWENTY

 ●○► A PROBLEM

The challenge sends a disgusted feeling around my body. I don’t know how to react to it and how we’re going to do it. I can’t imagine how it’s going to happen. I have no idea who’s going to do it. Me or Bryan? My body tells me “no.”

I expect something different. Something that might get one of us hurt. But it’s different. I don’t have any idea that this is what they’re going to make us do. I’m sure that none of us can do it.

For a second, I put my eye back on the paper. I read the challenge again but it only makes the feeling worse. I feel like I’m going to puke somewhere.

It says, “This challenge has to be done by one person only. For one minute and thirty seconds, kiss someone in your same sex.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bryan shake his head, unfolding the paper and putting it back inside the envelope. Then he glances to the counter at Mr. Fat Man. There is minute of silence, in which they have an eye contact.

Suddenly, a throat is cleared.

“Now,” says Mr. Gold Hair, “who’s gonna do it?”

Finally, Bryan breaks his gaze at Mr. Fat Man. He turns his head slowly to look at me in the eye. We stare at each other. He is the first one to speak.

“Who?” he says quietly.

I sigh. “I don’t wanna do it.”

“Me too.” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t wanna do it.”

“Then who will?”

He goes silent for a minute, facing down and making a fist.

“I’ve never kissed a girl before,” I say, and it seems really awkward when I tell him that. I watch him still facing down. I know what he’s thinking.

“I don’t wanna kiss a guy, Mary,” he says. “I can’t.”

“But who’s gonna do the challenge? Me? I don’t want, Bryan. I don’t want kissing someone I don’t know!”

“How about the girl who’s with you a while back?” The voice comes from the counter suddenly. This time it’s the other man who spoke. He looks younger than Mr. Fat Man and Mr. Gold Hair. He inclines his head to the side, his brown eyes narrowed at me when I look at him. He has pinkish lips, flawless tan skin, black hair and high jaws. I wonder how old he is because I think he’s really cute.

“Janine?” I whisper to myself so that only I can hear. Saying her name makes me shiver in disgust and roll my eyes. Janine? I think. I can’t kiss her. She is like my sister, and it’s like incest when I do that.

“What about the boy you just met inside the chamber?” he adds, smirking.

“Sephred?” whispers Bryan in the same quality of my voice.

“You have someone you know. You just have to choose who’s gonna do the challenge.” He pauses. “We’ll give you one minute to decide. When the time is up and you’re still undecided, we’ll send you both to prison.”

Bryan and I exchange nervous glances. I want to protest against him but I’m afraid that if I do that it will just make the situation worse. I look back at the youngest man. He puts something—a timer—in front of him, pressing a button and holding it as he gives us a terrible look.

“Your time starts now,” he says, and then detaches his finger from the button.

We have to decide . . . like right now!