divergent

Divergent
Veronica Roth
To my mother,
who gave me the moment when Beatrice realizes how
strong
her mother is and wonders how she missed it for so long
Contents
Chapter One
THERE IS ONE mirror in my house. It is behind…
Chapter Two
THE TESTS BEGIN after lunch. We sit at the
long…
Chapter Three
I WAKE TO sweaty palms and a pang of guilt…
Chapter Four
I REACH MY street five minutes before I usually do,
…
Chapter Five
THE BUS WE take to get to the Choosing
Ceremony…
Chapter Six
I TRAIN MY eyes on the floor and stand behind…
Chapter Seven
WHEN ALL THE initiates stand on solid ground
again, Lauren…
Chapter Eight
“THE FIRST THING you will learn today is how
to…
Chapter Nine
“SINCE THERE ARE an odd number of you, one
of…
Chapter Ten
THAT NIGHT I dream that Christina hangs from the
railing…
Chapter Eleven
THE NEXT MORNING, I don’t hear the alarm,
shuffling feet,…
Chapter Twelve
I CRAWL ACROSS my mattress and heave a sigh.
It…
Chapter Thirteen
THE NEXT MORNING, when I trudge into the
training room,…
Chapter Fourteen
TODAY IS THE day before Visiting Day. I think of…
Chapter Fifteen
VISITING DAY. The second I open my eyes, I
remember.
Chapter Sixteen
THAT AFTERNOON, I go back to the dormitory
while everyone…
Chapter Seventeen
IT’S NOON. LUNCHTIME.
Chapter Eighteen
AS FAR AS I can tell, the second stage of…
Chapter Nineteen
WHEN I WALK IN, most of the other initiates—
Dauntless-born and…
Chapter Twenty
I BREATHE THROUGH my nose. In, out. In.
Chapter Twenty-One
THE DOOR TO the Pit closes behind me, and I…
Chapter Twenty-Two
I OPEN MY eyes to the words “Fear God Alone”…
Chapter Twenty-Three
I DON’T GO back to the dorms that night.
Sleeping…
Chapter Twenty-Four
“TRIS.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
I STAND WITH Will and Christina at the railing
overlooking…
Chapter Twenty-Six
HAND IN HAND, we walk toward the Pit. I monitor…
Chapter Twenty-Seven
THE NEXT MORNING I am silly and light. Every
time…
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I PULL MY jacket tight around my shoulders. I
haven’t…
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I HAVE ATTENDED Abnegation’s initiation
ceremony every year except this…
Chapter Thirty
I AM READY. I step into the room, armed not…
Chapter Thirty-One
THE LIGHTS COME on. I stand alone in the
empty…
Chapter Thirty-Two
I WATCH TOBIAS’S face carefully as we walk to
the…
Chapter Thirty-Three
I TRY TO get Tobias alone after the rankings are…
Chapter Thirty-Four
I LEAN HEAVILY on Tobias. A gun barrel pressed
to…
Chapter Thirty-Five
I WAKE IN the dark, wedged in a hard corner.
Chapter Thirty-Six
THREE DAUNTLESS SOLDIERS pursue me. They
run in unison, their…
Chapter Thirty-Seven
ERUDITE AND DAUNTLESS forces are
concentrated in the Abnegation sector…
Chapter Thirty-Eight
TOBIAS’S HEAD TURNS, and his dark eyes shift to
me.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
THE SHOT DOESN’T come. He stares at me
with the…
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
CHAPTER ONE
THERE IS ONE mirror in my house. It is behind a sliding panel
in the hallway upstairs. Our faction allows me to stand in
front of it on the second day of every third month, the day my
mother cuts my hair.
I sit on the stool and my mother stands behind me with the
scissors, trimming. The strands fall on the floor in a dull,
blond ring.
When she finishes, she pulls my hair away from my face
and twists it into a knot. I note how calm she looks and how
focused she is. She is well-practiced in the art of losing
herself. I can’t say the same of myself.
I sneak a look at my reflection when she isn’t paying
attention—not for the sake of vanity, but out of curiosity. A lot
can happen to a person’s appearance in three months. In
my reflection, I see a narrow face, wide, round eyes, and a
long, thin nose—I still look like a little girl, though sometime
in the last few months I turned sixteen. The other factions
celebrate birthdays, but we don’t. It would be self-indulgent.
“There,” she says when she pins the knot in place. Her
eyes catch mine in the mirror. It is too late to look away, but
instead of scolding me, she smiles at our reflection. I frown a
little. Why doesn’t she reprimand me for staring at myself?
“So today is the day,” she says.
“Yes,” I reply.
“Are you nervous?”
I stare into my own eyes for a moment. Today is the day of
the aptitude test that will show me which of the five factions I
belong in. And tomorrow, at the Choosing Ceremony, I will
decide on a faction; I will decide the rest of my life; I will
decide to stay with my family or abandon them.
“No,” I say. “The tests don’t have to change our choices.”
“Right.” She smiles. “Let’s go eat breakfast.”
“Thank you. For cutting my hair.”
She kisses my cheek and slides the panel over the mirror.
I think my mother could be beautiful, in a different world. Her
body is thin beneath the gray robe. She has high
cheekbones and long eyelashes, and when she lets her hair
down at night, it hangs in waves over her shoulders. But she
must hide that beauty in Abnegation.
We walk together to the kitchen. On these mornings when
my brother makes breakfast, and my father’s hand skims my
hair as he reads the newspaper, and my mother hums as
she clears the table—it is on these mornings that I feel
guiltiest for wanting to leave them.
The bus stinks of exhaust. Every time it hits a patch of
uneven pavement, it jostles me from side to side, even
though I’m gripping the seat to keep myself still.
My older brother, Caleb, stands in the aisle, holding a
railing above his head to keep himself steady. We don’t
look alike. He has my father’s dark hair and hooked nose
and my mother’s green eyes and dimpled cheeks. When he
was younger, that collection of features looked strange, but
now it suits him. If he wasn’t Abnegation, I’m sure the girls at
school would stare at him.
He also inherited my mother’s talent for selflessness. He
gave his seat to a surly Candor man on the bus without a
second thought.
The Candor man wears a black suit with a white tie—
Candor standard uniform. Their faction values honesty and
sees the truth as black and white, so that is what they wear.
The gaps between the buildings narrow and the roads are
smoother as we near the heart of the city. The building that
was once called the Sears Tower—we call it the Hub—
emerges from the fog, a black pillar in the skyline. The bus
passes under the elevated tracks. I have never been on a
train, though they never stop running and there are tracks
everywhere. Only the Dauntless ride them.
Five years ago, volunteer construction workers from
Abnegation repaved some of the roads. They started in the
middle of the city and worked their way outward until they
ran out of materials. The roads where I live are still cracked
and patchy, and it’s not safe to drive on them. We don’t have
a car anyway.
Caleb’s expression is placid as the bus sways and jolts
on the road. The gray robe falls from his arm as he clutches
a pole for balance. I can tell by the constant shift of his eyes
that he is watching the people around us—striving to see
only them and to forget himself. Candor values honesty, but
our faction, Abnegation, values selflessness.
The bus stops in front of the school and I get up, scooting
past the Candor man. I grab Caleb’s arm as I stumble over
the man’s shoes. My slacks are too long, and I’ve never
been that graceful.
The Upper Levels building is the oldest of the three
schools in the city: Lower Levels, Mid-Levels, and Upper
Levels. Like all the other buildings around it, it is made of
glass and steel. In front of it is a large metal sculpture that
the Dauntless climb after school, daring each other to go
higher and higher. Last year I watched one of them fall and
break her leg. I was the one who ran to get the nurse.
“Aptitude tests today,” I say. Caleb is not quite a year
older than I am, so we are in the same year at school.
He nods as we pass through the front doors. My muscles
tighten the second we walk in. The atmosphere feels hungry,
like every sixteen-year-old is trying to devour as much as he
can get of this last day. It is likely that we will not walk these
halls again after the Choosing Ceremony—once we
choose, our new factions will be responsible for finishing our
education.
Our classes are cut in half today, so we will attend all of
them before the aptitude tests, which take place after lunch.
My heart rate is already elevated.
“You aren’t at all worried about what they’ll tell you?” I ask
Caleb.
We pause at the split in the hallway where he will go one
way, toward Advanced Math, and I will go the other, toward
Faction History.
He raises an eyebrow at me. “Are you?”
I could tell him I’ve been worried for weeks about what the
aptitude test will tell me—Abnegation, Candor, Erudite,
Amity, or Dauntless?
Instead I smile and say, “Not really.”
He smiles back. “Well…have a good day.”
I walk toward Faction History, chewing on my lower lip. He
never answered my question.
The hallways are cramped, though the light coming
through the windows creates the illusion of space; they are
one of the only places where the factions mix, at our age.
Today the crowd has a new kind of energy, a last day
mania.
A girl with long curly hair shouts “Hey!” next to my ear,
waving at a distant friend. A jacket sleeve smacks me on
the cheek. Then an Erudite boy in a blue sweater shoves
me. I lose my balance and fall hard on the ground.
“Out of my way, Stiff,” he snaps, and continues down the
hallway.
My cheeks warm. I get up and dust myself off. A few
people stopped when I fell, but none of them offered to help
me. Their eyes follow me to the edge of the hallway. This
sort of thing has been happening to others in my faction for
months now—the Erudite have been releasing antagonistic
reports about Abnegation, and it has begun to affect the way
we relate at school. The gray clothes, the plain hairstyle, and
the unassuming demeanor of my faction are supposed to
make it easier for me to forget myself, and easier for
everyone else to forget me too. But now they make me a
target.
I pause by a window in the E Wing and wait for the
Dauntless to arrive. I do this every morning. At exactly 7:25,
the Dauntless prove their bravery by jumping from a moving
train.
My father calls the Dauntless “hellions.” They are pierced,
tattooed, and black-clothed. Their primary purpose is to
guard the fence that surrounds our city. From what, I don’t
know.
They should perplex me. I should wonder what courage—
which is the virtue they most value—has to do with a metal
ring through your nostril. Instead my eyes cling to them
wherever they go.
The train whistle blares, the sound resonating in my chest.
The light fixed to the front of the train clicks on and off as the
train hurtles past the school, squealing on iron rails. And as
the last few cars pass, a mass exodus of young men and
women in dark clothing hurl themselves from the moving
cars, some dropping and rolling, others stumbling a few
steps before regaining their balance. One of the boys wraps
his arm around a girl’s shoulders, laughing.
Watching them is a foolish practice. I turn away from the
window and press through the crowd to the Faction History
classroom.
CHAPTER TWO
THE TESTS BEGIN after lunch. We sit at the long tables in the
cafeteria, and the test administrators call ten names at a
time, one for each testing room. I sit next to Caleb and
across from our neighbor Susan.
Susan’s father travels throughout the city for his job, so he
has a car and drives her to and from school every day. He
offered to drive us, too, but as Caleb says, we prefer to
leave later and would not want to inconvenience him.
Of course not.
The test administrators are mostly Abnegation volunteers,
although there is an Erudite in one of the testing rooms and
a Dauntless in another to test those of us from Abnegation,
because the rules state that we can’t be tested by someone
from our own faction. The rules also say that we can’t
prepare for the test in any way, so I don’t know what to
expect.
My gaze drifts from Susan to the Dauntless tables across
the room. They are laughing and shouting and playing cards.
At another set of tables, the Erudite chatter over books and
newspapers, in constant pursuit of knowledge.
A group of Amity girls in yellow and red sit in a circle on
the cafeteria floor, playing some kind of hand-slapping
game involving a rhyming song. Every few minutes I hear a
chorus of laughter from them as someone is eliminated and
has to sit in the center of the circle. At the table next to them,
Candor boys make wide gestures with their hands. They
appear to be arguing about something, but it must not be
serious, because some of them are still smiling.
At the Abnegation table, we sit quietly and wait. Faction
customs dictate even idle behavior and supersede
individual preference. I doubt all the Erudite want to study all
the time, or that every Candor enjoys a lively debate, but
they can’t defy the norms of their factions any more than I
can.
Caleb’s name is called in the next group. He moves
confidently toward the exit. I don’t need to wish him luck or
assure him that he shouldn’t be nervous. He knows where
he belongs, and as far as I know, he always has. My earliest
memory of him is from when we were four years old. He
scolded me for not giving my jump rope to a little girl on the
playground who didn’t have anything to play with. He doesn’t
lecture me often anymore, but I have his look of disapproval
memorized.
I have tried to explain to him that my instincts are not the
same as his—it didn’t even enter my mind to give my seat to
the Candor man on the bus—but he doesn’t understand.
“Just do what you’re supposed to,” he always says. It is that
easy for him. It should be that easy for me.
My stomach wrenches. I close my eyes and keep them
closed until ten minutes later, when Caleb sits down again.
He is plaster-pale. He pushes his palms along his legs
like I do when I wipe off sweat, and when he brings them
back, his fingers shake. I open my mouth to ask him
something, but the words don’t come. I am not allowed to
ask him about his results, and he is not allowed to tell me.
An Abnegation volunteer speaks the next round of names.
Two from Dauntless, two from Erudite, two from Amity, two
from Candor, and then: “From Abnegation: Susan Black and
Beatrice Prior.”
I get up because I’m supposed to, but if it were up to me, I
would stay in my seat for the rest of time. I feel like there is a
bubble in my chest that expands more by the second,
threatening to break me apart from the inside. I follow Susan
to the exit. The people I pass probably can’t tell us apart. We
wear the same clothes and we wear our blond hair the same
way. The only difference is that Susan might not feel like
she’s going to throw up, and from what I can tell, her hands
aren’t shaking so hard she has to clutch the hem of her shirt
to steady them.
Waiting for us outside the cafeteria is a row of ten rooms.
They are used only for the aptitude tests, so I have never
been in one before. Unlike the other rooms in the school,
they are separated, not by glass, but by mirrors. I watch
myself, pale and terrified, walking toward one of the doors.
Susan grins nervously at me as she walks into room 5, and I
walk into room 6, where a Dauntless woman waits for me.
She is not as severe-looking as the young Dauntless I
have seen. She has small, dark, angular eyes and wears a
black blazer—like a man’s suit—and jeans. It is only when
she turns to close the door that I see a tattoo on the back of
her neck, a black-and-white hawk with a red eye. If I didn’t
feel like my heart had migrated to my throat, I would ask her
what it signifies. It must signify something.
Mirrors cover the inner walls of the room. I can see my
reflection from all angles: the gray fabric obscuring the
shape of my back, my long neck, my knobby-knuckled
hands, red with a blood blush. The ceiling glows white with
light. In the center of the room is a reclined chair, like a
dentist’s, with a machine next to it. It looks like a place
where terrible things happen.
“Don’t worry,” the woman says, “it doesn’t hurt.”
Her hair is black and straight, but in the light I see that it is
streaked with gray.
“Have a seat and get comfortable,” she says. “My name is
Tori.”
Clumsily I sit in the chair and recline, putting my head on
the headrest. The lights hurt my eyes. Tori busies herself
with the machine on my right. I try to focus on her and not on
the wires in her hands.
“Why the hawk?” I blurt out as she attaches an electrode
to my forehead.
“Never met a curious Abnegation before,” she says,
raising her eyebrows at me.
I shiver, and goose bumps appear on my arms. My
curiosity is a mistake, a betrayal of Abnegation values.
Humming a little, she presses another electrode to my
forehead and explains, “In some parts of the ancient world,
the hawk symbolized the sun. Back when I got this, I figured
if I always had the sun on me, I wouldn’t be afraid of the
dark.”
I try to stop myself from asking another question, but I
can’t help it. “You’re afraid of the dark?”
“I was afraid of the dark,” she corrects me. She presses
the next electrode to her own forehead, and attaches a wire
to it. She shrugs. “Now it reminds me of the fear I’ve
overcome.”
She stands behind me. I squeeze the armrests so tightly
the redness pulls away from my knuckles. She tugs wires
toward her, attaching them to me, to her, to the machine
behind her. Then she passes me a vial of clear liquid.
“Drink this,” she says.
“What is it?” My throat feels swollen. I swallow hard.
“What’s going to happen?”
“Can’t tell you that. Just trust me.”
I press air from my lungs and tip the contents of the vial
into my mouth. My eyes close.
When they open, an instant has passed, but I am
somewhere else. I stand in the school cafeteria again, but all
the long tables are empty, and I see through the glass walls
that it’s snowing. On the table in front of me are two baskets.
In one is a hunk of cheese, and in the other, a knife the
length of my forearm.
Behind me, a woman’s voice says, “Choose.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Choose,” she repeats.
I look over my shoulder, but no one is there. I turn back to
the baskets. “What will I do with them?”
“Choose!” she yells.
When she screams at me, my fear disappears and
stubbornness replaces it. I scowl and cross my arms.
“Have it your way,” she says.
The baskets disappear. I hear a door squeak and turn to
see who it is. I see not a “who” but a “what”: A dog with a
pointed nose stands a few yards away from me. It crouches
low and creeps toward me, its lips peeling back from its
white teeth. A growl gurgles from deep in its throat, and I
see why the cheese would have come in handy. Or the knife.
But it’s too late now.
I think about running, but the dog will be faster than me. I
can’t wrestle it to the ground. My head pounds. I have to
make a decision. If I can jump over one of the tables and
use it as a shield—no, I am too short to jump over the tables,
and not strong enough to tip one over.
The dog snarls, and I can almost feel the sound vibrating
in my skull.
My biology textbook said that dogs can smell fear
because of a chemical secreted by human glands in a state
of duress, the same chemical a dog’s prey secretes.
Smelling fear leads them to attack. The dog inches toward
me, its nails scraping the floor.
I can’t run. I can’t fight. Instead I breathe in the smell of the
dog’s foul breath and try not to think about what it just ate.
There are no whites in its eyes, just a black gleam.
What else do I know about dogs? I shouldn’t look it in the
eye. That’s a sign of aggression. I remember asking my
father for a pet dog when I was young, and now, staring at
the ground in front of the dog’s paws, I can’t remember why.
It comes closer, still growling. If staring into its eyes is a sign
of aggression, what’s a sign of submission?
My breaths are loud but steady. I sink to my knees. The
last thing I want to do is lie down on the ground in front of the
dog—making its teeth level with my face—but it’s the best
option I have. I stretch my legs out behind me and lean on
my elbows. The dog creeps closer, and closer, until I feel its
warm breath on my face. My arms are shaking.
It barks in my ear, and I clench my teeth to keep from
screaming.
Something rough and wet touches my cheek. The dog’s
growling stops, and when I lift my head to look at it again, it
is panting. It licked my face. I frown and sit on my heels. The
dog props its paws up on my knees and licks my chin. I
cringe, wiping the drool from my skin, and laugh.
“You’re not such a vicious beast, huh?”
I get up slowly so I don’t startle it, but it seems like a
different animal than the one that faced me a few seconds
ago. I stretch out a hand, carefully, so I can draw it back if I
need to. The dog nudges my hand with its head. I am
suddenly glad I didn’t pick up the knife.
I blink, and when my eyes open, a child stands across the
room wearing a white dress. She stretches out both hands
and squeals, “Puppy!”
As she runs toward the dog at my side, I open my mouth
to warn her, but I am too late. The dog turns. Instead of
growling, it barks and snarls and snaps, and its muscles
bunch up like coiled wire. About to pounce. I don’t think, I just
jump; I hurl my body on top of the dog, wrapping my arms
around its thick neck.
My head hits the ground. The dog is gone, and so is the
little girl. Instead I am alone—in the testing room, now
empty. I turn in a slow circle and can’t see myself in any of
the mirrors. I push the door open and walk into the hallway,
but it isn’t a hallway; it’s a bus, and all the seats are taken.
I stand in the aisle and hold on to a pole. Sitting near me
is a man with a newspaper. I can’t see his face over the top
of the paper, but I can see his hands. They are scarred, like
he was burned, and they clench around the paper like he
wants to crumple it.
“Do you know this guy?” he asks. He taps the picture on
the front page of the newspaper. The headline reads: “Brutal
Murderer Finally Apprehended!” I stare at the word
“murderer.” It has been a long time since I last read that
word, but even its shape fills me with dread.
In the picture beneath the headline is a young man with a
plain face and a beard. I feel like I do know him, though I
don’t remember how. And at the same time, I feel like it
would be a bad idea to tell the man that.
“Well?” I hear anger in his voice. “Do you?”
A bad idea—no, a very bad idea. My heart pounds and I
clutch the pole to keep my hands from shaking, from giving
me away. If I tell him I know the man from the article,
something awful will happen to me. But I can convince him
that I don’t. I can clear my throat and shrug my shoulders—
but that would be a lie.
I clear my throat.
“Do you?” he repeats.
I shrug my shoulders.
“Well?”
A shudder goes through me. My fear is irrational; this is
just a test, it isn’t real. “Nope,” I say, my voice casual. “No
idea who he is.”
He stands, and finally I see his face. He wears dark
sunglasses and his mouth is bent into a snarl. His cheek is
rippled with scars, like his hands. He leans close to my face.
His breath smells like cigarettes. Not real, I remind myself.
Not real.
“You’re lying,” he says. “You’re lying!”
“I am not.”
“I can see it in your eyes.”
I pull myself up straighter. “You can’t.”
“If you know him,” he says in a low voice, “you could save
me. You could save me!”
I narrow my eyes. “Well,” I say. I set my jaw. “I don’t.”
CHAPTER THREE
I WAKE TO sweaty palms and a pang of guilt in my chest. I am
lying in the chair in the mirrored room. When I tilt my head
back, I see Tori behind me. She pinches her lips together
and removes electrodes from our heads. I wait for her to say
something about the test—that it’s over, or that I did well,
although how could I do poorly on a test like this?—but she
says nothing, just pulls the wires from my forehead.
I sit forward and wipe my palms off on my slacks. I had to
have done something wrong, even if it only happened in my
mind. Is that strange look on Tori’s face because she
doesn’t know how to tell me what a terrible person I am? I
wish she would just come out with it.
“That,” she says, “was perplexing. Excuse me, I’ll be right
back.”
Perplexing?
I bring my knees to my chest and bury my face in them. I
wish I felt like crying, because the tears might bring me a
sense of release, but I don’t. How can you fail a test you
aren’t allowed to prepare for?
As the moments pass, I get more nervous. I have to wipe
off my hands every few seconds as the sweat collects—or
maybe I just do it because it helps me feel calmer. What if
they tell me that I’m not cut out for any faction? I would have
to live on the streets, with the factionless. I can’t do that. To
live factionless is not just to live in poverty and discomfort; it
is to live divorced from society, separated from the most
important thing in life: community.
My mother told me once that we can’t survive alone, but
even if we could, we wouldn’t want to. Without a faction, we
have no purpose and no reason to live.
I shake my head. I can’t think like this. I have to stay calm.
Finally the door opens, and Tori walks back in. I grip the
arms of the chair.
“Sorry to worry you,” Tori says. She stands by my feet with
her hands in her pockets. She looks tense and pale.
“Beatrice, your results were inconclusive,” she says.
“Typically, each stage of the simulation eliminates one or
more of the factions, but in your case, only two have been
ruled out.”
I stare at her. “Two?” I ask. My throat is so tight it’s hard to
talk.
“If you had shown an automatic distaste for the knife and
selected the cheese, the simulation would have led you to a
different scenario that confirmed your aptitude for Amity.
That didn’t happen, which is why Amity is out.” Tori
scratches the back of her neck. “Normally, the simulation
progresses in a linear fashion, isolating one faction by ruling
out the rest. The choices you made didn’t even allow
Candor, the next possibility, to be ruled out, so I had to alter
the simulation to put you on the bus. And there your
insistence upon dishonesty ruled out Candor.” She half
smiles. “Don’t worry about that. Only the Candor tell the truth
in that one.”
One of the knots in my chest loosens. Maybe I’m not an
awful person.
“I suppose that’s not entirely true. People who tell the truth
are the Candor…and the Abnegation,” she says. “Which
gives us a problem.”
My mouth falls open.
“On the one hand, you threw yourself on the dog rather
than let it attack the little girl, which is an Abnegationoriented
response…but on the other, when the man told you
that the truth would save him, you still refused to tell it. Not an
Abnegation-oriented response.” She sighs. “Not running
from the dog suggests Dauntless, but so does taking the
knife, which you didn’t do.”
She clears her throat and continues. “Your intelligent
response to the dog indicates strong alignment with the
Erudite. I have no idea what to make of your indecision in
stage one, but—”
“Wait,” I interrupt her. “So you have no idea what my
aptitude is?”
“Yes and no. My conclusion,” she explains, “is that you
display equal aptitude for Abnegation, Dauntless, and
Erudite. People who get this kind of result are…” She looks
over her shoulder like she expects someone to appear
behind her. “…are called…Divergent.” She says the last
word so quietly that I almost don’t hear it, and her tense,
worried look returns. She walks around the side of the chair
and leans in close to me.
“Beatrice,” she says, “under no circumstances should you
share that information with anyone. This is very important.”
“We aren’t supposed to share our results.” I nod. “I know
that.”
“No.” Tori kneels next to the chair now and places her
arms on the armrest. Our faces are inches apart. “This is
different. I don’t mean you shouldn’t share them now; I mean
you should never share them with anyone, ever, no matter
what happens. Divergence is extremely dangerous. You
understand?”
I don’t understand—how could inconclusive test results be
dangerous?—but I still nod. I don’t want to share my test
results with anyone anyway.
“Okay.” I peel my hands from the arms of the chair and
stand. I feel unsteady.
“I suggest,” Tori says, “that you go home. You have a lot of
thinking to do, and waiting with the others may not benefit
you.”
“I have to tell my brother where I’m going.”
“I’ll let him know.”
I touch my forehead and stare at the floor as I walk out of
the room. I can’t bear to look her in the eye. I can’t bear to
think about the Choosing Ceremony tomorrow.
It’s my choice now, no matter what the test says.
Abnegation. Dauntless. Erudite.
Divergent.
I decide not to take the bus. If I get home early, my father will
notice when he checks the house log at the end of the day,
and I’ll have to explain what happened. Instead I walk. I’ll
have to intercept Caleb before he mentions anything to our
parents, but Caleb can keep a secret.
I walk in the middle of the road. The buses tend to hug the
curb, so it’s safer here. Sometimes, on the streets near my
house, I can see places where the yellow lines used to be.
We have no use for them now that there are so few cars. We
don’t need stoplights, either, but in some places they dangle
precariously over the road like they might crash down any
minute.
Renovation moves slowly through the city, which is a
patchwork of new, clean buildings and old, crumbling ones.
Most of the new buildings are next to the marsh, which used
to be a lake a long time ago. The Abnegation volunteer
agency my mother works for is responsible for most of those
renovations.
When I look at the Abnegation lifestyle as an outsider, I
think it’s beautiful. When I watch my family move in harmony;
when we go to dinner parties and everyone cleans together
afterward without having to be asked; when I see Caleb help
strangers carry their groceries, I fall in love with this life all
over again. It’s only when I try to live it myself that I have
trouble. It never feels genuine.
But choosing a different faction means I forsake my
family. Permanently.
Just past the Abnegation sector of the city is the stretch of
building skeletons and broken sidewalks that I now walk
through. There are places where the road has completely
collapsed, revealing sewer systems and empty subways
that I have to be careful to avoid, and places that stink so
powerfully of sewage and trash that I have to plug my nose.
This is where the factionless live. Because they failed to
complete initiation into whatever faction they chose, they live
in poverty, doing the work no one else wants to do. They are
janitors and construction workers and garbage collectors;
they make fabric and operate trains and drive buses. In
return for their work they get food and clothing, but, as my
mother says, not enough of either.
I see a factionless man standing on the corner up ahead.
He wears ragged brown clothing and skin sags from his jaw.
He stares at me, and I stare back at him, unable to look
away.
“Excuse me,” he says. His voice is raspy. “Do you have
something I can eat?”
I feel a lump in my throat. A stern voice in my head says,
Duck your head and keep walking.
No. I shake my head. I should not be afraid of this man.
He needs help and I am supposed to help him.
“Um…yes,” I say. I reach into my bag. My father tells me to
keep food in my bag at all times for exactly this reason. I
offer the man a small bag of dried apple slices.
He reaches for them, but instead of taking the bag, his
hand closes around my wrist. He smiles at me. He has a
gap between his front teeth.
“My, don’t you have pretty eyes,” he says. “It’s a shame
the rest of you is so plain.”
My heart pounds. I tug my hand back, but his grip tightens.
I smell something acrid and unpleasant on his breath.
“You look a little young to be walking around by yourself,
dear,” he says.
I stop tugging, and stand up straighter. I know I look
young; I don’t need to be reminded. “I’m older than I look,” I
retort. “I’m sixteen.”
His lips spread wide, revealing a gray molar with a dark
pit in the side. I can’t tell if he’s smiling or grimacing. “Then
isn’t today a special day for you? The day before you
choose?”
“Let go of me,” I say. I hear ringing in my ears. My voice
sounds clear and stern—not what I expected to hear. I feel
like it doesn’t belong to me.
I am ready. I know what to do. I picture myself bringing my
elbow back and hitting him. I see the bag of apples flying
away from me. I hear my running footsteps. I am prepared to
act.But then he releases my wrist, takes the apples, and says,
“Choose wisely, little girl.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I REACH MY street five minutes before I usually do, according
to my watch—which is the only adornment Abnegation
allows, and only because it’s practical. It has a gray band
and a glass face. If I tilt it right, I can almost see my reflection
over the hands.
The houses on my street are all the same size and shape.
They are made of gray cement, with few windows, in
economical, no-nonsense rectangles. Their lawns are
crabgrass and their mailboxes are dull metal. To some the
sight might be gloomy, but to me their simplicity is
comforting.
The reason for the simplicity isn’t disdain for uniqueness,
as the other factions have sometimes interpreted it.
Everything—our houses, our clothes, our hairstyles—is
meant to help us forget ourselves and to protect us from
vanity, greed, and envy, which are just forms of selfishness.
If we have little, and want for little, and we are all equal, we
envy no one.
I try to love it.
I sit on the front step and wait for Caleb to arrive. It doesn’t
take long. After a minute I see gray-robed forms walking
down the street. I hear laughter. At school we try not to draw
attention to ourselves, but once we’re home, the games and
jokes start. My natural tendency toward sarcasm is still not
appreciated. Sarcasm is always at someone’s expense.
Maybe it’s better that Abnegation wants me to suppress it.
Maybe I don’t have to leave my family. Maybe if I fight to
make Abnegation work, my act will turn into reality.
“Beatrice!” Caleb says. “What happened? Are you all
right?”
“I’m fine.” He is with Susan and her brother, Robert, and
Susan is giving me a strange look, like I am a different
person than the one she knew this morning. I shrug. “When
the test was over, I got sick. Must have been that liquid they
gave us. I feel better now, though.”
I try to smile convincingly. I seem to have persuaded
Susan and Robert, who no longer look concerned for my
mental stability, but Caleb narrows his eyes at me, the way
he does when he suspects someone of duplicity.
“Did you two take the bus today?” I ask. I don’t care how
Susan and Robert got home from school, but I need to
change the subject.
“Our father had to work late,” Susan says, “and he told us
we should spend some time thinking before the ceremony
tomorrow.”
My heart pounds at the mention of the ceremony.
“You’re welcome to come over later, if you’d like,” Caleb
says politely.
“Thank you.” Susan smiles at Caleb.
Robert raises an eyebrow at me. He and I have been
exchanging looks for the past year as Susan and Caleb flirt
in the tentative way known only to the Abnegation. Caleb’s
eyes follow Susan down the walk. I have to grab his arm to
startle him from his daze. I lead him into the house and close
the door behind us.
He turns to me. His dark, straight eyebrows draw together
so that a crease appears between them. When he frowns,
he looks more like my mother than my father. In an instant I
can see him living the same kind of life my father did:
staying in Abnegation, learning a trade, marrying Susan,
and having a family. It will be wonderful.
I may not see it.
“Are you going to tell me the truth now?” he asks softly.
“The truth is,” I say, “I’m not supposed to discuss it. And
you’re not supposed to ask.”
“All those rules you bend, and you can’t bend this one?
Not even for something this important?” His eyebrows tug
together, and he bites the corner of his lip. Though his words
are accusatory, it sounds like he is probing me for
information—like he actually wants my answer.
I narrow my eyes. “Will you? What happened in your test,
Caleb?”
Our eyes meet. I hear a train horn, so faint it could easily
be wind whistling through an alleyway. But I know it when I
hear it. It sounds like the Dauntless, calling me to them.
“Just…don’t tell our parents what happened, okay?” I say.
His eyes stay on mine for a few seconds, and then he
nods.
I want to go upstairs and lie down. The test, the walk, and
my encounter with the factionless man exhausted me. But
my brother made breakfast this morning, and my mother
prepared our lunches, and my father made dinner last night,
so it’s my turn to cook. I breathe deeply and walk into the
kitchen to start cooking.
A minute later, Caleb joins me. I grit my teeth. He helps
with everything. What irritates me most about him is his
natural goodness, his inborn selflessness.
Caleb and I work together without speaking. I cook peas
on the stove. He defrosts four pieces of chicken. Most of
what we eat is frozen or canned, because farms these days
are far away. My mother told me once that, a long time ago,
there were people who wouldn’t buy genetically engineered
produce because they viewed it as unnatural. Now we have
no other option.
By the time my parents get home, dinner is ready and the
table is set. My father drops his bag at the door and kisses
my head. Other people see him as an opinionated man—
too opinionated, maybe—but he’s also loving. I try to see
only the good in him; I try.
“How did the test go?” he asks me. I pour the peas into a
serving bowl.
“Fine,” I say. I couldn’t be Candor. I lie too easily.
“I heard there was some kind of upset with one of the
tests,” my mother says. Like my father, she works for the
government, but she manages city improvement projects.
She recruited volunteers to administer the aptitude tests.
Most of the time, though, she organizes workers to help the
factionless with food and shelter and job opportunities.
“Really?” says my father. A problem with the aptitude tests
is rare.
“I don’t know much about it, but my friend Erin told me that
something went wrong with one of the tests, so the results
had to be reported verbally.” My mother places a napkin
next to each plate on the table. “Apparently the student got
sick and was sent home early.” My mother shrugs. “I hope
they’re all right. Did you two hear about that?”
“No,” Caleb says. He smiles at my mother.
My brother couldn’t be Candor either.
We sit at the table. We always pass food to the right, and
no one eats until everyone is served. My father extends his
hands to my mother and my brother, and they extend their
hands to him and me, and my father gives thanks to God for
food and work and friends and family. Not every Abnegation
family is religious, but my father says we should try not to
see those differences because they will only divide us. I am
not sure what to make of that.
“So,” my mother says to my father. “Tell me.”
She takes my father’s hand and moves her thumb in a
small circle over his knuckles. I stare at their joined hands.
My parents love each other, but they rarely show affection
like this in front of us. They taught us that physical contact is
powerful, so I have been wary of it since I was young.
“Tell me what’s bothering you,” she adds.
I stare at my plate. My mother’s acute senses sometimes
surprise me, but now they chide me. Why was I so focused
on myself that I didn’t notice his deep frown and his sagging
posture?
“I had a difficult day at work,” he says. “Well, really, it was
Marcus who had the difficult day. I shouldn’t lay claim to it.”
Marcus is my father’s coworker; they are both political
leaders. The city is ruled by a council of fifty people,
composed entirely of representatives from Abnegation,
because our faction is regarded as incorruptible, due to our
commitment to selflessness. Our leaders are selected by
their peers for their impeccable character, moral fortitude,
and leadership skills. Representatives from each of the
other factions can speak in the meetings on behalf of a
particular issue, but ultimately, the decision is the council’s.
And while the council technically makes decisions together,
Marcus is particularly influential.
It has been this way since the beginning of the great
peace, when the factions were formed. I think the system
persists because we’re afraid of what might happen if it
didn’t: war.
“Is this about that report Jeanine Matthews released?” my
mother says. Jeanine Matthews is Erudite’s sole
representative, selected based on her IQ score. My father
complains about her often.
I look up. “A report?”
Caleb gives me a warning look. We aren’t supposed to
speak at the dinner table unless our parents ask us a direct
question, and they usually don’t. Our listening ears are a gift
to them, my father says. They give us their listening ears
after dinner, in the family room.
“Yes,” my father says. His eyes narrow. “Those arrogant,
self-righteous—” He stops and clears his throat. “Sorry. But
she released a report attacking Marcus’s character.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“What did it say?” I ask.
“Beatrice,” Caleb says quietly.
I duck my head, turning my fork over and over and over
until the warmth leaves my cheeks. I don’t like to be
chastised. Especially by my brother.
“It said,” my father says, “that Marcus’s violence and
cruelty toward his son is the reason his son chose Dauntless
instead of Abnegation.”
Few people who are born into Abnegation choose to
leave it. When they do, we remember. Two years ago,
Marcus’s son, Tobias, left us for the Dauntless, and Marcus
was devastated. Tobias was his only child—and his only
family, since his wife died giving birth to their second child.
The infant died minutes later.
I never met Tobias. He rarely attended community events
and never joined his father at our house for dinner. My father
often remarked that it was strange, but now it doesn’t
matter.
“Cruel? Marcus?” My mother shakes her head. “That poor
man. As if he needs to be reminded of his loss.”
“Of his son’s betrayal, you mean?” my father says coldly. “I
shouldn’t be surprised at this point. The Erudite have been
attacking us with these reports for months. And this isn’t the
end. There will be more, I guarantee it.”
I shouldn’t speak again, but I can’t help myself. I blurt out,
“Why are they doing this?”
“Why don’t you take this opportunity to listen to your father,
Beatrice?” my mother says gently. It is phrased like a
suggestion, not a command. I look across the table at
Caleb, who has that look of disapproval in his eyes.
I stare at my peas. I am not sure I can live this life of
obligation any longer. I am not good enough.
“You know why,” my father says. “Because we have
something they want. Valuing knowledge above all else
results in a lust for power, and that leads men into dark and
empty places. We should be thankful that we know better.”
I nod. I know I will not choose Erudite, even though my test
results suggested that I could. I am my father’s daughter.
My parents clean up after dinner. They don’t even let
Caleb help them, because we’re supposed to keep to
ourselves tonight instead of gathering in the family room, so
we can think about our results.
My family might be able to help me choose, if I could talk
about my results. But I can’t. Tori’s warning whispers in my
memory every time my resolve to keep my mouth shut
falters.
Caleb and I climb the stairs and, at the top, when we
divide to go to our separate bedrooms, he stops me with a
hand on my shoulder.
“Beatrice,” he says, looking sternly into my eyes. “We
should think of our family.” There is an edge to his voice.
“But. But we must also think of ourselves.”
For a moment I stare at him. I have never seen him think
of himself, never heard him insist on anything but
selflessness.
I am so startled by his comment that I just say what I am
supposed to say: “The tests don’t have to change our
choices.”
He smiles a little. “Don’t they, though?”
He squeezes my shoulder and walks into his bedroom. I
peer into his room and see an unmade bed and a stack of
books on his desk. He closes the door. I wish I could tell him
that we’re going through the same thing. I wish I could speak
to him like I want to instead of like I’m supposed to. But the
idea of admitting that I need help is too much to bear, so I
turn away.
I walk into my room, and when I close my door behind me,
I realize that the decision might be simple. It will require a
great act of selflessness to choose Abnegation, or a great
act of courage to choose Dauntless, and maybe just
choosing one over the other will prove that I belong.
Tomorrow, those two qualities will struggle within me, and
only one can win.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE BUS WE take to get to the Choosing Ceremony is full of
people in gray shirts and gray slacks. A pale ring of sunlight
burns into the clouds like the end of a lit cigarette. I will never
smoke one myself—they are closely tied to vanity—but a
crowd of Candor smokes them in front of the building when
we get off the bus.
I have to tilt my head back to see the top of the Hub, and
even then, part of it disappears into the clouds. It is the
tallest building in the city. I can see the lights on the two
prongs on its roof from my bedroom window.
I follow my parents off the bus. Caleb seems calm, but so
would I, if I knew what I was going to do. Instead I get the
distinct impression that my heart will burst out of my chest
any minute now, and I grab his arm to steady myself as I
walk up the front steps.
The elevator is crowded, so my father volunteers to give a
cluster of Amity our place. We climb the stairs instead,
following him unquestioningly. We set an example for our
fellow faction members, and soon the three of us are
engulfed in the mass of gray fabric ascending cement stairs
in the half light. I settle into their pace. The uniform pounding
of feet in my ears and the homogeneity of the people around
me makes me believe that I could choose this. I could be
subsumed into Abnegation’s hive mind, projecting always
outward.
But then my legs get sore, and I struggle to breathe, and I
am again distracted by myself. We have to climb twenty
flights of stairs to get to the Choosing Ceremony.
My father holds the door open on the twentieth floor and
stands like a sentry as every Abnegation walks past him. I
would wait for him, but the crowd presses me forward, out of
the stairwell and into the room where I will decide the rest of
my life.
The room is arranged in concentric circles. On the edges
stand the sixteen-year-olds of every faction. We are not
called members yet; our decisions today will make us
initiates, and we will become members if we complete
initiation.
We arrange ourselves in alphabetical order, according to
the last names we may leave behind today. I stand between
Caleb and Danielle Pohler, an Amity girl with rosy cheeks
and a yellow dress.
Rows of chairs for our families make up the next circle.
They are arranged in five sections, according to faction. Not
everyone in each faction comes to the Choosing Ceremony,
but enough of them come that the crowd looks huge.
The responsibility to conduct the ceremony rotates from
faction to faction each year, and this year is Abnegation’s.
Marcus will give the opening address and read the names in
reverse alphabetical order. Caleb will choose before me.
In the last circle are five metal bowls so large they could
hold my entire body, if I curled up. Each one contains a
substance that represents each faction: gray stones for
Abnegation, water for Erudite, earth for Amity, lit coals for
Dauntless, and glass for Candor.
When Marcus calls my name, I will walk to the center of
the three circles. I will not speak. He will offer me a knife. I
will cut into my hand and sprinkle my blood into the bowl of
the faction I choose.
My blood on the stones. My blood sizzling on the coals.
Before my parents sit down, they stand in front of Caleb
and me. My father kisses my forehead and claps Caleb on
the shoulder, grinning.
“See you soon,” he says. Without a trace of doubt.
My mother hugs me, and what little resolve I have left
almost breaks. I clench my jaw and stare up at the ceiling,
where globe lanterns hang and fill the room with blue light.
She holds me for what feels like a long time, even after I let
my hands fall. Before she pulls away, she turns her head and
whispers in my ear, “I love you. No matter what.”
I frown at her back as she walks away. She knows what I
might do. She must know, or she wouldn’t feel the need to
say that.
Caleb grabs my hand, squeezing my palm so tightly it
hurts, but I don’t let go. The last time we held hands was at
my uncle’s funeral, as my father cried. We need each other’s
strength now, just as we did then.
The room slowly comes to order. I should be observing
the Dauntless; I should be taking in as much information as I
can, but I can only stare at the lanterns across the room. I try
to lose myself in the blue glow.
Marcus stands at the podium between the Erudite and the
Dauntless and clears his throat into the microphone.
“Welcome,” he says. “Welcome to the Choosing Ceremony.
Welcome to the day we honor the democratic philosophy of
our ancestors, which tells us that every man has the right to
choose his own way in this world.”
Or, it occurs to me, one of five predetermined ways. I
squeeze Caleb’s fingers as hard as he is squeezing mine.
“Our dependents are now sixteen. They stand on the
precipice of adulthood, and it is now up to them to decide
what kind of people they will be.” Marcus’s voice is solemn
and gives equal weight to each word. “Decades ago our
ancestors realized that it is not political ideology, religious
belief, race, or nationalism that is to blame for a warring
world. Rather, they determined that it was the fault of human
personality—of humankind’s inclination toward evil, in
whatever form that is. They divided into factions that sought
to eradicate those qualities they believed responsible for
the world’s disarray.”
My eyes shift to the bowls in the center of the room. What
do I believe? I do not know; I do not know; I do not know.
“Those who blamed aggression formed Amity.”
The Amity exchange smiles. They are dressed
comfortably, in red or yellow. Every time I see them, they
seem kind, loving, free. But joining them has never been an
option for me.
“Those who blamed ignorance became the Erudite.”
Ruling out Erudite was the only part of my choice that was
easy.
“Those who blamed duplicity created Candor.”
I have never liked Candor.
“Those who blamed selfishness made Abnegation.”
I blame selfishness; I do.
“And those who blamed cowardice were the Dauntless.”
But I am not selfless enough. Sixteen years of trying and I
am not enough.
My legs go numb, like all the life has gone out of them,
and I wonder how I will walk when my name is called.
“Working together, these five factions have lived in peace
for many years, each contributing to a different sector of
society. Abnegation has fulfilled our need for selfless
leaders in government; Candor has provided us with
trustworthy and sound leaders in law; Erudite has supplied
us with intelligent teachers and researchers; Amity has
given us understanding counselors and caretakers; and
Dauntless provides us with protection from threats both
within and without. But the reach of each faction is not
limited to these areas. We give one another far more than
can be adequately summarized. In our factions, we find
meaning, we find purpose, we find life.”
I think of the motto I read in my Faction History textbook:
Faction before blood. More than family, our factions are
where we belong. Can that possibly be right?
Marcus adds, “Apart from them, we would not survive.”
The silence that follows his words is heavier than other
silences. It is heavy with our worst fear, greater even than
the fear of death: to be factionless.
Marcus continues, “Therefore this day marks a happy
occasion—the day on which we receive our new initiates,
who will work with us toward a better society and a better
world.”
A round of applause. It sounds muffled. I try to stand
completely still, because if my knees are locked and my
body is stiff, I don’t shake. Marcus reads the first names, but
I can’t tell one syllable from the other. How will I know when
he calls my name?
One by one, each sixteen-year-old steps out of line and
walks to the middle of the room. The first girl to choose
decides on Amity, the same faction from which she came. I
watch her blood droplets fall on soil, and she stands behind
their seats alone.
The room is constantly moving, a new name and a new
person choosing, a new knife and a new choice. I recognize
most of them, but I doubt they know me.
“James Tucker,” Marcus says.
James Tucker of the Dauntless is the first person to
stumble on his way to the bowls. He throws his arms out and
regains his balance before hitting the floor. His face turns
red and he walks fast to the middle of the room. When he
stands in the center, he looks from the Dauntless bowl to the
Candor bowl—the orange flames that rise higher each
moment, and the glass reflecting blue light.
Marcus offers him the knife. He breathes deeply—I watch
his chest rise—and, as he exhales, accepts the knife. Then
he drags it across his palm with a jerk and holds his arm out
to the side. His blood falls onto glass, and he is the first of
us to switch factions. The first faction transfer. A mutter rises
from the Dauntless section, and I stare at the floor.
They will see him as a traitor from now on. His Dauntless
family will have the option of visiting him in his new faction, a
week and a half from now on Visiting Day, but they won’t,
because he left them. His absence will haunt their hallways,
and he will be a space they can’t fill. And then time will pass,
and the hole will be gone, like when an organ is removed
and the body’s fluids flow into the space it leaves. Humans
can’t tolerate emptiness for long.
“Caleb Prior,” says Marcus.
Caleb squeezes my hand one last time, and as he walks
away, casts a long look at me over his shoulder. I watch his
feet move to the center of the room, and his hands, steady
as they accept the knife from Marcus, are deft as one
presses the knife into the other. Then he stands with blood
pooling in his palm, and his lip snags on his teeth.
He breathes out. And then in. And then he holds his hand
over the Erudite bowl, and his blood drips into the water,
turning it a deeper shade of red.
I hear mutters that lift into outraged cries. I can barely think
straight. My brother, my selfless brother, a faction transfer?
My brother, born for Abnegation, Erudite?
When I close my eyes, I see the stack of books on
Caleb’s desk, and his shaking hands sliding along his legs
after the aptitude test. Why didn’t I realize that when he told
me to think of myself yesterday, he was also giving that
advice to himself?
I scan the crowd of the Erudite—they wear smug smiles
and nudge each other. The Abnegation, normally so placid,
speak to one another in tense whispers and glare across
the room at the faction that has become our enemy.
“Excuse me,” says Marcus, but the crowd doesn’t hear
him. He shouts, “Quiet, please!”
The room goes silent. Except for a ringing sound.
I hear my name and a shudder propels me forward.
Halfway to the bowls, I am sure that I will choose
Abnegation. I can see it now. I watch myself grow into a
woman in Abnegation robes, marrying Susan’s brother,
Robert, volunteering on the weekends, the peace of routine,
the quiet nights spent in front of the fireplace, the certainty
that I will be safe, and if not good enough, better than I am
now.
The ringing, I realize, is in my ears.
I look at Caleb, who now stands behind the Erudite. He
stares back at me and nods a little, like he knows what I’m
thinking, and agrees. My footsteps falter. If Caleb wasn’t fit
for Abnegation, how can I be? But what choice do I have,
now that he left us and I’m the only one who remains? He left
me no other option.
I set my jaw. I will be the child that stays; I have to do this
for my parents. I have to.
Marcus offers me my knife. I look into his eyes—they are
dark blue, a strange color—and take it. He nods, and I turn
toward the bowls. Dauntless fire and Abnegation stones are
both on my left, one in front of my shoulder and one behind. I
hold the knife in my right hand and touch the blade to my
palm. Gritting my teeth, I drag the blade down. It stings, but I
barely notice. I hold both hands to my chest, and my next
breath shudders on the way out.
I open my eyes and thrust my arm out. My blood drips
onto the carpet between the two bowls. Then, with a gasp I
can’t contain, I shift my hand forward, and my blood sizzles
on the coals.
I am selfish. I am brave.
CHAPTER SIX
I TRAIN MY eyes on the floor and stand behind the Dauntlessborn
initiates who chose to return to their own faction. They
are all taller than I am, so even when I lift my head, I see only
black-clothed shoulders. When the last girl makes her
choice—Amity—it’s time to leave. The Dauntless exit first. I
walk past the gray-clothed men and women who were my
faction, staring determinedly at the back of someone’s
head.
But I have to see my parents one more time. I look over
my shoulder at the last second before I pass them, and
immediately wish I hadn’t. My father’s eyes burn into mine
with a look of accusation. At first, when I feel the heat behind
my eyes, I think he’s found a way to set me on fire, to punish
me for what I’ve done, but no—I’m about to cry.
Beside him, my mother is smiling.
The people behind me press me forward, away from my
family, who will be the last ones to leave. They may even
stay to stack the chairs and clean the bowls. I twist my head
around to find Caleb in the crowd of Erudite behind me. He
stands among the other initiates, shaking hands with a
faction transfer, a boy who was Candor. The easy smile he
wears is an act of betrayal. My stomach wrenches and I turn
away. If it’s so easy for him, maybe it should be easy for me,
too.
I glance at the boy to my left, who was Erudite and now
looks as pale and nervous as I should feel. I spent all my
time worrying about which faction I would choose and never
considered what would happen if I chose Dauntless. What
waits for me at Dauntless headquarters?
The crowd of Dauntless leading us go to the stairs
instead of the elevators. I thought only the Abnegation used
the stairs.
Then everyone starts running. I hear whoops and shouts
and laughter all around me, and dozens of thundering feet
moving at different rhythms. It is not a selfless act for the
Dauntless to take the stairs; it is a wild act.
“What the hell is going on?” the boy next to me shouts.
I just shake my head and keep running. I am breathless
when we reach the first floor, and the Dauntless burst
through the exit. Outside, the air is crisp and cold and the
sky is orange from the setting sun. It reflects off the black
glass of the Hub.
The Dauntless sprawl across the street, blocking the path
of a bus, and I sprint to catch up to the back of the crowd. My
confusion dissipates as I run. I have not run anywhere in a
long time. Abnegation discourages anything done strictly for
my own enjoyment, and that is what this is: my lungs burning,
my muscles aching, the fierce pleasure of a flat-out sprint. I
follow the Dauntless down the street and around the corner
and hear a familiar sound: the train horn.
“Oh no,” mumbles the Erudite boy. “Are we supposed to
hop on that thing?”
“Yes,” I say, breathless.
It is good that I spent so much time watching the
Dauntless arrive at school. The crowd spreads out in a long
line. The train glides toward us on steel rails, its light
flashing, its horn blaring. The door of each car is open,
waiting for the Dauntless to pile in, and they do, group by
group, until only the new initiates are left. The Dauntlessborn
initiates are used to doing this by now, so in a second
it’s just faction transfers left.
I step forward with a few others and start jogging. We run
with the car for a few steps and then throw ourselves
sideways. I’m not as tall or as strong as some of them, so I
can’t pull myself into the car. I cling to a handle next to the
doorway, my shoulder slamming into the car. My arms
shake, and finally a Candor girl grabs me and pulls me in.
Gasping, I thank her.
I hear a shout and look over my shoulder. A short Erudite
boy with red hair pumps his arms as he tries to catch up to
the train. An Erudite girl by the door reaches out to grab the
boy’s hand, straining, but he is too far behind. He falls to his
knees next to the tracks as we sail away, and puts his head
in his hands.
I feel uneasy. He just failed Dauntless initiation. He is
factionless now. It could happen at any moment.
“You all right?” the Candor girl who helped me asks
briskly. She is tall, with dark brown skin and short hair.
Pretty.
I nod.
“I’m Christina,” she says, offering me her hand.
I haven’t shaken a hand in a long time either. The
Abnegation greeted one another by bowing heads, a sign of
respect. I take her hand, uncertainly, and shake it twice,
hoping I didn’t squeeze too hard or not hard enough.
“Beatrice,” I say.
“Do you know where we’re going?” She has to shout over
the wind, which blows harder through the open doors by the
second. The train is picking up speed. I sit down. It will be
easier to keep my balance if I’m low to the ground. She
raises an eyebrow at me.
“A fast train means wind,” I say. “Wind means falling out.
Get down.”
Christina sits next to me, inching back to lean against the
wall.
“I guess we’re going to Dauntless headquarters,” I say,
“but I don’t know where that is.”
“Does anyone?” She shakes her head, grinning. “It’s like
they just popped out of a hole in the ground or something.”
Then the wind rushes through the car, and the other
faction transfers, hit with bursts of air, fall on top of one
another. I watch Christina laugh without hearing her and
manage a smile.
Over my left shoulder, orange light from the setting sun
reflects off the glass buildings, and I can faintly see the rows
of gray houses that used to be my home.
It’s Caleb’s turn to make dinner tonight. Who will take his
place—my mother or my father? And when they clear out his
room, what will they discover? I imagine books jammed
between the dresser and the wall, books under his mattress.
The Erudite thirst for knowledge filling all the hidden places
in his room. Did he always know that he would choose
Erudite? And if he did, how did I not notice?
What a good actor he was. The thought makes me sick to
my stomach, because even though I left them too, at least I
was no good at pretending. At least they all knew that I
wasn’t selfless.
I close my eyes and picture my mother and father sitting at
the dinner table in silence. Is it a lingering hint of
selflessness that makes my throat tighten at the thought of
them, or is it selfishness, because I know I will never be their
daughter again?
“They’re jumping off!”
I lift my head. My neck aches. I have been curled up with
my back against the wall for at least a half hour, listening to
the roaring wind and watching the city smear past us. I sit
forward. The train has slowed down in the past few minutes,
and I see that the boy who shouted is right: The Dauntless in
the cars ahead of us are jumping out as the train passes a
rooftop. The tracks are seven stories up.
The idea of leaping out of a moving train onto a rooftop,
knowing there is a gap between the edge of the roof and the
edge of the track, makes me want to throw up. I push myself
up and stumble to the opposite side of the car, where the
other faction transfers stand in a line.
“We have to jump off too, then,” a Candor girl says. She
has a large nose and crooked teeth.
“Great,” a Candor boy replies, “because that makes
perfect sense, Molly. Leap off a train onto a roof.”
“This is kind of what we signed up for, Peter,” the girl
points out.
“Well, I’m not doing it,” says an Amity boy behind me. He
has olive skin and wears a brown shirt—he is the only
transfer from Amity. His cheeks shine with tears.
“You’ve got to,” Christina says, “or you fail. Come on, it’ll
be all right.”
“No, it won’t! I’d rather be factionless than dead!” The
Amity boy shakes his head. He sounds panicky. He keeps
shaking his head and staring at the rooftop, which is getting
closer by the second.
I don’t agree with him. I would rather be dead than empty,
like the factionless.
“You can’t force him,” I say, glancing at Christina. Her
brown eyes are wide, and she presses her lips together so
hard they change color. She offers me her hand.
“Here,” she says. I raise an eyebrow at her hand, about to
say that I don’t need help, but she adds, “I just…can’t do it
unless someone drags me.”
I take her hand and we stand at the edge of the car. As it
passes the roof, I count, “One…two…three!”
On three we launch off the train car. A weightless moment,
and then my feet slam into solid ground and pain prickles
through my shins. The jarring landing sends me sprawling on
the rooftop, gravel under my cheek. I release Christina’s
hand. She’s laughing.
“That was fun,” she says.
Christina will fit in with Dauntless thrill seekers. I brush
grains of rock from my cheek. All the initiates except the
Amity boy made it onto the roof, with varying levels of
success. The Candor girl with crooked teeth, Molly, holds
her ankle, wincing, and Peter, the Candor boy with shiny
hair, grins proudly—he must have landed on his feet.
Then I hear a wail. I turn my head, searching for the source
of the sound. A Dauntless girl stands at the edge of the roof,
staring at the ground below, screaming. Behind her a
Dauntless boy holds her at the waist to keep her from falling
off.
“Rita,” he says. “Rita, calm down. Rita—”
I stand and look over the edge. There is a body on the
pavement below us; a girl, her arms and legs bent at
awkward angles, her hair spread in a fan around her head.
My stomach sinks and I stare at the railroad tracks. Not
everyone made it. And even the Dauntless aren’t safe.
Rita sinks to her knees, sobbing. I turn away. The longer I
watch her, the more likely I am to cry, and I can’t cry in front
of these people.
I tell myself, as sternly as possible, that is how things work
here. We do dangerous things and people die. People die,
and we move on to the next dangerous thing. The sooner
that lesson sinks in, the better chance I have at surviving
initiation.
I’m no longer sure that I will survive initiation.
I tell myself I will count to three, and when I’m done, I will
move on. One. I picture the girl’s body on the pavement, and
a shudder goes through me. Two. I hear Rita’s sobs and the
murmured reassurance of the boy behind her. Three.
My lips pursed, I walk away from Rita and the roof’s edge.
My elbow stings. I pull my sleeve up to examine it, my
hand shaking. Some of the skin is peeling off, but it isn’t
bleeding.
“Ooh. Scandalous! A Stiff’s flashing some skin!”
I lift my head. “Stiff” is slang for Abnegation, and I’m the
only one here. Peter points at me, smirking. I hear laughter.
My cheeks heat up, and I let my sleeve fall.
“Listen up! My name is Max! I am one of the leaders of
your new faction!” shouts a man at the other end of the roof.
He is older than the others, with deep creases in his dark
skin and gray hair at his temples, and he stands on the
ledge like it’s a sidewalk. Like someone didn’t just fall to her
death from it. “Several stories below us is the members’
entrance to our compound. If you can’t muster the will to
jump off, you don’t belong here. Our initiates have the
privilege of going first.”
“You want us to jump off a ledge?” asks an Erudite girl.
She is a few inches taller than I am, with mousy brown hair
and big lips. Her mouth hangs open.
I don’t know why it shocks her.
“Yes,” Max says. He looks amused.
“Is there water at the bottom or something?”
“Who knows?” He raises his eyebrows.
The crowd in front of the initiates splits in half, making a
wide path for us. I look around. No one looks eager to leap
off the building—their eyes are everywhere but on Max.
Some of them nurse minor wounds or brush gravel from
their clothes. I glance at Peter. He is picking at one of his
cuticles. Trying to act casual.
I am proud. It will get me into trouble someday, but today it
makes me brave. I walk toward the ledge and hear snickers
behind me.
Max steps aside, leaving my way clear. I walk up to the
edge and look down. Wind whips through my clothes,
making the fabric snap. The building I’m on forms one side
of a square with three other buildings. In the center of the
square is a huge hole in the concrete. I can’t see what’s at
the bottom of it.
This is a scare tactic. I will land safely at the bottom. That
knowledge is the only thing that helps me step onto the
ledge. My teeth chatter. I can’t back down now. Not with all
the people betting I’ll fail behind me. My hands fumble along
the collar of my shirt and find the button that secures it shut.
After a few tries, I undo the hooks from collar to hem, and
pull it off my shoulders.
Beneath it, I wear a gray T-shirt. It is tighter than any other
clothes I own, and no one has ever seen me in it before. I
ball up my outer shirt and look over my shoulder, at Peter. I
throw the ball of fabric at him as hard as I can, my jaw
clenched. It hits him in the chest. He stares at me. I hear
catcalls and shouts behind me.
I look at the hole again. Goose bumps rise on my pale
arms, and my stomach lurches. If I don’t do it now, I won’t be
able to do it at all. I swallow hard.
I don’t think. I just bend my knees and jump.
The air howls in my ears as the ground surges toward me,
growing and expanding, or I surge toward the ground, my
heart pounding so fast it hurts, every muscle in my body
tensing as the falling sensation drags at my stomach. The
hole surrounds me and I drop into darkness.
I hit something hard. It gives way beneath me and cradles
my body. The impact knocks the wind out of me and I
wheeze, struggling to breathe again. My arms and legs
sting.
A net. There is a net at the bottom of the hole. I look up at
the building and laugh, half relieved and half hysterical. My
body shakes and I cover my face with my hands. I just
jumped off a roof.
I have to stand on solid ground again. I see a few hands
stretching out to me at the edge of the net, so I grab the first
one I can reach and pull myself across. I roll off, and I would
have fallen face-first onto a wood floor if he had not caught
me.
“He” is the young man attached to the hand I grabbed. He
has a spare upper lip and a full lower lip. His eyes are so
deep-set that his eyelashes touch the skin under his
eyebrows, and they are dark blue, a dreaming, sleeping,
waiting color.
His hands grip my arms, but he releases me a moment
after I stand upright again.
“Thank you,” I say.
We stand on a platform ten feet above the ground. Around
us is an open cavern.
“Can’t believe it,” a voice says from behind him. It belongs
to a dark-haired girl with three silver rings through her right
eyebrow. She smirks at me. “A Stiff, the first to jump?
Unheard of.”
“There’s a reason why she left them, Lauren,” he says. His
voice is deep, and it rumbles. “What’s your name?”
“Um…” I don’t know why I hesitate. But “Beatrice” just
doesn’t sound right anymore.
“Think about it,” he says, a faint smile curling his lips. “You
don’t get to pick again.”
A new place, a new name. I can be remade here.
“Tris,” I say firmly.
“Tris,” Lauren repeats, grinning. “Make the
announcement, Four.”
The boy—Four—looks over his shoulder and shouts,
“First jumper—Tris!”
A crowd materializes from the darkness as my eyes
adjust. They cheer and pump their fists, and then another
person drops into the net. Her screams follow her down.
Christina. Everyone laughs, but they follow their laughter with
more cheering.
Four sets his hand on my back and says, “Welcome to
Dauntless.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN ALL THE initiates stand on solid ground again, Lauren
and Four lead us down a narrow tunnel. The walls are made
of stone, and the ceiling slopes, so I feel like I am
descending deep into the heart of the earth. The tunnel is lit
at long intervals, so in the dark space between each dim
lamp, I fear that I am lost until a shoulder bumps mine. In the
circles of light I am safe again.
The Erudite boy in front of me stops abruptly, and I smack
into him, hitting my nose on his shoulder. I stumble back and
rub my nose as I recover my senses. The whole crowd has
stopped, and our three leaders stand in front of us, arms
folded.
“This is where we divide,” Lauren says. “The Dauntlessborn
initiates are with me. I assume you don’t need a tour of
the place.”
She smiles and beckons toward the Dauntless-born
initiates. They break away from the group and dissolve into
the shadows. I watch the last heel pass out of the light and
look at those of us who are left. Most of the initiates were
from Dauntless, so only nine people remain. Of those, I am
the only Abnegation transfer, and there are no Amity
transfers. The rest are from Erudite and, surprisingly,
Candor. It must require bravery to be honest all the time. I
wouldn’t know.
Four addresses us next. “Most of the time I work in the
control room, but for the next few weeks, I am your
instructor,” he says. “My name is Four.”
Christina asks, “Four? Like the number?”
“Yes,” Four says. “Is there a problem?”
“No.”
“Good. We’re about to go into the Pit, which you will
someday learn to love. It—”
Christina snickers. “The Pit? Clever name.”
Four walks up to Christina and leans his face close to
hers. His eyes narrow, and for a second he just stares at
her.
“What’s your name?” he asks quietly.
“Christina,” she squeaks.
“Well, Christina, if I wanted to put up with Candor smartmouths,
I would have joined their faction,” he hisses. “The
first lesson you will learn from me is to keep your mouth shut.
Got that?”
She nods.
Four starts toward the shadow at the end of the tunnel.
The crowd of initiates moves on in silence.
“What a jerk,” she mumbles.
“I guess he doesn’t like to be laughed at,” I reply.
It would probably be wise to be careful around Four, I
realize. He seemed placid to me on the platform, but
something about that stillness makes me wary now.
Four pushes a set of double doors open, and we walk into
the place he called “the Pit.”
“Oh,” whispers Christina. “I get it.”
“Pit” is the best word for it. It is an underground cavern so
huge I can’t see the other end of it from where I stand, at the
bottom. Uneven rock walls rise several stories above my
head. Built into the stone walls are places for food, clothing,
supplies, leisure activities. Narrow paths and steps carved
from rock connect them. There are no barriers to keep
people from falling over the side.
A slant of orange light stretches across one of the rock
walls. Forming the roof of the Pit are panes of glass and,
above them, a building that lets in sunlight. It must have
looked like just another city building when we passed it on
the train.
Blue lanterns dangle at random intervals above the stone
paths, similar to the ones that lit the Choosing room. They
grow brighter as the sunlight dies.
People are everywhere, all dressed in black, all shouting
and talking, expressive, gesturing. I don’t see any elderly
people in the crowd. Are there any old Dauntless? Do they
not last that long, or are they just sent away when they can’t
jump off moving trains anymore?
A group of children run down a narrow path with no railing,
so fast my heart pounds, and I want to scream at them to
slow down before they get hurt. A memory of the orderly
Abnegation streets appears in my mind: a line of people on
the right passing a line of people on the left, small smiles
and inclined heads and silence. My stomach squeezes. But
there is something wonderful about Dauntless chaos.
“If you follow me,” says Four, “I’ll show you the chasm.”
He waves us forward. Four’s appearance seems tame
from the front, by Dauntless standards, but when he turns
around, I see a tattoo peeking out from the collar of his Tshirt.
He leads us to the right side of the Pit, which is
conspicuously dark. I squint and see that the floor I stand on
now ends at an iron barrier. As we approach the railing, I
hear a roar—water, fast-moving water, crashing against
rocks.
I look over the side. The floor drops off at a sharp angle,
and several stories below us is a river. Gushing water
strikes the wall beneath me and sprays upward. To my left,
the water is calmer, but to my right, it is white, battling with
rock.
“The chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between
bravery and idiocy!” Four shouts. “A daredevil jump off this
ledge will end your life. It has happened before and it will
happen again. You’ve been warned.”
“This is incredible,” says Christina, as we all move away
from the railing.
“Incredible is the word,” I say, nodding.
Four leads the group of initiates across the Pit toward a
gaping hole in the wall. The room beyond is well-lit enough
that I can see where we’re going: a dining hall full of people
and clattering silverware. When we walk in, the Dauntless
inside stand. They applaud. They stamp their feet. They
shout. The noise surrounds me and fills me. Christina
smiles, and a second later, so do I.
We look for empty seats. Christina and I discover a
mostly empty table at the side of the room, and I find myself
sitting between her and Four. In the center of the table is a
platter of food I don’t recognize: circular pieces of meat
wedged between round bread slices. I pinch one between
my fingers, unsure what to make of it.
Four nudges me with his elbow.
“It’s beef,” he says. “Put this on it.” He passes me a small
bowl full of red sauce.
“You’ve never had a hamburger before?” asks Christina,
her eyes wide.
“No,” I say. “Is that what it’s called?”
“Stiffs eat plain food,” Four says, nodding at Christina.
“Why?” she asks.
I shrug. “Extravagance is considered self-indulgent and
unnecessary.”
She smirks. “No wonder you left.”
“Yeah,” I say, rolling my eyes. “It was just because of the
food.”
The corner of Four’s mouth twitches.
The doors to the cafeteria open, and a hush falls over the
room. I look over my shoulder. A young man walks in, and it
is quiet enough that I can hear his footsteps. His face is
pierced in so many places I lose count, and his hair is long,
dark, and greasy. But that isn’t what makes him look
menacing. It is the coldness of his eyes as they sweep
across the room.
“Who’s that?” hisses Christina.
“His name is Eric,” says Four. “He’s a Dauntless leader.”
“Seriously? But he’s so young.”
Four gives her a grave look. “Age doesn’t matter here.”
I can tell she’s about to ask what I want to ask: Then what
does matter? But Eric’s eyes stop scanning the room, and
he starts toward a table. He starts toward our table and
drops into the seat next to Four. He offers no greeting, so
neither do we.
“Well, aren’t you going to introduce me?” he asks,
nodding to Christina and me.
Four says, “This is Tris and Christina.”
“Ooh, a Stiff,” says Eric, smirking at me. His smile pulls at
the piercings in his lips, making the holes they occupy wider,
and I wince. “We’ll see how long you last.”
I mean to say something—to assure him that I will last,
maybe—but words fail me. I don’t understand why, but I
don’t want Eric to look at me any longer than he already has.
I don’t want him to look at me ever again.
He taps his fingers against the table. His knuckles are
scabbed over, right where they would split if he punched
something too hard.
“What have you been doing lately, Four?” he asks.
Four lifts a shoulder. “Nothing, really,” he says.
Are they friends? My eyes flick between Eric and Four.
Everything Eric did—sitting here, asking about Four—
suggests that they are, but the way Four sits, tense as pulled
wire, suggests they are something else. Rivals, maybe, but
how could that be, if Eric is a leader and Four is not?
“Max tells me he keeps trying to meet with you, and you
don’t show up,” Eric says. “He requested that I find out
what’s going on with you.”
Four looks at Eric for a few seconds before saying, “Tell
him that I am satisfied with the position I currently hold.”
“So he wants to give you a job.”
The rings in Eric’s eyebrow catch the light. Maybe Eric
perceives Four as a potential threat to his position. My
father says that those who want power and get it live in terror
of losing it. That’s why we have to give power to those who
do not want it.
“So it would seem,” Four says.
“And you aren’t interested.”
“I haven’t been interested for two years.”
“Well,” says Eric. “Let’s hope he gets the point, then.”
He claps Four on the shoulder, a little too hard, and gets
up. When he walks away, I slouch immediately. I had not
realized that I was so tense.
“Are you two…friends?” I say, unable to contain my
curiosity.
“We were in the same initiate class,” he says. “He
transferred from Erudite.”
All thoughts of being careful around Four leave me. “Were
you a transfer too?”
“I thought I would only have trouble with the Candor asking
too many questions,” he says coldly. “Now I’ve got Stiffs,
too?”
“It must be because you’re so approachable,” I say flatly.
“You know. Like a bed of nails.”
He stares at me, and I don’t look away. He isn’t a dog, but
the same rules apply. Looking away is submissive. Looking
him in the eye is a challenge. It’s my choice.
Heat rushes into my cheeks. What will happen when this
tension breaks?
But he just says, “Careful, Tris.”
My stomach drops like I just swallowed a stone. A
Dauntless member at another table calls out Four’s name,
and I turn to Christina. She raises both eyebrows.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m developing a theory.”
“And it is?”
She picks up her hamburger, grins, and says, “That you
have a death wish.”
After dinner, Four disappears without a word. Eric leads us
down a series of hallways without telling us where we’re
going. I don’t know why a Dauntless leader would be
responsible for a group of initiates, but maybe it is just for
tonight.
At the end of each hallway is a blue lamp, but between
them it’s dark, and I have to be careful not to stumble over
uneven ground. Christina walks beside me in silence. No
one told us to be quiet, but none of us speak.
Eric stops in front of a wooden door and folds his arms.
We gather around him.
“For those of you who don’t know, my name is Eric,” he
says. “I am one of five leaders of the Dauntless. We take the
initiation process very seriously here, so I volunteered to
oversee most of your training.”
The thought makes me nauseous. The idea that a
Dauntless leader will oversee our initiation is bad enough,
but the fact that it’s Eric makes it seem even worse.
“Some ground rules,” he says. “You have to be in the
training room by eight o’clock every day. Training takes
place every day from eight to six, with a break for lunch. You
are free to do whatever you like after six. You will also get
some time off between each stage of initiation.”
The phrase “do whatever you like” sticks in my mind. At
home, I could never do what I wanted, not even for an
evening. I had to think of other people’s needs first. I don’t
even know what I like to do.
“You are only permitted to leave the compound when
accompanied by a Dauntless,” Eric adds. “Behind this door
is the room where you will be sleeping for the next few
weeks. You will notice that there are ten beds and only nine
of you. We anticipated that a higher proportion of you would
make it this far.”
“But we started with twelve,” protests Christina. I close my
eyes and wait for the reprimand. She needs to learn to stay
quiet.
“There is always at least one transfer who doesn’t make it
to the compound,” says Eric, picking at his cuticles. He
shrugs. “Anyway, in the first stage of initiation, we keep
transfers and Dauntless-born initiates separate, but that
doesn’t mean you are evaluated separately. At the end of
initiation, your rankings will be determined in comparison
with the Dauntless-born initiates. And they are better than
you are already. So I expect—”
“Rankings?” asks the mousy-haired Erudite girl to my
right. “Why are we ranked?”
Eric smiles, and in the blue light, his smile looks wicked,
like it was cut into his face with a knife.
“Your ranking serves two purposes,” he says. “The first is
that it determines the order in which you will select a job
after initiation. There are only a few desirable positions
available.”
My stomach tightens. I know by looking at his smile, like I
knew the second I entered the aptitude test room, that
something bad is about to happen.
“The second purpose,” he says, “is that only the top ten
initiates are made members.”
Pain stabs my stomach. We all stand still as statues. And
then Christina says, “What?”
“There are eleven Dauntless-borns, and nine of you,” Eric
continues. “Four initiates will be cut at the end of stage one.
The remainder will be cut after the final test.”
That means that even if we make it through each stage of
initiation, six initiates will not be members. I see Christina
look at me from the corner of my eye, but I can’t look back at
her. My eyes are fixed on Eric and will not move.
My odds, as the smallest initiate, as the only Abnegation
transfer, are not good.
“What do we do if we’re cut?” Peter says.
“You leave the Dauntless compound,” says Eric
indifferently, “and live factionless.”
The mousy-haired girl clamps her hand over her mouth
and stifles a sob. I remember the factionless man with the
gray teeth, snatching the bag of apples from my hands. His
dull, staring eyes. But instead of crying, like the Erudite girl, I
feel colder. Harder.
I will be a member. I will.
“But that’s…not fair!” the broad-shouldered Candor girl,
Molly, says. Even though she sounds angry, she looks
terrified. “If we had known—”
“Are you saying that if you had known this before the
Choosing Ceremony, you wouldn’t have chosen Dauntless?”
Eric snaps. “Because if that’s the case, you should get out
now. If you are really one of us, it won’t matter to you that you
might fail. And if it does, you are a coward.”
Eric pushes the door to the dormitory open.
“You chose us,” he says. “Now we have to choose you.”
I lie in bed and listen to nine people breathing.
I have never slept in the same room as a boy before, but
here I have no other option, unless I want to sleep in the
hallway. Everyone else changed into the clothes the
Dauntless provided for us, but I sleep in my Abnegation
clothes, which still smell like soap and fresh air, like home.
I used to have my own room. I could see the front lawn
from the window, and beyond it, the foggy skyline. I am used
to sleeping in silence.
Heat swells behind my eyes as I think of home, and when I
blink, a tear slips out. I cover my mouth to stifle a sob.
I can’t cry, not here. I have to calm down.
It will be all right here. I can look at my reflection whenever
I want. I can befriend Christina, and cut my hair short, and let
other people clean up their own messes.
My hands shake and the tears come faster now, blurring
my vision.
It doesn’t matter that the next time I see my parents, on
Visiting Day, they will barely recognize me—if they come at
all. It doesn’t matter that I ache at even a split-second
memory of their faces. Even Caleb’s, despite how much his
secrets hurt me. I match my inhales to the inhales of the
other initiates, and my exhales to their exhales. It doesn’t
matter.
A strangled sound interrupts the breathing, followed by a
heavy sob. Bed springs squeal as a large body turns, and a
pillow muffles the sobs, but not enough. They come from the
bunk next to mine—they belong to a Candor boy, Al, the
largest and broadest of all the initiates. He is the last person
I expected to break down.
His feet are just inches from my head. I should comfort
him—I should want to comfort him, because I was raised
that way. Instead I feel disgust. Someone who looks so
strong shouldn’t act so weak. Why can’t he just keep his
crying quiet like the rest of us?
I swallow hard.
If my mother knew what I was thinking, I know what look
she would give me. The corners of her mouth turned down.
Her eyebrows set low over her eyes—not scowling, almost
tired. I drag the heel of my hand over my cheeks.
Al sobs again. I almost feel the sound grate in my own
throat. He is just inches away from me—I should touch him.
No. I put my hand down and roll onto my side, facing the
wall. No one has to know that I don’t want to help him. I can
keep that secret buried. My eyes shut and I feel the pull of
sleep, but every time I come close, I hear Al again.
Maybe my problem isn’t that I can’t go home. I will miss
my mother and father and Caleb and evening firelight and
the clack of my mother’s knitting needles, but that is not the
only reason for this hollow feeling in my stomach.
My problem might be that even if I did go home, I wouldn’t
belong there, among people who give without thinking and
care without trying.
The thought makes me grit my teeth. I gather the pillow
around my ears to block out Al’s crying, and fall asleep with
a circle of moisture pressed to my cheek.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“THE FIRST THING you will learn today is how to shoot a gun.
The second thing is how to win a fight.” Four presses a gun
into my palm without looking at me and keeps walking.
“Thankfully, if you are here, you already know how to get on
and off a moving train, so I don’t need to teach you that.”
I shouldn’t be surprised that the Dauntless expect us to hit
the ground running, but I anticipated more than six hours of
rest before the running began. My body is still heavy from
sleep.
“Initiation is divided into three stages. We will measure
your progress and rank you according to your performance
in each stage. The stages are not weighed equally in
determining your final rank, so it is possible, though difficult,
to drastically improve your rank over time.”
I stare at the weapon in my hand. Never in my life did I
expect to hold a gun, let alone fire one. It feels dangerous to
me, as if just by touching it, I could hurt someone.
“We believe that preparation eradicates cowardice, which
we define as the failure to act in the midst of fear,” says
Four. “Therefore each stage of initiation is intended to
prepare you in a different way. The first stage is primarily
physical; the second, primarily emotional; the third, primarily
mental.”
“But what…” Peter yawns through his words. “What does
firing a gun have to do with…bravery?”
Four flips the gun in his hand, presses the barrel to
Peter’s forehead, and clicks a bullet into place. Peter
freezes with his lips parted, the yawn dead in his mouth.
“Wake. Up,” Four snaps. “You are holding a loaded gun,
you idiot. Act like it.”
He lowers the gun. Once the immediate threat is gone,
Peter’s green eyes harden. I’m surprised he can stop
himself from responding, after speaking his mind all his life
in Candor, but he does, his cheeks red.
“And to answer your question…you are far less likely to
soil your pants and cry for your mother if you’re prepared to
defend yourself.” Four stops walking at the end of the row
and turns on his heel. “This is also information you may need
later in stage one. So, watch me.”
He faces the wall with the targets on it—one square of
plywood with three red circles on it for each of us. He stands
with his feet apart, holds the gun in both hands, and fires.
The bang is so loud it hurts my ears. I crane my neck to look
at the target. The bullet went through the middle circle.
I turn to my own target. My family would never approve of
me firing a gun. They would say that guns are used for selfdefense,
if not violence, and therefore they are self-serving.
I push my family from my mind, set my feet shoulder-width
apart, and delicately wrap both hands around the handle of
the gun. It’s heavy and hard to lift away from my body, but I
want it to be as far from my face as possible. I squeeze the
trigger, hesitantly at first and then harder, cringing away from
the gun. The sound hurts my ears and the recoil sends my
hands back, toward my nose. I stumble, pressing my hand to
the wall behind me for balance. I don’t know where my bullet
went, but I know it’s not near the target.
I fire again and again and again, and none of the bullets
come close.
“Statistically speaking,” the Erudite boy next to me—his
name is Will—says, grinning at me, “you should have hit the
target at least once by now, even by accident.” He is blond,
with shaggy hair and a crease between his eyebrows.
“Is that so,” I say without inflection.
“Yeah,” he says. “I think you’re actually defying nature.”
I grit my teeth and turn toward the target, resolving to at
least stand still. If I can’t master the first task they give us,
how will I ever make it through stage one?
I squeeze the trigger, hard, and this time I’m ready for the
recoil. It makes my hands jump back, but my feet stay
planted. A bullet hole appears at the edge of the target, and
I raise an eyebrow at Will.
“So you see, I’m right. The stats don’t lie,” he says.
I smile a little.
It takes me five rounds to hit the middle of the target, and
when I do, a rush of energy goes through me. I am awake,
my eyes wide open, my hands warm. I lower the gun. There
is power in controlling something that can do so much
damage—in controlling something, period.
Maybe I do belong here.
By the time we break for lunch, my arms throb from holding
up the gun and my fingers are hard to straighten. I massage
them on my way to the dining hall. Christina invites Al to sit
with us. Every time I look at him, I hear his sobs again, so I
try not to look at him.
I move my peas around with my fork, and my thoughts drift
back to the aptitude tests. When Tori warned me that being
Divergent was dangerous, I felt like it was branded on my
face, and if I so much as turned the wrong way, someone
would see it. So far it hasn’t been a problem, but that
doesn’t make me feel safe. What if I let my guard down and
something terrible happens?
“Oh, come on. You don’t remember me?” Christina asks
Al as she makes a sandwich. “We were in Math together
just a few days ago. And I am not a quiet person.”
“I slept through Math most of the time,” Al replies. “It was
first hour!”
What if the danger doesn’t come soon—what if it strikes
years from now and I never see it coming?
“Tris,” says Christina. She snaps her fingers in front of my
face. “You in there?”
“What? What is it?”
“I asked if you remember ever taking a class with me,”
she says. “I mean, no offense, but I probably wouldn’t
remember if you did. All the Abnegation looked the same to
me. I mean, they still do, but now you’re not one of them.”
I stare at her. As if I need her to remind me.
“Sorry, am I being rude?” she asks. “I’m used to just
saying whatever is on my mind. Mom used to say that
politeness is deception in pretty packaging.”
“I think that’s why our factions don’t usually associate with
each other,” I say, with a short laugh. Candor and
Abnegation don’t hate each other the way Erudite and
Abnegation do, but they avoid each other. Candor’s real
problem is with Amity. Those who seek peace above all
else, they say, will always deceive to keep the water calm.
“Can I sit here?” says Will, tapping the table with his
finger.
“What, you don’t want to hang out with your Erudite
buddies?” says Christina.
“They aren’t my buddies,” says Will, setting his plate
down. “Just because we were in the same faction doesn’t
mean we get along. Plus, Edward and Myra are dating, and
I would rather not be the third wheel.”
Edward and Myra, the other Erudite transfers, sit two
tables away, so close they bump elbows as they cut their
food. Myra pauses to kiss Edward. I watch them carefully.
I’ve only seen a few kisses in my life.
Edward turns his head and presses his lips to Myra’s. Air
hisses between my teeth, and I look away. Part of me waits
for them to be scolded. Another part wonders, with a touch
of desperation, what it would feel like to have someone’s
lips against mine.
“Do they have to be so public?” I say.
“She just kissed him.” Al frowns at me. When he frowns,
his thick eyebrows touch his eyelashes. “It’s not like they’re
stripping naked.”
“A kiss is not something you do in public.”
Al, Will, and Christina all give me the same knowing
smile.
“What?” I say.
“Your Abnegation is showing,” says Christina. “The rest of
us are all right with a little affection in public.”
“Oh.” I shrug. “Well…I guess I’ll have to get over it, then.”
“Or you can stay frigid,” says Will, his green eyes glinting
with mischief. “You know. If you want.”
Christina throws a roll at him. He catches it and bites it.
“Don’t be mean to her,” she says. “Frigidity is in her
nature. Sort of like being a know-it-all is in yours.”
“I am not frigid!” I exclaim.
“Don’t worry about it,” says Will. “It’s endearing. Look,
you’re all red.”
The comment only makes my face hotter. Everyone else
chuckles. I force a laugh and, after a few seconds, it comes
naturally.
It feels good to laugh again.
After lunch, Four leads us to a new room. It’s huge, with a
wood floor that is cracked and creaky and has a large circle
painted in the middle. On the left wall is a green board—a
chalkboard. My Lower Levels teacher used one, but I
haven’t seen one since then. Maybe it has something to do
with Dauntless priorities: training comes first, technology
comes second.
Our names are written on the board in alphabetical order.
Hanging at three-foot intervals along one end of the room
are faded black punching bags.
We line up behind them and Four stands in the middle,
where we can all see him.
“As I said this morning,” says Four, “next you will learn
how to fight. The purpose of this is to prepare you to act; to
prepare your body to respond to threats and challenges—
which you will need, if you intend to survive life as a
Dauntless.”
I can’t even think of life as a Dauntless. All I can think
about is making it through initiation.
“We will go over technique today, and tomorrow you will
start to fight each other,” says Four. “So I recommend that
you pay attention. Those who don’t learn fast will get hurt.”
Four names a few different punches, demonstrating each
one as he does, first against the air and then against the
punching bag.
I catch on as we practice. Like with the gun, I need a few
tries to figure out how to hold myself and how to move my
body to make it look like his. The kicks are more difficult,
though he only teaches us the basics. The punching bag
stings my hands and feet, turning my skin red, and barely
moves no matter how hard I hit it. All around me is the sound
of skin hitting tough fabric.
Four wanders through the crowd of initiates, watching us
as we go through the movements again. When he stops in
front of me, my insides twist like someone’s stirring them
with a fork. He stares at me, his eyes following my body
from my head to my feet, not lingering anywhere—a
practical, scientific gaze.
“You don’t have much muscle,” he says, “which means
you’re better off using your knees and elbows. You can put
more power behind them.”
Suddenly he presses a hand to my stomach. His fingers
are so long that, though the heel of his hand touches one
side of my rib cage, his fingertips still touch the other side.
My heart pounds so hard my chest hurts, and I stare at him,
wide-eyed.
“Never forget to keep tension here,” he says in a quiet
voice.
Four lifts his hand and keeps walking. I feel the pressure
of his palm even after he’s gone. It’s strange, but I have to
stop and breathe for a few seconds before I can keep
practicing again.
When Four dismisses us for dinner, Christina nudges me
with her elbow.
“I’m surprised he didn’t break you in half,” she says. She
wrinkles her nose. “He scares the hell out of me. It’s that
quiet voice he uses.”
“Yeah. He’s…” I look over my shoulder at him. He is quiet,
and remarkably self-possessed. But I wasn’t afraid that he
would hurt me. “…definitely intimidating,” I finally say.
Al, who was in front of us, turns around once we reach the
Pit and announces, “I want to get a tattoo.”
From behind us, Will asks, “A tattoo of what?”
“I don’t know.” Al laughs. “I just want to feel like I’ve actually
left the old faction. Stop crying about it.” When we don’t
respond, he adds, “I know you’ve heard me.”
“Yeah, learn to quiet down, will you?” Christina pokes Al’s
thick arm. “I think you’re right. We’re half in, half out right
now. If we want all the way in, we should look the part.”
She gives me a look.
“No. I will not cut my hair,” I say, “or dye it a strange color.
Or pierce my face.”
“How about your bellybutton?” she says.
“Or your nipple?” Will says with a snort.
I groan.
Now that training is done for the day, we can do whatever
we want until it’s time to sleep. The idea makes me feel
almost giddy, although that might be from fatigue.
The Pit is swarming with people. Christina announces that
she and I will meet Al and Will at the tattoo parlor and drags
me toward the clothing place. We stumble up the path,
climbing higher above the Pit floor, scattering stones with
our shoes.
“What is wrong with my clothes?” I say. “I’m not wearing
gray anymore.”
“They’re ugly and gigantic.” She sighs. “Will you just let me
help you? If you don’t like what I put you in, you never have to
wear it again, I promise.”
Ten minutes later I stand in front of a mirror in the clothing
place wearing a knee-length black dress. The skirt isn’t full,
but it isn’t stuck to my thighs, either—unlike the first one she
picked out, which I refused. Goose bumps appear on my
bare arms. She slips the tie from my hair and I shake it out
of its braid so it hangs wavy over my shoulders.
Then she holds up a black pencil.
“Eyeliner,” she says.
“You aren’t going to be able to make me pretty, you
know.” I close my eyes and hold still. She runs the tip of the
pencil along the line of my eyelashes. I imagine standing
before my family in these clothes, and my stomach twists
like I might be sick.
“Who cares about pretty? I’m going for noticeable.”
I open my eyes and for the first time stare openly at my
own reflection. My heart rate picks up as I do, like I am
breaking the rules and will be scolded for it. It will be difficult
to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me,
like tugging a single thread from a complex work of
embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new
rules. I will become something else.
My eyes were blue before, but a dull, grayish blue—the
eyeliner makes them piercing. With my hair framing my
face, my features look softer and fuller. I am not pretty—my
eyes are too big and my nose is too long—but I can see that
Christina is right. My face is noticeable.
Looking at myself now isn’t like seeing myself for the first
time; it’s like seeing someone else for the first time.
Beatrice was a girl I saw in stolen moments at the mirror,
who kept quiet at the dinner table. This is someone whose
eyes claim mine and don’t release me; this is Tris.
“See?” she says. “You’re…striking.”
Under the circumstances, it’s the best compliment she
could have given me. I smile at her in the mirror.
“You like it?” she says.
“Yeah.” I nod. “I look like…a different person.”
She laughs. “That a good thing or a bad thing?”
I look at myself head-on again. For the first time, the idea
of leaving my Abnegation identity behind doesn’t make me
nervous; it gives me hope.
“A good thing.” I shake my head. “Sorry, I’ve just never
been allowed to stare at my reflection for this long.”
“Really?” Christina shakes her head. “Abnegation is a
strange faction, I have to tell you.”
“Let’s go watch Al get tattooed,” I say. Despite the fact
that I have left my old faction behind, I don’t want to criticize
it yet.
At home, my mother and I picked up nearly identical
stacks of clothing every six months or so. It’s easy to
allocate resources when everyone gets the same thing, but
everything is more varied at the Dauntless compound. Every
Dauntless gets a certain amount of points to spend per
month, and the dress costs one of them.
Christina and I race down the narrow path to the tattoo
place. When we get there, Al is sitting in the chair already,
and a small, narrow man with more ink than bare skin is
drawing a spider on his arm.
Will and Christina flip through books of pictures, elbowing
each other when they find a good one. When they sit next to
each other, I notice how opposite they are, Christina dark
and lean, Will pale and solid, but alike in their easy smiles.
I wander around the room, looking at the artwork on the
walls. These days, the only artists are in Amity. Abnegation
sees art as impractical, and its appreciation as time that
could be spent serving others, so though I have seen works
of art in textbooks, I have never been in a decorated room
before. It makes the air feel close and warm, and I could get
lost here for hours without noticing. I skim the wall with my
fingertips. A picture of a hawk on one wall reminds me of
Tori’s tattoo. Beneath it is a sketch of a bird in flight.
“It’s a raven,” a voice behind me says. “Pretty, right?”
I turn to see Tori standing there. I feel like I am back in the
aptitude test room, with the mirrors all around me and the
wires connected to my forehead. I didn’t expect to see her
again.
“Well, hello there.” She smiles. “Never thought I would see
you again. Beatrice, is it?”
“Tris, actually,” I say. “Do you work here?”
“I do. I just took a break to administer the tests. Most of
the time I’m here.” She taps her chin. “I recognize that name.
You were the first jumper, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I was.”
“Well done.”
“Thanks.” I touch the sketch of the bird. “Listen—I need to
talk to you about…” I glance over at Will and Christina. I
can’t corner Tori now; they’ll ask questions. “…something.
Sometime.”
“I am not sure that would be wise,” she says quietly. “I
helped you as much as I could, and now you will have to go it
alone.”
I purse my lips. She has answers; I know she does. If she
won’t give them to me now, I will have to find a way to make
her tell me some other time.
“Want a tattoo?” she says.
The bird sketch holds my attention. I never intended to get
pierced or tattooed when I came here. I know that if I do, it
will place another wedge between me and my family that I
can never remove. And if my life here continues as it has
been, it may soon be the least of the wedges between us.
But I understand now what Tori said about her tattoo
representing a fear she overcame—a reminder of where
she was, as well as a reminder of where she is now. Maybe
there is a way to honor my old life as I embrace my new one.
“Yes,” I say. “Three of these flying birds.”
I touch my collarbone, marking the path of their flight—
toward my heart. One for each member of the family I left
behind.
CHAPTER NINE
“SINCE THERE ARE an odd number of you, one of you won’t be
fighting today,” says Four, stepping away from the board in
the training room. He gives me a look. The space next to my
name is blank.
The knot in my stomach unravels. A reprieve.
“This isn’t good,” says Christina, nudging me with her
elbow. Her elbow prods one of my sore muscles—I have
more sore muscles than not-sore muscles, this morning—
and I wince.
“Ow.”
“Sorry,” she says. “But look. I’m up against the Tank.”
Christina and I sat together at breakfast, and earlier she
shielded me from the rest of the dormitory as I changed. I
haven’t had a friend like her before. Susan was better
friends with Caleb than with me, and Robert only went where
Susan went.
I guess I haven’t really had a friend, period. It’s impossible
to have real friendship when no one feels like they can
accept help or even talk about themselves. That won’t
happen here. I already know more about Christina than I
ever knew about Susan, and it’s only been two days.
“The Tank?” I find Christina’s name on the board. Written
next to it is “Molly.”
“Yeah, Peter’s slightly more feminine-looking minion,” she
says, nodding toward the cluster of people on the other side
of the room. Molly is tall like Christina, but that’s where the
similarities end. She has broad shoulders, bronze skin, and
a bulbous nose.
“Those three”—Christina points at Peter, Drew, and Molly
in turn—“have been inseparable since they crawled out of
the womb, practically. I hate them.”
Will and Al stand across from each other in the arena.
They put their hands up by their faces to protect themselves,
as Four taught us, and shuffle in a circle around each other.
Al is half a foot taller than Will, and twice as broad. As I stare
at him, I realize that even his facial features are big—big
nose, big lips, big eyes. This fight won’t last long.
I glance at Peter and his friends. Drew is shorter than both
Peter and Molly, but he’s built like a boulder, and his
shoulders are always hunched. His hair is orange-red, the
color of an old carrot.
“What’s wrong with them?” I say.
“Peter is pure evil. When we were kids, he would pick
fights with people from other factions and then, when an
adult came to break it up, he’d cry and make up some story
about how the other kid started it. And of course, they
believed him, because we were Candor and we couldn’t lie.
Ha ha.”
Christina wrinkles her nose and adds, “Drew is just his
sidekick. I doubt he has an independent thought in his brain.
And Molly…she’s the kind of person who fries ants with a
magnifying glass just to watch them flail around.”
In the arena, Al punches Will hard in the jaw. I wince.
Across the room, Eric smirks at Al, and turns one of the
rings in his eyebrow.
Will stumbles to the side, one hand pressed to his face,
and blocks Al’s next punch with his free hand. Judging by his
grimace, blocking the punch is as painful as a blow would
have been. Al is slow, but powerful.
Peter, Drew, and Molly cast furtive looks in our direction
and then pull their heads together, whispering.
“I think they know we’re talking about them,” I say.
“So? They already know I hate them.”
“They do? How?”
Christina fakes a smile at them and waves. I look down,
my cheeks warm. I shouldn’t be gossiping anyway.
Gossiping is self-indulgent.
Will hooks a foot around one of Al’s legs and yanks back,
knocking Al to the ground. Al scrambles to his feet.
“Because I’ve told them,” she says, through the gritted
teeth of her smile. Her teeth are straight on top and crooked
on the bottom. She looks at me. “We try to be pretty honest
about our feelings in Candor. Plenty of people have told me
that they don’t like me. And plenty of people haven’t. Who
cares?”
“We just…weren’t supposed to hurt people,” I say.
“I like to think I’m helping them by hating them,” she says.
“I’m reminding them that they aren’t God’s gift to
humankind.”
I laugh a little at that and focus on the arena again. Will
and Al face each other for a few more seconds, more
hesitant than they were before. Will flicks his pale hair from
his eyes. They glance at Four like they’re waiting for him to
call the fight off, but he stands with his arms folded, giving no
response. A few feet away from him, Eric checks his watch.
After a few seconds of circling, Eric shouts, “Do you think
this is a leisure activity? Should we break for nap-time?
Fight each other!”
“But…” Al straightens, letting his hands down, and says,
“Is it scored or something? When does the fight end?”
“It ends when one of you is unable to continue,” says Eric.
“According to Dauntless rules,” Four says, “one of you
could also concede.”
Eric narrows his eyes at Four. “According to the old
rules,” he says. “In the new rules, no one concedes.”
“A brave man acknowledges the strength of others,” Four
replies.
“A brave man never surrenders.”
Four and Eric stare at each other for a few seconds. I feel
like I am looking at two different kinds of Dauntless—the
honorable kind, and the ruthless kind. But even I know that in
this room, it’s Eric, the youngest leader of the Dauntless,
who has the authority.
Beads of sweat dot Al’s forehead; he wipes them with the
back of his hand.
“This is ridiculous,” Al says, shaking his head. “What’s the
point of beating him up? We’re in the same faction!”
“Oh, you think it’s going to be that easy?” Will asks,
grinning. “Go on. Try to hit me, slowpoke.”
Will puts his hands up again. I see determination in Will’s
eyes that wasn’t there before. Does he really believe he can
win? One hard shot to the head and Al will knock him out
cold.
That is, if he can actually hit Will. Al tries a punch, and Will
ducks, the back of his neck shining with sweat. He dodges
another punch, slipping around Al and kicking him hard in
the back. Al lurches forward and turns.
When I was younger, I read a book about grizzly bears.
There was a picture of one standing on its hind legs with its
paws outstretched, roaring. That is how Al looks now. He
charges at Will, grabbing his arm so he can’t slip away, and
punches him hard in the jaw.
I watch the light leave Will’s eyes, which are pale green,
like celery. They roll back into his head, and all the tension
falls from his body. He slips from Al’s grasp, dead weight,
and crumples to the floor. Cold rushes down my back and
fills my chest.
Al’s eyes widen, and he crouches next to Will, tapping his
cheek with one hand. The room falls silent as we wait for
Will to respond. For a few seconds, he doesn’t, just lies on
the ground with an arm bent beneath him. Then he blinks,
clearly dazed.
“Get him up,” Eric says. He stares with greedy eyes at
Will’s fallen body, like the sight is a meal and he hasn’t
eaten in weeks. The curl of his lip is cruel.
Four turns to the chalkboard and circles Al’s name.
Victory.
“Next up—Molly and Christina!” shouts Eric. Al pulls Will’s
arm across his shoulders and drags him out of the arena.
Christina cracks her knuckles. I would wish her luck, but I
don’t know what good that would do. Christina isn’t weak,
but she’s much narrower than Molly. Hopefully her height will
help her.
Across the room, Four supports Will from the waist and
leads him out. Al stands for a moment by the door, watching
them go.
Four leaving makes me nervous. Leaving us with Eric is
like hiring a babysitter who spends his time sharpening
knives.
Christina tucks her hair behind her ears. It is chin-length,
black, and pinned back with silver clips. She cracks another
knuckle. She looks nervous, and no wonder—who wouldn’t
be nervous after watching Will collapse like a rag doll?
If conflict in Dauntless ends with only one person standing,
I am unsure of what this part of initiation will do to me. Will I
be Al, standing over a man’s body, knowing I’m the one who
put him on the ground, or will I be Will, lying in a helpless
heap? And is it selfish of me to crave victory, or is it brave? I
wipe my sweaty palms on my pants.
I snap to attention when Christina kicks Molly in the side.
Molly gasps and grits her teeth like she’s about to growl
through them. A lock of stringy black hair falls across her
face, but she doesn’t brush it away.
Al stands next to me, but I’m too focused on the new fight
to look at him, or congratulate him on winning, assuming
that’s what he wants. I am not sure.
Molly smirks at Christina, and without warning, dives,
hands outstretched, at Christina’s midsection. She hits her
hard, knocking her down, and pins her to the ground.
Christina thrashes, but Molly is heavy and doesn’t budge.
She punches, and Christina moves her head out of the
way, but Molly just punches again, and again, until her fist
hits Christina’s jaw, her nose, her mouth. Without thinking, I
grab Al’s arm and squeeze it as tightly as I can. I just need
something to hold on to. Blood runs down the side of
Christina’s face and splatters on the ground next to her
cheek. This is the first time I have ever prayed for someone
to fall unconscious.
But she doesn’t. Christina screams and drags one of her
arms free. She punches Molly in the ear, knocking her offbalance,
and wriggles free. She comes to her knees,
holding her face with one hand. The blood streaming from
her nose is thick and dark and covers her fingers in
seconds. She screams again and crawls away from Molly. I
can tell by the heaving of her shoulders that she’s sobbing,
but I can barely hear her over the throbbing in my ears.
Please go unconscious.
Molly kicks Christina’s side, sending her sprawling on her
back. Al frees his hand and pulls me tight to his side. I
clench my teeth to keep from crying out. I had no sympathy
for Al the first night, but I am not cruel yet; the sight of
Christina clutching her rib cage makes me want to stand
between her and Molly.
“Stop!” wails Christina as Molly pulls her foot back to kick
again. She holds out a hand. “Stop! I’m…” She coughs. “I’m
done.”
Molly smiles, and I sigh with relief. Al sighs too, his rib
cage lifting and falling against my shoulder.
Eric walks toward the center of the arena, his movements
slow, and stands over Christina with his arms folded. He
says quietly, “I’m sorry, what did you say? You’re done?”
Christina pushes herself to her knees. When she takes
her hand from the ground, it leaves a red handprint behind.
She pinches her nose to stop the bleeding and nods.
“Get up,” he says. If he had yelled, I might not have felt like
everything inside my stomach was about to come out of it. If
he had yelled, I would have known that the yelling was the
worst he planned to do. But his voice is quiet and his words
precise. He grabs Christina’s arm, yanks her to her feet,
and drags her out the door.
“Follow me,” he says to the rest of us.
And we do.
I feel the roar of the river in my chest.
We stand near the railing. The Pit is almost empty; it is
the middle of the afternoon, though it feels like it’s been
night for days.
If there were people around, I doubt any of them would
help Christina. We are with Eric, for one thing, and for
another, the Dauntless have different rules—rules that
brutality does not violate.
Eric shoves Christina against the railing.
“Climb over it,” he says.
“What?” She says it like she expects him to relent, but her
wide eyes and ashen face suggest otherwise. Eric will not
back down.
“Climb over the railing,” says Eric again, pronouncing
each word slowly. “If you can hang over the chasm for five
minutes, I will forget your cowardice. If you can’t, I will not
allow you to continue initiation.”
The railing is narrow and made of metal. The spray from
the river coats it, making it slippery and cold. Even if
Christina is brave enough to hang from the railing for five
minutes, she may not be able to hold on. Either she decides
to be factionless, or she risks death.
When I close my eyes, I imagine her falling onto the
jagged rocks below and shudder.
“Fine,” she says, her voice shaking.
She is tall enough to swing her leg over the railing. Her
foot shakes. She puts her toe on the ledge as she lifts her
other leg over. Facing us, she wipes her hands on her pants
and holds on to the railing so hard her knuckles turn white.
Then she takes one foot off the ledge. And the other. I see
her face between the bars of the barrier, determined, her
lips pressed together.
Next to me, Al sets his watch.
For the first minute and a half, Christina is fine. Her hands
stay firm around the railing and her arms don’t shake. I start
to think she might make it and show Eric how foolish he was
to doubt her.
But then the river hits the wall, and white water sprays
against Christina’s back. Her face strikes the barrier, and
she cries out. Her hands slip so she’s just holding on by her
fingertips. She tries to get a better grip, but now her hands
are wet.
If I help her, Eric would make my fate the same as hers.
Will I let her fall to her death, or will I resign myself to being
factionless? What’s worse: to be idle while someone dies,
or to be exiled and empty-handed?
My parents would have no problem answering that
question.
But I am not my parents.
As far as I know, Christina hasn’t cried since we got here,
but now her face crumples and she lets out a sob that is
louder than the river. Another wave hits the wall and the
spray coats her body. One of the droplets hits my cheek.
Her hands slip again, and this time, one of them falls from
the railing, so she’s hanging by four fingertips.
“Come on, Christina,” says Al, his low voice surprisingly
loud. She looks at him. He claps. “Come on, grab it again.
You can do it. Grab it.”
Would I even be strong enough to hold on to her? Would it
be worth my effort to try to help her if I know I’m too weak to
do any good?
I know what those questions are: excuses. Human
reason can excuse any evil; that is why it’s so important
that we don’t rely on it. My father’s words.
Christina swings her arm, fumbling for the railing. No one
else cheers her on, but Al brings his big hands together and
shouts, his eyes holding hers. I wish I could; I wish I could
move, but I just stare at her and wonder how long I have
been this disgustingly selfish.
I stare at Al’s watch. Four minutes have passed. He
elbows me hard in the shoulder.
“Come on,” I say. My voice is a whisper. I clear my throat.
“One minute left,” I say, louder this time. Christina’s other
hand finds the railing again. Her arms shake so hard I
wonder if the earth is quaking beneath me, jiggling my
vision, and I just didn’t notice.
“Come on, Christina,” Al and I say, and as our voices join,
I believe I might be strong enough to help her.
I will help her. If she slips again, I will.
Another wave of water splashes against Christina’s back,
and she shrieks as both her hands slip off the railing. A
scream launches from my mouth. It sounds like it belongs to
someone else.
But she doesn’t fall. She grabs the bars of the barrier. Her
fingers slide down the metal until I can’t see her head
anymore; they are all I see.
Al’s watch reads 5:00.
“Five minutes are up,” he says, almost spitting the words
at Eric.
Eric checks his own watch. Taking his time, tilting his
wrist, all while my stomach twists and I can’t breathe. When I
blink, I see Rita’s sister on the pavement below the train
tracks, limbs bent at strange angles; I see Rita screaming
and sobbing; I see myself turning away.
“Fine,” Eric says. “You can come up, Christina.”
Al walks toward the railing.
“No,” Eric says. “She has to do it on her own.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Al growls. “She did what you said.
She’s not a coward. She did what you said.”
Eric doesn’t respond. Al reaches over the railing, and
he’s so tall that he can reach Christina’s wrist. She grabs his
forearm. Al pulls her up, his face red with frustration, and I
run forward to help. I’m too short to do much good, as I
suspected, but I grip Christina under the shoulder once
she’s high enough, and Al and I haul her over the barrier.
She drops to the ground, her face still blood-smeared from
the fight, her back soaking wet, her body quivering.
I kneel next to her. Her eyes lift to mine, then shift to Al,
and we all catch our breath together.
CHAPTER TEN
THAT NIGHT I dream that Christina hangs from the railing
again, by her toes this time, and someone shouts that only
someone who is Divergent can help her. So I run forward to
pull her up, but someone shoves me over the edge, and I
wake before I hit the rocks.
Sweat-soaked and shaky from the dream, I walk to the
girls’ bathroom to shower and change. When I come back,
the word “Stiff” is spray-painted across my mattress in red.
The word is written smaller along the bed frame, and again
on my pillow. I look around, my heart pounding with anger.
Peter stands behind me, whistling as he fluffs his pillow.
It’s hard to believe I could hate someone who looks so kind
—his eyebrows turn upward naturally, and he has a wide,
white smile.
“Nice decorations,” he says.
“Did I do something to you that I’m unaware of?” I
demand. I grab the corner of a sheet and yank it away from
the mattress. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we are in
the same faction now.”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” he says lightly. Then
he glances at me. “And you and I will never be in the same
faction.”
I shake my head as I remove my pillowcase from the
pillow. Don’t get angry. He wants to get a rise out of me; he
won’t. But every time he fluffs his pillow, I think about
punching him in the gut.
Al walks in, and I don’t even have to ask him to help me;
he just walks over and strips bedding with me. I will have to
scrub the bed frame later. Al carries the stack of sheets to
the trash can and together we walk toward the training room.
“Ignore him,” Al says. “He’s an idiot, and if you don’t get
angry, he’ll stop eventually.”
“Yeah.” I touch my cheeks. They are still warm with an
angry blush. I try to distract myself. “Did you talk to Will?” I
ask quietly. “After…you know.”
“Yeah. He’s fine. He isn’t angry.” Al sighs. “Now I’ll always
be remembered as the first guy who knocked someone out
cold.”
“There are worse ways to be remembered. At least they
won’t antagonize you.”
“There are better ways too.” He nudges me with his
elbow, smiling. “First jumper.”
Maybe I was the first jumper, but I suspect that’s where my
Dauntless fame begins and ends.
I clear my throat. “One of you had to get knocked out, you
know. If it hadn’t been him, it would have been you.”
“Still, I don’t want to do it again.” Al shakes his head, too
many times, too fast. He sniffs. “I really don’t.”
We reach the door to the training room and I say, “But you
have to.”
He has a kind face. Maybe he is too kind for Dauntless.
I look at the chalkboard when I walk in. I didn’t have to fight
yesterday, but today I definitely will. When I see my name, I
stop in the middle of the step.
My opponent is Peter.
“Oh no,” says Christina, who shuffles in behind us. Her
face is bruised, and she looks like she is trying not to limp.
When she sees the board, she crumples the muffin wrapper
she is holding into her fist. “Are they serious? They’re really
going to make you fight him?”
Peter is almost a foot taller than I am, and yesterday, he
beat Drew in less than five minutes. Today Drew’s face is
more black-and-blue than flesh-toned.
“Maybe you can just take a few hits and pretend to go
unconscious,” suggests Al. “No one would blame you.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Maybe.”
I stare at my name on the board. My cheeks feel hot. Al
and Christina are just trying to help, but the fact that they
don’t believe, not even in a tiny corner of their minds, that I
have a chance against Peter bothers me.
I stand at the side of the room, half listening to Al and
Christina’s chatter, and watch Molly fight Edward. He’s
much faster than she is, so I’m sure Molly will not win today.
As the fight goes on and my irritation fades, I start to get
nervous. Four told us yesterday to exploit our opponent’s
weaknesses, and aside from his utter lack of likable
qualities, Peter doesn’t have any. He’s tall enough to be
strong but not so big that he’s slow; he has an eye for other
people’s soft spots; he’s vicious and won’t show me any
mercy. I would like to say that he underestimates me, but
that would be a lie. I am as unskilled as he suspects.
Maybe Al is right, and I should just take a few hits and
pretend to be unconscious.
But I can’t afford not to try. I can’t be ranked last.
By the time Molly peels herself off the ground, looking only
half-conscious thanks to Edward, my heart is pounding so
hard I can feel it in my fingertips. I can’t remember how to
stand. I can’t remember how to punch. I walk to the center of
the arena and my guts writhe as Peter comes toward me,
taller than I remembered, arm muscles standing at attention.
He smiles at me. I wonder if throwing up on him will do me
any good.
I doubt it.
“You okay there, Stiff?” he says. “You look like you’re
about to cry. I might go easy on you if you cry.”
Over Peter’s shoulder, I see Four standing by the door
with his arms folded. His mouth is puckered, like he just
swallowed something sour. Next to him is Eric, who taps his
foot faster than my heartbeat.
One second Peter and I are standing there, staring at
each other, and the next Peter’s hands are up by his face,
his elbows bent. His knees are bent too, like he’s ready to
spring.
“Come on, Stiff,” he says, his eyes glinting. “Just one little
tear. Maybe some begging.”
The thought of begging Peter for mercy makes me taste
bile, and on an impulse, I kick him in the side. Or I would
have kicked him in the side, if he hadn’t caught my foot and
yanked it forward, knocking me off-balance. My back
smacks into the floor, and I pull my foot free, scrambling to
my feet.
I have to stay on my feet so he can’t kick me in the head.
That’s the only thing I can think about.
“Stop playing with her,” snaps Eric. “I don’t have all day.”
Peter’s mischievous look disappears. His arm twitches
and pain stabs my jaw and spreads across my face, making
my vision go black at the edges and my ears ring. I blink and
lurch to the side as the room dips and sways. I don’t
remember his fist coming at me.
I am too off-balance to do anything but move away from
him, as far as the arena will allow. He darts in front of me
and kicks me hard in the stomach. His foot forces the air
from my lungs and it hurts, hurts so badly I can’t breathe, or
maybe that’s because of the kick, I don’t know, I just fall.
On your feet is the only thought in my mind. I push myself
up, but Peter is already there. He grabs my hair with one
hand and punches me in the nose with the other. This pain is
different, less like a stab and more like a crackle, crackling
in my brain, spotting my vision with different colors, blue,
green, red. I try to shove him off, my hands slapping at his
arms, and he punches me again, this time in the ribs. My
face is wet. Bloody nose. More red, I guess, but I’m too dizzy
to look down.
He shoves me and I fall again, scraping my hands on the
ground, blinking, sluggish and slow and hot. I cough and
drag myself to my feet. I really should be lying down if the
room is spinning this fast. And Peter spins around me; I am
the center of a spinning planet, the only thing staying still.
Something hits me from the side and I almost fall over
again.
On my feet on my feet. I see a solid mass in front of me,
a body. I punch as hard as I can, and my fist hits something
soft. Peter barely groans, and smacks my ear with the flat of
his palm, laughing under his breath. I hear ringing and try to
blink some of the black patches out of my eyes; how did
something get in my eye?
Out of my peripheral vision, I see Four shove the door
open and walk out. Apparently this fight isn’t interesting
enough for him. Or maybe he’s going to find out why
everything’s spinning like a top, and I don’t blame him; I want
to know the answer too.
My knees give out and the floor is cool against my cheek.
Something slams into my side and I scream for the first
time, a high screech that belongs to someone else and not
me, and it slams into my side again, and I can’t see anything
at all, not even whatever is right in front of my face, the lights
out. Someone shouts, “Enough!” and I think too much and
nothing at all.
When I wake up, I don’t feel much, but the inside of my head
is fuzzy, like it’s packed with cotton balls.
I know that I lost, and the only thing keeping the pain at
bay is what is making it difficult to think straight.
“Is her eye already black?” someone asks.
I open one eye—the other stays shut like it’s glued that
way. Sitting to my right are Will and Al; Christina sits on the
bed to my left with an ice pack on her jaw.
“What happened to your face?” I say. My lips feel clumsy
and too large.
She laughs. “Look who’s talking. Should we get you an
eye patch?”
“Well, I already know what happened to my face,” I say. “I
was there. Sort of.”
“Did you just make a joke, Tris?” Will says, grinning. “We
should get you on painkillers more often if you’re going to
start cracking jokes. Oh, and to answer your question—I
beat her up.”
“I can’t believe you couldn’t beat Will,” Al says, shaking his
head.
“What? He’s good,” she says, shrugging. “Plus, I think I’ve
finally learned how to stop losing. I just need to stop people
from punching me in the jaw.”
“You know, you’d think you would have figured that out
already.” Will winks at her. “Now I know why you aren’t
Erudite. Not too bright, are you?”
“You feeling okay, Tris?” Al says. His eyes are dark
brown, almost the same color as Christina’s skin. His cheek
looks rough, like if he didn’t shave it, he would have a thick
beard. Hard to believe he’s only sixteen.
“Yeah,” I say. “Just wish I could stay here forever so I never
have to see Peter again.”
But I don’t know where “here” is. I am in a large, narrow
room with a row of beds on either side. Some of the beds
have curtains between them. On the right side of the room is
a nurse’s station. This must be where the Dauntless go
when they’re sick or hurt. The woman there looks at us over
a clipboard. I’ve never seen a nurse with so many piercings
in her ear before. Some Dauntless must volunteer to do jobs
that traditionally belong to other factions. After all, it wouldn’t
make sense for the Dauntless to make the trek to the city
hospital every time they get hurt.
The first time I went to the hospital, I was six years old. My
mother fell on the sidewalk in front of our house and broke
her arm. Hearing her scream made me burst into tears, but
Caleb just ran for my father without saying a word. At the
hospital, an Amity woman in a yellow shirt with clean
fingernails took my mother’s blood pressure and set her
bone with a smile.
I remember Caleb telling her that it would only take a
month to mend, because it was a hairline fracture. I thought
he was reassuring her, because that’s what selfless people
do, but now I wonder if he was repeating something he had
studied; if all his Abnegation tendencies were just Erudite
traits in disguise.
“Don’t worry about Peter,” says Will. “He’ll at least get
beat up by Edward, who has been studying hand-to-hand
combat since we were ten years old. For fun.”
“Good,” says Christina. She checks her watch. “I think
we’re missing dinner. Do you want us to stay here, Tris?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine.”
Christina and Will get up, but Al waves them ahead. He
has a distinct smell—sweet and fresh, like sage and
lemongrass. When he tosses and turns at night, I get a whiff
of it and I know he’s having a nightmare.
“I just wanted to tell you that you missed Eric’s
announcement. We’re going on a field trip tomorrow, to the
fence, to learn about Dauntless jobs,” he says. “We have to
be at the train by eight fifteen.”
“Good,” I say. “Thanks.”
“And don’t pay attention to Christina. Your face doesn’t
look that bad.” He smiles a little. “I mean, it looks good. It
always looks good. I mean—you look brave. Dauntless.”
His eyes skirt mine, and he scratches the back of his
head. The silence seems to grow between us. It was a nice
thing to say, but he acts like it meant more than just the
words. I hope I am wrong. I could not be attracted to Al—I
could not be attracted to anyone that fragile. I smile as much
as my bruised cheek will allow, hoping that will diffuse the
tension.
“I should let you rest,” he says. He gets up to leave, but
before he can go, I grab his wrist.
“Al, are you okay?” I say. He stares blankly at me, and I
add, “I mean, is it getting any easier?”
“Uh…” He shrugs. “A little.”
He pulls his hand free and shoves it in his pocket. The
question must have embarrassed him, because I’ve never
seen him so red before. If I spent my nights sobbing into my
pillow, I would be a little embarrassed too. At least when I
cry, I know how to hide it.
“I lost to Drew. After your fight with Peter.” He looks at me.
“I took a few hits, fell down, and stayed there. Even though I
didn’t have to. I figure…I figure that since I beat Will, if I lose
all the rest, I won’t be ranked last, but I won’t have to hurt
anyone anymore.”
“Is that really what you want?”
He looks down. “I just can’t do it. Maybe that means I’m a
coward.”
“You’re not a coward just because you don’t want to hurt
people,” I say, because I know it’s the right thing to say, even
if I’m not sure I mean it.
For a moment we are both still, looking at each other.
Maybe I do mean it. If he is a coward, it isn’t because he
doesn’t enjoy pain. It is because he refuses to act.
He gives me a pained look and says, “You think our
families will visit us? They say transfer families never come
on Visiting Day.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know if it would be good or
bad if they did.”
“I think bad.” He nods. “Yeah, it’s already hard enough.”
He nods again, as if confirming what he just said, and walks
away.
In less than a week, the Abnegation initiates will be able
to visit their families for the first time since the Choosing
Ceremony. They will go home and sit in their living rooms
and interact with their parents for the first time as adults.
I used to look forward to that day. I used to think about
what I would say to my mother and father when I was allowed
to ask them questions at the dinner table.
In less than a week, the Dauntless-born initiates will find
their families on the Pit floor, or in the glass building above
the compound, and do whatever it is the Dauntless do when
they reunite. Maybe they take turns throwing knives at each
other’s heads—it wouldn’t surprise me.
And the transfer initiates with forgiving parents will be
able to see them again too. I suspect mine will not be
among them. Not after my father’s cry of outrage at the
ceremony. Not after both their children left them.
Maybe if I could have told them I was Divergent, and I was
confused about what to choose, they would have
understood. Maybe they would have helped me figure out
what Divergent is, and what it means, and why it’s
dangerous. But I didn’t trust them with that secret, so I will
never know.
I clench my teeth as the tears come. I am fed up. I am fed
up with tears and weakness. But there isn’t much I can do to
stop them.
Maybe I drift off to sleep, and maybe I don’t. Later that
night, though, I slip out of the room and go back to the
dormitory. The only thing worse than letting Peter put me in
the hospital would be letting him put me there overnight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE NEXT MORNING, I don’t hear the alarm, shuffling feet, or
conversations as the other initiates get ready. I wake to
Christina shaking my shoulder with one hand and tapping
my cheek with the other. She already wears a black jacket
zipped up to her throat. If she has bruises from yesterday’s
fight, her dark skin makes them difficult to see.
“Come on,” she says. “Up and at ’em.”
I dreamt that Peter tied me to a chair and asked me if I
was Divergent. I answered no, and he punched me until I
said yes. I woke up with wet cheeks.
I mean to say something, but all I can do is groan. My
body aches so badly it hurts to breathe. It doesn’t help that
last night’s bout of crying made my eyes swell. Christina
offers me her hand.
The clock reads eight. We’re supposed to be at the
tracks by eight fifteen.
“I’ll run and get us some breakfast. You just…get ready.
Looks like it might take you a while,” she says.
I grunt. Trying not to bend at the waist, I fumble in the
drawer under my bed for a clean shirt. Luckily Peter isn’t
here to see me struggle. Once Christina leaves, the
dormitory is empty.
I unbutton my shirt and stare at my bare side, which is
patched with bruises. For a second the colors mesmerize
me, bright green and deep blue and brown. I change as fast
as I can and let my hair hang loose because I can’t lift my
arms to tie it back.
I look at my reflection in the small mirror on the back wall
and see a stranger. She is blond like me, with a narrow face
like mine, but that’s where the similarities stop. I do not have
a black eye, and a split lip, and a bruised jaw. I am not as
pale as a sheet. She can’t possibly be me, though she
moves when I move.
By the time Christina comes back, a muffin in each hand,
I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, staring at my untied
shoes. I will have to bend over to tie them. It will hurt when I
bend over.
But Christina just passes me a muffin and crouches in
front of me to tie my shoes. Gratitude surges in my chest,
warm and a little like an ache. Maybe there is some
Abnegation in everyone, even if they don’t know it.
Well, in everyone but Peter.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Well, we would never get there on time if you had to tie
them yourself,” she says. “Come on. You can eat and walk at
the same time, right?”
We walk fast toward the Pit. The muffin is bananaflavored,
with walnuts. My mother baked bread like this once
to give to the factionless, but I never got to try it. I was too old
for coddling at that point. I ignore the pinch in my stomach
that comes every time I think of my mother and half walk, half
jog after Christina, who forgets that her legs are longer than
mine.
We climb the steps from the Pit to the glass building
above it and run to the exit. Every thump of my feet sends
pain through my ribs, but I ignore it. We make it to the tracks
just as the train arrives, its horn blaring.
“What took you so long?” Will shouts over the horn.
“Stumpy Legs over here turned into an old lady overnight,”
says Christina.
“Oh, shut up.” I’m only half kidding.
Four stands at the front of the pack, so close to the tracks
that if he shifted even an inch forward, the train would take
his nose with it. He steps back to let some of the others get
on first. Will hoists himself into the car with some difficulty,
landing first on his stomach and then dragging his legs in
behind him. Four grabs the handle on the side of the car and
pulls himself in smoothly, like he doesn’t have more than six
feet of body to work with.
I jog next to the car, wincing, then grit my teeth and grab
the handle on the side. This is going to hurt.
Al grabs me under each arm and lifts me easily into the
car. Pain shoots through my side, but it only lasts for a
second. I see Peter behind him, and my cheeks get warm.
Al was trying to be nice, so I smile at him, but I wish people
didn’t want to be so nice. As if Peter didn’t have enough
ammunition already.
“Feeling okay there?” Peter says, giving me a look of
mock sympathy—his lips turned down, his arched eyebrows
pulled in. “Or are you a little…Stiff?”
He bursts into laughter at his joke, and Molly and Drew
join in. Molly has an ugly laugh, all snorting and shaking
shoulders, and Drew’s is silent, so it almost looks like he’s
in pain.
“We are all awed by your incredible wit,” says Will.
“Yeah, are you sure you don’t belong with the Erudite,
Peter?” Christina adds. “I hear they don’t object to sissies.”
Four, standing in the doorway, speaks before Peter can
retort. “Am I going to have to listen to your bickering all the
way to the fence?”
Everyone gets quiet, and Four turns back to the car’s
opening. He holds the handles on either side, his arms
stretching wide, and leans forward so his body is mostly
outside the car, though his feet stay planted inside. The wind
presses his shirt to his chest. I try to look past him at what
we’re passing—a sea of crumbling, abandoned buildings
that get smaller as we go.
Every few seconds, though, my eyes shift back to Four. I
don’t know what I expect to see, or what I want to see, if
anything. But I do it without thinking.
I ask Christina, “What do you think is out there?” I nod to
the doorway. “I mean, beyond the fence.”
She shrugs. “A bunch of farms, I guess.”
“Yeah, but I mean…past the farms. What are we guarding
the city from?”
She wiggles her fingers at me. “Monsters!”
I roll my eyes.
“We didn’t even have guards near the fence until five
years ago,” says Will. “Don’t you remember when Dauntless
police used to patrol the factionless sector?”
“Yes,” I say. I also remember that my father was one of the
people who voted to get the Dauntless out of the factionless
sector of the city. He said the poor didn’t need policing; they
needed help, and we could give it to them. But I would rather
not mention that now, or here. It’s one of the many things
Erudite gives as evidence of Abnegation’s incompetence.
“Oh, right,” he says. “I bet you saw them all the time.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask, a little too sharply. I don’t
want to be associated too closely with the factionless.
“Because you had to pass the factionless sector to get to
school, right?”
“What did you do, memorize a map of the city for fun?”
says Christina.
“Yes,” says Will, looking puzzled. “Didn’t you?”
The train’s brakes squeal, and we all lurch forward as the
car slows. I am grateful for the movement; it makes standing
easier. The dilapidated buildings are gone, replaced by
yellow fields and train tracks. The train stops under an
awning. I lower myself to the grass, holding the handle to
keep me steady.
In front of me is a chain-link fence with barbed wire strung
along the top. When I walk forward, I notice that it continues
farther than I can see, perpendicular to the horizon. Past the
fence is a cluster of trees, most of them dead, some green.
Milling around on the other side of the fence are Dauntless
guards carrying guns.
“Follow me,” says Four. I stay close to Christina. I don’t
want to admit it, not even to myself, but I feel calmer when
I’m near her. If Peter tries to taunt me, she will defend me.
Silently I scold myself for being such a coward. Peter’s
insults shouldn’t bother me, and I should focus on getting
better at combat, not on how badly I did yesterday. And I
should be willing, if not able, to defend myself instead of
relying on other people to do it for me.
Four leads us toward the gate, which is as wide as a
house and opens up to the cracked road that leads to the
city. When I came here with my family as a child, we rode in
a bus on that road and beyond, to Amity’s farms, where we
spent the day picking tomatoes and sweating through our
shirts.
Another pinch in my stomach.
“If you don’t rank in the top five at the end of initiation, you
will probably end up here,” says Four as he reaches the
gate. “Once you are a fence guard, there is some potential
for advancement, but not much. You may be able to go on
patrols beyond Amity’s farms, but—”
“Patrols for what purpose?” asks Will.
Four lifts a shoulder. “I suppose you’ll discover that if you
find yourself among them. As I was saying. For the most
part, those who guard the fence when they are young
continue to guard the fence. If it comforts you, some of them
insist that it isn’t as bad as it seems.”
“Yeah. At least we won’t be driving buses or cleaning up
other people’s messes like the factionless,” Christina
whispers in my ear.
“What rank were you?” Peter asks Four.
I don’t expect Four to answer, but he looks levelly at Peter
and says, “I was first.”
“And you chose to do this?” Peter’s eyes are wide and
round and dark green. They would look innocent to me if I
didn’t know what a terrible person he is. “Why didn’t you get
a government job?”
“I didn’t want one,” Four says flatly. I remember what he
said on the first day, about working in the control room,
where the Dauntless monitor the city’s security. It is difficult
for me to imagine him there, surrounded by computers. To
me he belongs in the training room.
We learned about faction jobs in school. The Dauntless
have limited options. We can guard the fence or work for the
security of our city. We can work in the Dauntless
compound, drawing tattoos or making weapons or even
fighting each other for entertainment. Or we can work for the
Dauntless leaders. That sounds like my best option.
The only problem is that my rank is terrible. And I might be
factionless by the end of stage one.
We stop next to the gate. A few Dauntless guards glance
in our direction but not many. They are too busy pulling the
doors—which are twice as tall as they are and several times
wider—open to admit a truck.
The man driving wears a hat, a beard, and a smile. He
stops just inside the gate and gets out. The back of the truck
is open, and a few other Amity sit among the stacks of
crates. I peer at the crates—they hold apples.
“Beatrice?” an Amity boy says.
My head jerks at the sound of my name. One of the Amity
in the back of the truck stands. He has curly blond hair and a
familiar nose, wide at the tip and narrow at the bridge.
Robert. I try to remember him at the Choosing Ceremony
and nothing comes to mind but the sound of my heart in my
ears. Who else transferred? Did Susan? Are there any
Abnegation initiates this year? If Abnegation is fizzling, it’s
our fault—Robert’s and Caleb’s and mine. Mine. I push the
thought from my mind.
Robert hops down from the truck. He wears a gray T-shirt
and a pair of blue jeans. After a second’s hesitation, he
moves toward me and folds me in his arms. I stiffen. Only in
Amity do people hug each other in greeting. I don’t move a
muscle until he releases me.
His own smile fades when he looks at me again.
“Beatrice, what happened to you? What happened to your
face?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Just training. Nothing.”
“Beatrice?” demands a nasal voice next to me. Molly folds
her arms and laughs. “Is that your real name, Stiff?”
I glance at her. “What did you think Tris was short for?”
“Oh, I don’t know…weakling?” She touches her chin. If her
chin was bigger, it might balance out her nose, but it is weak
and almost recedes into her neck. “Oh wait, that doesn’t
start with Tris. My mistake.”
“There’s no need to antagonize her,” Robert says softly.
“I’m Robert, and you are?”
“Someone who doesn’t care what your name is,” she
says. “Why don’t you get back in your truck? We’re not
supposed to fraternize with other faction members.”
“Why don’t you get away from us?” I snap.
“Right. Wouldn’t want to get between you and your
boyfriend,” she says. She walks away smiling.
Robert gives me a sad look. “They don’t seem like nice
people.”
“Some of them aren’t.”
“You could go home, you know. I’m sure Abnegation
would make an exception for you.”
“What makes you think I want to go home?” I ask, my
cheeks hot. “You think I can’t handle this or something?”
“It’s not that.” He shakes his head. “It’s not that you can’t,
it’s that you shouldn’t have to. You should be happy.”
“This is what I chose. This is it.” I look over Robert’s
shoulder. The Dauntless guards seem to have finished
examining the truck. The bearded man gets back into the
driver’s seat and closes the door behind him. “Besides,
Robert. The goal of my life isn’t just…to be happy.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier if it was, though?” he says.
Before I can answer, he touches my shoulder and turns
toward the truck. A girl in the back has a banjo on her lap.
She starts to strum it as Robert hoists himself inside, and
the truck starts forward, carrying the banjo sounds and her
warbling voice away from us.
Robert waves to me, and again I see another possible life
in my mind’s eye. I see myself in the back of the truck,
singing with the girl, though I’ve never sung before, laughing
when I am off-key, climbing trees to pick the apples, always
peaceful and always safe.
The Dauntless guards close the gate and lock it behind
them. The lock is on the outside. I bite my lip. Why would
they lock the gate from the outside and not the inside? It
almost seems like they don’t want to keep something out;
they want to keep us in.
I push the thought out of my head. That makes no sense.
Four steps away from the fence, where he was talking to
a female Dauntless guard with a gun balanced on her
shoulder a moment before. “I am worried that you have a
knack for making unwise decisions,” he says when he’s a
foot away from me.
I cross my arms. “It was a two-minute conversation.”
“I don’t think a smaller time frame makes it any less
unwise.” He furrows his eyebrows and touches the corner of
my bruised eye with his fingertips. My head jerks back, but
he doesn’t take his hand away. Instead he tilts his head and
sighs. “You know, if you could just learn to attack first, you
might do better.”
“Attack first?” I say. “How will that help?”
“You’re fast. If you can get a few good hits in before they
know what’s going on, you could win.” He shrugs, and his
hand falls.
“I’m surprised you know that,” I say quietly, “since you left
halfway through my one and only fight.”
“It wasn’t something I wanted to watch,” he says.
What’s that supposed to mean?
He clears his throat. “Looks like the next train is here.
Time to go, Tris.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
I CRAWL ACROSS my mattress and heave a sigh. It has been
two days since my fight with Peter, and my bruises are
turning purple-blue. I have gotten used to aching every time I
move, so now I move better, but I am still far from healed.
Even though I am still injured, I had to fight again today.
Luckily this time, I was paired against Myra, who couldn’t
throw a good punch if someone was controlling her arm for
her. I got a good hit in during the first two minutes. She fell
down and was too dizzy to get back up. I should feel
triumphant, but there is no triumph in punching a girl like
Myra.
The second I touch my head to the pillow, the door to the
dormitory opens, and people stream into the room with
flashlights. I sit up, almost hitting my head on the bed frame
above me, and squint through the dark to see what’s going
on.
“Everybody up!” someone roars. A flashlight shines
behind his head, making the rings in his ears glint. Eric.
Surrounding him are other Dauntless, some of whom I have
seen in the Pit, some of whom I have never seen before.
Four stands among them.
His eyes shift to mine and stay there. I stare back and
forget that all around me the transfers are getting out of bed.
“Did you go deaf, Stiff?” demands Eric. I snap out of my
daze and slide out from beneath the blankets. I am glad I
sleep fully clothed, because Christina stands next to our
bunk wearing only a T-shirt, her long legs bare. She folds
her arms and stares at Eric. I wish, suddenly, that I could
stare so boldly at someone with hardly any clothes on, but I
would never be able to do that.
“You have five minutes to get dressed and meet us by the
tracks,” says Eric. “We’re going on another field trip.”
I shove my feet into shoes and sprint, wincing, behind
Christina on the way to the train. A drop of sweat rolls down
the back of my neck as we run up the paths along the walls
of the Pit, pushing past members on our way up. They don’t
seem surprised to see us. I wonder how many frantic,
running people they see on a weekly basis.
We make it to the tracks just behind the Dauntless-born
initiates. Next to the tracks is a black pile. I make out a
cluster of long gun barrels and trigger guards.
“Are we going to shoot something?” Christina hisses in
my ear.
Next to the pile are boxes of what looks like ammunition. I
inch closer to read one of the boxes. Written on it is
“PAINTBALLS.”
I’ve never heard of them before, but the name is selfexplanatory.
I laugh.
“Everyone grab a gun!” shouts Eric.
We rush toward the pile. I am the closest to it, so I snatch
the first gun I can find, which is heavy, but not too heavy for
me to lift, and grab a box of paintballs. I shove the box in my
pocket and sling the gun across my back so the strap
crosses my chest.
“Time estimate?” Eric asks Four.
Four checks his watch. “Any minute now. How long is it
going to take you to memorize the train schedule?”
“Why should I, when I have you to remind me of it?” says
Eric, shoving Four’s shoulder.
A circle of light appears on my left, far away. It grows
larger as it comes closer, shining against the side of Four’s
face, creating a shadow in the faint hollow beneath his
cheekbone.
He is the first to get on the train, and I run after him, not
waiting for Christina or Will or Al to follow me. Four turns
around as I fall into stride next to the car and holds out a
hand. I grab his arm, and he pulls me in. Even the muscles in
his forearm are taut, defined.
I let go quickly, without looking at him, and sit down on the
other side of the car.
Once everyone is in, Four speaks up.
“We’ll be dividing into two teams to play capture the flag.
Each team will have an even mix of members, Dauntlessborn
initiates, and transfers. One team will get off first and
find a place to hide their flag. Then the second team will get
off and do the same.” The car sways, and Four grabs the
side of the doorway for balance. “This is a Dauntless
tradition, so I suggest you take it seriously.”
“What do we get if we win?” someone shouts.
“Sounds like the kind of question someone not from
Dauntless would ask,” says Four, raising an eyebrow. “You
get to win, of course.”
“Four and I will be your team captains,” says Eric. He
looks at Four. “Let’s divide up transfers first, shall we?”
I tilt my head back. If they’re picking us, I will be chosen
last; I can feel it.
“You go first,” Four says.
Eric shrugs. “Edward.”
Four leans against the door frame and nods. The
moonlight makes his eyes bright. He scans the group of
transfer initiates briefly, without calculation, and says, “I want
the Stiff.”
A faint undercurrent of laughter fills the car. Heat rushes
into my cheeks. I don’t know whether to be angry at the
people laughing at me or flattered by the fact that he chose
me first.
“Got something to prove?” asks Eric, with his trademark
smirk. “Or are you just picking the weak ones so that if you
lose, you’ll have someone to blame it on?”
Four shrugs. “Something like that.”
Angry. I should definitely be angry. I scowl at my hands.
Whatever Four’s strategy is, it’s based on the idea that I am
weaker than the other initiates. And it gives me a bitter taste
in my mouth. I have to prove him wrong—I have to.
“Your turn,” says Four.
“Peter.”
“Christina.”
That throws a wrench in his strategy. Christina is not one
of the weak ones. What exactly is he doing?
“Molly.”
“Will,” says Four, biting his thumbnail.
“Al.”
“Drew.”
“Last one left is Myra. So she’s with me,” says Eric.
“Dauntless-born initiates next.”
I stop listening once they’re finished with us. If Four isn’t
trying to prove something by choosing the weak, what is he
doing? I look at each person he chooses. What do we have
in common?
Once they’re halfway through the Dauntless-born initiates,
I have an idea of what it is. With the exception of Will and a
couple of the others, we all share the same body type:
narrow shoulders, small frames. All the people on Eric’s
team are broad and strong. Just yesterday, Four told me I
was fast. We will all be faster than Eric’s team, which will
probably be good for capture the flag—I haven’t played
before, but I know it’s a game of speed rather than brute
force. I cover a smile with my hand. Eric is more ruthless
than Four, but Four is smarter.
They finish choosing teams, and Eric smirks at Four.
“Your team can get off second,” says Eric.
“Don’t do me any favors,” Four replies. He smiles a little.
“You know I don’t need them to win.”
“No, I know that you’ll lose no matter when you get off,”
says Eric, biting down briefly on one of the rings in his lip.
“Take your scrawny team and get off first, then.”
We all stand up. Al gives me a forlorn look, and I smile
back in what I hope is a reassuring way. If any of the four of
us had to end up on the same team as Eric, Peter, and
Molly, at least it was him. They usually leave him alone.
The train is about to dip to the ground. I am determined to
land on my feet.
Just before I jump, someone shoves my shoulder, and I
almost topple out of the train car. I don’t look back to see
who it is—Molly, Drew, or Peter, it doesn’t matter which one.
Before they can try it again, I jump. This time I am ready for
the momentum the train gives me, and I run a few steps to
diffuse it but keep my balance. Fierce pleasure courses
through me and I smile. It’s a small accomplishment, but it
makes me feel Dauntless.
One of the Dauntless-born initiates touches Four’s
shoulder and asks, “When your team won, where did you put
the flag?”
“Telling you wouldn’t really be in the spirit of the exercise,
Marlene,” he says coolly.
“Come on, Four,” she whines. She gives him a flirtatious
smile. He brushes her hand off his arm, and for some
reason, I find myself grinning.
“Navy Pier,” another Dauntless-born initiate calls out. He
is tall, with brown skin and dark eyes. Handsome. “My
brother was on the winning team. They kept the flag at the
carousel.”
“Let’s go there, then,” suggests Will.
No one objects, so we walk east, toward the marsh that
was once a lake. When I was young, I tried to imagine what
it would look like as a lake, with no fence built into the mud
to keep the city safe. But it is difficult to imagine that much
water in one place.
“We’re close to Erudite headquarters, right?” asks
Christina, bumping Will’s shoulder with her own.
“Yeah. It’s south of here,” he says. He looks over his
shoulder, and for a second his expression is full of longing.
Then it’s gone.
I am less than a mile away from my brother. It has been a
week since we were that close together. I shake my head a
little to get the thought out of my mind. I can’t think about him
today, when I have to focus on making it through stage one. I
can’t think about him any day.
We walk across the bridge. We still need the bridges
because the mud beneath them is too wet to walk on. I
wonder how long it’s been since the river dried up.
Once we cross the bridge, the city changes. Behind us,
most of the buildings were in use, and even if they weren’t,
they looked well-tended. In front of us is a sea of crumbling
concrete and broken glass. The silence of this part of the
city is eerie; it feels like a nightmare. It’s hard to see where
I’m going, because it’s after midnight and all the city lights
are off.
Marlene takes out a flashlight and shines it at the street in
front of us.
“Scared of the dark, Mar?” the dark-eyed Dauntless-born
initiate teases.
“If you want to step on broken glass, Uriah, be my guest,”
she snaps. But she turns it off anyway.
I have realized that part of being Dauntless is being willing
to make things more difficult for yourself in order to be selfsufficient.
There’s nothing especially brave about wandering
dark streets with no flashlight, but we are not supposed to
need help, even from light. We are supposed to be capable
of anything.
I like that. Because there might come a day when there is
no flashlight, there is no gun, there is no guiding hand. And I
want to be ready for it.
The buildings end just before the marsh. A strip of land
juts out into the marsh, and rising from it is a giant white
wheel with dozens of red passenger cars dangling from it at
regular intervals. The Ferris wheel.
“Think about it. People used to ride that thing. For fun,”
says Will, shaking his head.
“They must have been Dauntless,” I say.
“Yeah, but a lame version of Dauntless.” Christina laughs.
“A Dauntless Ferris wheel wouldn’t have cars. You would
just hang on tight with your hands, and good luck to you.”
We walk down the side of the pier. All the buildings on my
left are empty, their signs torn down and their windows
closed, but it is a clean kind of emptiness. Whoever left
these places left them by choice and at their leisure. Some
places in the city are not like that.
“Dare you to jump into the marsh,” says Christina to Will.
“You first.”
We reach the carousel. Some of the horses are scratched
and weathered, their tails broken off or their saddles
chipped. Four takes the flag out of his pocket.
“In ten minutes, the other team will pick their location,” he
says. “I suggest you take this time to formulate a strategy.
We may not be Erudite, but mental preparedness is one
aspect of your Dauntless training. Arguably, it is the most
important aspect.”
He is right about that. What good is a prepared body if
you have a scattered mind?
Will takes the flag from Four.
“Some people should stay here and guard, and some
people should go out and scout the other team’s location,”
Will says.
“Yeah? You think?” Marlene plucks the flag from Will’s
fingers. “Who put you in charge, transfer?”
“No one,” says Will. “But someone’s got to do it.”
“Maybe we should develop a more defensive strategy.
Wait for them to come to us, then take them out,” suggests
Christina.
“That’s the sissy way out,” Uriah says. “I vote we go all out.
Hide the flag well enough that they can’t find it.”
Everyone bursts into the conversation at once, their
voices louder with each passing second. Christina defends
Will’s plan; the Dauntless-born initiates vote for offense;
everyone argues about who should make the decision. Four
sits down on the edge of the carousel, leaning against a
plastic horse’s foot. His eyes lift to the sky, where there are
no stars, only a round moon peeking through a thin layer of
clouds. The muscles in his arms are relaxed; his hand rests
on the back of his neck. He looks almost comfortable,
holding that gun to his shoulder.
I close my eyes briefly. Why does he distract me so
easily? I need to focus.
What would I say if I could shout above the sniping behind
me? We can’t act until we know where the other team is.
They could be anywhere within a two-mile radius, although I
can rule out the empty marsh as an option. The best way to
find them is not to argue about how to search for them, or
how many to send out in a search party.
It’s to climb as high as possible.
I look over my shoulder to make sure no one is watching.
None of them look at me, so I walk toward the Ferris wheel
with light, quiet footsteps, pressing my gun to my back with
one hand to keep it from making noise.
When I stare up at the Ferris wheel from the ground, my
throat feels tighter. It is taller than I thought, so tall I can
barely see the cars swinging at the top. The only good thing
about its height is that it is built to support weight. If I climb it,
it won’t collapse beneath me.
My heart pumps faster. Will I really risk my life for this—to
win a game the Dauntless like to play?
It’s so dark I can barely see them, but when I stare at the
huge, rusted supports holding the wheel in place, I see the
rungs of a ladder. Each support is only as wide as my
shoulders, and there are no railings to hold me in, but
climbing a ladder is better than climbing the spokes of the
wheel.
I grab a rung. It’s rusty and thin and feels like it might
crumble in my hands. I put my weight on the lowest rung to
test it and jump to make sure it will hold me up. The
movement hurts my ribs, and I wince.
“Tris,” a low voice says behind me. I don’t know why it
doesn’t startle me. Maybe because I am becoming
Dauntless, and mental readiness is something I am
supposed to develop. Maybe because his voice is low and
smooth and almost soothing. Whatever the reason, I look
over my shoulder. Four stands behind me with his gun slung
across his back, just like mine.
“Yes?” I say.
“I came to find out what you think you’re doing.”
“I’m seeking higher ground,” I say. “I don’t think I’m doing
anything.”
I see his smile in the dark. “All right. I’m coming.”
I pause a second. He doesn’t look at me the way Will,
Christina, and Al sometimes do—like I am too small and too
weak to be of any use, and they pity me for it. But if he
insists on coming with me, it is probably because he doubts
me.
“I’ll be fine,” I say.
“Undoubtedly,” he replies. I don’t hear the sarcasm, but I
know it’s there. It has to be.
I climb, and when I’m a few feet off the ground, he comes
after me. He moves faster than I do, and soon his hands find
the rungs that my feet leave.
“So tell me…,” he says quietly as we climb. He sounds
breathless. “What do you think the purpose of this exercise
is? The game, I mean, not the climbing.”
I stare down at the pavement. It seems far away now, but
I’m not even a third of the way up. Above me is a platform,
just below the center of the wheel. That’s my destination. I
don’t even think about how I will climb back down. The
breeze that brushed my cheeks earlier now presses against
my side. The higher we go, the stronger it will get. I need to
be ready.
“Learning about strategy,” I say. “Teamwork, maybe.”
“Teamwork,” he repeats. A laugh hitches in his throat. It
sounds like a panicked breath.
“Maybe not,” I say. “Teamwork doesn’t seem to be a
Dauntless priority.”
The wind is stronger now. I press closer to the white
support so I don’t fall, but that makes it hard to climb. Below
me the carousel looks small. I can barely see my team under
the awning. Some of them are missing—a search party
must have left.
Four says, “It’s supposed to be a priority. It used to be.”
But I’m not really listening, because the height is dizzying.
My hands ache from holding the rungs, and my legs are
shaking, but I’m not sure why. It isn’t the height that scares
me—the height makes me feel alive with energy, every
organ and vessel and muscle in my body singing at the
same pitch.
Then I realize what it is. It’s him. Something about him
makes me feel like I am about to fall. Or turn to liquid. Or
burst into flames.
My hand almost misses the next rung.
“Now tell me…,” he says through a bursting breath, “what
do you think learning strategy has to do with…bravery?”
The question reminds me that he is my instructor, and I
am supposed to learn something from this. A cloud passes
over the moon, and the light shifts across my hands.
“It…it prepares you to act,” I say finally. “You learn strategy
so you can use it.” I hear him breathing behind me, loud and
fast. “Are you all right, Four?”
“Are you human, Tris? Being up this high…” He gulps for
air. “It doesn’t scare you at all?”
I look over my shoulder at the ground. If I fall now, I will die.
But I don’t think I will fall.
A gust of air presses against my left side, throwing my
body weight to the right. I gasp and cling to the rungs, my
balance shifting. Four’s cold hand clamps around one of my
hips, one of his fingers finding a strip of bare skin just under
the hem of my T-shirt. He squeezes, steadying me and
pushing me gently to the left, restoring my balance.
Now I can’t breathe. I pause, staring at my hands, my
mouth dry. I feel the ghost of where his hand was, his fingers
long and narrow.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“Yes,” I say, my voice strained.
I keep climbing, silently, until I reach the platform. Judging
by the blunted ends of metal rods, it used to have railings,
but it doesn’t anymore. I sit down and scoot to the end of it
so Four has somewhere to sit. Without thinking, I put my
legs over the side. Four, however, crouches and presses his
back to the metal support, breathing heavily.
“You’re afraid of heights,” I say. “How do you survive in the
Dauntless compound?”
“I ignore my fear,” he says. “When I make decisions, I
pretend it doesn’t exist.”
I stare at him for a second. I can’t help it. To me there’s a
difference between not being afraid and acting in spite of
fear, as he does.
I have been staring at him too long.
“What?” he says quietly.
“Nothing.”
I look away from him and toward the city. I have to focus. I
climbed up here for a reason.
The city is pitch-black, but even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be
able to see very far. A building stands in my way.
“We’re not high enough,” I say. I look up. Above me is a
tangle of white bars, the wheel’s scaffolding. If I climb
carefully, I can wedge my feet between the supports and the
crossbars and stay secure. Or as secure as possible.
“I’m going to climb,” I say, standing up. I grab one of the
bars above my head and pull myself up. Shooting pains go
through my bruised sides, but I ignore them.
“For God’s sake, Stiff,” he says.
“You don’t have to follow me,” I say, staring at the maze of
bars above me. I shove my foot onto the place where two
bars cross and push myself up, grabbing another bar in the
process. I sway for a second, my heart beating so hard I
can’t feel anything else. Every thought I have condenses into
that heartbeat, moving at the same rhythm.
“Yes, I do,” he says.
This is crazy, and I know it. A fraction of an inch of
mistake, half a second of hesitation, and my life is over.
Heat tears through my chest, and I smile as I grab the next
bar. I pull myself up, my arms shaking, and force my leg
under me so I’m standing on another bar. When I feel
steady, I look down at Four. But instead of seeing him, I see
straight to the ground.
I can’t breathe.
I imagine my body plummeting, smacking into the bars as
it falls down, and my limbs at broken angles on the
pavement, just like Rita’s sister when she didn’t make it onto
the roof. Four grabs a bar with each hand and pulls himself
up, easy, like he’s sitting up in bed. But he is not
comfortable or natural here—every muscle in his arm stands
out. It is a stupid thing for me to think when I am one hundred
feet off the ground.
I grab another bar, find another place to wedge my foot.
When I look at the city again, the building isn’t in my way. I’m
high enough to see the skyline. Most of the buildings are
black against a navy sky, but the red lights at the top of the
Hub are lit up. They blink half as fast as my heartbeat.
Beneath the buildings, the streets look like tunnels. For a
few seconds I see only a dark blanket over the land in front
of me, just faint differences between building and sky and
street and ground. Then I see a tiny pulsing light on the
ground.
“See that?” I say, pointing.
Four stops climbing when he’s right behind me and looks
over my shoulder, his chin next to my head. His breaths
flutter against my ear, and I feel shaky again, like I did when I
was climbing the ladder.
“Yeah,” he says. A smile spreads over his face.
“It’s coming from the park at the end of the pier,” he says.
“Figures. It’s surrounded by open space, but the trees
provide some camouflage. Obviously not enough.”
“Okay,” I say. I look over my shoulder at him. We are so
close I forget where I am; instead I notice that the corners of
his mouth turn down naturally, just like mine, and that he has
a scar on his chin.
“Um,” I say. I clear my throat. “Start climbing down. I’ll
follow you.”
Four nods and steps down. His leg is so long that he finds
a place for his foot easily and guides his body between the
bars. Even in darkness, I see that his hands are bright red
and shaking.
I step down with one foot, pressing my weight into one of
the crossbars. The bar creaks beneath me and comes
loose, clattering against half a dozen bars on the way down
and bouncing on the pavement. I’m dangling from the
scaffolding with my toes swinging in midair. A strangled
gasp escapes me.
“Four!”
I try to find another place to put my foot, but the nearest
foothold is a few feet away, farther than I can stretch. My
hands are sweaty. I remember wiping them on my slacks
before the Choosing Ceremony, before the aptitude test,
before every important moment, and suppress a scream. I
will slip. I will slip.
“Hold on!” he shouts. “Just hold on, I have an idea.”
He keeps climbing down. He’s moving in the wrong
direction; he should be coming toward me, not going away
from me. I stare at my hands, which are wrapped around the
narrow bar so tightly my knuckles are white. My fingers are
dark red, almost purple. They won’t last long.
I won’t last long.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Better not to look. Better to
pretend that none of this exists. I hear Four’s sneakers
squeak against metal and rapid footsteps on ladder rungs.
“Four!” I yell. Maybe he left. Maybe he abandoned me.
Maybe this is a test of my strength, of my bravery. I breathe
in my nose and out my mouth. I count my breaths to calm
down. One, two. In, out. Come on, Four is all I can think.
Come on, do something.
Then I hear something wheeze and creak. The bar I’m
holding shudders, and I scream through my clenched teeth
as I fight to keep my grip.
The wheel is moving.
Air wraps around my ankles and wrists as the wind
gushes up, like a geyser. I open my eyes. I’m moving—
toward the ground. I laugh, giddy with hysteria as the ground
comes closer and closer. But I’m picking up speed. If I don’t
drop at the right time, the moving cars and metal scaffolding
will drag at my body and carry me with them, and then I will
really die.
Every muscle in my body tenses as I hurtle toward the
ground. When I can see the cracks in the sidewalk, I drop,
and my body slams into the ground, feet first. My legs
collapse beneath me and I pull my arms in, rolling as fast as
I can to the side. The cement scrapes my face, and I turn just
in time to see a car bearing down on me, like a giant shoe
about to crush me. I roll again, and the bottom of the car
skims my shoulder.
I’m safe.
I press my palms to my face. I don’t try to get up. If I did,
I’m sure I would just fall back down. I hear footsteps, and
Four’s hands wrap around my wrists. I let him pry my hands
from my eyes.
He encloses one of my hands perfectly between two of
his. The warmth of his skin overwhelms the ache in my
fingers from holding the bars.
“You all right?” he asks, pressing our hands together.
“Yeah.”
He starts to laugh.
After a second, I laugh too. With my free hand, I push
myself to a sitting position. I am aware of how little space
there is between us—six inches at most. That space feels
charged with electricity. I feel like it should be smaller.
He stands, pulling me up with him. The wheel is still
moving, creating a wind that tosses my hair back.
“You could have told me that the Ferris wheel still worked,”
I say. I try to sound casual. “We wouldn’t have had to climb in
the first place.”
“I would have, if I had known,” he says. “Couldn’t just let
you hang there, so I took a risk. Come on, time to get their
flag.”
Four hesitates for a moment and then takes my arm, his
fingertips pressing to the inside of my elbow. In other
factions, he would give me time to recover, but he is
Dauntless, so he smiles at me and starts toward the
carousel, where our team members guard our flag. And I
half run, half limp beside him. I still feel weak, but my mind is
awake, especially with his hand on me.
Christina is perched on one of the horses, her long legs
crossed and her hand around the pole holding the plastic
animal upright. Our flag is behind her, a glowing triangle in
the dark. Three Dauntless-born initiates stand among the
other worn and dirty animals. One of them has his hand on a
horse’s head, and a scratched horse eye stares at me
between his fingers. Sitting on the edge of the carousel is
an older Dauntless, scratching her quadruple-pierced
eyebrow with her thumb.
“Where’d the others go?” asks Four.
He looks as excited as I feel, his eyes wide with energy.
“Did you guys turn on the wheel?” the older girl says.
“What the hell are you thinking? You might as well have just
shouted ‘Here we are! Come and get us!’” She shakes her
head. “If I lose again this year, the shame will be unbearable.
Three years in a row?”
“The wheel doesn’t matter,” says Four. “We know where
they are.”
“We?” says Christina, looking from Four to me.
“Yes, while the rest of you were twiddling your thumbs,
Tris climbed the Ferris wheel to look for the other team,” he
says.
“What do we do now, then?” asks one of the Dauntlessborn
initiates through a yawn.
Four looks at me. Slowly the eyes of the other initiates,
including Christina, migrate from him to me. I tense my
shoulders, about to shrug and say I don’t know, and then an
image of the pier stretching out beneath me comes into my
mind. I have an idea.
“Split in half,” I say. “Four of us go to the right side of the
pier, three to the left. The other team is in the park at the end
of the pier, so the group of four will charge as the group of
three sneaks behind the other team to get the flag.”
Christina looks at me like she no longer recognizes me. I
don’t blame her.
“Sounds good,” says the older girl, clapping her hands
together. “Let’s get this night over with, shall we?”
Christina joins me in the group going to the right, along
with Uriah, whose smile looks white against his skin’s
bronze. I didn’t notice before, but he has a tattoo of a snake
behind his ear. I stare at its tail curling around his earlobe for
a moment, but then Christina starts running and I have to
follow her.
I have to run twice as fast to match my short strides to her
long ones. As I run, I realize that only one of us will get to
touch the flag, and it won’t matter that it was my plan and my
information that got us to it if I’m not the one who grabs it.
Though I can hardly breathe as it is, I run faster, and I’m on
Christina’s heels. I pull my gun around my body, holding my
finger over the trigger.
We reach the end of the pier, and I clamp my mouth shut
to keep my loud breaths in. We slow down so our footsteps
aren’t as loud, and I look for the blinking light again. Now
that I’m on the ground, it’s bigger and easier to see. I point,
and Christina nods, leading the way toward it.
Then I hear a chorus of yells, so loud they make me jump. I
hear puffs of air as paintballs go flying and splats as they
find their targets. Our team has charged, the other team runs
to meet us, and the flag is almost unguarded. Uriah takes
aim and shoots the last guard in the thigh. The guard, a
short girl with purple hair, throws her gun to the ground in a
tantrum.
I sprint to catch up to Christina. The flag hangs from a tree
branch, high above my head. I reach for it, and so does
Christina.
“Come on, Tris,” she says. “You’re already the hero of the
day. And you know you can’t reach it anyway.”
She gives me a patronizing look, the way people
sometimes look at children when they act too adult, and
snatches the flag from the branch. Without looking at me,
she turns and gives a whoop of victory. Uriah’s voice joins
hers and then I hear a chorus of yells in the distance.
Uriah claps my shoulder, and I try to forget about the look
Christina gave me. Maybe she’s right; I’ve already proved
myself today. I do not want to be greedy; I do not want to be
like Eric, terrified of other people’s strength.
The shouts of triumph become infectious, and I lift my
voice to join in, running toward my teammates. Christina
holds the flag up high, and everyone clusters around her,
grabbing her arm to lift the flag even higher. I can’t reach
her, so I stand off to the side, grinning.
A hand touches my shoulder.
“Well done,” Four says quietly.
“I can’t believe I missed it!” Will says again, shaking his
head. Wind coming through the doorway of the train car
blows his hair in every direction.
“You were performing the very important job of staying out
of our way,” says Christina, beaming.
Al groans. “Why did I have to be on the other team?”
“Because life’s not fair, Albert. And the world is conspiring
against you,” says Will. “Hey, can I see the flag again?”
Peter, Molly, and Drew sit across from the members in
the corner. Their chests and backs are splattered with blue
and pink paint, and they look dejected. They speak quietly,
sneaking looks at the rest of us, especially Christina. That is
the benefit of not holding the flag right now—I am no one’s
target. Or at least, no more than usual.
“So you climbed the Ferris wheel, huh,” says Uriah. He
stumbles across the car and sits next to me. Marlene, the
girl with the flirty smile, follows him.
“Yes,” I say.
“Pretty smart of you. Like…Erudite smart,” Marlene says.
“I’m Marlene.”
“Tris,” I say. At home, being compared to an Erudite
would be an insult, but she says it like a compliment.
“Yeah, I know who you are,” she says. “The first jumper
tends to stick in your head.”
It has been years since I jumped off a building in my
Abnegation uniform; it has been decades.
Uriah takes one of the paintballs from his gun and
squeezes it between his thumb and index finger. The train
lurches to the left, and Uriah falls against me, his fingers
pinching the paintball until a stream of pink, foul-smelling
paint sprays on my face.
Marlene collapses in giggles. I wipe some of the paint
from my face, slowly, and then smear it on his cheek. The
scent of fish oil wafts through the train car.
“Ew!” He squeezes the ball at me again, but the opening
is at the wrong angle, and the paint sprays into his mouth
instead. He coughs and makes exaggerated gagging
sounds.
I wipe my face with my sleeve, laughing so hard my
stomach hurts.
If my entire life is like this, loud laughter and bold action
and the kind of exhaustion you feel after a hard but satisfying
day, I will be content. As Uriah scrapes his tongue with his
fingertips, I realize that all I have to do is get through
initiation, and that life will be mine.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING, when I trudge into the training room,
yawning, a large target stands at one end of the room, and
next to the door is a table with knives strewn across it.
Target practice again. At least it won’t hurt.
Eric stands in the middle of the room, his posture so rigid
it looks like someone replaced his spine with a metal rod.
The sight of him makes me feel like all the air in the room is
heavier, bearing down on me. At least when he was
slouched against a wall, I could pretend he wasn’t here.
Today I can’t pretend.
“Tomorrow will be the last day of stage one,” Eric says.
“You will resume fighting then. Today, you’ll be learning how
to aim. Everyone pick up three knives.” His voice is deeper
than usual. “And pay attention while Four demonstrates the
correct technique for throwing them.”
At first no one moves.
“Now!”
We scramble for daggers. They aren’t as heavy as guns,
but they still feel strange in my hands, like I am not allowed
to hold them.
“He’s in a bad mood today,” mumbles Christina.
“Is he ever in a good mood?” I murmur back.
But I know what she means. Judging by the poisonous
look Eric gives Four when he isn’t paying attention, last
night’s loss must have bothered Eric more than he let on.
Winning capture the flag is a matter of pride, and pride is
important to the Dauntless. More important than reason or
sense.
I watch Four’s arm as he throws a knife. The next time he
throws, I watch his stance. He hits the target each time,
exhaling as he releases the knife.
Eric orders, “Line up!”
Haste, I think, will not help. My mother told me that when I
was learning how to knit. I have to think of this as a mental
exercise, not a physical exercise. So I spend the first few
minutes practicing without a knife, finding the right stance,
learning the right arm motion.
Eric paces too quickly behind us.
“I think the Stiff’s taken too many hits to the head!”
remarks Peter, a few people down. “Hey, Stiff! Remember
what a knife is?”
Ignoring him, I practice the throw again with a knife in
hand but don’t release it. I shut out Eric’s pacing, and
Peter’s jeering, and the nagging feeling that Four is staring
at me, and throw the knife. It spins end over end, slamming
into the board. The blade doesn’t stick, but I’m the first
person to hit the target.
I smirk as Peter misses again. I can’t help myself.
“Hey, Peter,” I say. “Remember what a target is?”
Next to me, Christina snorts, and her next knife hits the
target.
A half hour later, Al is the only initiate who hasn’t hit the
target yet. His knives clatter to the floor, or bounce off the
wall. While the rest of us approach the board to collect our
weapons, he hunts the floor for his.
The next time he tries and misses, Eric marches toward
him and demands, “How slow are you, Candor? Do you
need glasses? Should I move the target closer to you?”
Al’s face turns red. He throws another knife, and this one
sails a few feet to the right of the target. It spins and hits the
wall.
“What was that, initiate?” says Eric quietly, leaning closer
to Al.
I bite my lip. This isn’t good.
“It—it slipped,” says Al.
“Well, I think you should go get it,” Eric says. He scans the
other initiates’ faces—everyone has stopped throwing again
—and says, “Did I tell you to stop?”
Knives start to hit the board. We have all seen Eric angry
before, but this is different. The look in his eyes is almost
rabid.
“Go get it?” Al’s eyes are wide. “But everyone’s still
throwing.”
“And?”
“And I don’t want to get hit.”
“I think you can trust your fellow initiates to aim better than
you.” Eric smiles a little, but his eyes stay cruel. “Go get your
knife.”
Al doesn’t usually object to anything the Dauntless tell us
to do. I don’t think he’s afraid to; he just knows that objecting
is useless. This time Al sets his wide jaw. He’s reached the
limits of his compliance.
“No,” he says.
“Why not?” Eric’s beady eyes fix on Al’s face. “Are you
afraid?”
“Of getting stabbed by an airborne knife?” says Al. “Yes, I
am!”
Honesty is his mistake. Not his refusal, which Eric might
have accepted.
“Everyone stop!” Eric shouts.
The knives stop, and so does all conversation. I hold my
small dagger tightly.
“Clear out of the ring.” Eric looks at Al. “All except you.”
I drop the dagger and it hits the dusty floor with a thud. I
follow the other initiates to the edge of the room, and they
inch in front of me, eager to see what makes my stomach
turn: Al, facing Eric’s wrath.
“Stand in front of the target,” says Eric.
Al’s big hands shake. He walks back to the target.
“Hey, Four.” Eric looks over his shoulder. “Give me a hand
here, huh?”
Four scratches one of his eyebrows with a knife point and
approaches Eric. He has dark circles under his eyes and a
tense set to his mouth—he’s as tired as we are.
“You’re going to stand there as he throws those knives,”
Eric says to Al, “until you learn not to flinch.”
“Is this really necessary?” says Four. He sounds bored,
but he doesn’t look bored. His face and body are tense,
alert.
I squeeze my hands into fists. No matter how casual Four
sounds, the question is a challenge. And Four doesn’t often
challenge Eric directly.
At first Eric stares at Four in silence. Four stares back.
Seconds pass and my fingernails bite my palms.
“I have the authority here, remember?” Eric says, so
quietly I can barely hear him. “Here, and everywhere else.”
Color rushes into Four’s face, though his expression does
not change. His grip on the knives tightens and his knuckles
turn white as he turns to face Al.
I look from Al’s wide, dark eyes to his shaking hands to
the determined set of Four’s jaw. Anger bubbles in my
chest, and bursts from my mouth: “Stop it.”
Four turns the knife in his hand, his fingers moving
painstakingly over the metal edge. He gives me such a hard
look that I feel like he’s turning me to stone. I know why. I am
stupid for speaking up while Eric is here; I am stupid for
speaking up at all.
“Any idiot can stand in front of a target,” I say. “It doesn’t
prove anything except that you’re bullying us. Which, as I
recall, is a sign of cowardice.”
“Then it should be easy for you,” Eric says. “If you’re
willing to take his place.”
The last thing I want to do is stand in front of that target,
but I can’t back down now. I didn’t leave myself the option. I
weave through the crowd of initiates, and someone shoves
my shoulder.
“There goes your pretty face,” hisses Peter. “Oh, wait. You
don’t have one.”
I recover my balance and walk toward Al. He nods at me. I
try to smile encouragingly, but I can’t manage it. I stand in
front of the board, and my head doesn’t even reach the
center of the target, but it doesn’t matter. I look at Four’s
knives: one in his right hand, two in his left hand.
My throat is dry. I try to swallow, and then look at Four. He
is never sloppy. He won’t hit me. I’ll be fine.
I tip my chin up. I will not flinch. If I flinch, I prove to Eric that
this is not as easy as I said it was; I prove that I’m a coward.
“If you flinch,” Four says, slowly, carefully, “Al takes your
place. Understand?”
I nod.
Four’s eyes are still on mine when he lifts his hand, pulls
his elbow back, and throws the knife. It is just a flash in the
air, and then I hear a thud. The knife is buried in the board,
half a foot away from my cheek. I close my eyes. Thank God.
“You about done, Stiff?” asks Four.
I remember Al’s wide eyes and his quiet sobs at night and
shake my head. “No.”
“Eyes open, then.” He taps the spot between his
eyebrows.
I stare at him, pressing my hands to my sides so no one
can see them shake. He passes a knife from his left hand to
his right hand, and I see nothing but his eyes as the second
knife hits the target above my head. This one is closer than
the last one—I feel it hovering over my skull.
“Come on, Stiff,” he says. “Let someone else stand there
and take it.”
Why is he trying to goad me into giving up? Does he want
me to fail?
“Shut up, Four!”
I hold my breath as he turns the last knife in his hand. I see
a glint in his eyes as he pulls his arm back and lets the knife
fly. It comes straight at me, spinning, blade over handle. My
body goes rigid. This time, when it hits the board, my ear
stings, and blood tickles my skin. I touch my ear. He nicked
it.
And judging by the look he gives me, he did it on purpose.
“I would love to stay and see if the rest of you are as
daring as she is,” says Eric, his voice smooth, “but I think
that’s enough for today.”
He squeezes my shoulder. His fingers feel dry and cold,
and the look he gives me claims me, like he’s taking
ownership of what I did. I don’t return Eric’s smile. What I did
had nothing to do with him.
“I should keep my eye on you,” he adds.
Fear prickles inside me, in my chest and in my head and
in my hands. I feel like the word “DIVERGENT” is branded
on my forehead, and if he looks at me long enough, he’ll be
able to read it. But he just lifts his hand from my shoulder
and keeps walking.
Four and I stay behind. I wait until the room is empty and
the door is shut before looking at him again. He walks
toward me.
“Is your—” he begins.
“You did that on purpose!” I shout.
“Yes, I did,” he says quietly. “And you should thank me for
helping you.”
I grit my teeth. “Thank you? You almost stabbed my ear,
and you spent the entire time taunting me. Why should I
thank you?”
“You know, I’m getting a little tired of waiting for you to
catch on!”
He glares at me, and even when he glares, his eyes look
thoughtful. Their shade of blue is peculiar, so dark it is
almost black, with a small patch of lighter blue on the left iris,
right next to the corner of his eye.
“Catch on? Catch on to what? That you wanted to prove to
Eric how tough you are? That you’re sadistic, just like he
is?”
“I am not sadistic.” He doesn’t yell. I wish he would yell. It
would scare me less. He leans his face close to mine, which
reminds me of lying inches away from the attack dog’s
fangs in the aptitude test, and says, “If I wanted to hurt you,
don’t you think I would have already?”
He crosses the room and slams the point of a knife so
hard into the table that it sticks there, handle toward the
ceiling.
“I—” I start to shout, but he’s already gone. I scream,
frustrated, and wipe some of the blood from my ear.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TODAY IS THE day before Visiting Day. I think of Visiting Day
like I think of the world ending: Nothing after it matters.
Everything I do builds up to it. I might see my parents again. I
might not. Which is worse? I don’t know.
I try to pull a pant leg over my thigh and it sticks just above
my knee. Frowning, I stare at my leg. A bulge of muscle is
stopping the fabric. I let the pant leg fall and look over my
shoulder at the back of my thigh. Another muscle stands out
there.
I step to the side so I stand in front of the mirror. I see
muscles that I couldn’t see before in my arms, legs, and
stomach. I pinch my side, where a layer of fat used to hint at
curves to come. Nothing. Dauntless initiation has stolen
whatever softness my body had. Is that good, or bad?
At least I am stronger than I was. I wrap my towel around
me again and leave the girls’ bathroom. I hope no one is in
the dormitory to see me walking in my towel, but I can’t wear
those pants.
When I open the dormitory door, a weight drops into my
stomach. Peter, Molly, Drew, and some of the other initiates
stand in the back corner, laughing. They look up when I walk
in and start snickering. Molly’s snort-laugh is louder than
everyone else’s.
I walk to my bunk, trying to pretend like they aren’t there,
and fumble in the drawer under my bed for the dress
Christina made me get. One hand clamped around the
towel and one holding the dress, I stand up, and right behind
me is Peter.
I jump back, almost hitting my head on Christina’s bunk. I
try to slip past him, but he slams his hand against
Christina’s bed frame, blocking my path. I should have
known he wouldn’t let me get away that easily.
“Didn’t realize you were so skinny, Stiff.”
“Get away from me.” My voice is somehow steady.
“This isn’t the Hub, you know. No one has to follow a
Stiff’s orders here.” His eyes travel down my body, not in the
greedy way that a man looks at a woman, but cruelly,
scrutinizing every flaw. I hear my heartbeat in my ears as the
others inch closer, forming a pack behind Peter.
This will be bad.
I have to get out of here.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a clear path to the door.
If I can duck under Peter’s arm and sprint toward it, I might
be able to make it.
“Look at her,” says Molly, crossing her arms. She smirks
at me. “She’s practically a child.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” says Drew. “She could be hiding
something under that towel. Why don’t we look and see?”
Now. I duck under Peter’s arm and dart toward the door.
Something pinches and pulls at my towel as I walk away and
then yanks sharply—Peter’s hand, gathering the fabric into
his fist. The towel slips from my hand and the air is cold on
my naked body, making the hair on the back of my neck
stand on end.
Laughter erupts, and I run as fast as I can toward the door,
holding the dress against my body to hide it. I sprint down
the hallway and into the bathroom and lean against the door,
breathing hard. I close my eyes.
It doesn’t matter. I don’t care.
A sob bursts from my mouth, and I slap my hand over my
lips to contain it. It doesn’t matter what they saw. I shake my
head like the motion is supposed to make it true.
With shaking hands, I get dressed. The dress is plain
black, with a V-neck that shows the tattoos on my
collarbone, and goes down to my knees.
Once I’m dressed and the urge to cry is gone, I feel
something hot and violent writhing in my stomach. I want to
hurt them.
I stare at my eyes in the mirror. I want to, so I will.
I can’t fight in a dress, so I get myself some new clothes
from the Pit before I walk to the training room for my last
fight. I hope it’s with Peter.
“Hey, where were you this morning?” Christina asks when
I walk in. I squint to see the blackboard across the room.
The space next to my name is blank—I haven’t gotten an
opponent yet.
“I got held up,” I say.
Four stands in front of the board and writes a name next
to mine. Please let it be Peter, please, please….
“You okay, Tris? You look a little…,” says Al.
“A little what?”
Four moves away from the board. The name written next
to mine is Molly. Not Peter, but good enough.
“On edge,” says Al.
My fight is last on the list, which means I have to wait
through three matches before I face her. Edward and Peter
fight second to last—good. Edward is the only one who can
beat Peter. Christina will fight Al, which means that Al will
lose quickly, like he’s been doing all week.
“Go easy on me, okay?” Al asks Christina.
“I make no promises,” she replies.
The first pair—Will and Myra—stand across from each
other in the arena. For a second they both shuffle back and
forth, one jerking an arm forward and then retracting it, the
other kicking and missing. Across the room, Four leans
against the wall and yawns.
I stare at the board and try to predict the outcome of each
match. It doesn’t take long. Then I bite my fingernails and
think about Molly. Christina lost to her, which means she’s
good. She has a powerful punch, but she doesn’t move her
feet. If she can’t hit me, she can’t hurt me.
As expected, the next fight between Christina and Al is
quick and painless. Al falls after a few hard hits to the face
and doesn’t get back up, which makes Eric shake his head.
Edward and Peter take longer. Though they are the two
best fighters, the disparity between them is noticeable.
Edward’s fist slams into Peter’s jaw, and I remember what
Will said about him—that he has been studying combat
since he was ten. It’s obvious. He is faster and smarter than
even Peter.
By the time the three matches are done, my nails are
bitten to the beds and I’m hungry for lunch. I walk to the
arena without looking at anyone or anything but the center of
the room. Some of my anger has faded, but it isn’t hard to
call back. All I have to do is think about how cold the air was
and how loud the laughter was. Look at her. She’s a child.
Molly stands across from me.
“Was that a birthmark I saw on your left butt cheek?” she
says, smirking. “God, you’re pale, Stiff.”
She’ll make the first move. She always does.
Molly starts toward me and throws her weight into a
punch. As her body shifts forward, I duck and drive my fist
into her stomach, right over her bellybutton. Before she can
get her hands on me, I slip past her, my hands up, ready for
her next attempt.
She’s not smirking anymore. She runs at me like she’s
about to tackle me, and I dart out of the way. I hear Four’s
voice in my head, telling me that the most powerful weapon
at my disposal is my elbow. I just have to find a way to use it.
I block her next punch with my forearm. The blow stings,
but I barely notice it. She grits her teeth and lets out a
frustrated groan, more animal-sounding than human. She
tries a sloppy kick at my side, which I dodge, and while her
balance is off, I rush forward and force my elbow up at her
face. She pulls her head back just in time, and my elbow
grazes her chin.
She punches me in the ribs and I stumble to the side,
recovering my breath. There’s something she’s not
protecting, I know it. I want to hit her face, but maybe that’s
not a smart move. I watch her for a few seconds. Her hands
are too high; they guard her nose and cheeks, leaving her
stomach and ribs exposed. Molly and I have the same flaw
in combat.
Our eyes meet for just a second.
I aim an uppercut low, below her bellybutton. My fist sinks
into her flesh, forcing a heavy breath from her mouth that I
feel against my ear. As she gasps, I sweep-kick her legs out
from under her, and she falls hard on the ground, sending
dust into the air. I pull my foot back and kick as hard as I can
at her ribs.
My mother and father would not approve of my kicking
someone when she’s down.
I don’t care.
She curls into a ball to protect her side, and I kick again,
this time hitting her in the stomach. Like a child. I kick again,
this time hitting her in the face. Blood springs from her nose
and spreads over her face. Look at her. Another kick hits
her in the chest.
I pull my foot back again, but Four’s hands clamp around
my arms, and he pulls me away from her with irresistible
force. I breathe through gritted teeth, staring at Molly’s
blood-covered face, the color deep and rich and beautiful, in
a way.
She groans, and I hear a gurgling in her throat, watch
blood trickle from her lips.
“You won,” Four mutters. “Stop.”
I wipe the sweat from my forehead. He stares at me. His
eyes are too wide; they look alarmed.
“I think you should leave,” he says. “Take a walk.”
“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m fine now,” I say again, this time for
myself.
I wish I could say I felt guilty for what I did.
I don’t.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
VISITING DAY. The second I open my eyes, I remember. My
heart leaps and then plummets when I see Molly hobble
across the dormitory, her nose purple between strips of
medical tape. Once I see her leave, I check for Peter and
Drew. Neither of them is in the dormitory, so I change
quickly. As long as they aren’t here, I don’t care who sees
me in my underwear, not anymore.
Everyone else dresses in silence. Not even Christina
smiles. We all know that we might go to the Pit floor and
search every face and never find one that belongs to us.
I make my bed with the tight corners like my father taught
me. As I pinch a stray hair from my pillow, Eric walks in.
“Attention!” he announces, flicking a lock of dark hair from
his eyes. “I want to give you some advice about today. If by
some miracle your families do come to visit you…” He
scans our faces and smirks. “…which I doubt, it is best not
to seem too attached. That will make it easier for you, and
easier for them. We also take the phrase ‘faction before
blood’ very seriously here. Attachment to your family
suggests you aren’t entirely pleased with your faction, which
would be shameful. Understand?”
I understand. I hear the threat in Eric’s sharp voice. The
only part of that speech that Eric meant was the last part:
We are Dauntless, and we need to act accordingly.
On my way out of the dormitory, Eric stops me.
“I may have underestimated you, Stiff,” he says. “You did
well yesterday.”
I stare up at him. For the first time since I beat Molly, guilt
pinches my gut.
If Eric thinks I did something right, I must have done it
wrong.
“Thank you,” I say. I slip out of the dormitory.
Once my eyes adjust to the dim hallway light, I see
Christina and Will ahead of me, Will laughing, probably at a
joke Christina made. I don’t try to catch up. For some
reason, I feel like it would be a mistake to interrupt them.
Al is missing. I didn’t see him in the dormitory, and he’s
not walking toward the Pit now. Maybe he’s already there.
I run my fingers through my hair and smooth it into a bun. I
check my clothes—am I covered up? My pants are tight and
my collarbone is showing. They won’t approve.
Who cares if they approve? I set my jaw. This is my
faction now. These are the clothes my faction wears. I stop
just before the hallway ends.
Clusters of families stand on the Pit floor, most of them
Dauntless families with Dauntless initiates. They still look
strange to me—a mother with a pierced eyebrow, a father
with a tattooed arm, an initiate with purple hair, a
wholesome family unit. I spot Drew and Molly standing alone
at one end of the room and suppress a smile. At least their
families didn’t come.
But Peter’s did. He stands next to a tall man with bushy
eyebrows and a short, meek-looking woman with red hair.
Neither of his parents looks like him. They both wear black
pants and white shirts, typical Candor outfits, and his father
speaks so loudly I can almost hear him from where I stand.
Do they know what kind of person their son is?
Then again…what kind of person am I?
Across the room, Will stands with a woman in a blue
dress. She doesn’t look old enough to be his mother, but
she has the same crease between her eyebrows as he
does, and the same golden hair. He talked about having a
sister once; maybe that’s her.
Next to him, Christina hugs a dark-skinned woman in
Candor black and white. Standing behind Christina is a
young girl, also a Candor. Her younger sister.
Should I even bother scanning the crowd for my parents? I
could turn around and go back to the dormitory.
Then I see her. My mother stands alone near the railing
with her hands clasped in front of her. She has never looked
more out of place, with her gray slacks and gray jacket
buttoned at the throat, her hair in its simple twist and her
face placid. I start toward her, tears jumping into my eyes.
She came. She came for me.
I walk faster. She sees me, and for a second her
expression is blank, like she doesn’t know who I am. Then
her eyes light up, and she opens her arms. She smells like
soap and laundry detergent.
“Beatrice,” she whispers. She runs her hand over my hair.
Don’t cry, I tell myself. I hold her until I can blink the
moisture from my eyes, and then pull back to look at her
again. I smile with closed lips, just like she does. She
touches my cheek.
“Well, look at you,” she says. “You’ve filled out.” She puts
her arm across my shoulders. “Tell me how you are.”
“You first.” The old habits are back. I should let her speak
first. I shouldn’t let the conversation stay focused on me for
too long. I should make sure she doesn’t need anything.
“Today is a special occasion,” she says. “I came to see
you, so let’s talk mostly about you. It is my gift to you.”
My selfless mother. She should not be giving me gifts, not
after I left her and my father. I walk with her toward the railing
that overlooks the chasm, glad to be close to her. The last
week and a half has been more affectionless than I realized.
At home we did not touch each other often, and the most I
ever saw my parents do was hold hands at the dinner table,
but it was more than this, more than here.
“Just one question.” I feel my pulse in my throat. “Where’s
Dad? Is he visiting Caleb?”
“Ah.” She shakes her head. “Your father had to be at
work.”
I look down. “You can tell me if he didn’t want to come.”
Her eyes travel over my face. “Your father has been
selfish lately. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you, I
promise.”
I stare at her, stunned. My father—selfish? More startling
than the label is the fact that she assigned it to him. I can’t
tell by looking at her if she’s angry. I don’t expect to be able
to. But she must be; if she calls him selfish, she must be
angry.
“What about Caleb?” I say. “Will you visit him later?”
“I wish I could,” she says, “but the Erudite have prohibited
Abnegation visitors from entering their compound. If I tried, I
would be removed from the premises.”
“What?” I demand. “That’s terrible. Why would they do
that?”
“Tensions between our factions are higher than ever,” she
says. “I wish it wasn’t that way, but there is little I can do
about it.”
I think of Caleb standing among the Erudite initiates,
scanning the crowd for our mother, and feel a pang in my
stomach. Part of me is still angry with him for keeping so
many secrets from me, but I don’t want him to hurt.
“That’s terrible,” I repeat. I look toward the chasm.
Standing alone at the railing is Four. Though he’s not an
initiate anymore, most of the Dauntless use this day to come
together with their families. Either his family doesn’t like to
come together, or he wasn’t originally Dauntless. Which
faction could he have come from?
“There’s one of my instructors.” I lean closer to her and
say, “He’s kind of intimidating.”
“He’s handsome,” she says.
I find myself nodding without thinking. She laughs and lifts
her arm from my shoulders. I want to steer her away from
him, but just as I’m about to suggest that we go somewhere
else, he looks over his shoulder.
His eyes widen at the sight of my mother. She offers him
her hand.
“Hello. My name is Natalie,” she says. “I’m Beatrice’s
mother.”
I have never seen my mother shake hands with someone.
Four eases his hand into hers, looking stiff, and shakes it
twice. The gesture looks unnatural for both of them. No, Four
was not originally Dauntless if he doesn’t shake hands
easily.
“Four,” he says. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Four,” my mother repeats, smiling. “Is that a nickname?”
“Yes.” He doesn’t elaborate. What is his real name? “Your
daughter is doing well here. I’ve been overseeing her
training.”
Since when does “overseeing” include throwing knives at
me and scolding me at every opportunity?
“That’s good to hear,” she says. “I know a few things
about Dauntless initiation, and I was worried about her.”
He looks at me, and his eyes move down my face, from
nose to mouth to chin. Then he says, “You shouldn’t worry.”
I can’t keep the heat from rushing into my cheeks. I hope it
isn’t noticeable.
Is he just reassuring her because she’s my mother, or
does he really believe that I am capable? And what did that
look mean?
She tilts her head. “You look familiar for some reason,
Four.”
“I can’t imagine why,” he replies, his voice suddenly cold.
“I don’t make a habit of associating with the Abnegation.”
My mother laughs. She has a light laugh, half air and half
sound. “Few people do, these days. I don’t take it
personally.”
He seems to relax a little. “Well, I’ll leave you to your
reunion.”
My mother and I watch him leave. The roar of the river fills
my ears. Maybe Four was one of the Erudite, which explains
why he hates Abnegation. Or maybe he believes the articles
the Erudite release about us—them, I remind myself. But it
was kind of him to tell her that I’m doing well when I know he
doesn’t believe it.
“Is he always like that?” she says.
“Worse.”
“Have you made friends?” she asks.
“A few,” I say. I look over my shoulder at Will and Christina
and their families. When Christina catches my eye, she
beckons to me, smiling, so my mother and I cross the Pit
floor.
Before we can get to Will and Christina, though, a short,
round woman with a black-and-white-striped shirt touches
my arm. I twitch, resisting the urge to smack her hand away.
“Excuse me,” she says. “Do you know my son? Albert?”
“Albert?” I repeat. “Oh—you mean Al? Yes, I know him.”
“Do you know where we can find him?” she says,
gesturing to a man behind her. He is tall and as thick as a
boulder. Al’s father, obviously.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t see him this morning. Maybe you should
look for him up there?” I point at the glass ceiling above us.
“Oh my,” Al’s mother says, fanning her face with her hand.
“I would rather not attempt that climb again. I almost had a
panic attack on the way down here. Why aren’t there any
railings along those paths? Are you all insane?”
I smile a little. A few weeks ago I might have found that
question offensive, but now I spend too much time with
Candor transfers to be surprised by tactlessness.
“Insane, no,” I say. “Dauntless, yes. If I see him, I’ll tell him
you’re looking for him.”
My mother, I see, wears the same smile I do. She isn’t
reacting the way some of the other transfers’ parents are—
her neck bent, looking around at the Pit walls, at the Pit
ceiling, at the chasm. Of course she isn’t curious—she’s
Abnegation. Curiosity is foreign to her.
I introduce my mother to Will and Christina, and Christina
introduces me to her mother and her sister. But when Will
introduces me to Cara, his older sister, she gives me the
kind of look that would wither a plant and does not extend
her hand for me to shake. She glares at my mother.
“I can’t believe that you associate with one of them, Will,”
she says.
My mother purses her lips, but of course, doesn’t say
anything.
“Cara,” says Will, frowning, “there’s no need to be rude.”
“Oh, certainly not. Do you know what she is?” She points
at my mother. “She’s a council member’s wife is what she is.
She runs the ‘volunteer agency’ that supposedly helps the
factionless. You think I don’t know that you’re just hoarding
goods to distribute to your own faction while we don’t get
fresh food for a month, huh? Food for the factionless, my
eye.”
“I’m sorry,” my mother says gently. “I believe you are
mistaken.”
“Mistaken. Ha,” Cara snaps. “I’m sure you’re exactly what
you seem. A faction of happy-go-lucky do-gooders without a
selfish bone in their bodies. Right.”
“Don’t speak to my mother that way,” I say, my face hot. I
clench my hands into fists. “Don’t say another word to her or
I swear I will break your nose.”
“Back off, Tris,” Will says. “You’re not going to punch my
sister.”
“Oh?” I say, raising both eyebrows. “You think so?”
“No, you’re not.” My mother touches my shoulder. “Come
on, Beatrice. We wouldn’t want to bother your friend’s
sister.”
She sounds gentle, but her hand squeezes my arm so
hard I almost cry out from the pain as she drags me away.
She walks with me, fast, toward the dining hall. Just before
she reaches it, though, she takes a sharp left turn and walks
down one of the dark hallways I haven’t explored yet.
“Mom,” I say. “Mom, how do you know where you’re
going?”
She stops next to a locked door and stands on her
tiptoes, peering at the base of the blue lamp hanging from
the ceiling. A few seconds later she nods and turns to me
again.
“I said no questions about me. And I meant it. How are
you really doing, Beatrice? How have the fights been? How
are you ranked?”
“Ranked?” I say. “You know that I’ve been fighting? You
know that I’m ranked?”
“It isn’t top-secret information, how the Dauntless initiation
process works.”
I don’t know how easy it is to find out what another faction
does during initiation, but I suspect it’s not that easy. Slowly,
I say, “I’m close to the bottom, Mom.”
“Good.” She nods. “No one looks too closely at the
bottom. Now, this is very important, Beatrice: What were
your aptitude test results?”
Tori’s warning pulses in my head. Don’t tell anyone. I
should tell her that my result was Abnegation, because that’s
what Tori recorded in the system.
I look into my mother’s eyes, which are pale green and
framed by a dark smudge of eyelashes. She has lines
around her mouth, but other than that, she doesn’t look her
age. Those lines get deeper when she hums. She used to
hum as she washed the dishes.
This is my mother.
I can trust her.
“They were inconclusive,” I say softly.
“I thought as much.” She sighs. “Many children who are
raised Abnegation receive that kind of result. We don’t know
why. But you have to be very careful during the next stage of
initiation, Beatrice. Stay in the middle of the pack, no matter
what you do. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Do you
understand?”
“Mom, what’s going on?”
“I don’t care what faction you chose,” she says, touching
her hands to my cheeks. “I am your mother and I want to
keep you safe.”
“Is this because I’m a—” I start to say, but she presses her
hand to my mouth.
“Don’t say that word,” she hisses. “Ever.”
So Tori was right. Divergent is a dangerous thing to be. I
just don’t know why, or even what it really means, still.
“Why?”
She shakes her head. “I can’t say.”
She looks over her shoulder, where the light from the Pit
floor is barely visible. I hear shouts and conversations,
laughter and shuffling footsteps. The smell from the dining
hall floats over my nose, sweet and yeasty: baking bread.
When she turns toward me, her jaw is set.
“There’s something I want you to do,” she says. “I can’t go
visit your brother, but you can, when initiation is over. So I
want you to go find him and tell him to research the
simulation serum. Okay? Can you do that for me?”
“Not unless you explain some of this to me, Mom!” I cross
my arms. “You want me to go hang out at the Erudite
compound for the day, you had better give me a reason!”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.” She kisses my cheek and brushes a
lock of hair that fell from my bun behind my ear. “I should
leave. It will make you look better if you and I don’t seem
attached to each other.”
“I don’t care how I look to them,” I say.
“You should,” she says. “I suspect they are already
monitoring you.”
She walks away, and I am too stunned to follow her. At the
end of the hallway she turns and says, “Have a piece of
cake for me, all right? The chocolate. It’s delicious.” She
smiles a strange, twisted smile, and adds, “I love you, you
know.”
And then she’s gone.
I stand alone in the blue light coming from the lamp above
me, and I understand:
She has been to the compound before. She remembered
this hallway. She knows about the initiation process.
My mother was Dauntless.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THAT AFTERNOON, I go back to the dormitory while everyone
else spends time with their families and find Al sitting on his
bed, staring at the space on the wall where the chalkboard
usually is. Four took it down yesterday so he could calculate
our stage one rankings.
“There you are!” I say. “Your parents were looking for you.
Did they find you?”
He shakes his head.
I sit down next to him on the bed. My leg is barely half the
width of his, even now that it’s more muscular than it was.
He wears black shorts. His knee is purple-blue with a bruise
and crossed with a scar.
“You didn’t want to see them?” I say.
“Didn’t want them to ask how I was doing,” he says. “I’d
have to tell them, and they would know if I was lying.”
“Well…” I struggle to come up with something to say.
“What’s wrong with how you’re doing?”
Al laughs harshly. “I’ve lost every fight since the one with
Will. I’m not doing well.”
“By choice, though. Couldn’t you tell them that, too?”
He shakes his head. “Dad always wanted me to come
here. I mean, they said they wanted me to stay in Candor,
but that’s only because that’s what they’re supposed to say.
They’ve always admired the Dauntless, both of them. They
wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain it to them.”
“Oh.” I tap my fingers against my knee. Then I look at him.
“Is that why you chose Dauntless? Because of your
parents?”
Al shakes his head. “No. I guess it was because…I think
it’s important to protect people. To stand up for people. Like
you did for me.” He smiles at me. “That’s what the Dauntless
are supposed to do, right? That’s what courage is. Not…
hurting people for no reason.”
I remember what Four told me, that teamwork used to be
a Dauntless priority. What were the Dauntless like when it
was? What would I have learned if I had been here when my
mother was Dauntless? Maybe I wouldn’t have broken
Molly’s nose. Or threatened Will’s sister.
I feel a pang of guilt. “Maybe it will be better once initiation
is over.”
“Too bad I might come in last,” Al says. “I guess we’ll see
tonight.”
We sit side-by-side for a while. It’s better to be here, in
silence, than in the Pit, watching everyone laugh with their
families.
My father used to say that sometimes, the best way to
help someone is just to be near them. I feel good when I do
something I know he would be proud of, like it makes up for
all the things I’ve done that he wouldn’t be proud of.
“I feel braver when I’m around you, you know,” he says.
“Like I could actually fit in here, the same way you do.”
I am about to respond when he slides his arm across my
shoulders. Suddenly I freeze, my cheeks hot.
I didn’t want to be right about Al’s feelings for me. But I
was.
I do not lean into him. Instead I sit forward so his arm falls
away. Then I squeeze my hands together in my lap.
“Tris, I…,” he says. His voice sounds strained. I glance at
him. His face is as red as mine feels, but he’s not crying—
he just looks embarrassed.
“Um…sorry,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to…um. Sorry.”
I wish I could tell him not to take it personally. I could tell
him that my parents rarely held hands even in our own home,
so I have trained myself to pull away from all gestures of
affection, because they raised me to take them seriously.
Maybe if I told him that, there wouldn’t be a layer of hurt
beneath his flush of embarrassment.
But of course, it is personal. He is my friend—and that is
all. What is more personal than that?
I breathe in, and when I breathe out, I make myself smile.
“Sorry about what?” I ask, trying to sound casual. I brush off
my jeans, though there isn’t anything on them, and stand up.
“I should go,” I say.
He nods and doesn’t look at me.
“You going to be okay?” I say. “I mean…because of your
parents. Not because…” I let my voice trail off. I don’t know
what I would say if I didn’t.
“Oh. Yeah.” He nods again, a little too vigorously. “I’ll see
you later, Tris.”
I try not to walk out of the room too fast. When the
dormitory door closes behind me, I touch a hand to my
forehead and grin a little. Awkwardness aside, it is nice to
be liked.
Discussing our family visits would be too painful, so our final
rankings for stage one are all anyone can talk about that
night. Every time someone near me brings it up, I stare at
some point across the room and ignore them.
My rank can’t be as bad as it used to be, especially after I
beat Molly, but it might not be good enough to get me in the
top ten at the end of initiation, especially when the
Dauntless-born initiates are factored in.
At dinner I sit with Christina, Will, and Al at a table in the
corner. We are uncomfortably close to Peter, Drew, and
Molly, who are at the next table over. When conversation at
our table reaches a lull, I hear every word they say. They are
speculating about the ranks. What a surprise.
“You weren’t allowed to have pets?” Christina demands,
smacking the table with her palm. “Why not?”
“Because they’re illogical,” Will says matter-of-factly.
“What is the point in providing food and shelter for an animal
that just soils your furniture, makes your home smell bad,
and ultimately dies?”
Al and I meet eyes, like we usually do when Will and
Christina start to fight. But this time, the second our eyes
meet, we both look away. I hope this awkwardness between
us doesn’t last long. I want my friend back.
“The point is…” Christina’s voice trails off, and she tilts
her head. “Well, they’re fun to have. I had a bulldog named
Chunker. One time we left a whole roasted chicken on the
counter to cool, and while my mother went to the bathroom,
he pulled it down off the counter and ate it, bones and skin
and all. We laughed so hard.”
“Yes, that certainly changes my mind. Of course I want to
live with an animal that eats all my food and destroys my
kitchen.” Will shakes his head. “Why don’t you just get a dog
after initiation if you’re feeling that nostalgic?”
“Because.” Christina’s smile falls, and she pokes at her
potato with her fork. “Dogs are sort of ruined for me. After…
you know, after the aptitude test.”
We exchange looks. We all know that we aren’t supposed
to talk about the test, not even now that we have chosen, but
for them that rule must not be as serious as it is for me. My
heart jumps unsteadily in my chest. For me that rule is
protection. It keeps me from having to lie to my friends about
my results. Every time I think the word “Divergent,” I hear
Tori’s warning—and now my mother’s warning too. Don’t tell
anyone. Dangerous.
“You mean…killing the dog, right?” asks Will.
I almost forgot. Those with an aptitude for Dauntless
picked up the knife in the simulation and stabbed the dog
when it attacked. No wonder Christina doesn’t want a pet
dog anymore. I tug my sleeves over my wrists and twist my
fingers together.
“Yeah,” she says. “I mean, you guys all had to do that too,
right?”
She looks first at Al, and then at me. Her dark eyes
narrow, and she says, “You didn’t.”
“Hmm?”
“You’re hiding something,” she says. “You’re fidgeting.”
“What?”
“In Candor,” says Al, nudging me with his shoulder. There.
That feels normal. “We learn to read body language so we
know when someone is lying or keeping something from
us.”
“Oh.” I scratch the back of my neck. “Well…”
“See, there it is again!” she says, pointing at my hand.
I feel like I’m swallowing my heartbeat. How can I lie about
my results if they can tell when I’m lying? I’ll have to control
my body language. I drop my hand and clasp my hands in
my lap. Is that what an honest person does?
I don’t have to lie about the dog, at least. “No, I didn’t kill
the dog.”
“How did you get Dauntless without using the knife?” says
Will, narrowing his eyes at me.
I look him in the eye and say evenly, “I didn’t. I got
Abnegation.”
It is half-true. Tori reported my result as Abnegation, so
that is what is in the system. Anyone who has access to the
scores would be able to see it. I keep my eyes on his for a
few seconds. Shifting them away might be suspicious. Then
I shrug and stab a piece of meat with my fork. I hope they
believe me. They have to believe me.
“But you chose Dauntless anyway?” Christina says.
“Why?”
“I told you,” I say, smirking. “It was the food.”
She laughs. “Did you guys know that Tris had never seen
a hamburger before she came here?”
She launches into the story of our first day, and my body
relaxes, but I still feel heavy. I should not lie to my friends. It
creates barriers between us, and we already have more
than I want. Christina taking the flag. Me rejecting Al.
After dinner we go back to the dormitory, and it’s hard for
me not to sprint, knowing that the rankings will be up when I
get there. I want to get it over with. At the door to the
dormitory, Drew shoves me into the wall to get past me. My
shoulder scrapes on the stone, but I keep walking.
I’m too short to see over the crowd of initiates standing
near the back of the room, but when I find a space between
heads to look through, I see that the blackboard is on the
ground, leaning against Four’s legs, facing away from us.
He stands with a piece of chalk in one hand.
“For those of you who just came in, I’m explaining how the
ranks are determined,” he says. “After the first round of
fights, we ranked you according to your skill level. The
number of points you earn depends on your skill level and
the skill level of the person you beat. You earn more points
for improving and more points for beating someone of a
high skill level. I don’t reward preying on the weak. That is
cowardice.”
I think his eyes linger on Peter at that last line, but they
move on quickly enough that I’m not sure.
“If you have a high rank, you lose points for losing to a lowranked
opponent.”
Molly lets out an unpleasant noise, like a snort or a
grumble.
“Stage two of training is weighted more heavily than stage
one, because it is more closely tied to overcoming
cowardice,” he says. “That said, it is extremely difficult to
rank high at the end of initiation if you rank low in stage one.”
I shift from one foot to the other, trying to get a good look
at him. When I finally do, I look away. His eyes are already
on me, probably drawn by my nervous movement.
“We will announce the cuts tomorrow,” Four says. “The
fact that you are transfers and the Dauntless-born initiates
are not will not be taken into consideration. Four of you
could be factionless and none of them. Or four of them could
be factionless and none of you. Or any combination thereof.
That said, here are your ranks.”
He hangs the board on the hook and steps back so we
can see the rankings:
1. Edward
2. Peter
3. Will
4. Christina
5. Molly
6. Tris
Sixth? I can’t be sixth. Beating Molly must have boosted
my rank more than I thought it would. And losing to me
seems to have lowered hers. I skip to the bottom of the list.
7. Drew
8. Al
9. Myra
Al isn’t dead last, but unless the Dauntless-born initiates
completely failed their version of stage one of initiation, he
is factionless.
I glance at Christina. She tilts her head and frowns at the
board. She isn’t the only one. The quiet in the room is
uneasy, like it is rocking back and forth on a ledge.
Then it falls.
“What?” demands Molly. She points at Christina. “I beat
her! I beat her in minutes, and she’s ranked above me?”
“Yeah,” says Christina, crossing her arms. She wears a
smug smile. “And?”
“If you intend to secure yourself a high rank, I suggest you
don’t make a habit of losing to low-ranked opponents,” says
Four, his voice cutting through the mutters and grumbles of
the other initiates. He pockets the chalk and walks past me
without glancing in my direction. The words sting a little,
reminding me that I am the low-ranked opponent he’s
referring to.
Apparently they remind Molly, too.
“You,” she says, focusing her narrowed eyes on me. “You
are going to pay for this.”
I expect her to lunge at me, or hit me, but she just turns on
her heel and stalks out of the dormitory, and that is worse. If
she had exploded, her anger would have been spent
quickly, after a punch or two. Leaving means she wants to
plan something. Leaving means I have to be on my guard.
Peter didn’t say anything when the rankings went up,
which, given his tendency to complain about anything that
doesn’t go his way, is surprising. He just walks to his bunk
and sits down, untying his shoelaces. That makes me feel
even more uneasy. He can’t possibly be satisfied with
second place. Not Peter.
Will and Christina slap hands, and then Will claps me on
the back with a hand bigger than my shoulder blade.
“Look at you. Number six,” he says, grinning.
“Still might not have been good enough,” I remind him.
“It will be, don’t worry,” he says. “We should celebrate.”
“Well, let’s go, then,” says Christina, grabbing my arm with
one hand and Al’s arm with the other. “Come on, Al. You
don’t know how the Dauntless-borns did. You don’t know
anything for sure.”
“I’m just going to go to bed,” he mumbles, pulling his arm
free.
In the hallway, it is easy to forget about Al and Molly’s
revenge and Peter’s suspicious calm, and easy to pretend
that what separates us as friends does not exist. But
lingering at the back of my mind is the fact that Christina and
Will are my competitors. If I want to fight my way to the top
ten, I will have to beat them first.
I just hope I don’t have to betray them in the process.
That night I have trouble falling asleep. The dormitory used
to seem loud to me, with all the breathing, but now it is too
quiet. When it’s quiet, I think about my family. Thank God the
Dauntless compound is usually loud.
If my mother was Dauntless, why did she choose
Abnegation? Did she love its peace, its routine, its
goodness—all the things I miss, when I let myself think about
it?
I wonder if someone here knew her when she was young
and could tell me what she was like then. Even if they did,
they probably wouldn’t want to discuss her. Faction transfers
are not really supposed to discuss their old factions once
they become members. It’s supposed to make it easier for
them to change their allegiance from family to faction—to
embrace the principle “faction before blood.”
I bury my face in the pillow. She asked me to tell Caleb to
research the simulation serum—why? Does it have
something to do with me being Divergent, with me being in
danger, or is it something else? I sigh. I have a thousand
questions, and she left before I could ask any of them. Now
they swirl in my head, and I doubt I’ll be able to sleep until I
can answer them.
I hear a scuffle across the room and lift my head from the
pillow. My eyes aren’t adjusted to the dark, so I stare into
pure black, like the backs of my eyelids. I hear shuffling and
the squeak of a shoe. A heavy thud.
And then a wail that curdles my blood and makes my hair
stand on end. I throw the blankets back and stand on the
stone floor with bare feet. I still can’t see well enough to find
the source of the scream, but I see a dark lump on the floor
a few bunks down. Another scream pierces my ears.
“Turn on the lights!” someone shouts.
I walk toward the sound, slowly so I don’t trip over
anything. I feel like I’m in a trance. I don’t want to see where
the screaming is coming from. A scream like that can only
mean blood and bone and pain; that scream that comes
from the pit of the stomach and extends to every inch of the
body.
The lights come on.
Edward lies on the floor next to his bed, clutching at his
face. Surrounding his head is a halo of blood, and jutting
between his clawing fingers is a silver knife handle. My heart
thumping in my ears, I recognize it as a butter knife from the
dining hall. The blade is stuck in Edward’s eye.
Myra, who stands at Edward’s feet, screams. Someone
else screams too, and someone yells for help, and Edward
is still on the floor, writhing and wailing. I crouch by his head,
my knees pressing to the pool of blood, and put my hands
on his shoulders.
“Lie still,” I say. I feel calm, though I can’t hear anything,
like my head is submerged in water. Edward thrashes again
and I say it louder, sterner. “I said, lie still. Breathe.”
“My eye!” he screams.
I smell something foul. Someone vomited.
“Take it out!” he yells. “Get it out, get it out of me, get it
out!”
I shake my head and then realize that he can’t see me. A
laugh bubbles in my stomach. Hysterical. I have to suppress
hysteria if I’m going to help him. I have to forget myself.
“No,” I say. “You have to let the doctor take it out. Hear
me? Let the doctor take it out. And breathe.”
“It hurts,” he sobs.
“I know it does.” Instead of my voice I hear my mother’s
voice. I see her crouching before me on the sidewalk in front
of our house, brushing tears from my face after I scraped my
knee. I was five at the time.
“It will be all right.” I try to sound firm, like I’m not idly
reassuring him, but I am. I don’t know if it will be all right. I
suspect that it won’t.
When the nurse arrives, she tells me to step back, and I
do. My hands and knees are soaked with blood. When I look
around, I see that only two faces are missing.
Drew.
And Peter.
After they take Edward away, I carry a change of clothes into
the bathroom and wash my hands. Christina comes with me
and stands by the door, but she doesn’t say anything, and
I’m glad. There isn’t much to say.
I scrub at the lines in my palms and run one fingernail
under my other fingernails to get the blood out. I change into
the pants I brought and throw the soiled ones in the trash. I
get as many paper towels as I can hold. Someone needs to
clean up the mess in the dormitory, and since I doubt I’ll ever
be able to sleep again, it might as well be me.
As I reach for the door handle, Christina says, “You know
who did that, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Should we tell someone?”
“You really think the Dauntless will do anything?” I say.
“After they hung you over the chasm? After they made us
beat each other unconscious?”
She doesn’t say anything.
For a half hour after that, I kneel alone on the floor in the
dormitory and scrub at Edward’s blood. Christina throws
away the dirty paper towels and gets me new ones. Myra is
gone; she probably followed Edward to the hospital.
No one sleeps much that night.
“This is going to sound weird,” Will says, “but I wish we
didn’t have a day off today.”
I nod. I know what he means. Having something to do
would distract me, and I could use a distraction right now.
I have not spent much time alone with Will, but Christina
and Al are taking naps in the dormitory, and neither of us
wanted to be in that room longer than we had to. Will didn’t
tell me that; I just know.
I slide one fingernail under another. I washed my hands
thoroughly after cleaning up Edward’s blood, but I still feel
like it’s on my hands. Will and I walk with no sense of
purpose. There is nowhere to go.
“We could visit him,” suggests Will. “But what would we
say? ‘I didn’t know you that well, but I’m sorry you got
stabbed in the eye’?”
It isn’t funny. I know that as soon as he says it, but a laugh
rises in my throat anyway, and I let it out because it’s harder
to keep it in. Will stares at me for a second, and then he
laughs too. Sometimes crying or laughing are the only
options left, and laughing feels better right now.
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s just so ridiculous.”
I don’t want to cry for Edward—at least not in the deep,
personal way that you cry for a friend or loved one. I want to
cry because something terrible happened, and I saw it, and I
could not see a way to mend it. No one who would want to
punish Peter has the authority to, and no one who has the
authority to punish him would want to. The Dauntless have
rules against attacking someone like that, but with people
like Eric in charge, I suspect those rules go unenforced.
I say, more seriously, “The most ridiculous part is, in any
other faction it would be brave of us to tell someone what
happened. But here…in Dauntless…bravery won’t do us
any good.”
“Have you ever read the faction manifestos?” says Will.
The faction manifestos were written after the factions
formed. We learned about them in school, but I never read
them.
“You have?” I frown at him. Then I remember that Will once
memorized a map of the city for fun, and I say, “Oh. Of
course you have. Never mind.”
“One of the lines I remember from the Dauntless
manifesto is, ‘We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the
courage that drives one person to stand up for another.’”
Will sighs.
He doesn’t need to say anything else. I know what he
means. Maybe Dauntless was formed with good intentions,
with the right ideals and the right goals. But it has strayed far
from them. And the same is true of Erudite, I realize. A long
time ago, Erudite pursued knowledge and ingenuity for the
sake of doing good. Now they pursue knowledge and
ingenuity with greedy hearts. I wonder if the other factions
suffer from the same problem. I have not thought about it
before.
Despite the depravity I see in Dauntless, though, I could
not leave it. It isn’t only because the thought of living
factionless, in complete isolation, sounds like a fate worse
than death. It is because, in the brief moments that I have
loved it here, I saw a faction worth saving. Maybe we can
become brave and honorable again.
“Let’s go to the cafeteria,” Will says, “and eat cake.”
“Okay.” I smile.
As we walk toward the Pit, I repeat the line Will quoted to
myself so I don’t forget it.
I believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that
drives one person to stand up for another.
It is a beautiful thought.
Later, when I return to the dormitory, Edward’s bunk is
stripped clean and his drawers are open, empty. Across the
room, Myra’s bunk looks the same way.
When I ask Christina where they went, she says, “They
quit.”
“Even Myra?”
“She said she didn’t want to be here without him. She was
going to get cut anyway.” She shrugs, like she can’t think of
anything else to do. If that’s true, I know how she feels. “At
least they didn’t cut Al.”
Al was supposed to get cut, but Edward’s departure
saved him. The Dauntless decided to spare him until the
next stage.
“Who else got cut?” I say.
Christina shrugs again. “Two of the Dauntless-born. I don’t
remember their names.”
I nod and look at the blackboard. Someone drew a line
through Edward and Myra’s names, and changed the
numbers next to everyone else’s names. Now Peter is first.
Will is second. I am fifth. We started stage one with nine
initiates.
Now we have seven.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
IT’S NOON. LUNCHTIME.
I sit in a hallway I don’t recognize. I walked here because I
needed to get away from the dormitory. Maybe if I bring my
bedding here, I will never have to go to the dormitory again.
It may be my imagination, but it still smells like blood in
there, even though I scrubbed the floor until my hands were
sore, and someone poured bleach on it this morning.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Scrubbing the floor when no
one else wanted to was something that my mother would
have done. If I can’t be with her, the least I can do is act like
her sometimes.
I hear people approaching, their footsteps echoing on the
stone floor, and I look down at my shoes. I switched from
gray sneakers to black sneakers a week ago, but the gray
shoes are buried in one of my drawers. I can’t bear to throw
them away, even though I know it’s foolish to be attached to
sneakers, like they can bring me home.
“Tris?”
I look up. Uriah stops in front of me. He waves along the
Dauntless-born initiates he walks with. They exchange looks
but keep moving.
“You okay?” he says.
“I had a difficult night.”
“Yeah, I heard about that guy Edward.” Uriah looks down
the hallway. The Dauntless-born initiates disappear around
a corner. Then he grins a little. “Want to get out of here?”
“What?” I ask. “Where are you going?”
“To a little initiation ritual,” he says. “Come on. We have to
hurry.”
I briefly consider my options. I can sit here. Or I can leave
the Dauntless compound.
I push myself to my feet and jog next to Uriah to catch up
to the Dauntless-born initiates.
“The only initiates they usually let come are ones with
older siblings in Dauntless,” he says. “But they might not
even notice. Just act like you belong.”
“What exactly are we doing?”
“Something dangerous,” he says. A look I can only
describe as Dauntless mania enters his eyes, but rather
than recoil from it, as I might have a few weeks ago, I catch
it, like it’s contagious. Excitement replaces the leaden
feeling inside me. We slow when we reach the Dauntlessborn
initiates.
“What’s the Stiff doing here?” asks a boy with a metal ring
between his nostrils.
“She just saw that guy get stabbed in the eye, Gabe,”
says Uriah. “Give her a break, okay?”
Gabe shrugs and turns away. No one else says anything,
though a few of them give me sidelong glances like they’re
sizing me up. The Dauntless-born initiates are like a pack of
dogs. If I act the wrong way, they won’t let me run with them.
But for now, I am safe.
We turn another corner, and a group of members stands
at the end of the next hallway. There are too many of them to
all be related to a Dauntless-born initiate, but I see some
similarities among the faces.
“Let’s go,” one of the members says. He turns and
plunges through a dark doorway. The other members follow
him, and we follow them. I stay close behind Uriah as I pass
into darkness and my toe hits a step. I catch myself before
falling forward and start to climb.
“Back staircase,” Uriah says, almost mumbling. “Usually
locked.”
I nod, though he can’t see me, and climb until all the steps
are gone. By then, a door at the top of the staircase is open,
letting in daylight. We emerge from the ground a few
hundred yards from the glass building above the Pit, close
to the train tracks.
I feel like I have done this a thousand times before. I hear
the train horn. I feel the vibrations in the ground. I see the
light attached to the head car. I crack my knuckles and
bounce once on my toes.
We jog in a single pack next to the car, and in waves,
members and initiates alike pile into the car. Uriah gets in
before me, and people press behind me. I can’t make any
mistakes; I throw myself sideways, grabbing the handle on
the side of the car, and hoist myself into the car. Uriah grabs
my arm to steady me.
The train picks up its speed. Uriah and I sit against one of
the walls.
I shout over the wind, “Where are we going?”
Uriah shrugs. “Zeke never told me.”
“Zeke?”
“My older brother,” he says. He points across the room at
a boy sitting in the doorway with his legs dangling out of the
car. He is slight and short and looks nothing like Uriah, apart
from his coloring.
“You don’t get to know. That ruins the surprise!” the girl on
my left shouts. She extends her hand. “I’m Shauna.”
I shake her hand, but I don’t grip hard enough and I let go
too quickly. I doubt I will ever improve my handshake. It feels
unnatural to grasp hands with strangers.
“I’m—” I start to say.
“I know who you are,” she says. “You’re the Stiff. Four told
me about you.”
I pray the heat in my cheeks is not visible. “Oh? What did
he say?”
She smirks at me. “He said you were a Stiff. Why do you
ask?”
“If my instructor is talking about me,” I say, as firmly as I
can, “I want to know what he’s saying.” I hope I tell a
convincing lie. “He isn’t coming, is he?”
“No. He never comes to this,” she says. “It’s probably lost
its appeal. Not much scares him, you know.”
He isn’t coming. Something in me deflates like an untied
balloon. I ignore it and nod. I do know that Four is not a
coward. But I also know that at least one thing does scare
him: heights. Whatever we’re doing, it must involve being
high up for him to avoid it. She must not know that if she
speaks of him with such reverence in her voice.
“Do you know him well?” I ask. I am too curious; I always
have been.
“Everyone knows Four,” she says. “We were initiates
together. I was bad at fighting, so he taught me every night
after everyone was asleep.” She scratches the back of her
neck, her expression suddenly serious. “Nice of him.”
She gets up and stands behind the members sitting in the
doorway. In a second, her serious expression is gone, but I
still feel rattled by what she said, half confused by the idea of
Four being “nice” and half wanting to punch her for no
apparent reason.
“Here we go!” shouts Shauna. The train doesn’t slow
down, but she throws herself out of the car. The other
members follow her, a stream of black-clothed, pierced
people not much older than I am. I stand in the doorway next
to Uriah. The train is going much faster than it has every
other time I’ve jumped, but I can’t lose my nerve now, in front
of all these members. So I jump, hitting the ground hard and
stumbling forward a few steps before I regain my balance.
Uriah and I jog to catch up to the members, along with the
other initiates, who barely look in my direction.
I look around as I walk. The Hub is behind us, black
against the clouds, but the buildings around me are dark
and silent. That means we must be north of the bridge,
where the city is abandoned.
We turn a corner and spread out as we walk down
Michigan Avenue. South of the bridge, Michigan Avenue is
a busy street, crawling with people, but here it is bare.
As soon as I lift my eyes to scan the buildings, I know
where we’re going: the empty Hancock building, a black
pillar with crisscrossed girders, the tallest building north of
the bridge.
But what are we going to do? Climb it?
As we get closer, the members start to run, and Uriah and
I sprint to catch them. Jostling one another with their elbows,
they push through a set of doors at the building’s base. The
glass in one of them is broken, so it is just a frame. I step
through it instead of opening it and follow the members
through an eerie, dark entryway, crunching broken glass
beneath my feet.
I expect us to go up the stairs, but we stop at the elevator
bank.
“Do the elevators work?” I ask Uriah, as quietly as I can.
“Sure they do,” says Zeke, rolling his eyes. “You think I’m
stupid enough not to come here early and turn on the
emergency generator?”
“Yeah,” says Uriah. “I kinda do.”
Zeke glares at his brother, then puts him in a headlock
and rubs his knuckles into Uriah’s skull. Zeke may be
smaller than Uriah, but he must be stronger. Or at least
faster. Uriah smacks him in the side, and he lets go.
I grin at the sight of Uriah’s disheveled hair, and the
elevator doors open. We pile in, members in one and
initiates in the other. A girl with a shaved head stomps on
my toes on the way in and doesn’t apologize. I grab my foot,
wincing, and consider kicking her in the shins. Uriah stares
at his reflection in the elevator doors and pats his hair down.
“What floor?” the girl with the shaved head says.
“One hundred,” I say.
“How would you know that?”
“Lynn, come on,” says Uriah. “Be nice.”
“We’re in a one-hundred-story abandoned building with
some Dauntless,” I retort. “Why don’t you know that?”
She doesn’t respond. She just jams her thumb into the
right button.
The elevator zooms upward so fast my stomach sinks and
my ears pop. I grab a railing at the side of the elevator,
watching the numbers climb. We pass twenty, and thirty, and
Uriah’s hair is finally smooth. Fifty, sixty, and my toes are
done throbbing. Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, and the elevator
comes to a stop at one hundred. I’m glad we didn’t take the
stairs.
“I wonder how we’ll get to the roof from…” Uriah’s voice
trails off.
A strong wind hits me, pushing my hair across my face.
There is a gaping hole in the ceiling of the hundredth floor.
Zeke props an aluminum ladder against its edge and starts
to climb. The ladder creaks and sways beneath his feet, but
he keeps climbing, whistling as he does. When he reaches
the roof, he turns around and holds the top of the ladder for
the next person.
Part of me wonders if this is a suicide mission disguised
as a game.
It isn’t the first time I’ve wondered that since the Choosing
Ceremony.
I climb the ladder after Uriah. It reminds me of climbing
the rungs on the Ferris wheel with Four close at my heels. I
remember his fingers on my hip again, how they kept me
from falling, and I almost miss a step on the ladder. Stupid.
Biting my lip, I make it to the top and stand on the roof of
the Hancock building.
The wind is so powerful I hear and feel nothing else. I have
to lean against Uriah to keep from falling over. At first, all I
see is the marsh, wide and brown and everywhere, touching
the horizon, devoid of life. In the other direction is the city,
and in many ways it is the same, lifeless and with limits I do
not know.
Uriah points to something. Attached to one of the poles
on top of the tower is a steel cable as thick as my wrist. On
the ground is a pile of black slings made of tough fabric,
large enough to hold a human being. Zeke grabs one and
attaches it to a pulley that hangs from the steel cable.
I follow the cable down, over the cluster of buildings and
along Lake Shore Drive. I don’t know where it ends. One
thing is clear, though: If I go through with this, I’ll find out.
We’re going to slide down a steel cable in a black sling
from one thousand feet up.
“Oh my God,” says Uriah.
All I can do is nod.
Shauna is the first person to get in the sling. She wriggles
forward on her stomach until most of her body is supported
by black fabric. Then Zeke pulls a strap across her
shoulders, the small of her back, and the top of her thighs.
He pulls her, in the sling, to the edge of the building and
counts down from five. Shauna gives a thumbs-up as he
shoves her forward, into nothingness.
Lynn gasps as Shauna hurtles toward the ground at a
steep incline, headfirst. I push past her to see better.
Shauna stays secure in the sling for as long as I can see
her, and then she’s too far away, just a black speck over
Lake Shore Drive.
The members whoop and pump their fists and form a line,
sometimes shoving one another out of the way to get a
better place. Somehow I am the first initiate in line, right in
front of Uriah. Only seven people stand between me and the
zip line.
Still, there is a part of me that groans, I have to wait for
seven people? It is a strange blend of terror and eagerness,
unfamiliar until now.
The next member, a young-looking boy with hair down to
his shoulders, jumps into the sling on his back instead of his
stomach. He stretches his arms wide as Zeke shoves him
down the steel cable.
None of the members seem at all afraid. They act like
they have done this a thousand times before, and maybe
they have. But when I look over my shoulder, I see that most
of the initiates look pale or worried, even if they talk
excitedly to one another. What happens between initiation
and membership that transforms panic into delight? Or do
people just get better at hiding their fear?
Three people in front of me. Another sling; a member gets
in feet-first and crosses her arms over her chest. Two
people. A tall, thick boy jumps up and down like a child
before climbing into the sling and lets out a high screech as
he disappears, making the girl in front of me laugh. One
person.
She hops into the sling face-first and keeps her hands in
front of her as Zeke tightens her straps. And then it’s my
turn.
I shudder as Zeke hangs my sling from the cable. I try to
climb in, but I have trouble; my hands are shaking too badly.
“Don’t worry,” Zeke says right next to my ear. He takes my
arm and helps me get in, facedown.
The straps tighten around my midsection, and Zeke slides
me forward, to the edge of the roof. I stare down the
building’s steel girders and black windows, all the way to the
cracked sidewalk. I am a fool for doing this. And a fool for
enjoying the feeling of my heart slamming against my
sternum and sweat gathering in the lines of my palms.
“Ready, Stiff?” Zeke smirks down at me. “I have to say,
I’m impressed that you aren’t screaming and crying right
now.”
“I told you,” Uriah says. “She’s Dauntless through and
through. Now get on with it.”
“Careful, brother, or I might not tighten your straps
enough,” Zeke says. He smacks his knee. “And then, splat!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Uriah says. “And then our mother would boil
you alive.”
Hearing him talk about his mother, about his intact family,
makes my chest hurt for a second, like someone pierced it
with a needle.
“Only if she found out.” Zeke tugs on the pulley attached to
the steel cable. It holds, which is fortunate, because if it
breaks, my death will be swift and certain. He looks down at
me and says, “Ready, set, g—”
Before he can finish the word “go,” he releases the sling
and I forget him, I forget Uriah, and family, and all the things
that could malfunction and lead to my death. I hear metal
sliding against metal and feel wind so intense it forces tears
into my eyes as I hurtle toward the ground.
I feel like I am without substance, without weight. Ahead of
me the marsh looks huge, its patches of brown spreading
farther than I can see, even up this high. The air is so cold
and so fast that it hurts my face. I pick up speed and a shout
of exhilaration rises within me, stopped only by the wind that
fills my mouth the second my lips part.
Held secure by the straps, I throw my arms out to the side
and imagine that I am flying. I plunge toward the street,
which is cracked and patchy and follows perfectly the curve
of the marsh. I can imagine, up here, how the marsh looked
when it was full of water, like liquid steel as it reflected the
color of the sky.
My heart beats so hard it hurts, and I can’t scream and I
can’t breathe, but I also feel everything, every vein and every
fiber, every bone and every nerve, all awake and buzzing in
my body as if charged with electricity. I am pure adrenaline.
The ground grows and bulges beneath me, and I can see
the tiny people standing on the pavement below. I should
scream, like any rational human being would, but when I
open my mouth again, I just crow with joy. I yell louder, and
the figures on the ground pump their fists and yell back, but
they are so far away I can barely hear them.
I look down and the ground smears beneath me, all gray
and white and black, glass and pavement and steel.
Tendrils of wind, soft as hair, wrap around my fingers and
push my arms back. I try to pull my arms to my chest again,
but I am not strong enough. The ground grows bigger and
bigger.
I don’t slow down for another minute at least but sail
parallel to the ground, like a bird.
When I slow down, I run my fingers over my hair. The wind
teased it into knots. I hang about twenty feet above the
ground, but that height seems like nothing now. I reach
behind me and work to undo the straps holding me in. My
fingers shake, but I still manage to loosen them. A crowd of
members stands below. They grasp one another’s arms,
forming a net of limbs beneath me.
In order to get down, I have to trust them to catch me. I
have to accept that these people are mine, and I am theirs. It
is a braver act than sliding down the zip line.
I wriggle forward and fall. I hit their arms hard. Wrist bones
and forearms press into my back, and then palms wrap
around my arms and pull me to my feet. I don’t know which
hands hold me and which hands don’t; I see grins and hear
laughter.
“What’d you think?” Shauna says, clapping me on the
shoulder.
“Um…” All the members stare at me. They look as
windblown as I feel, the frenzy of adrenaline in their eyes and
their hair askew. I know why my father said the Dauntless
were a pack of madmen. He didn’t—couldn’t—understand
the kind of camaraderie that forms only after you’ve all
risked your lives together.
“When can I go again?” I say. My smile stretches wide
enough to show teeth, and when they laugh, I laugh. I think of
climbing the stairs with the Abnegation, our feet finding the
same rhythm, all of us the same. This isn’t like that. We are
not the same. But we are, somehow, one.
I look toward the Hancock building, which is so far from
where I stand that I can’t see the people on its roof.
“Look! There he is!” someone says, pointing over my
shoulder. I follow the pointed finger toward a small dark
shape sliding down the steel wire. A few seconds later I
hear a bloodcurdling scream.
“I bet he’ll cry.”
“Zeke’s brother, cry? No way. He would get punched so
hard.”
“His arms are flailing!”
“He sounds like a strangled cat,” I say. Everyone laughs
again. I feel a twinge of guilt for teasing Uriah when he can’t
hear me, but I would have said the same thing if he were
standing here. I hope.
When Uriah finally comes to a stop, I follow the members
to meet him. We line up beneath him and thrust our arms
into the space between us. Shauna clamps a hand around
my elbow. I grab another arm—I’m not sure who it belongs
to, there are too many tangled hands—and look up at her.
“Pretty sure we can’t call you ‘Stiff’ anymore,” Shauna
says. She nods. “Tris.”
I still smell like wind when I walk into the cafeteria that
evening. For the second after I walk in, I stand among a
crowd of Dauntless, and I feel like one of them. Then
Shauna waves to me and the crowd breaks apart, and I walk
toward the table where Christina, Al, and Will sit, gaping at
me.
I didn’t think about them when I accepted Uriah’s
invitation. In a way, it is satisfying to see stunned looks on
their faces. But I don’t want them to be upset with me either.
“Where were you?” asks Christina. “What were you doing
with them?”
“Uriah…you know, the Dauntless-born who was on our
capture the flag team?” I say. “He was leaving with some of
the members and he begged them to let me come along.
They didn’t really want me there. Some girl named Lynn
stepped on me.”
“They may not have wanted you there then,” says Will
quietly, “but they seem to like you now.”
“Yeah,” I say. I can’t deny it. “I’m glad to be back, though.”
Hopefully they can’t tell I’m lying, but I suspect they can. I
caught sight of myself in a window on the way into the
compound, and my cheeks and eyes were both bright, my
hair tangled. I look like I have experienced something
powerful.
“Well, you missed Christina almost punching an Erudite,”
says Al. His voice sounds eager. I can count on Al to try to
break the tension. “He was here asking for opinions about
the Abnegation leadership, and Christina told him there
were more important things for him to be doing.”
“Which she was completely right about,” adds Will. “And
he got testy with her. Big mistake.”
“Huge,” I say, nodding. If I smile enough, maybe I can
make them forget their jealousy, or hurt, or whatever is
brewing behind Christina’s eyes.
“Yeah,” she says. “While you were off having fun, I was
doing the dirty work of defending your old faction,
eliminating interfaction conflict…”
“Come on, you know you enjoyed it,” says Will, nudging
her with his elbow. “If you’re not going to tell the whole story, I
will. He was standing…”
Will launches into his story, and I nod along like I’m
listening, but all I can think about is staring down the side of
the Hancock building, and the image I got of the marsh full of
water, restored to its former glory. I look over Will’s shoulder
at the members, who are now flicking bits of food at one
another with their forks.
It’s the first time I have been really eager to be one of
them.
Which means I have to survive the next stage of initiation.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AS FAR AS I can tell, the second stage of initiation involves
sitting in a dark hallway with the other initiates, wondering
what’s going to happen behind a closed door.
Uriah sits across from me, with Marlene on his left and
Lynn on his right. The Dauntless-born initiates and the
transfers were separated during stage one, but we will be
training together from now on. That’s what Four told us
before he disappeared behind the door.
“So,” says Lynn, scuffing the floor with her shoe. “Which
one of you is ranked first, huh?”
Her question is met with silence at first, and then Peter
clears his throat.
“Me,” he says.
“Bet I could take you.” She says it casually, turning the ring
in her eyebrow with her fingertips. “I’m second, but I bet any
of us could take you, transfer.”
I almost laugh. If I was still Abnegation, her comment
would be rude and out of place, but among the Dauntless,
challenges like that seem common. I am almost starting to
expect them.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, if I were you,” Peter says,
his eyes glittering. “Who’s first?”
“Uriah,” she says. “And I am sure. You know how many
years we’ve spent preparing for this?”
If she intends to intimidate us, it works. I already feel
colder.
Before Peter can respond, Four opens the door and says,
“Lynn.” He beckons to her, and she walks down the hallway,
the blue light at the end making her bare head glow.
“So you’re first,” Will says to Uriah.
Uriah shrugs. “Yeah. And?”
“And you don’t think it’s a little unfair that you’ve spent your
entire life getting ready for this, and we’re expected to learn
it all in a few weeks?” Will says, his eyes narrowing.
“Not really. Stage one was about skill, sure, but no one
can prepare for stage two,” he says. “At least, so I’m told.”
No one responds to that. We sit in silence for twenty
minutes. I count each minute on my watch. Then the door
opens again, and Four calls another name.
“Peter,” he says.
Each minute wears into me like a scrape of sandpaper.
Gradually, our numbers begin to dwindle, and it’s just me
and Uriah and Drew. Drew’s leg bounces, and Uriah’s
fingers tap against his knee, and I try to sit perfectly still. I
hear only muttering from the room at the end of the hallway,
and I suspect this is another part of the game they like to
play with us. Terrifying us at every opportunity.
The door opens, and Four beckons to me. “Come on,
Tris.”
I stand, my back sore from leaning against the wall for so
long, and walk past the other initiates. Drew sticks out his
leg to trip me, but I hop over it at the last second.
Four touches my shoulder to guide me into the room and
closes the door behind me.
When I see what’s inside, I recoil immediately, my
shoulders hitting his chest.
In the room is a reclining metal chair, similar to the one I
sat in during the aptitude test. Beside it is a familiar
machine. This room has no mirrors and barely any light.
There is a computer screen on a desk in the corner.
“Sit,” Four says. He squeezes my arms and pushes me
forward.
“What’s the simulation?” I say, trying to keep my voice
from shaking. I don’t succeed.
“Ever hear the phrase ‘face your fears’?” he says. “We’re
taking that literally. The simulation will teach you to control
your emotions in the midst of a frightening situation.”
I touch a wavering hand to my forehead. Simulations
aren’t real; they pose no real threat to me, so logically, I
shouldn’t be afraid of them, but my reaction is visceral. It
takes all the willpower I have for me to steer myself toward
the chair and sit down in it again, pressing my skull into the
headrest. The cold from the metal seeps through my clothes.
“Do you ever administer the aptitude tests?” I say. He
seems qualified.
“No,” he replies. “I avoid Stiffs as much as possible.”
I don’t know why someone would avoid the Abnegation.
The Dauntless or the Candor, maybe, because bravery and
honesty make people do strange things, but the
Abnegation?
“Why?”
“Do you ask me that because you think I’ll actually
answer?”
“Why do you say vague things if you don’t want to be
asked about them?”
His fingers brush my neck. My body tenses. A tender
gesture? No—he has to move my hair to the side. He taps
something, and I tilt my head back to see what it is. Four
holds a syringe with a long needle in one hand, his thumb
against the plunger. The liquid in the syringe is tinted
orange.
“An injection?” My mouth goes dry. I don’t usually mind
needles, but this one is huge.
“We use a more advanced version of the simulation here,”
he says, “a different serum, no wires or electrodes for you.”
“How does it work without wires?”
“Well, I have wires, so I can see what’s going on,” he
says. “But for you, there’s a tiny transmitter in the serum that
sends data to the computer.”
He turns my arm over and eases the tip of the needle into
the tender skin on the side of my neck. A deep ache
spreads through my throat. I wince and try to focus on his
calm face.
“The serum will go into effect in sixty seconds. This
simulation is different from the aptitude test,” he says. “In
addition to containing the transmitter, the serum stimulates
the amygdala, which is the part of the brain involved in
processing negative emotions—like fear—and then induces
a hallucination. The brain’s electrical activity is then
transmitted to our computer, which then translates your
hallucination into a simulated image that I can see and
monitor. I will then forward the recording to Dauntless
administrators. You stay in the hallucination until you calm
down—that is, lower your heart rate and control your
breathing.”
I try to follow his words, but my thoughts are going
haywire. I feel the trademark symptoms of fear: sweaty
palms, racing heart, tightness in my chest, dry mouth, a lump
in my throat, difficulty breathing. He plants his hands on
either side of my head and leans over me.
“Be brave, Tris,” he whispers. “The first time is always the
hardest.”
His eyes are the last thing I see.
I stand in a field of dry grass that comes up to my waist. The
air smells like smoke and burns my nostrils. Above me the
sky is bile-colored, and the sight of it fills me with anxiety, my
body cringing away from it.
I hear fluttering, like the pages of a book blown by the
wind, but there is no wind. The air is still and soundless
apart from the flapping, neither hot nor cold—not like air at
all, but I can still breathe. A shadow swoops overhead.
Something lands on my shoulder. I feel its weight and the
prick of talons and fling my arm forward to shake it off, my
hand batting at it. I feel something smooth and fragile. A
feather. I bite my lip and look to the side. A black bird the
size of my forearm turns its head and focuses one beady
eye on me.
I grit my teeth and hit the crow again with my hand. It digs
in its talons and doesn’t move. I cry out, more frustrated than
pained, and hit the crow with both hands, but it stays in
place, resolute, one eye on me, feathers gleaming in the
yellow light. Thunder rumbles and I hear the patter of rain on
the ground, but no rain falls.
The sky darkens, like a cloud is passing over the sun. Still
cringing away from the crow, I look up. A flock of crows
storms toward me, an advancing army of outstretched talons
and open beaks, each one squawking, filling the air with
noise. The crows descend in a single mass, diving toward
the earth, hundreds of beady black eyes shining.
I try to run, but my feet are firmly planted and refuse to
move, like the crow on my shoulder. I scream as they
surround me, feathers flapping in my ears, beaks pecking at
my shoulders, talons clinging to my clothes. I scream until
tears come from my eyes, my arms flailing. My hands hit
solid bodies but do nothing; there are too many. I am alone.
They nip at my fingertips and press against my body, wings
sliding across the back of my neck, feet tearing at my hair.
I twist and wrench and fall to the ground, covering my
head with my arms. They scream against me. I feel a
wiggling in the grass, a crow forcing its way under my arm. I
open my eyes and it pecks at my face, its beak hitting me in
the nose. Blood drips onto the grass and I sob, hitting it with
my palm, but another crow wedges under my other arm and
its claws stick to the front of my shirt.
I am screaming; I am sobbing.
“Help!” I wail. “Help!”
And the crows flap harder, a roar in my ears. My body
burns, and they are everywhere, and I can’t think, I can’t
breathe. I gasp for air and my mouth fills with feathers,
feathers down my throat, in my lungs, replacing my blood
with dead weight.
“Help,” I sob and scream, insensible, illogical. I am dying; I
am dying; I am dying.
My skin sears and I am bleeding, and the squawking is so
loud my ears are ringing, but I am not dying, and I remember
that it isn’t real, but it feels real, it feels so real. Be brave.
Four’s voice screams in my memory. I cry out to him,
inhaling feathers and exhaling “Help!” But there will be no
help; I am alone.
You stay in the hallucination until you can calm down,
his voice continues, and I cough, and my face is wet with
tears, and another crow has wriggled under my arms, and I
feel the edge of its sharp beak against my mouth. Its beak
wedges past my lips and scrapes my teeth. The crow
pushes its head into my mouth and I bite hard, tasting
something foul. I spit and clench my teeth to form a barrier,
but now a fourth crow is pushing at my feet, and a fifth crow
is pecking at my ribs.
Calm down. I can’t, I can’t. My head throbs.
Breathe. I keep my mouth closed and suck air into my
nose. It has been hours since I was alone in the field; it has
been days. I push air out of my nose. My heart pounds hard
in my chest. I have to slow it down. I breathe again, my face
wet with tears.
I sob again, and force myself forward, stretching out on
the grass, which prickles against my skin. I extend my arms
and breathe. Crows push and prod at my sides, worming
their way beneath me, and I let them. I let the flapping of
wings and the squawking and the pecking and the prodding
continue, relaxing one muscle at a time, resigning myself to
becoming a pecked carcass.
The pain overwhelms me.
I open my eyes, and I am sitting in the metal chair.
I scream and hit my arms and head and legs to get the
birds off me, but they are gone, though I can still feel the
feathers brushing the back of my neck and the talons in my
shoulder and my burning skin. I moan and pull my knees to
my chest, burying my face in them.
A hand touches my shoulder, and I fling a fist out, hitting
something solid but soft. “Don’t touch me!” I sob.
“It’s over,” Four says. The hand shifts awkwardly over my
hair, and I remember my father stroking my hair when he
kissed me goodnight, my mother touching my hair when she
trimmed it with the scissors. I run my palms along my arms,
still brushing off feathers, though I know there aren’t any.
“Tris.”
I rock back and forth in the metal chair.
“Tris, I’m going to take you back to the dorms, okay?”
“No!” I snap. I lift my head and glare at him, though I can’t
see him through the blur of tears. “They can’t see me…not
like this…”
“Oh, calm down,” he says. He rolls his eyes. “I’ll take you
out the back door.”
“I don’t need you to…” I shake my head. My body is
trembling and I feel so weak I’m not sure I can stand, but I
have to try. I can’t be the only one who needs to be walked
back to the dorms. Even if they don’t see me, they’ll find out,
they’ll talk about me—
“Nonsense.”
He grabs my arm and hauls me out of the chair. I blink the
tears from my eyes, wipe my cheeks with the heel of my
hand, and let him steer me toward the door behind the
computer screen.
We walk down the hallway in silence. When we’re a few
hundred yards away from the room, I yank my arm away and
stop.
“Why did you do that to me?” I say. “What was the point of
that, huh? I wasn’t aware that when I chose Dauntless, I was
signing up for weeks of torture!”
“Did you think overcoming cowardice would be easy?” he
says calmly.
“That isn’t overcoming cowardice! Cowardice is how you
decide to be in real life, and in real life, I am not getting
pecked to death by crows, Four!” I press my palms to my
face and sob into them.
He doesn’t say anything, just stands there as I cry. It only
takes me a few seconds to stop and wipe my face again. “I
want to go home,” I say weakly.
But home is not an option anymore. My choices are here
or the factionless slums.
He doesn’t look at me with sympathy. He just looks at me.
His eyes look black in the dim corridor, and his mouth is set
in a hard line.
“Learning how to think in the midst of fear,” he says, “is a
lesson that everyone, even your Stiff family, needs to learn.
That’s what we’re trying to teach you. If you can’t learn it,
you’ll need to get the hell out of here, because we won’t want
you.”
“I’m trying.” My lower lip trembles. “But I failed. I’m failing.”
He sighs. “How long do you think you spent in that
hallucination, Tris?”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “A half hour?”
“Three minutes,” he replies. “You got out three times
faster than the other initiates. Whatever you are, you’re not a
failure.”
Three minutes?
He smiles a little. “Tomorrow you’ll be better at this. You’ll
see.”
“Tomorrow?”
He touches my back and guides me toward the dormitory.
I feel his fingertips through my shirt. Their gentle pressure
makes me forget the birds for a moment.
“What was your first hallucination?” I say, glancing at him.
“It wasn’t a ‘what’ so much as a ‘who.’” He shrugs. “It’s not
important.”
“And are you over that fear now?”
“Not yet.” We reach the door to the dormitory, and he
leans against the wall, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I
may never be.”
“So they don’t go away?”
“Sometimes they do. And sometimes new fears replace
them.” His thumbs hook around his belt loops. “But
becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s
learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it,
that’s the point.”
I nod. I used to think the Dauntless were fearless. That is
how they seemed, anyway. But maybe what I saw as
fearless was actually fear under control.
“Anyway, your fears are rarely what they appear to be in
the simulation,” he adds.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, are you really afraid of crows?” he says, half smiling
at me. The expression warms his eyes enough that I forget
he’s my instructor. He’s just a boy, talking casually, walking
me to my door. “When you see one, do you run away
screaming?”
“No. I guess not.” I think about stepping closer to him, not
for any practical reason, but just because I want to see what
it would be like to stand that close to him; just because I
want to.
Foolish, a voice in my head says.
I step closer and lean against the wall too, tilting my head
sideways to look at him. As I did on the Ferris wheel, I know
exactly how much space there is between us. Six inches. I
lean. Less than six inches. I feel warmer, like he’s giving off
some kind of energy that I am only now close enough to feel.
“So what am I really afraid of?” I say.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Only you can know.”
I nod slowly. There are a dozen things it could be, but I’m
not sure which one is right, or if there’s even one right one.
“I didn’t know becoming Dauntless would be this difficult,”
I say, and a second later, I am surprised that I said it;
surprised that I admitted to it. I bite the inside of my cheek
and watch Four carefully. Was it a mistake to tell him that?
“It wasn’t always like this, I’m told,” he says, lifting a
shoulder. My admission doesn’t appear to bother him.
“Being Dauntless, I mean.”
“What changed?”
“The leadership,” he says. “The person who controls
training sets the standard of Dauntless behavior. Six years
ago Max and the other leaders changed the training
methods to make them more competitive and more brutal,
said it was supposed to test people’s strength. And that
changed the priorities of Dauntless as a whole. Bet you
can’t guess who the leaders’ new protégé is.”
The answer is obvious: Eric. They trained him to be
vicious, and now he will train the rest of us to be vicious too.
I look at Four. Their training didn’t work on him.
“So if you were ranked first in your initiate class,” I say,
“what was Eric’s rank?”
“Second.”
“So he was their second choice for leadership.” I nod
slowly. “And you were their first.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The way Eric was acting at dinner the first night. Jealous,
even though he has what he wants.”
Four doesn’t contradict me. I must be right. I want to ask
why he didn’t take the position the leaders offered him; why
he is so resistant to leadership when he seems to be a
natural leader. But I know how Four feels about personal
questions.
I sniff, wipe my face one more time, and smooth down my
hair.
“Do I look like I’ve been crying?” I say.
“Hmm.” He leans in close, narrowing his eyes like he’s
inspecting my face. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
Even closer, so we would be breathing the same air—if I
could remember to breathe.
“No, Tris,” he says. A more serious look replaces his
smile as he adds, “You look tough as nails.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
WHEN I WALK IN, most of the other initiates—Dauntless-born
and transfer alike—are crowded between the rows of bunk
beds with Peter at their center. He holds a piece of paper in
both hands.
“The mass exodus of the children of Abnegation leaders
cannot be ignored or attributed to coincidence,” he reads.
“The recent transfer of Beatrice and Caleb Prior, the
children of Andrew Prior, calls into question the soundness
of Abnegation’s values and teachings.”
Cold creeps up my spine. Christina, standing on the edge
of the crowd, looks over her shoulder and spots me. She
gives me a worried look. I can’t move. My father. Now the
Erudite are attacking my father.
“Why else would the children of such an important man
decide that the lifestyle he has set out for them is not an
admirable one?” Peter continues. “Molly Atwood, a fellow
Dauntless transfer, suggests a disturbed and abusive
upbringing might be to blame. ‘I heard her talking in her
sleep once,’ Molly says. ‘She was telling her father to stop
doing something. I don’t know what it was, but it gave her
nightmares.’”
So this is Molly’s revenge. She must have talked to the
Erudite reporter that Christina yelled at.
She smiles. Her teeth are crooked. If I knocked them out, I
might be doing her a favor.
“What?” I demand. Or I try to demand, but my voice
comes out strangled and scratchy, and I have to clear my
throat and say it again. “What?”
Peter stops reading, and a few people turn around.
Some, like Christina, look at me in a pitying way, their
eyebrows drawn in, their mouths turned down at the corners.
But most give me little smirks and eye one another
suggestively. Peter turns last, with a wide smile.
“Give me that,” I say, holding out my hand. My face burns.
“But I’m not done reading,” he replies, laughter in his
voice. His eyes scan the paper again. “However, perhaps
the answer lies not in a morally bereft man, but in the
corrupted ideals of an entire faction. Perhaps the answer is
that we have entrusted our city to a group of proselytizing
tyrants who do not know how to lead us out of poverty and
into prosperity.”
I storm up to him and try to snatch the paper from his
hands, but he holds it up, high above my head so I can’t
reach it unless I jump, and I won’t jump. Instead, I lift my heel
and stomp as hard as I can where the bones in his foot
connect to his toes. He grits his teeth to stifle a groan.
Then I throw myself at Molly, hoping the force of the
impact will surprise her and knock her down, but before I
can do any damage, cold hands close around my waist.
“That’s my father!” I scream. “My father, you coward!”
Will pulls me away from her, lifting me off the ground. My
breaths come fast, and I struggle to grab the paper before
anyone can read another word of it. I have to burn it; I have
to destroy it; I have to.
Will drags me out of the room and into the hallway, his
fingernails digging into my skin. Once the door shuts behind
him, he lets go, and I shove him as hard as I can.
“What? Did you think I couldn’t defend myself against that
piece of Candor trash?”
“No,” says Will. He stands in front of the door. “I figured I’d
stop you from starting a brawl in the dormitory. Calm down.”
I laugh a little. “Calm down? Calm down? That’s my family
they’re talking about, that’s my faction!”
“No, it’s not.” There are dark circles under his eyes; he
looks exhausted. “It’s your old faction, and there’s nothing
you can do about what they say, so you might as well just
ignore it.”
“Were you even listening?” The heat in my cheeks is
gone, and my breaths are more even now. “Your stupid exfaction
isn’t just insulting Abnegation anymore. They’re
calling for an overthrow of the entire government.”
Will laughs. “No, they’re not. They’re arrogant and dull,
and that’s why I left them, but they aren’t revolutionaries.
They just want more say, that’s all, and they resent
Abnegation for refusing to listen to them.”
“They don’t want people to listen, they want people to
agree,” I reply. “And you shouldn’t bully people into agreeing
with you.” I touch my palms to my cheeks. “I can’t believe my
brother joined them.”
“Hey. They’re not all bad,” he says sharply.
I nod, but I don’t believe him. I can’t imagine anyone
emerging from the Erudite unscathed, though Will seems all
right.
The door opens again, and Christina and Al walk out.
“It’s my turn to get tattooed,” she says. “Want to come with
us?”
I smooth my hair. I can’t go back into the dormitory. Even
if Will let me, I am outnumbered there. My only choice is to
go with them and try to forget what’s happening outside the
Dauntless compound. I have enough to worry about without
anxiety about my family.
Ahead of me, Al gives Christina a piggyback ride. She
shrieks as he charges through the crowd. People give him a
wide berth, when they can.
wide berth, when they can.
My shoulder still burns. Christina persuaded me to join her
in getting a tattoo of the Dauntless seal. It is a circle with a
flame inside it. My mother didn’t even react to the one on my
collarbone, so I don’t have as many reservations about
getting tattoos. They are a part of life here, just as integral to
my initiation as learning to fight.
Christina also persuaded me to purchase a shirt that
exposes my shoulders and collarbone, and to line my eyes
with black pencil again. I don’t bother objecting to her
makeover attempts anymore. Especially since I find myself
enjoying them.
Will and I walk behind Christina and Al.
“I can’t believe you got another tattoo,” he says, shaking
his head.
“Why?” I say. “Because I’m a Stiff?”
“No. Because you’re…sensible.” He smiles. His teeth are
white and straight. “So, what was your fear today, Tris?”
“Too many crows,” I reply. “You?”
He laughs. “Too much acid.”
I don’t ask what that means.
“It’s really fascinating how it all works,” he says. “It’s
basically a struggle between your thalamus, which is
producing the fear, and your frontal lobe, which makes
decisions. But the simulation is all in your head, so even
though you feel like someone is doing it to you, it’s just you,
doing it to yourself and…” He trails off. “Sorry. I sound like
an Erudite. Just a habit.”
I shrug. “It’s interesting.”
Al almost drops Christina, and she slaps her hands
around the first thing she can grab, which just happens to be
his face. He cringes and adjusts his grip on her legs. At a
glance, Al seems happy, but there is something heavy about
even his smiles. I am worried about him.
I see Four standing by the chasm, a group of people
around him. He laughs so hard he has to grab the railing for
balance. Judging by the bottle in his hand and the
brightness of his face, he’s intoxicated, or on his way there. I
had begun to think of Four as rigid, like a soldier, and forgot
that he’s also eighteen.
“Uh-oh,” says Will. “Instructor alert.”
“At least it’s not Eric,” I say. “He’d probably make us play
chicken or something.”
“Sure, but Four is scary. Remember when he put the gun
up to Peter’s head? I think Peter wet himself.”
“Peter deserved it,” I say firmly.
Will doesn’t argue with me. He might have, a few weeks
ago, but now we’ve all seen what Peter is capable of.
“Tris!” Four calls out. Will and I exchange a look, half
surprise and half apprehension. Four pulls away from the
railing and walks up to me. Ahead of us, Al and Christina
stop running, and Christina slides to the ground. I don’t
blame them for staring. There are four of us, and Four is only
talking to me.
“You look different.” His words, normally crisp, are now
sluggish.
“So do you,” I say. And he does—he looks more relaxed,
younger. “What are you doing?”
“Flirting with death,” he replies with a laugh. “Drinking
near the chasm. Probably not a good idea.”
“No, it isn’t.” I’m not sure I like Four this way. There’s
something unsettling about it.
“Didn’t know you had a tattoo,” he says, looking at my
collarbone.
He sips the bottle. His breath smells thick and sharp. Like
the factionless man’s breath.
“Right. The crows,” he says. He glances over his shoulder
at his friends, who are carrying on without him, unlike mine.
He adds, “I’d ask you to hang out with us, but you’re not
supposed to see me this way.”
I am tempted to ask him why he wants me to hang out with
him, but I suspect the answer has something to do with the
bottle in his hand.
“What way?” I ask. “Drunk?”
“Yeah…well, no.” His voice softens. “Real, I guess.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t.”
“Nice of you.” He puts his lips next to my ear and says,
“You look good, Tris.”
His words surprise me, and my heart leaps. I wish it
didn’t, because judging by the way his eyes slide over mine,
he has no idea what he’s saying. I laugh. “Do me a favor and
stay away from the chasm, okay?”
“Of course.” He winks at me.
I can’t help it. I smile. Will clears his throat, but I don’t want
to turn away from Four, even when he walks back to his
friends.
Then Al rushes at me like a rolling boulder and throws me
over his shoulder. I shriek, my face hot.
“Come on, little girl,” he says, “I’m taking you to dinner.”
I rest my elbows on Al’s back and wave at Four as he
carries me away.
“I thought I would rescue you,” Al says as we walk away.
He sets me down. “What was that all about?”
He is trying to sound lighthearted, but he asks the
question almost sadly. He still cares too much about me.
“Yeah, I think we’d all like to know the answer to that
question,” says Christina in a singsong voice. “What did he
say to you?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “He was drunk. He didn’t even
know what he was saying.” I clear my throat. “That’s why I
was grinning. It’s…funny to see him that way.”
“Right,” says Will. “Couldn’t possibly be because—”
I elbow Will hard in the ribs before he can finish his
sentence. He was close enough to hear what Four said to
me about looking good. I don’t need him telling everyone
about it, especially not Al. I don’t want to make him feel
worse.
At home I used to spend calm, pleasant nights with my
family. My mother knit scarves for the neighborhood kids.
My father helped Caleb with his homework. There was a fire
in the fireplace and peace in my heart, as I was doing
exactly what I was supposed to be doing, and everything
was quiet.
I have never been carried around by a large boy, or
laughed until my stomach hurt at the dinner table, or listened
to the clamor of a hundred people all talking at once. Peace
is restrained; this is free.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I BREATHE THROUGH my nose. In, out. In.
“It’s just a simulation, Tris,” Four says quietly.
He’s wrong. The last simulation bled into my life, waking
and sleeping. Nightmares, not just featuring the crows but
the feelings I had in the simulation—terror and helplessness,
which I suspect is what I am really afraid of. Sudden fits of
terror in the shower, at breakfast, on the way here. Nails
bitten down so far my nail beds ache. And I am not the only
one who feels this way; I can tell.
Still I nod and close my eyes.
I am in darkness. The last thing I remember is the metal
chair and the needle in my arm. This time there is no field;
there are no crows. My heart pounds in anticipation. What
monsters will creep from the darkness and steal my
rationality? How long will I have to wait for them?
A blue orb lights up a few feet ahead of me, and then
another one, filling the room with light. I am on the Pit floor,
next to the chasm, and the initiates stand around me, their
arms folded and their faces blank. I search for Christina and
find her standing among them. None of them move. Their
stillness makes my throat feel tight.
I see something in front of me—my own faint reflection. I
touch it, and my fingers find glass, cool and smooth. I look
up. There is a pane above me; I am in a glass box. I press
above my head to see if I can force the box open. It doesn’t
budge. I am sealed in.
My heart beats faster. I don’t want to be trapped.
Someone taps on the wall in front of me. Four. He points at
my feet, smirking.
A few seconds ago, my feet were dry, but now I stand in
half an inch of water, and my socks are soggy. I crouch to
see where the water is coming from, but it seems to be
coming from nowhere, rising up from the box’s glass
bottom. I look up at Four, and he shrugs. He joins the crowd
of initiates.
The water rises fast. It now covers my ankles. I pound
against the glass with my fist.
“Hey!” I say. “Let me out of here!”
The water slides up my bare calves as it rises, cool and
soft. I hit the glass harder.
“Get me out of here!”
I stare at Christina. She leans over to Peter, who stands
beside her, and whispers something in his ear. They both
laugh.
The water covers my thighs. I pound both fists against the
glass. I’m not trying to get their attention anymore; I’m trying
to break out. Frantic, I bang against the glass as hard as I
can. I step back and throw my shoulder into the wall, once,
twice, three times, four times. I hit the wall until my shoulder
aches, screaming for help, watching the water rise to my
waist, my rib cage, my chest.
“Help!” I scream. “Please! Please help!”
I slap the glass. I will die in this tank. I drag my shaking
hands through my hair.
I see Will standing among the initiates, and something
tickles at the back of my mind. Something he said. Come
on, think. I stop trying to break the glass. It’s hard to breathe,
but I have to try. I’ll need as much air as I can get in a few
seconds.
My body rises, weightless in the water. I float closer to the
ceiling and tilt my head back as the water covers my chin.
Gasping, I press my face to the glass above me, sucking in
as much air as I can. Then the water covers me, sealing me
into the box.
Don’t panic. It’s no use—my heart pounds and my
thoughts scatter. I thrash in the water, smacking the walls. I
kick the glass as hard as I can, but the water slows down my
foot. The simulation is all in your head.
I scream, and water fills my mouth. If it’s in my head, I
control it. The water burns my eyes. The initiates’ passive
faces stare back at me. They don’t care.
I scream again and shove the wall with my palm. I hear
something. A cracking sound. When I pull my hand away,
there is a line in the glass. I slam my other hand next to the
first and drive another crack through the glass, this one
spreading outward from my palm in long, crooked fingers.
My chest burns like I just swallowed fire. I kick the wall. My
toes ache from the impact, and I hear a long, low groan.
The pane shatters, and the force of the water against my
back throws me forward. There is air again.
I gasp and sit up. I’m in the chair. I gulp and shake out my
hands. Four stands to my right, but instead of helping me up,
he just looks at me.
“What?” I ask.
“How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Crack the glass.”
“I don’t know.” Four finally offers me his hand. I swing my
legs over the side of the chair, and when I stand, I feel
steady. Calm.
He sighs and grabs me by the elbow, half leading and half
dragging me out of the room. We walk quickly down the
hallway, and then I stop, pulling my arm back. He stares at
me in silence. He won’t give me information without
prompting.
“What?” I demand.
“You’re Divergent,” he replies.
I stare at him, fear pulsing through me like electricity. He
knows. How does he know? I must have slipped up. Said
something wrong.
I should act casual. I lean back, pressing my shoulders to
the wall, and say, “What’s Divergent?”
“Don’t play stupid,” he says. “I suspected it last time, but
this time it’s obvious. You manipulated the simulation; you’re
Divergent. I’ll delete the footage, but unless you want to wind
up dead at the bottom of the chasm, you’ll figure out how to
hide it during the simulations! Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
He walks back to the simulation room and slams the door
behind him. I feel my heartbeat in my throat. I manipulated
the simulation; I broke the glass. I didn’t know that was an
act of Divergence.
How did he?
I push myself away from the wall and start down the
hallway. I need answers, and I know who has them.
I walk straight to the tattoo place where I last saw Tori.
There aren’t many people out, because it’s midafter-noon
and most of them are at work or at school. There are three
people in the tattoo place: the other tattoo artist, who is
drawing a lion on another man’s arm, and Tori, who is
sorting through a stack of paper on the counter. She looks
up when I walk in.
“Hello, Tris,” she says. She glances at the other tattoo
artist, who is too focused on what he’s doing to notice us.
“Let’s go in the back.”
I follow her behind the curtain that separates the two
rooms. The next room contains a few chairs, spare tattoo
needles, ink, pads of paper, and framed artwork. Tori draws
the curtain shut and sits in one of the chairs. I sit next to her,
tapping my feet to give myself something to do.
“What’s going on?” she says. “How are the simulations
going?”
“Really well.” I nod a few times. “A little too well, I hear.”
“Ah.”
“Please help me understand,” I say quietly. “What does it
mean to be…” I hesitate. I should not say the word
“Divergent” here. “What the hell am I? What does it have to
do with the simulations?”
Tori’s demeanor changes. She leans back and crosses
her arms. Her expression becomes guarded.
“Among other things, you…you are someone who is
aware, when they are in a simulation, that what they are
experiencing is not real,” she says. “Someone who can then
manipulate the simulation or even shut it down. And also…”
She leans forward and looks into my eyes. “Someone who,
because you are also Dauntless…tends to die.”
A weight settles on my chest, like each sentence she
speaks is piling there. Tension builds inside me until I can’t
stand to hold it in anymore—I have to cry, or scream, or…
I let out a harsh little laugh that dies almost as soon as it’s
born and say, “So I’m going to die, then?”
“Not necessarily,” she says. “The Dauntless leaders don’t
know about you yet. I deleted your aptitude results from the
system immediately and manually logged your result as
Abnegation. But make no mistake—if they discover what
you are, they will kill you.”
I stare at her in silence. She doesn’t look crazy. She
sounds steady, if a little urgent, and I’ve never suspected her
of being unbalanced, but she must be. There hasn’t been a
murder in our city as long as I’ve been alive. Even if
individuals are capable of it, the leaders of a faction can’t
possibly be.
“You’re paranoid,” I say. “The leaders of the Dauntless
wouldn’t kill me. People don’t do that. Not anymore. That’s
the point of all this…all the factions.”
“Oh, you think so?” She plants her hands on her knees
and stares right at me, her features taut with sudden ferocity.
“They got my brother, why not you, huh? What makes you
special?”
“Your brother?” I say, narrowing my eyes.
“Yeah. My brother. He and I both transferred from Erudite,
only his aptitude test was inconclusive. On the last day of
simulations, they found his body in the chasm. Said it was a
suicide. Only my brother was doing well in training, he was
dating another initiate, he was happy.” She shakes her
head. “You have a brother, right? Don’t you think you would
know if he was suicidal?”
I try to imagine Caleb killing himself. Even the thought
sounds ridiculous to me. Even if Caleb was miserable, it
would not be an option.
Her sleeves are rolled up, so I can see a tattoo of a river
on her right arm. Did she get it after her brother died? Was
the river another fear she overcame?
She lowers her voice. “In the second stage of training,
Georgie got really good, really fast. He said the simulations
weren’t even scary to him…they were like a game. So the
instructors took a special interest in him. Piled into the room
when he went under, instead of just letting the instructor
report his results. Whispered about him all the time. The last
day of simulations, one of the Dauntless leaders came in to
see it himself. And the next day, Georgie was gone.”
I could be good at the simulations, if I mastered whatever
force helped me break the glass. I could be so good that all
the instructors took notice. I could, but will I?
“Is that all it is?” I say. “Just changing the simulations?”
“I doubt it,” she says, “but that’s all I know.”
“How many people know about this?” I say, thinking of
Four. “About manipulating the simulations?”
“Two kinds of people,” she says. “People who want you
dead. Or people who have experienced it themselves.
Firsthand. Or secondhand, like me.”
Four told me he would delete the recording of me
breaking the glass. He doesn’t want me dead. Is he
Divergent? Was a family member? A friend? A girlfriend?
I push the thought aside. I can’t let him distract me.
“I don’t understand,” I say slowly, “why the Dauntless
leaders care that I can manipulate the simulation.”
“If I had it figured out, I would have told you by now.” She
presses her lips together. “The only thing I’ve come up with
is that changing the simulation isn’t what they care about; it’s
just a symptom of something else. Something they do care
about.”
Tori takes my hand and presses it between her palms.
“Think about this,” she says. “These people taught you
how to use a gun. They taught you how to fight. You think
they’re above hurting you? Above killing you?”
She releases my hand and stands.
“I have to go or Bud will ask questions. Be careful, Tris.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE DOOR TO the Pit closes behind me, and I am alone. I
have not walked this tunnel since the day of the Choosing
Ceremony. I remember how I walked it then, my footsteps
unsteady, searching for light. I walk it surefooted now. I don’t
need light anymore.
It has been four days since I spoke to Tori. Since then,
Erudite has released two articles about Abnegation. The
first article accuses Abnegation of withholding luxuries like
cars and fresh fruit from the other factions in order to force
their belief in self-denial on everyone else. When I read it, I
thought of Will’s sister, Cara, accusing my mother of
hoarding goods.
The second article discusses the failings of choosing
government officials based on their faction, asking why only
people who define themselves as selfless should be in
government. It promotes a return to the democratically
elected political systems of the past. It makes a lot of sense,
which makes me suspect it is a call for revolution wrapped
in the clothing of rationality.
I reach the end of the tunnel. The net stretches across the
gaping hole, just as it did when I last saw it. I climb the stairs
to the wooden platform where Four pulled me to solid
ground and grab the bar that the net is attached to. I would
not have been able to lift my body up with just my arms when
I first got here, but now I do it almost without thinking and roll
into the center of the net.
Above me are the empty buildings that stand at the edge
of the hole, and the sky. It is dark blue and starless. There is
no moon.
The articles troubled me, but I had friends to cheer me up,
and that is something. When the first one was released,
Christina charmed one of the cooks in the Dauntless
kitchens, and he let us try some cake batter. After the
second article, Uriah and Marlene taught me a card game,
and we played for two hours in the dining hall.
Tonight, though, I want to be alone. More than that, I want
to remember why I came here, and why I was so determined
to stay here that I would jump off a building for it, even before
I knew what being Dauntless was. I work my fingers through
the holes in the net beneath me.
I wanted to be like the Dauntless I saw at school. I wanted
to be loud and daring and free like them. But they were not
members yet; they were just playing at being Dauntless. And
so was I, when I jumped off that roof. I didn’t know what fear
was.
In the past four days, I faced four fears. In one I was tied to
a stake and Peter set a fire beneath my feet. In another I
was drowning again, this time in the middle of an ocean as
the water raged around me. In the third, I watched as my
family slowly bled to death. And in the fourth, I was held at
gunpoint and forced to shoot them. I know what fear is now.
Wind rushes over the lip of the hole and washes over me,
and I close my eyes. In my mind I stand at the edge of the
roof again. I undo the buttons of my gray Abnegation shirt,
exposing my arms, revealing more of my body than anyone
else has ever seen. I ball the shirt up and hurl it at Peter’s
chest.
I open my eyes. No, I was wrong; I didn’t jump off the roof
because I wanted to be like the Dauntless. I jumped off
because I already was like them, and I wanted to show
myself to them. I wanted to acknowledge a part of myself
that Abnegation demanded that I hide.
I stretch my hands over my head and hook them in the net
again. I reach with my toes as far as I can, taking up as
much of the net as possible. The night sky is empty and
silent, and for the first time in four days, so is my mind.
I hold my head in my hands and breathe deeply. Today the
simulation was the same as yesterday: Someone held me
at gunpoint and ordered me to shoot my family. When I lift
my head, I see that Four is watching me.
“I know the simulation isn’t real,” I say.
“You don’t have to explain it to me,” he replies. “You love
your family. You don’t want to shoot them. Not the most
unreasonable thing in the world.”
“In the simulation is the only time I get to see them,” I say.
Even though he says I don’t, I feel like I have to explain why
this fear is so difficult for me to face. I twist my fingers
together and pull them apart. My nail beds are bitten raw—I
have been chewing them as I sleep. I wake to bloody hands
every morning. “I miss them. You ever just…miss your
family?”
Four looks down. “No,” he says eventually. “I don’t. But
that’s unusual.”
It is unusual, so unusual it distracts me from the memory
of holding a gun to Caleb’s chest. What was his family like
that he no longer cares about them?
I pause with my hand on the doorknob and look back at
him.
Are you like me? I ask him silently. Are you Divergent?
Even thinking the word feels dangerous. His eyes hold
mine, and as the silent seconds pass, he looks less and
less stern. I hear my heartbeat. I have been looking at him
too long, but then, he has been looking back, and I feel like
we are both trying to say something the other can’t hear,
though I could be imagining it. Too long—and now, even
longer, my heart even louder, his tranquil eyes swallowing
me whole.
I push the door open and hurry down the hallway.
I shouldn’t be so easily distracted by him. I shouldn’t be
able to think of anything but initiation. The simulations should
disturb me more; they should break my mind, as they have
been doing to most of the other initiates. Drew doesn’t
sleep—he just stares at the wall, curled in a ball. Al screams
every night from his nightmares and cries into his pillow. My
nightmares and chewed fingernails pale by comparison.
Al’s screams wake me every time, and I stare at the
springs above me and wonder what on earth is wrong with
me, that I still feel strong when everyone else is breaking
down. Is it being Divergent that makes me steady, or is it
something else?
When I get back to the dormitory, I expect to find the same
thing I found the day before: a few initiates lying on beds or
staring at nothing. Instead they stand in a group on the other
end of the room. Eric is in front of them with a chalkboard in
his hands, which is facing the other way, so I can’t see
what’s written on it. I stand next to Will.
“What’s going on?” I whisper. I hope it isn’t another article,
because I’m not sure I can handle any more hostility directed
at me.
“Rankings for stage two,” he says.
“I thought there weren’t any cuts after stage two,” I hiss.
“There aren’t. It’s just a progress report, sort of.”
I nod.
The sight of the board makes me feel uneasy, like
something is swimming in my stomach. Eric lifts the board
above his head and hangs it on the nail. When he steps
aside, the room falls silent, and I crane my neck to see what
it says.
My name is in the first slot.
Heads turn in my direction. I follow the list down. Christina
and Will are seventh and ninth, respectively. Peter is
second, but when I look at the time listed by his name, I
realize that the margin between us is conspicuously wide.
Peter’s average simulation time is eight minutes. Mine is
two minutes, forty-five seconds.
“Nice job, Tris,” Will says quietly.
I nod, still staring at the board. I should be pleased that I
am ranked first, but I know what that means. If Peter and his
friends hated me before, they will despise me now. Now I
am Edward. It could be my eye next. Or worse.
I search for Al’s name and find it in the last slot. The crowd
of initiates breaks up slowly, leaving just me, Peter, Will, and
Al standing there. I want to console Al. To tell him that the
only reason that I’m doing well is that there’s something
different about my brain.
Peter turns slowly, every limb infused with tension. A glare
would have been less threatening than the look he gives me
—a look of pure hatred. He walks toward his bunk, but at the
last second, he whips around and shoves me against a wall,
a hand on each of my shoulders.
“I will not be outranked by a Stiff,” he hisses, his face so
close to mine I can smell his stale breath. “How did you do it,
huh? How the hell did you do it?”
He pulls me forward a few inches and then slams me
against the wall again. I clench my teeth to keep from crying
out, though pain from the impact went all the way down my
spine. Will grabs Peter by his shirt collar and drags him
away from me.
“Leave her alone,” he says. “Only a coward bullies a little
girl.”
“A little girl?” scoffs Peter, throwing off Will’s hand. “Are
you blind, or just stupid? She’s going to edge you out of the
rankings and out of Dauntless, and you’re going to get
nothing, all because she knows how to manipulate people
and you don’t. So when you realize that she’s out to ruin us
all, you let me know.”
Peter storms out of the dormitory. Molly and Drew follow
him, looks of disgust on their faces.
“Thanks,” I say, nodding to Will.
“Is he right?” Will asks quietly. “Are you trying to
manipulate us?”
“How on earth would I do that?” I scowl at him. “I’m just
doing the best I can, like anyone else.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs a little. “By acting weak so we
pity you? And then acting tough to psyche us out?”
“Psyche you out?” I repeat. “I’m your friend. I wouldn’t do
that.”
He doesn’t say anything. I can tell he doesn’t believe me
—not quite.
“Don’t be an idiot, Will,” says Christina, hopping down
from her bunk. She looks at me without sympathy and adds,
“She’s not acting.”
Christina turns and leaves, without banging the door shut.
Will follows. I am alone in the room with Al. The first and the
last.
Al has never looked small before, but he does now, with
his shoulders slumped and his body collapsing on itself like
crumpled paper. He sits down on the edge of his bed.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says.
His face is bright red. I look away. Asking him was just a
formality. Anyone with eyes could see that Al is not all right.
“It’s not over,” I say. “You can improve your rank if you…”
My voice trails off when he looks up at me. I don’t even
know what I would say to him if I finished my sentence. There
is no strategy for stage two. It reaches deep into the heart of
who we are and tests whatever courage is there.
“See?” he says. “It’s not that simple.”
“I know it’s not.”
“I don’t think you do,” he says, shaking his head. His chin
wobbles. “For you it’s easy. All of this is easy.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yeah, it is.” He closes his eyes. “You aren’t helping me by
pretending it isn’t. I don’t—I’m not sure you can help me at
all.”
I feel like I just walked into a downpour, and all my clothes
are heavy with water; like I am heavy and awkward and
useless. I don’t know if he means that no one can help him,
or if I, specifically, can’t help him, but I would not be okay
with either interpretation. I want to help him. I am powerless
to do so.
“I…,” I start to say, meaning to apologize, but for what?
For being more Dauntless than he is? For not knowing what
to say?
“I just…” The tears that have been gathering in his eyes
spill over, wetting his cheeks. “…want to be alone.”
I nod and turn away from him. Leaving him is not a good
idea, but I can’t stop myself. The door clicks into place
behind me, and I keep walking.
I walk past the drinking fountain and through the tunnels
that seemed endless the day I got here but now barely
register in my mind. This is not the first time I have failed my
family since I got here, but for some reason, it feels that way.
Every other time I failed, I knew what to do but chose not to
do it. This time, I did not know what to do. Have I lost the
ability to see what people need? Have I lost part of myself?
I keep walking.
I somehow find the hallway I sat in the day Edward left. I
don’t want to be alone, but I don’t feel like I have much of a
choice. I close my eyes and pay attention to the cold stone
beneath me and breathe the musty underground air.
“Tris!” someone calls from the end of the hallway. Uriah
jogs toward me. Behind him are Lynn and Marlene. Lynn is
holding a muffin.
“Thought I would find you here.” He crouches near my feet.
“I heard you got ranked first.”
“So you just wanted to congratulate me?” I smirk. “Well,
thanks.”
“Someone should,” he says. “And I figured your friends
might not be so congratulatory, since their ranks aren’t as
high. So quit moping and come with us. I’m going to shoot a
muffin off Marlene’s head.”
The idea is so ridiculous I can’t stop myself from laughing.
I get up and follow Uriah to the end of the hallway, where
Marlene and Lynn are waiting. Lynn narrows her eyes at me,
but Marlene grins.
“Why aren’t you out celebrating?” she asks. “You’re
practically guaranteed a top ten spot if you keep it up.”
“She’s too Dauntless for the other transfers,” Uriah says.
“And too Abnegation to ‘celebrate,’” remarks Lynn.
I ignore her. “Why are you shooting a muffin off Marlene’s
head?”
“She bet me I couldn’t aim well enough to hit a small
object from one hundred feet,” Uriah explains. “I bet her she
didn’t have the guts to stand there as I tried. It works out well,
really.”
The training room where I first fired a gun is not far from
my hidden hallway. We get there in under a minute, and
Uriah flips on a light switch. It looks the same as the last
time I was there: targets on one end of the room, a table with
guns on the other.
“They just keep these lying around?” I ask.
“Yeah, but they aren’t loaded.” Uriah pulls up his shirt.
There is a gun stuck under the waistband of his pants, right
under a tattoo. I stare at the tattoo, trying to figure out what it
is, but then he lets his shirt fall. “Okay,” he says. “Go stand in
front of a target.”
Marlene walks away, a skip in her step.
“You aren’t seriously going to shoot at her, are you?” I ask
Uriah.
“It’s not a real gun,” says Lynn quietly. “It’s got plastic
pellets in it. The worst it’ll do is sting her face, maybe give
her a welt. What do you think we are, stupid?”
Marlene stands in front of one of the targets and sets the
muffin on her head. Uriah squints one eye as he aims the
gun.
“Wait!” calls out Marlene. She breaks off a piece of the
muffin and pops it into her mouth. “Mmkay!” she shouts, the
word garbled by food. She gives Uriah a thumbs-up.
“I take it your ranks were good,” I say to Lynn.
She nods. “Uriah’s second. I’m first. Marlene’s fourth.”
“You’re only first by a hair,” says Uriah as he aims. He
squeezes the trigger. The muffin falls off Marlene’s head.
She didn’t even blink.
“We both win!” she shouts.
“You miss your old faction?” Lynn asks me.
“Sometimes,” I say. “It was calmer. Not as exhausting.”
Marlene picks up the muffin from the ground and bites into
it. Uriah shouts, “Gross!”
“Initiation’s supposed to wear us down to who we really
are. That’s what Eric says, anyway,” Lynn says. She arches
an eyebrow.
“Four says it’s to prepare us.”
“Well, they don’t agree on much.”
I nod. Four told me that Eric’s vision for Dauntless is not
what it’s supposed to be, but I wish he would tell me exactly
what he thinks the right vision is. I get glimpses of it every so
often—the Dauntless cheering when I jumped off the
building, the net of arms that caught me after zip lining—but
they are not enough. Has he read the Dauntless manifesto?
Is that what he believes in—in ordinary acts of bravery?
The door to the training room opens. Shauna, Zeke, and
Four walk in just as Uriah fires at another target. The plastic
pellet bounces off the center of the target and rolls along the
ground.
“I thought I heard something in here,” says Four.
“Turns out it’s my idiot brother,” says Zeke. “You’re not
supposed to be in here after hours. Careful, or Four will tell
Eric, and then you’ll be as good as scalped.”
Uriah wrinkles his nose at his brother and puts the pellet
gun away. Marlene crosses the room, taking bites of her
muffin, and Four steps away from the door to let us file out.
“You wouldn’t tell Eric,” says Lynn, eyeing Four
suspiciously.
“No, I wouldn’t,” he says. As I pass him, he rests his hand
on the top of my back to usher me out, his palm pressing
between my shoulder blades. I shiver. I hope he can’t tell.
The others walk down the hallway, Zeke and Uriah
shoving each other, Marlene splitting her muffin with
Shauna, Lynn marching in front. I start to follow them.
“Wait a second,” Four says. I turn toward him, wondering
which version of Four I’ll see now—the one who scolds me,
or the one who climbs Ferris wheels with me. He smiles a
little, but the smile doesn’t spread to his eyes, which look
tense and worried.
“You belong here, you know that?” he says. “You belong
with us. It’ll be over soon, so just hold on, okay?”
He scratches behind his ear and looks away, like he’s
embarrassed by what he said.
I stare at him. I feel my heartbeat everywhere, even in my
toes. I feel like doing something bold, but I could just as
easily walk away. I am not sure which option is smarter, or
better. I am not sure that I care.
I reach out and take his hand. His fingers slide between
mine. I can’t breathe.
I stare up at him, and he stares down at me. For a long
moment, we stay that way. Then I pull my hand away and run
after Uriah and Lynn and Marlene. Maybe now he thinks I’m
stupid, or strange. Maybe it was worth it.
I get back to the dormitory before anyone else does, and
when they start to trickle in, I get into bed and pretend to be
asleep. I don’t need any of them, not if they’re going to react
this way when I do well. If I can make it through initiation, I will
be Dauntless, and I won’t have to see them anymore.
I don’t need them—but do I want them? Every tattoo I got
with them is a mark of their friendship, and almost every
time I have laughed in this dark place was because of them.
I don’t want to lose them. But I feel like I have already.
After at least a half hour of racing thoughts, I roll onto my
back and open my eyes. The dormitory is dark now—
everyone has gone to bed. Probably exhausted from
resenting me so much, I think with a wry smile. As if coming
from the most hated faction wasn’t enough, now I’m showing
them up, too.
I get out of bed to get a drink of water. I’m not thirsty, but I
need to do something. My bare feet make sticky sounds on
the floor as I walk, my hand skimming the wall to keep my
path straight. A bulb glows blue above the drinking fountain.
I tug my hair over one shoulder and bend over. As soon
as the water touches my lips, I hear voices at the end of the
hallway. I creep closer to them, trusting the dark to keep me
hidden.
“So far there haven’t been any signs of it.” Eric’s voice.
Signs of what?
“Well, you wouldn’t have seen much of it yet,” someone
replies. A female voice; cold and familiar, but familiar like a
dream, not a real person. “Combat training shows you
nothing. The simulations, however, reveal who the Divergent
rebels are, if there are any, so we will have to examine the
footage several times to be sure.”
The word “Divergent” makes me go cold. I lean forward,
my back pressed to the stone, to see who the familiar voice
belongs to.
“Don’t forget the reason I had Max appoint you,” the voice
says. “Your first priority is always finding them. Always.”
“I won’t forget.”
I shift a few inches forward, hoping I am still hidden.
Whoever that voice belongs to, she is pulling the strings; she
is responsible for Eric’s leadership position; she is the one
who wants me dead. I tilt my head forward, straining to see
them before they turn the corner.
Then someone grabs me from behind.
I start to scream, but a hand claps over my mouth. It
smells like soap and it’s big enough to cover the lower half
of my face. I thrash, but the arms holding me are too strong,
and I bite down on one of the fingers.
“Ow!” a rough voice cries.
“Shut up and keep her mouth covered.” That voice is
higher than the average male’s and clearer. Peter.
A strip of dark cloth covers my eyes, and a new pair of
hands ties it at the back of my head. I struggle to breathe.
There are at least two hands on my arms, dragging me
forward, and one on my back, shoving me in the same
direction, and one on my mouth, keeping my screams in.
Three people. My chest hurts. I can’t resist three people on
my own.
“Wonder what it sounds like when a Stiff begs for mercy,”
Peter says with a chuckle. “Hurry up.”
I try to focus on the hand on my mouth. There must be
something distinct about it that will make him easier to
identify. His identity is a problem I can solve. I need to solve
a problem right now, or I will panic.
The palm is sweaty and soft. I clench my teeth and
breathe through my nose. The soap smell is familiar.
Lemongrass and sage. The same smell surrounds Al’s
bunk. A weight drops into my stomach.
I hear the crash of water against rocks. We are near the
chasm—we must be above it, given the volume of the
sound. I press my lips together to keep from screaming. If
we are above the chasm, I know what they intend to do to
me.
“Lift her up, c’mon.”
I thrash, and their rough skin grates against mine, but I
know it’s useless. I scream too, knowing that no one can
hear me here.
I will survive until tomorrow. I will.
The hands push me around and up and slam my spine
into something hard and cold. Judging by its width and
curvature, it is a metal railing. It is the metal railing, the one
that overlooks the chasm. My breaths wheeze and mist
touches the back of my neck. The hands force my back to
arch over the railing. My feet leave the ground, and my
attackers are the only thing keeping me from falling into the
water.
A heavy hand gropes along my chest. “You sure you’re
sixteen, Stiff? Doesn’t feel like you’re more than twelve.” The
other boys laugh.
Bile rises in my throat and I swallow the bitter taste.
“Wait, I think I found something!” His hand squeezes me. I
bite my tongue to keep from screaming. More laughter.
Al’s hand slips from my mouth. “Stop that,” he snaps. I
recognize his low, distinct voice.
When Al lets go of me, I thrash again and slip down to the
ground. This time, I bite down as hard as I can on the first
arm I find. I hear a scream and clench my jaw harder, tasting
blood. Something hard strikes my face. White heat races
through my head. It would have been pain if adrenaline
wasn’t coursing through me like acid.
The boy wrenches his trapped arm away from me and
throws me to the ground. I bang my elbow against stone and
bring my hands up to my head to remove the blindfold. A
foot drives into my side, forcing the air from my lungs. I gasp
and cough and claw at the back of my head. Someone
grabs a handful of my hair and slams my head against
something hard. A scream of pain bursts from my mouth,
and I feel dizzy.
Clumsily, I fumble along the side of my head to find the
edge of the blindfold. I drag my heavy hand up, taking the
blindfold with it, and blink. The scene before me is sideways
and bobs up and down. I see someone running toward us
and someone running away—someone large, Al. I grab the
railing next to me and haul myself to my feet.
Peter wraps a hand around my throat and lifts me up, his
thumb wedged under my chin. His hair, which is usually
shiny and smooth, is tousled and sticks to his forehead. His
pale face is contorted and his teeth are gritted, and he holds
me over the chasm as spots appear on the edges of my
vision, crowding around his face, green and pink and blue.
He says nothing. I try to kick him, but my legs are too short.
My lungs scream for air.
I hear a shout, and he releases me.
I stretch out my arms as I fall, gasping, and my armpits
slam into the railing. I hook my elbows over it and groan.
Mist touches my ankles. The world dips and sways around
me, and someone is on the Pit floor—Drew—screaming. I
hear thumps. Kicks. Groans.
I blink a few times and focus as hard as I can on the only
face I can see. It is contorted with anger. His eyes are dark
blue.
“Four,” I croak.
I close my eyes, and hands wrap around my arms, right
where they join with the shoulder. He pulls me over the
railing and against his chest, gathering me into his arms,
easing an arm under my knees. I press my face into his
shoulder, and there is a sudden, hollow silence.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I OPEN MY eyes to the words “Fear God Alone” painted on a
plain white wall. I hear the sound of running water again, but
this time it’s from a faucet and not from the chasm. Seconds
go by before I see definite edges in my surroundings, the
lines of door frame and countertop and ceiling.
The pain is a constant throb in my head and cheek and
ribs. I shouldn’t move; it will make everything worse. I see a
blue patchwork quilt under my head and wince as I tilt my
head to see where the water sound is coming from.
Four stands in the bathroom with his hands in the sink.
Blood from his knuckles turns the sink water pink. He has a
cut at the corner of his mouth, but he seems otherwise
unharmed. His expression is placid as he examines his
cuts, turns off the water, and dries his hands with a towel.
I have only one memory of getting here, and even that is
just a single image: black ink curling around the side of a
neck, the corner of a tattoo, and the gentle sway that could
only mean he was carrying me.
He turns off the bathroom light and gets an ice pack from
the refrigerator in the corner of the room. As he walks
toward me, I consider closing my eyes and pretending to be
asleep, but then our eyes meet and it’s too late.
“Your hands,” I croak.
“My hands are none of your concern,” he replies. He rests
his knee on the mattress and leans over me, slipping the ice
pack under my head. Before he pulls away, I reach out to
touch the cut on the side of his lip but stop when I realize
what I am about to do, my hand hovering.
What do you have to lose? I ask myself. I touch my
fingertips lightly to his mouth.
“Tris,” he says, speaking against my fingers, “I’m all right.”
“Why were you there?” I ask, letting my hand drop.
“I was coming back from the control room. I heard a
scream.”
“What did you do to them?” I say.
“I deposited Drew at the infirmary a half hour ago,” he
says. “Peter and Al ran. Drew claimed they were just trying
to scare you. At least, I think that’s what he was trying to
say.”
“He’s in bad shape?”
“He’ll live,” he replies. He adds bitterly, “In what condition, I
can’t say.”
It isn’t right to wish pain on other people just because they
hurt me first. But white-hot triumph races through me at the
thought of Drew in the infirmary, and I squeeze Four’s arm.
“Good,” I say. My voice sounds tight and fierce. Anger
builds inside me, replacing my blood with bitter water and
filling me, consuming me. I want to break something, or hit
something, but I am afraid to move, so I start crying instead.
Four crouches by the side of the bed, and watches me. I
see no sympathy in his eyes. I would have been
disappointed if I had. He pulls his wrist free and, to my
surprise, rests his hand on the side of my face, his thumb
skimming my cheekbone. His fingers are careful.
“I could report this,” he says.
“No,” I reply. “I don’t want them to think I’m scared.”
He nods. He moves his thumb absently over my
cheekbone, back and forth. “I figured you would say that.”
“You think it would be a bad idea if I sat up?”
“I’ll help you.”
Four grips my shoulder with one hand and holds my head
steady with the other as I push myself up. Pain rushes
through my body in sharp bursts, but I try to ignore it, stifling
a groan.
He hands me the ice pack. “You can let yourself be in
pain,” he says. “It’s just me here.”
I bite down on my lip. There are tears on my face, but
neither of us mentions or even acknowledges them.
“I suggest you rely on your transfer friends to protect you
from now on,” he says.
“I thought I was,” I say. I feel Al’s hand against my mouth
again, and a sob jolts my body forward. I press my hand to
my forehead and rock slowly back and forth. “But Al…”
“He wanted you to be the small, quiet girl from
Abnegation,” Four says softly. “He hurt you because your
strength made him feel weak. No other reason.”
I nod and try to believe him.
“The others won’t be as jealous if you show some
vulnerability. Even if it isn’t real.”
“You think I have to pretend to be vulnerable?” I ask,
raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, I do.” He takes the ice pack from me, his fingers
brushing mine, and holds it against my head himself. I put
my hand down, too eager to relax my arm to object. Four
stands up. I stare at the hem of his T-shirt.
Sometimes I see him as just another person, and
sometimes I feel the sight of him in my gut, like a deep ache.
“You’re going to want to march into breakfast tomorrow
and show your attackers they had no effect on you,” he
adds, “but you should let that bruise on your cheek show,
and keep your head down.”
The idea nauseates me.
“I don’t think I can do that,” I say hollowly. I lift my eyes to
his.
“You have to.”
“I don’t think you get it.” Heat rises into my face. “They
touched me.”
His entire body tightens at my words, his hand clenching
around the ice pack. “Touched you,” he repeats, his dark
eyes cold.
“Not…in the way you’re thinking.” I clear my throat. I didn’t
realize when I said it how awkward it would be to talk about.
“But…almost.”
I look away.
He is silent and still for so long that eventually, I have to
say something.
“What is it?”
“I don’t want to say this,” he says, “but I feel like I have to. It
is more important for you to be safe than right, for the time
being. Understand?”
His straight eyebrows are drawn low over his eyes. My
stomach writhes, partly because I know he makes a good
point but I don’t want to admit it, and partly because I want
something I don’t know how to express; I want to press
against the space between us until it disappears.
I nod.
“But please, when you see an opportunity…” He presses
his hand to my cheek, cold and strong, and tilts my head up
so I have to look at him. His eyes glint. They look almost
predatory. “Ruin them.”
I laugh shakily. “You’re a little scary, Four.”
“Do me a favor,” he says, “and don’t call me that.”
“What should I call you, then?”
“Nothing.” He takes his hand from my face. “Yet.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I DON’T GO back to the dorms that night. Sleeping in the
same room as the people who attacked me just to look
brave would be stupid. Four sleeps on the floor and I sleep
on his bed, on top of the quilt, breathing in the scent of his
pillowcase. It smells like detergent and something heavy,
sweet, and distinctly male.
The rhythm of his breaths slows, and I prop myself up to
see if he is asleep. He lies on his stomach with one arm
around his head. His eyes are closed, his lips parted. For
the first time, he looks as young as he is, and I wonder who
he really is. Who is he when he isn’t Dauntless, isn’t an
instructor, isn’t Four, isn’t anything in particular?
Whoever he is, I like him. It’s easier for me to admit that to
myself now, in the dark, after all that just happened. He is not
sweet or gentle or particularly kind. But he is smart and
brave, and even though he saved me, he treated me like I
was strong. That is all I need to know.
I watch the muscles in his back expand and contract until I
fall asleep.
I wake to aches and pains. I cringe as I sit up, holding my
ribs, and walk up to the small mirror on the opposite wall. I
am almost too short to see myself in it, but when I stand on
my tiptoes, I can see my face. As expected, there is a dark
blue bruise on my cheek. I hate the idea of slumping into the
dining hall like this, but Four’s instructions have stayed with
me. I have to mend my friendships. I need the protection of
seeming weak.
I tie my hair in a knot at the back of my head. The door
opens and Four walks in, a towel in hand and his hair
glistening with shower water. I feel a thrill in my stomach
when I see the line of skin that shows above his belt as he
lifts his hand to dry his hair and force my eyes up to his face.
“Hi,” I say. My voice sounds tight. I wish it didn’t.
He touches my bruised cheek with just his fingertips. “Not
bad,” he says. “How’s your head?”
“Fine,” I say. I’m lying—my head is throbbing. I brush my
fingers over the bump, and pain prickles over my scalp. It
could be worse. I could be floating in the river.
Every muscle in my body tightens as his hand drops to my
side, where I got kicked. He does it casually, but I can’t
move.
“And your side?” he asks, his voice low.
“Only hurts when I breathe.”
He smiles. “Not much you can do about that.”
“Peter would probably throw a party if I stopped
breathing.”
“Well,” he says, “I would only go if there was cake.”
I laugh, and then wince, covering his hand to steady my rib
cage. He slides his hand back slowly, his fingertips grazing
my side. When his fingers lift, I feel an ache in my chest.
Once this moment ends, I have to remember what
happened last night. And I want to stay here with him.
He nods a little and leads the way out.
“I’ll go in first,” he says when we stand outside the dining
hall. “See you soon, Tris.”
He walks through the doors and I am alone. Yesterday he
told me he thought I would have to pretend to be weak, but
he was wrong. I am weak already. I brace myself against the
wall and press my forehead to my hands. It’s difficult to take
deep breaths, so I take short, shallow ones. I can’t let this
happen. They attacked me to make me feel weak. I can
pretend they succeeded to protect myself, but I can’t let it
become true.
I pull away from the wall and walk into the dining hall
without another thought. A few steps in, I remember I’m
supposed to look like I’m cowering, so I slow my pace and
hug the wall, keeping my head down. Uriah, at the table next
to Will and Christina’s, lifts his hand to wave at me. And then
puts it down.
I sit next to Will.
Al isn’t there—he isn’t anywhere.
Uriah slides into the seat next to me, leaving his halfeaten
muffin and half-finished glass of water on the other
table. For a second, all three of them just stare at me.
“What happened?” Will asks, lowering his voice.
I look over his shoulder at the table behind ours. Peter sits
there, eating a piece of toast and whispering something to
Molly. My hand clenches around the edge of the table. I want
him to hurt. But now isn’t the time.
Drew is missing, which means he’s still in the infirmary.
Vicious pleasure courses through me at the thought.
“Peter, Drew…,” I say quietly. I hold my side as I reach
across the table for a piece of toast. It hurts to stretch out my
hand, so I let myself wince and hunch over. “And…” I
swallow. “And Al.”
“Oh God,” says Christina, her eyes wide.
“Are you all right?” Uriah asks.
Peter’s eyes find mine across the dining hall, and I have
to force myself to look away. It brings a bitter taste to my
mouth to show him that he scares me, but I have to. Four
was right. I have to do everything I can to make sure I don’t
get attacked again.
“Not really,” I say.
My eyes burn, and it’s not artifice, unlike the wincing. I
shrug. I believe Tori’s warning now. Peter, Drew, and Al
were ready to throw me into the chasm out of jealousy—
what is so unbelievable about the Dauntless leaders
committing murder?
I feel uncomfortable, like I’m wearing someone else’s
skin. If I’m not careful, I could die. I can’t even trust the
leaders of my faction. My new family.
“But you’re just…” Uriah purses his lips. “It isn’t fair. Three
against one?”
“Yeah, and Peter is all about what’s fair. That’s why he
grabbed Edward in his sleep and stabbed him in the eye.”
Christina snorts and shakes her head. “Al, though? Are you
sure, Tris?”
I stare at my plate. I’m the next Edward. But unlike him, I’m
not going to leave.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m sure.”
“It has to be desperation,” says Will. “He’s been acting…I
don’t know. Like a different person. Ever since stage two
started.”
Then Drew shuffles into the dining hall. I drop my toast,
and my mouth drifts open.
Calling him “bruised” would be an understatement. His
face is swollen and purple. He has a split lip and a cut
running through his eyebrow. He keeps his eyes down on
the way to his table, not even lifting them to look at me. I
glance across the room at Four. He wears the satisfied
smile I wish I had on.
“Did you do that?” hisses Will.
I shake my head. “No. Someone—I never saw who—
found me right before…” I gulp. Saying it out loud makes it
worse, makes it real. “…I got tossed into the chasm.”
“They were going to kill you?” says Christina in a low
voice.
“Maybe. They might have been planning on dangling me
over it just to scare me.” I lift a shoulder. “It worked.”
Christina gives me a sad look. Will just glares at the table.
“We have to do something about this,” Uriah says in a low
voice.
“What, like beat them up?” Christina grins. “Looks like
that’s been taken care of already.”
“No. That’s pain they can get over,” replies Uriah. “We
have to edge them out of the rankings. That will damage
their futures. Permanently.”
Four gets up and stands between the tables.
Conversation abruptly ceases.
“Transfers. We’re doing something different today,” he
says. “Follow me.”
We stand, and Uriah’s forehead wrinkles. “Be careful,” he
tells me.
“Don’t worry,” says Will. “We’ll protect her.”
Four leads us out of the dining hall and along the paths that
surround the Pit. Will is on my left, Christina is on my right.
“I never really said I was sorry,” Christina says quietly. “For
taking the flag when you earned it. I don’t know what was
wrong with me.”
I’m not sure if it’s smart to forgive her or not—to forgive
either of them, after what they said to me when the rankings
went up yesterday. But my mother would tell me that people
are flawed and I should be lenient with them. And Four told
me to rely on my friends.
I don’t know who I should rely on more, because I’m not
sure who my true friends are. Uriah and Marlene, who were
on my side even when I seemed strong, or Christina and
Will, who have always protected me when I seemed weak?
When her wide brown eyes meet mine, I nod. “Let’s just
forget about it.”
I still want to be angry, but I have to let my anger go.
We climb higher than I’ve gone before, until Will’s face
goes white whenever he looks down. Most of the time I like
heights, so I grab Will’s arm like I need his support—but
really, I’m lending him mine. He smiles gratefully at me.
Four turns around and walks backward a few steps—
backward, on a narrow path with no railing. How well does
he know this place?
He eyes Drew, who trudges at the back of the group, and
says, “Pick up the pace, Drew!”
It’s a cruel joke, but it’s hard for me to fight off a smile.
That is, until Four’s eyes shift to my arm around Will’s, and
all the humor drains from them. His expression sends a chill
through me. Is he…jealous?
We get closer and closer to the glass ceiling, and for the
first time in days, I see the sun. Four walks up a flight of
metal stairs leading through a hole in the ceiling. They creak
under my feet, and I look down to see the Pit and the chasm
below us.
We walk across the glass, which is now a floor rather than
a ceiling, through a cylindrical room with glass walls. The
surrounding buildings are half-collapsed and appear to be
abandoned, which is probably why I never noticed the
Dauntless compound before. The Abnegation sector is also
far away.
The Dauntless mill around the glass room, talking in
clusters. At the edge of the room, two Dauntless fight with
sticks, laughing when one of them misses and hits only air.
Above me, two ropes stretch across the room, one a few
feet higher than the other. They probably have something to
do with the daredevil stunts the Dauntless are famous for.
Four leads us through another door. Beyond it is a huge,
dank space with graffitied walls and exposed pipes. The
room is lit by a series of old-fashioned fluorescent tubes
with plastic covers—they must be ancient.
“This,” says Four, his eyes bright in pale light, “is a
different kind of simulation known as the fear landscape. It
has been disabled for our purposes, so this isn’t what it will
be like the next time you see it.”
Behind him, the word “Dauntless” is spray-painted in red
artistic lettering on a concrete wall.
“Through your simulations, we have stored data about
your worst fears. The fear landscape accesses that data
and presents you with a series of virtual obstacles. Some of
the obstacles will be fears you previously faced in your
simulations. Some may be new fears. The difference is that
you are aware, in the fear landscape, that it is a simulation,
so you will have all your wits about you as you go through it.”
That means that everyone will be like Divergent in the fear
landscape. I don’t know if that’s a relief, because I can’t be
detected, or a problem, because I won’t have the
advantage.
Four continues, “The number of fears you have in your
landscape varies according to how many you have.”
How many fears will I have? I think of facing the crows
again and shiver, though the air is warm.
“I told you before that the third stage of initiation focuses
on mental preparation,” he says. I remember when he said
that. On the first day. Right before he put a gun to Peter’s
head. I wish he had pulled the trigger.
“That is because it requires you to control both your
emotions and your body—to combine the physical abilities
you learned in stage one with the emotional mastery you
learned in stage two. To keep a level head.” One of the
fluorescent tubes above Four’s head twitches and flickers.
Four stops scanning the crowd of initiates and focuses his
stare on me.
“Next week you will go through your fear landscape as
quickly as possible in front of a panel of Dauntless leaders.
That will be your final test, which determines your ranking for
stage three. Just as stage two of initiation is weighted more
heavily than stage one, stage three is weighted heaviest of
all. Understood?”
We all nod. Even Drew, who makes it look painful.
If I do well in my final test, I have a good chance of making
it into the top ten and a good chance of becoming a
member. Becoming Dauntless. The thought makes me
almost giddy with relief.
“You can get past each obstacle in one of two ways.
Either you find a way to calm down enough that the
simulation registers a normal, steady heartbeat, or you find
a way to face your fear, which can force the simulation to
move on. One way to face a fear of drowning is to swim
deeper, for example.” Four shrugs. “So I suggest that you
take the next week to consider your fears and develop
strategies to face them.”
“That doesn’t sound fair,” says Peter. “What if one person
only has seven fears and someone else has twenty? That’s
not their fault.”
Four stares at him for a few seconds and then laughs. “Do
you really want to talk to me about what’s fair?”
The crowd of initiates parts to make way for him as he
walks toward Peter, folds his arms, and says, in a deadly
voice, “I understand why you’re worried, Peter. The events of
last night certainly proved that you are a miserable coward.”
Peter stares back, expressionless.
“So now we all know,” says Four, quietly, “that you are
afraid of a short, skinny girl from Abnegation.” His mouth
curls in a smile.
Will puts his arm around me. Christina’s shoulders shake
with suppressed laughter. And somewhere within me, I find
a smile too.
When we get back to the dorm that afternoon, Al is there.
Will stands behind me and holds my shoulders—lightly, as
if to remind me that he’s there. Christina edges closer to
me.Al’s eyes have shadows beneath them, and his face is
swollen from crying. Pain stabs my stomach when I see him.
I can’t move. The scent of lemongrass and sage, once
pleasant, turns sour in my nose.
“Tris,” says Al, his voice breaking. “Can I talk to you?”
“Are you kidding?” Will squeezes my shoulders. “You
don’t get to come near her ever again.”
“I won’t hurt you. I never wanted to…” Al covers his face
with both hands. “I just want to say that I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,
I don’t…I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I…please
forgive me, please….”
He reaches for me like he’s going to touch my shoulder,
or my hand, his face wet with tears.
Somewhere inside me is a merciful, forgiving person.
Somewhere there is a girl who tries to understand what
people are going through, who accepts that people do evil
things and that desperation leads them to darker places
than they ever imagined. I swear she exists, and she hurts
for the repentant boy I see in front of me.
But if I saw her, I wouldn’t recognize her.
“Stay away from me,” I say quietly. My body feels rigid and
cold, and I am not angry, I am not hurt, I am nothing. I say, my
voice low, “Never come near me again.”
Our eyes meet. His are dark and glassy. I am nothing.
“If you do, I swear to God I will kill you,” I say. “You
coward.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“TRIS.”
In my dream, my mother says my name. She beckons to
me, and I cross the kitchen to stand beside her. She points
to the pot on the stove, and I lift the lid to peek inside. The
beady eye of a crow stares back at me, its wing feathers
pressed to the side of the pot, its fat body covered with
boiling water.
“Dinner,” she says.
“Tris!” I hear again. I open my eyes. Christina stands next
to my bed, her cheeks streaked with mascara-tinted tears.
“It’s Al,” she says. “Come on.”
Some of the other initiates are awake, and some aren’t.
Christina grabs my hand and pulls me out of the dormitory. I
run barefoot over the stone floor, blinking clouds from my
eyes, my limbs still heavy with sleep. Something terrible has
happened. I feel it with every thump of my heart. It’s Al.
We run across the Pit floor, and then Christina stops. A
crowd has gathered around the ledge, but everyone stands
a few feet from one another, so there is enough space for
me to maneuver past Christina and around a tall, middleaged
man to the front.
Two men stand next to the ledge, hoisting something up
with ropes. They both grunt from the effort, heaving their
weight back so the ropes slide over the railing, and then
reaching forward to grab again. A huge, dark shape
appears above the ledge, and a few Dauntless rush forward
to help the two men haul it over.
The shape falls with a thud on the Pit floor. A pale arm,
swollen with water, flops onto the stone. A body. Christina
pulls herself tight to my side, clinging to my arm. She turns
her head into my shoulder and sobs, but I can’t look away. A
few of the men turn the body over, and the head flops to the
side.
The eyes are open and empty. Dark. Doll’s eyes. And the
nose has a high arch, a narrow bridge, a round tip. The lips
are blue. The face itself is something other than human, half
corpse and half creature. My lungs burn; my next breath
rattles on the way in. Al.
“One of the initiates,” says someone behind me. “What
happened?”
“Same thing that happens every year,” someone else
replies. “He pitched himself over the ledge.”
“Don’t be so morbid. Could have been an accident.”
“They found him in the middle of the chasm. You think he
tripped over his shoelace and…whoopsies, just stumbled
fifteen feet forward?”
Christina’s hands get tighter and tighter around my arm. I
should tell her to let go of me; it’s starting to hurt. Someone
kneels next to Al’s face and pushes his eyelids shut. Trying
to make it look like he’s sleeping, maybe. Stupid. Why do
people want to pretend that death is sleep? It isn’t. It isn’t.
Something inside me collapses. My chest is so tight,
suffocating, can’t breathe. I sink to the ground, dragging
Christina down with me. The stone is rough under my knees.
I hear something, a memory of sound. Al’s sobs; his
screams at night. Should have known. Still can’t breathe. I
press both palms to my chest and rock back and forth to
free the tension in my chest.
When I blink, I see the top of Al’s head as he carries me
on his back to the dining hall. I feel the bounce of his
footsteps. He is big and warm and clumsy. No, was. That is
death—shifting from “is” to “was.”
I wheeze. Someone has brought a large black bag to put
the body in. I can tell that it will be too small. A laugh rises in
my throat and flops from my mouth, strained and gurgling.
Al’s too big for the body bag; what a tragedy. Halfway
through the laugh, I clamp my mouth shut, and it sounds
more like a groan. I pull my arm free and stand, leaving
Christina on the ground. I run.
“Here you go,” Tori says. She hands me a steaming mug
that smells like peppermint. I hold it with both hands, my
fingers prickling with warmth.
She sits down across from me. When it comes to
funerals, the Dauntless don’t waste any time. Tori said they
want to acknowledge death as soon as it happens. There
are no people in the front room of the tattoo parlor, but the
Pit is crawling with people, most of them drunk. I don’t know
why that surprises me.
At home, a funeral is a somber occasion. Everyone
gathers to support the deceased’s family, and no one has
idle hands, but there is no laughter, or shouting, or joking.
And the Abnegation don’t drink alcohol, so everyone is
sober. It makes sense that funerals would be the opposite
here.
“Drink it,” she says. “It will make you feel better, I
promise.”
“I don’t think tea is the solution,” I say slowly. But I sip it
anyway. It warms my mouth and my throat and trickles into
my stomach. I didn’t realize how deeply cold I was until I
wasn’t anymore.
“‘Better’ is the word I used. Not ‘good.’” She smiles at me,
but the corners of her eyes don’t crinkle like they usually do.
“I don’t think ‘good’ will happen for a while.”
I bite my lip. “How long…” I struggle for the right words.
“How long did it take for you to be okay again, after your
brother…”
“Don’t know.” She shakes her head. “Some days I feel
like I’m still not okay. Some days I feel fine. Happy, even. It
took me a few years to stop plotting revenge, though.”
“Why did you stop?” I ask.
Her eyes go vacant as she stares at the wall behind me.
She taps her fingers against her leg for a few seconds and
then says, “I don’t think of it as stopping. More like I’m…
waiting for my opportunity.”
She comes out of her daze and checks her watch.
“Time to go,” she says.
I pour the rest of my tea down the sink. When I lift my hand
from the mug, I realize that I’m shaking. Not good. My hands
usually shake before I start to cry, and I can’t cry in front of
everyone.
I follow Tori out of the tattoo place and down the path to
the Pit floor. All the people that were milling around earlier
are gathered by the ledge now, and the air smells potently of
alcohol. The woman in front of me lurches to the right, losing
her balance, and then erupts into giggles as she falls
against the man next to her. Tori grabs my arm and steers
me away.
I find Uriah, Will, and Christina standing among the other
initiates. Christina’s eyes are swollen. Uriah is holding a
silver flask. He offers it to me. I shake my head.
“Surprise, surprise,” says Molly from behind me. She
nudges Peter with her elbow. “Once a Stiff, always a Stiff.”
I should ignore her. Her opinions shouldn’t matter to me.
“I read an interesting article today,” she says, leaning
closer to my ear. “Something about your dad, and the real
reason you left your old faction.”
Defending myself isn’t the most important thing on my
mind. But it is the easiest one to address.
I twist, and my fist connects with her jaw. My knuckles
sting from the impact. I don’t remember deciding to punch
her. I don’t remember forming a fist.
She lunges at me, her hands outstretched, but she
doesn’t get far. Will grabs her collar and pulls her back. He
looks from her to me and says, “Quit it. Both of you.”
Part of me wishes that he hadn’t stopped her. A fight
would be a welcome distraction, especially now that Eric is
climbing onto a box next to the railing. I face him, crossing
my arms to keep myself steady. I wonder what he’ll say.
In Abnegation no one has committed suicide in recent
memory, but the faction’s stance on it is clear: Suicide, to
them, is an act of selfishness. Someone who is truly selfless
does not think of himself often enough to desire death. No
one would say that aloud, if it happened, but everyone would
think it.
“Quiet down, everyone!” shouts Eric. Someone hits what
sounds like a gong, and the shouts gradually stop, though
the mutters don’t. Eric says, “Thank you. As you know, we’re
here because Albert, an initiate, jumped into the chasm last
night.”
The mutters stop too, leaving just the rush of water in the
chasm.
“We do not know why,” says Eric, “and it would be easy to
mourn the loss of him tonight. But we did not choose a life of
ease when we became Dauntless. And the truth of it is…”
Eric smiles. If I didn’t know him, I would think that smile is
genuine. But I do know him. “The truth is, Albert is now
exploring an unknown, uncertain place. He leaped into
vicious waters to get there. Who among us is brave enough
to venture into that darkness without knowing what lies
beyond it? Albert was not yet one of our members, but we
can be assured that he was one of our bravest!”
A cry rises from the center of the crowd, and a whoop.
The Dauntless cheer at varying pitches, high and low, bright
and deep. Their roar mimics the roar of the water. Christina
takes the flask from Uriah and drinks. Will slides his arm
around her shoulders and pulls her to his side. Voices fill my
ears.
“We will celebrate him now, and remember him always!”
yells Eric. Someone hands him a dark bottle, and he lifts it.
“To Albert the Courageous!”
“To Albert!” shouts the crowd. Arms lift all around me, and
the Dauntless chant his name. “Albert! Al-bert! Al-bert!” They
chant until his name no longer sounds like his name. It
sounds like the primal scream of an ancient race.
I turn away from the railing. I cannot stand this any longer.
I don’t know where I’m going. I suspect that I am not going
anywhere at all, just away. I walk down a dark hallway. At the
end is the drinking fountain, bathed in the blue glow of the
light above it.
I shake my head. Courageous? Courageous would have
been admitting weakness and leaving Dauntless, no matter
what shame accompanied it. Pride is what killed Al, and it is
the flaw in every Dauntless heart. It is in mine.
“Tris.”
A jolt goes through me, and I turn around. Four stands
behind me, just inside the blue circle of light. It gives him an
eerie look, shading his eye sockets and casting shadows
under his cheekbones.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “Shouldn’t you be
paying your respects?”
I say it like it tastes bad and I have to spit it out.
“Shouldn’t you?” he says. He steps toward me, and I see
his eyes again. They look black in this light.
“Can’t pay respect when you don’t have any,” I reply. I feel
a twinge of guilt and shake my head. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Ah.” Judging by the look he gives me, he doesn’t believe
me. I don’t blame him.
“This is ridiculous,” I say, heat rushing into my cheeks. “He
throws himself off a ledge and Eric’s calling it brave? Eric,
who tried to have you throw knives at Al’s head?” I taste bile.
Eric’s false smiles, his artificial words, his twisted ideals—
they make me want to be sick. “He wasn’t brave! He was
depressed and a coward and he almost killed me! Is that
the kind of thing we respect here?”
“What do you want them to do?” he says. “Condemn him?
Al’s already dead. He can’t hear it and it’s too late.”
“It’s not about Al,” I snap. “It’s about everyone watching!
Everyone who now sees hurling themselves into the chasm
as a viable option. I mean, why not do it if everyone calls you
a hero afterward? Why not do it if everyone will remember
your name? It’s…I can’t…”
I shake my head. My face burns and my heart pounds,
and I try to keep myself under control, but I can’t.
“This would never have happened in Abnegation!” I
almost shout. “None of it! Never. This place warped him and
ruined him, and I don’t care if saying that makes me a Stiff, I
don’t care, I don’t care!”
Four’s eyes shift to the wall above the drinking fountain.
“Careful, Tris,” he says, his eyes still on the wall.
“Is that all you can say?” I demand, scowling at him. “That I
should be careful? That’s it?”
“You’re as bad as the Candor, you know that?” He grabs
my arm and drags me away from the drinking fountain. His
hand hurts my arm, but I’m not strong enough to pull away.
His face is so close to mine that I can see a few freckles
spotting his nose. “I’m not going to say this again, so listen
carefully.” He sets his hands on my shoulders, his fingers
pressing, squeezing. I feel small. “They are watching you.
You, in particular.”
“Let go of me,” I say weakly.
His fingers spring apart, and he straightens. Some of the
weight on my chest lifts now that he isn’t touching me. I fear
his shifting moods. They show me something unstable
inside of him, and instability is dangerous.
“Are they watching you, too?” I say, so quietly he wouldn’t
be able to hear me if he wasn’t standing so close.
He doesn’t answer my question. “I keep trying to help
you,” he says, “but you refuse to be helped.”
“Oh, right. Your help,” I say. “Stabbing my ear with a knife
and taunting me and yelling at me more than you yell at
anyone else, it sure is helpful.”
“Taunting you? You mean when I threw the knives? I
wasn’t taunting you,” he snaps. “I was reminding you that if
you failed, someone else would have to take your place.”
I cup the back of my neck with my hand and think back to
the knife incident. Every time he spoke, it was to remind me
that if I gave up, Al would have to take my place in front of
the target.
“Why?” I say.
“Because you’re from Abnegation,” he says, “and it’s
when you’re acting selflessly that you are at your bravest.”
I understand now. He wasn’t persuading me to give up.
He was reminding me why I couldn’t—because I needed to
protect Al. The thought makes me ache now. Protect Al. My
friend. My attacker.
I can’t hate Al as much as I want to.
I can’t forgive him either.
“If I were you, I would do a better job of pretending that
selfless impulse is going away,” he says, “because if the
wrong people discover it…well, it won’t be good for you.”
“Why? Why do they care about my intentions?”
“Intentions are the only thing they care about. They try to
make you think they care about what you do, but they don’t.
They don’t want you to act a certain way. They want you to
think a certain way. So you’re easy to understand. So you
won’t pose a threat to them.” He presses a hand to the wall
next to my head and leans into it. His shirt is just tight
enough that I can see his collarbone and the faint
depression between his shoulder muscle and his bicep.
I wish I was taller. If I was tall, my narrow build would be
described as “willowy” instead of “childish,” and he might not
see me as a little sister he needs to protect.
I don’t want him to see me as his sister.
“I don’t understand,” I say, “why they care what I think, as
long as I’m acting how they want me to.”
“You’re acting how they want you to now,” he says, “but
what happens when your Abnegation-wired brain tells you to
do something else, something they don’t want?”
I don’t have an answer to that, and I don’t even know if
he’s right about me. Am I wired like the Abnegation, or the
Dauntless?
Maybe the answer is neither. Maybe I am wired like the
Divergent.
“I might not need you to help me. Ever think about that?” I
say. “I’m not weak, you know. I can do this on my own.”
He shakes his head. “You think my first instinct is to
protect you. Because you’re small, or a girl, or a Stiff. But
you’re wrong.”
He leans his face close to mine and wraps his fingers
around my chin. His hand smells like metal. When was the
last time he held a gun, or a knife? My skin tingles at the
point of contact, like he’s transmitting electricity through his
skin.
“My first instinct is to push you until you break, just to see
how hard I have to press,” he says, his fingers squeezing at
the word “break.” My body tenses at the edge in his voice,
so I am coiled as tight as a spring, and I forget to breathe.
His dark eyes lifting to mine, he adds, “But I resist it.”
“Why…” I swallow hard. “Why is that your first instinct?”
“Fear doesn’t shut you down; it wakes you up. I’ve seen it.
It’s fascinating.” He releases me but doesn’t pull away, his
hand grazing my jaw, my neck. “Sometimes I just…want to
see it again. Want to see you awake.”
I set my hands on his waist. I can’t remember deciding to
do that. But I also can’t move away. I pull myself against his
chest, wrapping my arms around him. My fingers skim the
muscles of his back.
After a moment he touches the small of my back, pressing
me closer, and smoothes his other hand over my hair. I feel
small again, but this time, it doesn’t scare me. I squeeze my
eyes shut. He doesn’t scare me anymore.
“Should I be crying?” I ask, my voice muffled by his shirt.
“Is there something wrong with me?”
The simulations drove a crack through Al so wide he
could not mend it. Why not me? Why am I not like him—and
why does that thought make me feel so uneasy, like I’m
teetering on a ledge myself?
“You think I know anything about tears?” he says quietly.
I close my eyes. I don’t expect Four to reassure me, and
he makes no effort to, but I feel better standing here than I
did out there among the people who are my friends, my
faction. I press my forehead to his shoulder.
“If I had forgiven him,” I say, “do you think he would be
alive now?”
“I don’t know,” he replies. He presses his hand to my
cheek, and I turn my face into it, keeping my eyes closed.
“I feel like it’s my fault.”
“It isn’t your fault,” he says, touching his forehead to mine.
“But I should have. I should have forgiven him.”
“Maybe. Maybe there’s more we all could have done,” he
says, “but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better
next time.”
I frown and pull back. That is a lesson that members of
Abnegation learn—guilt as a tool, rather than a weapon
against the self. It is a line straight from one of my father’s
lectures at our weekly meetings.
“What faction did you come from, Four?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he replies, his eyes lowered. “This is
where I am now. Something you would do well to remember
for yourself.”
He gives me a conflicted look and touches his lips to my
forehead, right between my eyebrows. I close my eyes. I
don’t understand this, whatever it is. But I don’t want to ruin
it, so I say nothing. He doesn’t move; he just stays there with
his mouth pressed to my skin, and I stay there with my hands
on his waist, for a long time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I STAND WITH Will and Christina at the railing overlooking the
chasm, late at night after most of the Dauntless have gone
to sleep. Both my shoulders sting from the tattoo needle. We
all got new tattoos a half hour ago.
Tori was the only one in the tattoo place, so I felt safe
getting the symbol of Abnegation—a pair of hands, palms
up as if to help someone stand, bounded by a circle—on my
right shoulder. I know it was a risk, especially after all that’s
happened. But that symbol is a part of my identity, and it felt
important to me that I wear it on my skin.
I step up on one of the barrier’s crossbars, pressing my
hips to the railing to keep my balance. This is where Al
stood. I look down into the chasm, at the black water, at the
jagged rocks. Water hits the wall and sprays up, misting my
face. Was he afraid when he stood here? Or was he so
determined to jump that it was easy?
Christina hands me a stack of paper. I got a copy of every
report the Erudite have released in the last six months.
Throwing them into the chasm won’t get rid of them forever,
but it might make me feel better.
I stare at the first one. On it is a picture of Jeanine, the
Erudite representative. Her sharp-but-attractive eyes stare
back at me.
“Have you ever met her?” I ask Will. Christina crumples
the first report into a ball and hurls it into the water.
“Jeanine? Once,” he replies. He takes the next report and
tears it to shreds. The pieces float into the river. He does it
without Christina’s malice. I get the feeling that the only
reason he’s participating is to prove to me that he doesn’t
agree with his former faction’s tactics. Whether he believes
what they’re saying or not is unclear, and I am afraid to ask.
“Before she was a leader, she worked with my sister.
They were trying to develop a longer-lasting serum for the
simulations,” he says. “Jeanine’s so smart you can see it
even before she says anything. Like…a walking, talking
computer.”
“What…” I fling one of the pages over the railing, pressing
my lips together. I should just ask. “What do you think of what
she has to say?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a good idea to have
more than one faction in control of the government. And
maybe it would be nice if we had more cars and…fresh fruit
and…”
“You do realize there’s no secret warehouse where all that
stuff is kept, right?” I ask, my face getting hot.
“Yes, I do,” he says. “I just think that comfort and prosperity
are not a priority for Abnegation, and maybe they would be if
the other factions were involved in our decision making.”
“Because giving an Erudite boy a car is more important
than giving food to the factionless,” I snap.
“Hey now,” says Christina, brushing Will’s shoulder with
her fingers. “This is supposed to be a lighthearted session
of symbolic document destruction, not a political debate.”
I bite back what I was about to say and stare at the stack
of paper in my hands. Will and Christina share a lot of idle
touches lately. I’ve noticed it. Have they?
“All that stuff she said about your dad, though,” he says,
“makes me kind of hate her. I can’t imagine what good can
come of saying such terrible things.”
I can. If Jeanine can make people believe that my father
and all the other Abnegation leaders are corrupt and awful,
she has support for whatever revolution she wants to start, if
that’s really her plan. But I don’t want to argue again, so I just
nod and throw the remaining sheets into the chasm. They
drift back and forth, back and forth until they find the water.
They will be filtered out at the chasm wall and discarded.
“It’s bedtime,” Christina says, smiling. “Ready to go back?
I think I want to put Peter’s hand in a bowl of warm water to
make him pee tonight.”
I turn away from the chasm and see movement on the
right side of the Pit. A figure climbs toward the glass ceiling,
and judging by the smooth way he walks, like his feet barely
leave the ground, I know it is Four.
“That sounds great, but I have to talk to Four about
something,” I say, pointing toward the shadow ascending
the path. Her eyes follow my hand.
“Are you sure you should be running around here alone at
night?” she asks.
“I won’t be alone. I’ll be with Four.” I bite my lip.
Christina is looking at Will, and he is looking back at her.
Neither of them is really listening to me.
“All right,” Christina says distantly. “Well, I’ll see you later,
then.”
Christina and Will walk toward the dormitories, Christina
tousling Will’s hair and Will jabbing her in the ribs. For a
second, I watch them. I feel like I am witnessing the
beginning of something, but I’m not sure what it will be.
I jog to the path on the right side of the Pit and start to
climb. I try to make my footsteps as quiet as possible.
Unlike Christina, I don’t find it difficult to lie. I don’t intend to
talk to Four—at least, not until I find out where he’s going,
late at night, in the glass building above us.
I run quietly, breathless when I reach the stairs, and stand
at one end of the glass room while Four stands at the other.
Through the windows I see the city lights, glowing now but
petering out even as I look at them. They are supposed to
turn off at midnight.
Across the room, Four stands at the door to the fear
landscape. He holds a black box in one hand and a syringe
in the other.
“Since you’re here,” he says, without looking over his
shoulder, “you might as well go in with me.”
I bite my lip. “Into your fear landscape?”
“Yes.”
As I walk toward him, I ask, “I can do that?”
“The serum connects you to the program,” he says, “but
the program determines whose landscape you go through.
And right now, it’s set to put us through mine.”
“You would let me see that?”
“Why else do you think I’m going in?” he asks quietly. He
doesn’t lift his eyes. “There are some things I want to show
you.”
He holds up the syringe, and I tilt my head to better
expose my neck. I feel sharp pain when the needle goes in,
but I am used to it now. When he’s done, he offers me the
black box. In it is another syringe.
“I’ve never done this before,” I say as I take it out of the
box. I don’t want to hurt him.
“Right here,” he says, touching a spot on his neck with his
fingernail. I stand on my tiptoes and push the needle in, my
hand shaking a little. He doesn’t even flinch.
He keeps his eyes on me the whole time, and when I’m
done, puts both syringes in the box and sets it by the door.
He knew that I would follow him up here. Knew, or hoped.
Either way is fine with me.
He offers me his hand, and I slide mine into it. His fingers
are cold and brittle. I feel like there is something I should
say, but I am too stunned and can’t come up with any words.
He opens the door with his free hand, and I follow him into
the dark. I am now used to entering unknown places without
hesitation. I keep my breaths even and hold firmly to Four’s
hand.
“See if you can figure out why they call me Four,” he says.
The door clicks shut behind us, taking all the light with it.
The air is cold in the hallway; I feel each particle enter my
lungs. I inch closer to him so my arm is against his and my
chin is near his shoulder.
“What’s your real name?” I ask.
“See if you can figure that out too.”
The simulation takes us. The ground I stand on is no
longer made of cement. It creaks like metal. Light pours in
from all angles, and the city unfolds around us, glass
buildings and the arc of train tracks, and we are high above
it. I haven’t seen a blue sky in a long time, so when it
spreads out above me, I feel the breath catch in my lungs
and the effect is dizzying.
Then the wind starts. It blows so hard I have to lean
against Four to stay on my feet. He removes his hand from
mine and wraps his arm around my shoulders instead. At
first I think it’s to protect me—but no, he’s having trouble
breathing and he needs me to steady him. He forces breath
in and out through an open mouth and his teeth are
clenched.
The height is beautiful to me, but if it’s here, it is one of his
worst nightmares.
“We have to jump off, right?” I shout over the wind.
He nods.
“On three, okay?”
Another nod.
“One…two…three!” I pull him with me as I burst into a run.
After we take the first step, the rest is easy. We both sprint
off the edge of the building. We fall like two stones, fast, the
air pushing back at us, the ground growing beneath us. Then
the scene disappears, and I am on my hands and knees on
the floor, grinning. I loved that rush the day I chose
Dauntless, and I love it now.
Next to me, Four gasps and presses a hand to his chest.
I get up and help him to his feet. “What’s next?”
“It’s—”
Something solid hits my spine. I slam into Four, my head
hitting his collarbone. Walls appear on my left and my right.
The space is so narrow that Four has to pull his arms into
his chest to fit. A ceiling slams onto the walls around us with
a crack, and Four hunches over, groaning. The room is just
big enough to accommodate his size, and no bigger.
“Confinement,” I say.
He makes a guttural noise. I tilt my head and pull back
enough to look at him. I can barely see his face, it’s so dark,
and the air is close; we share breaths. He grimaces like
he’s in pain.
“Hey,” I say. “It’s okay. Here—”
I guide his arms around my body so he has more space.
He clutches at my back and puts his face next to mine, still
hunched over. His body is warm, but I feel only his bones
and the muscle that wraps around them; nothing yields
beneath me. My cheeks get hot. Can he tell that I’m still built
like a child?
“This is the first time I’m happy I’m so small.” I laugh. If I
joke, maybe I can calm him down. And distract myself.
“Mmhmm,” he says. His voice sounds strained.
“We can’t break out of here,” I say. “It’s easier to face the
fear head on, right?” I don’t wait for a response. “So what
you need to do is make the space smaller. Make it worse so
it gets better. Right?”
“Yes.” It is a tight, tense little word.
“Okay. We’ll have to crouch, then. Ready?”
I squeeze his waist to pull him down with me. I feel the
hard line of his rib against my hand and hear the screech of
one wood plank against another as the ceiling inches down
with us. I realize that we won’t fit with all this space between
us, so I turn and curl into a ball, my spine against his chest.
One of his knees is bent next to my head and the other is
curled beneath me so I’m sitting on his ankle. We are a
jumble of limbs. I feel a harsh breath against my ear.
“Ah,” he says, his voice raspy. “This is worse. This is
definitely…”
“Shh,” I say. “Arms around me.”
Obediently, he slips both arms around my waist. I smile at
the wall. I am not enjoying this. I am not, not even a little bit,
no.
“The simulation measures your fear response,” I say
softly. I’m just repeating what he told us, but reminding him
might help him. “So if you can calm your heartbeat down, it
will move on to the next one. Remember? So try to forget
that we’re here.”
“Yeah?” I feel his lips move against my ear as he speaks,
and heat courses through me. “That easy, huh?”
“You know, most boys would enjoy being trapped in close
quarters with a girl.” I roll my eyes.
“Not claustrophobic people, Tris!” He sounds desperate
now.
“Okay, okay.” I set my hand on top of his and guide it to
my chest, so it’s right over my heart. “Feel my heartbeat.
Can you feel it?”
“Yes.”
“Feel how steady it is?”
“It’s fast.”
“Yes, well, that has nothing to do with the box.” I wince as
soon as I’m done speaking. I just admitted to something.
Hopefully he doesn’t realize that. “Every time you feel me
breathe, you breathe. Focus on that.”
“Okay.”
I breathe deeply, and his chest rises and falls with mine.
After a few seconds of this, I say calmly, “Why don’t you tell
me where this fear comes from. Maybe talking about it will
help us…somehow.”
I don’t know how, but it sounds right.
“Um…okay.” He breathes with me again. “This one is
from my fantastic childhood. Childhood punishments. The
tiny closet upstairs.”
I press my lips together. I remember being punished—
sent to my room without dinner, deprived of this or that, firm
scoldings. I was never shut in a closet. The cruelty smarts;
my chest aches for him. I don’t know what to say, so I try to
keep it casual.
“My mother kept our winter coats in our closet.”
“I don’t…” He gasps. “I don’t really want to talk about it
anymore.”
“Okay. Then…I can talk. Ask me something.”
“Okay.” He laughs shakily in my ear. “Why is your heart
racing, Tris?”
I cringe and say, “Well, I…” I search for an excuse that
doesn’t involve his arms being around me. “I barely know
yo u.” Not good enough. “I barely know you and I’m
crammed up against you in a box, Four, what do you think?”
“If we were in your fear landscape,” he says, “would I be in
it?”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“Of course you’re not. But that’s not what I meant.”
He laughs again, and when he does, the walls break apart
with a crack and fall away, leaving us in a circle of light. Four
sighs and lifts his arms from my body. I scramble to my feet
and brush myself off, though I haven’t accumulated any dirt
that I’m aware of. I wipe my palms on my jeans. My back
feels cold from the sudden absence of him.
He stands in front of me. He’s grinning, and I’m not sure I
like the look in his eyes.
“Maybe you were cut out for Candor,” he says, “because
you’re a terrible liar.”
“I think my aptitude test ruled that one out pretty well.”
He shakes his head. “The aptitude test tells you nothing.”
I narrow my eyes. “What are you trying to tell me? Your
test isn’t the reason you ended up Dauntless?”
Excitement runs through me like the blood in my veins,
propelled by the hope that he might confirm that he is
Divergent, that he is like me, that we can figure out what it
means together.
“Not exactly, no,” he says. “I…”
He looks over his shoulder and his voice trails off. A
woman stands a few yards away, pointing a gun at us. She
is completely still, her features plain—if we walked away
right now, I would not remember her. To my right, a table
appears. On it is a gun and a single bullet. Why isn’t she
shooting us?
Oh, I think. The fear is unrelated to the threat to his life. It
has to do with the gun on the table.
“You have to kill her,” I say softly.
“Every single time.”
“She isn’t real.”
“She looks real.” He bites his lip. “It feels real.”
“If she was real, she would have killed you already.”
“It’s okay.” He nods. “I’ll just…do it. This one’s not…not so
bad. Not as much panic involved.”
Not as much panic, but far more dread. I can see it in his
eyes as he picks up the gun and opens the chamber like
he’s done it a thousand times—and maybe he has. He
clicks the bullet into the chamber and holds the gun out in
front of him, both hands around it. He squeezes one eye
shut and breathes slowly in.
As he exhales, he fires, and the woman’s head whips
back. I see a flash of red and look away. I hear her crumple
to the floor.
Four’s gun drops with a thump. We stare at her fallen
body. What he said is true—it does feel real. Don’t be
ridiculous. I grab his arm.
“C’mon,” I say. “Let’s go. Keep moving.”
After another tug, he comes out of his daze and follows
me. As we pass the table, the woman’s body disappears,
except in my memory and his. What would it be like to kill
someone every time I went through my landscape? Maybe
I’ll find out.
But something puzzles me: These are supposed to be
Four’s worst fears. And though he panicked in the box and
on the roof, he killed the woman without much difficulty. It
seems like the simulation is grasping at any fears it can find
within him, and it hasn’t found much.
“Here we go,” he whispers.
A dark figure moves ahead of us, creeping along the
edge of the circle of light, waiting for us to take another step.
Who is it? Who frequents Four’s nightmares?
The man who emerges is tall and slim, with hair cut close
to his scalp. He holds his hands behind his back. And he
wears the gray clothes of the Abnegation.
“Marcus,” I whisper.
“Here’s the part,” Four says, his voice shaking, “where
you figure out my name.”
“Is he…” I look from Marcus, who walks slowly toward us,
to Four, who inches slowly back, and everything comes
together. Marcus had a son who joined Dauntless. His name
was…“Tobias.”
Marcus shows us his hands. A belt is curled around one
of his fists. Slowly he unwinds it from his fingers.
“This is for your own good,” he says, and his voice echoes
a dozen times.
A dozen Marcuses press into the circle of light, all holding
the same belt, with the same blank expression. When the
Marcuses blink again, their eyes turn into empty, black pits.
The belts slither along the floor, which is now white tile. A
shiver crawls up my spine. The Erudite accused Marcus of
cruelty. For once the Erudite were right.
I look at Four—Tobias—and he seems frozen. His
posture sags. He looks years older; he looks years younger.
The first Marcus yanks his arm back, the belt sailing over his
shoulder as he prepares to strike. Tobias shrinks back,
throwing his arms up to protect his face.
I dart in front of him and the belt cracks against my wrist,
wrapping around it. A hot pain races up my arm to my
elbow. I grit my teeth and pull as hard as I can. Marcus loses
his grip, so I unwrap the belt and grab it by the buckle.
I swing my arm as fast as I can, my shoulder socket
burning from the sudden motion, and the belt strikes
Marcus’s shoulder. He yells and lunges at me with
outstretched hands, with fingernails that look like claws.
Tobias pushes me behind him so he stands between me
and Marcus. He looks angry, not afraid.
All the Marcuses vanish. The lights come on, revealing a
long, narrow room with busted brick walls and a cement
floor.
“That’s it?” I say. “Those were your worst fears? Why do
you only have four…” My voice trails off. Only four fears.
“Oh.” I look over my shoulder at him. “That’s why they call
you—”
The words leave me when I see his expression. His eyes
are wide and seem almost vulnerable under the room’s
lights. His lips are parted. If we were not here, I would
describe the look as awe. But I don’t understand why he
would be looking at me in awe.
He wraps his hand around my elbow, his thumb pressing
to the soft skin above my forearm, and tugs me toward him.
The skin around my wrist still stings, like the belt was real,
but it is as pale as the rest of me. His lips slowly move
against my cheek, then his arms tighten around my
shoulders, and he buries his face in my neck, breathing
against my collarbone.
I stand stiffly for a second and then loop my arms around
him and sigh.
“Hey,” I say softly. “We got through it.”
He lifts his head and slips his fingers through my hair,
tucking it behind my ear. We stare at each other in silence.
His fingers move absently over a lock of my hair.
“You got me through it,” he says finally.
“Well.” My throat is dry. I try to ignore the nervous
electricity that pulses through me every second he touches
me. “It’s easy to be brave when they’re not my fears.”
I let my hands drop and casually wipe them on my jeans,
hoping he doesn’t notice.
If he does, he doesn’t say so. He laces his fingers with
mine.
“Come on,” he says. “I have something else to show you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
HAND IN HAND, we walk toward the Pit. I monitor the pressure
of my hand carefully. One minute, I feel like I’m not gripping
hard enough, and the next, I’m squeezing too hard. I never
used to understand why people bothered to hold hands as
they walked, but then he runs one of his fingertips down my
palm, and I shiver and understand it completely.
“So…” I latch on to the last logical thought I remember.
“Four fears.”
“Four fears then; four fears now,” he says, nodding. “They
haven’t changed, so I keep going in there, but…I still haven’t
made any progress.”
“You can’t be fearless, remember?” I say. “Because you
still care about things. About your life.”
“I know.”
We walk along the edge of the Pit on a narrow path that
leads to the rocks at the bottom of the chasm. I’ve never
noticed it before—it blended in with the rock wall. But
Tobias seems to know it well.
I don’t want to ruin the moment, but I have to know about
his aptitude test. I have to know if he’s Divergent.
“You were going to tell me about your aptitude test
results,” I say.
“Ah.” He scratches the back of his neck with his free hand.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes. I want to know.”
“How demanding you are.” He smiles.
We reach the end of the path and stand at the bottom of
the chasm, where the rocks form unsteady ground, rising up
at harsh angles from the rushing water. He leads me up and
down, across small gaps and over angular ridges. My shoes
cling to the rough rock. The soles of my shoes mark each
rock with a wet footprint.
He finds a relatively flat rock near the side, where the
current isn’t strong, and sits down, his feet dangling over the
edge. I sit beside him. He seems comfortable here, inches
above the hazardous water.
He releases my hand. I look at the jagged edge of the
rock.
“These are things I don’t tell people, you know. Not even
my friends,” he says.
I lace my fingers together and clench. This is the perfect
place for him to tell me that he is Divergent, if indeed that’s
what he is. The roar of the chasm ensures that we won’t be
overheard. I don’t know why the thought makes me so
nervous.
“My result was as expected,” he says. “Abnegation.”
“Oh.” Something inside me deflates. I am wrong about
him.
But—I had assumed that if he was not Divergent, he must
have gotten a Dauntless result. And technically, I also got an
Abnegation result—according to the system. Did the same
thing happen to him? And if that’s true, why isn’t he telling
me the truth?
“But you chose Dauntless anyway?” I say.
“Out of necessity.”
“Why did you have to leave?”
His eyes dart away from mine, across the space in front
of him, as if searching the air for an answer. He doesn’t
need to give one. I still feel the ghost of a stinging belt on my
wrist.
“You had to get away from your dad,” I say. “Is that why
you don’t want to be a Dauntless leader? Because if you
were, you might have to see him again?”
He lifts a shoulder. “That, and I’ve always felt that I don’t
quite belong among the Dauntless. Not the way they are
now, anyway.”
“But you’re…incredible,” I say. I pause and clear my
throat. “I mean, by Dauntless standards. Four fears is
unheard of. How could you not belong here?”
He shrugs. He doesn’t seem to care about his talent, or
his status among the Dauntless, and that is what I would
expect from the Abnegation. I am not sure what to make of
that.
He says, “I have a theory that selflessness and bravery
aren’t all that different. All your life you’ve been training to
forget yourself, so when you’re in danger, it becomes your
first instinct. I could belong in Abnegation just as easily.”
Suddenly I feel heavy. A lifetime of training wasn’t enough
for me. My first instinct is still self-preservation.
“Yeah, well,” I say, “I left Abnegation because I wasn’t
selfless enough, no matter how hard I tried to be.”
“That’s not entirely true.” He smiles at me. “That girl who
let someone throw knives at her to spare a friend, who hit
my dad with a belt to protect me—that selfless girl, that’s not
you?”
He’s figured out more about me than I have. And even
though it seems impossible that he could feel something for
me, given all that I’m not…maybe it isn’t. I frown at him.
“You’ve been paying close attention, haven’t you?”
“I like to observe people.”
“Maybe you were cut out for Candor, Four, because
you’re a terrible liar.”
He puts his hand on the rock next to him, his fingers lining
up with mine. I look down at our hands. He has long, narrow
fingers. Hands made for fine, deft movements. Not
Dauntless hands, which should be thick and tough and
ready to break things.
“Fine.” He leans his face closer to mine, his eyes focusing
on my chin, and my lips, and my nose. “I watched you
because I like you.” He says it plainly, boldly, and his eyes
flick up to mine. “And don’t call me ‘Four,’ okay? It’s nice to
hear my name again.”
Just like that, he has finally declared himself, and I don’t
know how to respond. My cheeks warm, and all I can think to
say is, “But you’re older than I am…Tobias.”
He smiles at me. “Yes, that whopping two-year gap really
is insurmountable, isn’t it?”
“I’m not trying to be self-deprecating,” I say, “I just don’t get
it. I’m younger. I’m not pretty. I—”
He laughs, a deep laugh that sounds like it came from
deep inside him, and touches his lips to my temple.
“Don’t pretend,” I say breathily. “You know I’m not. I’m not
ugly, but I am certainly not pretty.”
“Fine. You’re not pretty. So?” He kisses my cheek. “I like
how you look. You’re deadly smart. You’re brave. And even
though you found out about Marcus…” His voice softens.
“You aren’t giving me that look. Like I’m a kicked puppy or
something.”
“Well,” I say. “You’re not.”
For a second his dark eyes are on mine, and he’s quiet.
Then he touches my face and leans in close, brushing my
lips with his. The river roars and I feel its spray on my ankles.
He grins and presses his mouth to mine.
I tense up at first, unsure of myself, so when he pulls away,
I’m sure I did something wrong, or badly. But he takes my
face in his hands, his fingers strong against my skin, and
kisses me again, firmer this time, more certain. I wrap an
arm around him, sliding my hand up his neck and into his
short hair.
For a few minutes we kiss, deep in the chasm, with the
roar of water all around us. And when we rise, hand in hand,
I realize that if we had both chosen differently, we might have
ended up doing the same thing, in a safer place, in gray
clothes instead of black ones.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE NEXT MORNING I am silly and light. Every time I push the
smile from my face, it fights its way back. Eventually I stop
suppressing it. I let my hair hang loose and abandon my
uniform of loose shirts in favor of one that cuts across my
shoulders, revealing my tattoos.
“What is it with you today?” says Christina on the way to
breakfast. Her eyes are still swollen from sleep and her
tangled hair forms a fuzzy halo around her face.
“Oh, you know,” I say. “Sun shining. Birds chirping.”
She raises an eyebrow at me, as if reminding me that we
are in an underground tunnel.
“Let the girl be in a good mood,” Will says. “You may
never see it again.”
I smack his arm and hurry toward the dining hall. My heart
pounds because I know that at some point in the next half
hour, I will see Tobias. I sit down in my usual place, next to
Uriah, with Will and Christina across from us. The seat on
my left stays empty. I wonder if Tobias will sit in it; if he’ll grin
at me over breakfast; if he’ll look at me in that secret, stolen
way that I imagine myself looking at him.
I grab a piece of toast from the plate in the middle of the
table and start to butter it with a little too much enthusiasm. I
feel myself acting like a lunatic, but I can’t stop. It would be
like refusing to breathe.
Then he walks in. His hair is shorter, and it looks darker
this way, almost black. It’s Abnegation short, I realize. I smile
at him and lift my hand to wave him over, but he sits down
next to Zeke without even glancing in my direction, so I let
my hand drop.
I stare at my toast. It is easy not to smile now.
“Something wrong?” asks Uriah through a mouthful of
toast.
I shake my head and take a bite. What did I expect? Just
because we kissed doesn’t mean anything changes. Maybe
he changed his mind about liking me. Maybe he thinks
kissing me was a mistake.
“Today’s fear landscape day,” says Will. “You think we’ll
get to see our own fear landscapes?”
“No.” Uriah shakes his head. “You go through one of the
instructors’ landscapes. My brother told me.”
“Ooh, which instructor?” says Christina, suddenly perking
up.
“You know, it really isn’t fair that you all get insider
information and we don’t,” Will says, glaring at Uriah.
“Like you wouldn’t use an advantage if you had one,”
retorts Uriah.
Christina ignores them. “I hope it’s Four’s landscape.”
“Why?” I ask. The question comes out too incredulous. I
bite my lip and wish I could take it back.
“Looks like someone had a mood swing.” She rolls her
eyes. “Like you don’t want to know what his fears are. He
acts so tough that he’s probably afraid of marshmallows and
really bright sunrises or something. Overcompensating.”
I shake my head. “It won’t be him.”
“How would you know?”
“It’s just a prediction.”
I remember Tobias’s father in his fear landscape. He
wouldn’t let everyone see that. I glance at him. For a second,
his eyes shift to mine. His stare is unfeeling. Then he looks
away.
Lauren, the instructor of the Dauntless-born initiates, stands
with her hands on her hips outside the fear landscape room.
“Two years ago,” she says, “I was afraid of spiders,
suffocation, walls that inch slowly inward and trap you
between them, getting thrown out of Dauntless,
uncontrollable bleeding, getting run over by a train, my
father’s death, public humiliation, and kidnapping by men
without faces.”
Everyone stares blankly at her.
“Most of you will have anywhere from ten to fifteen fears in
your fear landscapes. That is the average number,” she
says.
“What’s the lowest number someone has gotten?” asks
Lynn.
“In recent years,” says Lauren, “four.”
I have not looked at Tobias since we were in the
cafeteria, but I can’t help but look at him now. He keeps his
eyes trained on the floor. I knew that four was a low number,
low enough to merit a nickname, but I didn’t know it was less
than half the average.
I glare at my feet. He’s exceptional. And now he won’t
even look at me.
“You will not find out your number today,” says Lauren.
“The simulation is set to my fear landscape program, so you
will experience my fears instead of your own.”
I give Christina a pointed look. I was right; we won’t go
through Four’s landscape.
“For the purposes of this exercise, though, each of you will
only face one of my fears, to get a sense for how the
simulation works.”
Lauren points to us at random and assigns us each a
fear. I was standing in the back, so I will go close to last. The
fear that she assigned to me was kidnapping.
Because I’m not hooked up to the computer as I wait, I
can’t watch the simulation, only the person’s reaction to it. It
is the perfect way to distract myself from my preoccupation
with Tobias—clenching my hands into fists as Will brushes
off spiders I can’t see and Uriah presses his hands against
walls that are invisible to me, and smirking as Peter turns
bright red during whatever he experiences in “public
humiliation.” Then it’s my turn.
The obstacle won’t be comfortable for me, but because I
have been able to manipulate every simulation, not just this
one, and because I have already gone through Tobias’s
landscape, I am not apprehensive as Lauren inserts the
needle into my neck.
Then the scenery changes and the kidnapping begins.
The ground turns into grass beneath my feet, and hands
clamp around my arms, over my mouth. It is too dark to see.
I stand next to the chasm. I hear the roar of the water. I
scream into the hand that covers my mouth and thrash to
free myself, but the arms are too strong; my kidnappers are
too strong. The image of myself falling into darkness flashes
into my mind, the same image that I now carry with me in my
nightmares. I scream again; I scream until my throat hurts
and I squeeze hot tears from my eyes.
I knew they would come back for me; I knew they would try
again. The first time was not enough. I scream again—not
for help, because no one will help me, but because that’s
what you do when you’re about to die and you can’t stop it.
“Stop,” a stern voice says.
The hands disappear, and the lights come on. I stand on
cement in the fear landscape room. My body shakes, and I
drop to my knees, pressing my hands to my face. I just
failed. I lost all logic, I lost all sense. Lauren’s fear
transformed into one of my own.
And everyone saw me. Tobias saw me.
I hear footsteps. Tobias marches toward me and
wrenches me to my feet.
“What the hell was that, Stiff?”
“I…” My breath comes in a hiccup. “I didn’t—”
“Get yourself together! This is pathetic.”
Something within me snaps. My tears stop. Heat races
through my body, driving the weakness out of me, and I
smack him so hard my knuckles burn with the impact. He
stares at me, one side of his face bright with blush-blood,
and I stare back.
“Shut up,” I say. I yank my arm from his grasp and walk out
of the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I PULL MY jacket tight around my shoulders. I haven’t been
outside in a long time. The sun shines pale against my face,
and I watch my breaths form in the air.
At least I accomplished one thing: I convinced Peter and
his friends that I’m no longer a threat. I just have to make
sure that tomorrow, when I go through my own fear
landscape, I prove them wrong. Yesterday failure seemed
impossible. Today I’m not sure.
I slide my hands through my hair. The impulse to cry is
gone. I braid my hair and tie it with the rubber band around
my wrist. I feel more like myself. That is all I need: to
remember who I am. And I am someone who does not let
inconsequential things like boys and near-death
experiences stop her.
I laugh, shaking my head. Am I?
I hear the train horn. The train tracks loop around the
Dauntless compound and then continue farther than I can
see. Where do they begin? Where do they end? What is the
world like beyond them? I walk toward them.
I want to go home, but I can’t. Eric warned us not to
appear too attached to our parents on Visiting Day, so
visiting home would be betraying the Dauntless, and I can’t
afford to do that. Eric did not tell us we couldn’t visit people
in factions other than the ones we came from, though, and
my mother did tell me to visit Caleb.
I know I’m not allowed to leave without supervision, but I
can’t stop myself. I walk faster and faster, until I’m sprinting.
Pumping my arms, I run alongside the last car until I can
grab the handle and swing myself in, wincing as pain darts
through my sore body.
Once in the car, I lie on my back next to the door and
watch the Dauntless compound disappear behind me. I
don’t want to go back, but choosing to quit, to be
factionless, would be the bravest thing I have ever done, and
today I feel like a coward.
The air rushes over my body and twists around my
fingers. I let my hand trail over the edge of the car so it
presses against the wind. I can’t go home, but I can find part
of it. Caleb has a place in every memory of my childhood; he
is part of my foundation.
The train slows as it reaches the heart of the city, and I sit
up to watch the smaller buildings grow into larger buildings.
The Erudite live in large stone buildings that overlook the
marsh. I hold the handle and lean out just enough to see
where the tracks go. They dip down to street level just
before they bend to travel east. I breathe in the smell of wet
pavement and marsh air.
The train dips and slows, and I jump. My legs shudder with
the force of my landing, and I run a few steps to regain my
balance. I walk down the middle of the street, heading south,
toward the marsh. The empty land stretches as far as I can
see, a brown plane colliding with the horizon.
I turn left. The Erudite buildings loom above me, dark and
unfamiliar. How will I find Caleb here?
The Erudite keep records; it’s in their nature. They must
keep records of their initiates. Someone has access to
those records; I just have to find them. I scan the buildings.
Logically speaking, the central building should be the most
important one. I may as well start there.
The faction members are milling around everywhere.
Erudite faction norms dictate that a faction member must
wear at least one blue article of clothing at a time, because
blue causes the body to release calming chemicals, and “a
calm mind is a clear mind.” The color has also come to
signify their faction. It seems impossibly bright to me now. I
have grown used to dim lighting and dark clothing.
I expect to weave through the crowd, dodging elbows and
muttering “excuse me” the way I always do, but there is no
need. Becoming Dauntless has made me noticeable. The
crowd parts for me, and their eyes cling to me as I pass. I
pull the rubber band from my hair and shake it from its knot
before I walk through the front doors.
I stand just inside the entrance and tilt my head back. The
room is huge, silent, and smells like dust-covered pages.
The wood-paneled floor creaks beneath my feet.
Bookcases line the walls on either side of me, but they
seem to be decorative more than anything, because
computers occupy the tables in the center of the room, and
no one is reading. They stare at screens with tense eyes,
focused.
I should have known that the main Erudite building would
be a library. A portrait on the opposite wall catches my
attention. It is twice my height and four times my width and
depicts an attractive woman with watery gray eyes and
spectacles—Jeanine. Heat licks my throat at the sight of
her. Because she is Erudite’s representative, she is the one
who released that report about my father. I have disliked her
since my father’s dinner-table rants began, but now I hate
her.Beneath her is a large plaque that reads KNOWLEDGE
LEADS
TO PROSPERITY.
Prosperity. To me the word has a negative connotation.
Abnegation uses it to describe self-indulgence.
How could Caleb have chosen to be one of these
people? The things they do, the things they want, it’s all
people? The things they do, the things they want, it’s all
wrong. But he probably thinks the same of the Dauntless.
I walk up to the desk just beneath Jeanine’s portrait. The
young man sitting behind it doesn’t look up as he says,
“How can I help you?”
“I am looking for someone,” I say. “His name is Caleb. Do
you know where I can find him?”
“I am not permitted to give out personal information,” he
replies blandly, as he jabs at the screen in front of him.
“He’s my brother.”
“I am not permi—”
I slam my palm on the desk in front of him, and he jerks
out of his daze, staring at me over his spectacles. Heads
turn in my direction.
“I said.” My voice is terse. “I am looking for someone.
He’s an initiate. Can you at least tell me where I can find
them?”
“Beatrice?” a voice behind me says.
I turn, and Caleb stands behind me, a book in hand. His
hair has grown out so it flips at his ears, and he wears a
blue T-shirt and a pair of rectangular glasses. Even though
he looks different and I’m not allowed to love him anymore, I
run at him as fast as I can and throw my arms around his
shoulders.
“You have a tattoo,” he says, his voice muffled.
“You have glasses,” I say. I pull back and narrow my eyes.
“Your vision is perfect, Caleb, what are you doing?”
“Um…” He glances at the tables around us. “Come on.
Let’s get out of here.”
We exit the building and cross the street. I have to jog to
keep up with him. Across from Erudite headquarters is what
used to be a park. Now we just call it “Millenium,” and it is a
stretch of bare land and several rusted metal sculptures—
one an abstract, plated mammoth, another shaped like a
lima bean that dwarfs me in size.
We stop on the concrete around the metal bean, where
the Erudite sit in small groups with newspapers or books.
He takes off his glasses and shoves them in his pocket,
then runs a hand through his hair, his eyes skipping over
mine nervously. Like he’s ashamed. Maybe I should be too.
I’m tattooed, loose-haired, and wearing tight clothes. But I’m
just not.
“What are you doing here?” he says.
“I wanted to go home,” I say, “and you were the closest
thing I could think of.”
He presses his lips together.
“Don’t look so pleased to see me,” I add.
“Hey,” he says, setting his hands on my shoulders. “I’m
thrilled to see you, okay? It’s just that this isn’t allowed.
There are rules.”
“I don’t care,” I say. “I don’t care, okay?”
“Maybe you should.” His voice is gentle; he wears his look
of disapproval. “If it were me, I wouldn’t want to get in trouble
with your faction.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I know exactly what it means. He sees my faction as the
cruelest of the five, and nothing more.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt. You don’t have to be so
angry with me,” he says, tilting his head. “What happened to
you in there?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened to me.” I close my eyes and
rub the back of my neck with one hand. Even if I could
explain everything to him, I wouldn’t want to. I can’t even
summon the will to think about it.
“You think…” He looks at his shoes. “You think you made
the right choice?”
“I don’t think there was one,” I say. “How about you?”
He looks around. People stare at us as they walk past.
His eyes skip over their faces. He’s still nervous, but maybe
it’s not because of how he looks, or because of me. Maybe
it’s them. I grab his arm and pull him under the arch of the
metal bean. We walk beneath its hollow underbelly. I see my
reflection everywhere, warped by the curve of the walls,
broken by patches of rust and grime.
“What’s going on?” I say, folding my arms. I didn’t notice
the dark circles under his eyes before. “What’s wrong?”
Caleb presses a palm to the metal wall. In his reflection,
his head is small and pressed in on one side, and his arm
looks like it is bending backward. My reflection, however,
looks small and squat.
“Something big is happening, Beatrice. Something is
wrong.” His eyes are wide and glassy. “I don’t know what it
is, but people keep rushing around, talking quietly, and
Jeanine gives speeches about how corrupt Abnegation is
all the time, almost every day.”
“Do you believe her?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know
what to believe.”
“Yes, you do,” I say sternly. “You know who our parents
are. You know who our friends are. Susan’s dad, you think
he’s corrupt?”
“How much do I know? How much did they allow me to
know? We weren’t allowed to ask questions, Beatrice; we
weren’t allowed to know things! And here…” He looks up,
and in the flat circle of mirror right above us, I see our tiny
figures, the size of fingernails. That, I think, is our true
reflection; it is as small as we actually are. He continues,
“Here, information is free, it’s always available.”
“This isn’t Candor. There are liars here, Caleb. There are
people who are so smart they know how to manipulate you.”
“Don’t you think I would know if I was being manipulated?”
“If they’re as smart as you think, then no. I don’t think you
would know.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says,
shaking his head.
“Yeah. How could I possibly know what a corrupt faction
looks like? I’m just training to be Dauntless, for God’s
sake,” I say. “At least I know what I’m a part of, Caleb. You
are choosing to ignore what we’ve known all our lives—
these people are arrogant and greedy and they will lead you
nowhere.”
His voice hardens. “I think you should go, Beatrice.”
“With pleasure,” I say. “Oh, and not that it will matter to
you, but Mom told me to tell you to research the simulation
serum.”
“You saw her?” He looks hurt. “Why didn’t she—”
“Because,” I say. “The Erudite don’t let the Abnegation
into their compound anymore. Wasn’t that information
available to you?”
I push past him, walking away from the mirror cave and
the sculpture, and start down the sidewalk. I should never
have left. The Dauntless compound sounds like home now
—at least there, I know exactly where I stand, which is on
unstable ground.
The crowd on the sidewalk thins, and I look up to see why.
Standing a few yards in front of me are two Erudite men with
their arms folded.
“Excuse me,” one of them says. “You’ll have to come with
us.”
One man walks so close behind me that I feel his breath
against the back of my head. The other man leads me into
the library and down three hallways to an elevator. Beyond
the library the floors change from wood to white tile, and the
walls glow like the ceiling of the aptitude test room. The glow
bounces off the silver elevator doors, and I squint so I can
see.
I try to stay calm. I ask myself questions from Dauntless
training. What do you do if someone attacks you from
behind? I envision thrusting my elbow back into a stomach
or a groin. I imagine running. I wish I had a gun. These are
Dauntless thoughts, and they have become mine.
What do you do if you’re attacked by two people at
once? I follow the man down an empty, glowing corridor and
into an office. The walls are made of glass—I guess I know
which faction designed my school.
A woman sits behind a metal desk. I stare at her face.
The same face dominates the Erudite library; it is plastered
across every article Erudite releases. How long have I hated
that face? I don’t remember.
“Sit,” Jeanine says. Her voice sounds familiar, especially
when she is irritated. Her liquid gray eyes focus on mine.
“I’d rather not.”
“Sit,” she says again. I have definitely heard her voice
before.
I heard it in the hallway, talking to Eric, before I got
attacked. I heard her mention Divergents. And once before
—I heard it…
“It was your voice in the simulation,” I say. “The aptitude
test, I mean.”
She is the danger Tori and my mother warned me about,
the danger of being Divergent. Sitting right in front of me.
“Correct. The aptitude test is by far my greatest
achievement as a scientist,” she replies. “I looked up your
test results, Beatrice. Apparently there was a problem with
your test. It was never recorded, and your results had to be
reported manually. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“Did you know that you’re one of two people ever to get
an Abnegation result and switch to Dauntless?”
“No,” I say, biting back my shock. Tobias and I are the
only ones? But his result was genuine and mine was a lie.
So it is really just him.
My stomach twinges at the thought of him. Right now I
don’t care how unique he is. He called me pathetic.
“What made you choose Dauntless?” she asks.
“What does this have to do with anything?” I try to soften
my voice, but it doesn’t work. “Aren’t you going to reprimand
me for abandoning my faction and seeking out my brother?
‘Faction before blood,’ right?” I pause. “Come to think of it,
why am I in your office in the first place? Aren’t you
supposed to be important or something?”
Maybe that will take her down a few pegs.
Her mouth pinches for a second. “I will leave the
reprimands to the Dauntless,” she says, leaning back in her
chair.
I set my hands on the back of the chair I refused to sit in
and clench my fingers. Behind her is a window that
overlooks the city. The train takes a lazy turn in the distance.
“As to the reason for your presence here…a quality of my
faction is curiosity,” she says, “and while perusing your
records, I saw that there was another error with another one
of your simulations. Again, it failed to be recorded. Did you
know that?”
“How did you access my records? Only the Dauntless
have access to those.”
“Because Erudite developed the simulations, we have
an…understanding with the Dauntless, Beatrice.” She tilts
her head and smiles at me. “I am merely concerned for the
competence of our technology. If it fails while you are
around, I have to ensure that it does not continue to do so,
you understand?”
I understand only one thing: She is lying to me. She
doesn’t care about the technology—she suspects that
something is awry with my test results. Just like the
Dauntless leaders, she is sniffing around for the Divergent.
And if my mother wants Caleb to research the simulation
serum, it is probably because Jeanine developed it.
But what is so threatening about my ability to manipulate
the simulations? Why would it matter to the representative of
the Erudite, of all people?
I can’t answer either question. But the look she gives me
reminds me of the look in the attack dog’s eyes in the
aptitude test—a vicious, predatory stare. She wants to rip
me to pieces. I can’t lie down in submission now. I have
become an attack dog too.
I feel my pulse in my throat.
“I don’t know how they work,” I say, “but the liquid I was
injected with made me sick to my stomach. Maybe my
simulation administrator was distracted because he was
worried I would throw up, and he forgot to record it. I got sick
after the aptitude test too.”
“Do you habitually have a sensitive stomach, Beatrice?”
Her voice is like a razor’s edge. She taps her trimmed
fingernails against the glass desk.
“Ever since I was young,” I reply as smoothly as I can. I
release the chair back and sidestep it to sit down. I can’t
seem tense, even though I feel like my insides are writhing
within me.
“You have been extremely successful with the
simulations,” she says. “To what do you attribute the ease
with which you complete them?”
“I’m brave,” I say, staring into her eyes. The other factions
see the Dauntless a certain way. Brash, aggressive,
impulsive. Cocky. I should be what she expects. I smirk at
her. “I’m the best initiate they’ve got.”
I lean forward, balancing my elbows on my knees. I will
have to go further with this to make it convincing.
“You want to know why I chose Dauntless?” I ask. “It’s
because I was bored.” Further, further. Lies require
commitment. “I was tired of being a wussy little do-gooder
and I wanted out.”
“So you don’t miss your parents?” she asks delicately.
“Do I miss getting scolded for looking in the mirror? Do I
miss being told to shut up at the dinner table?” I shake my
head. “No. I don’t miss them. They’re not my family
anymore.”
The lie burns my throat on the way out, or maybe that’s the
tears I’m fighting. I picture my mother standing behind me
with a comb and a pair of scissors, faintly smiling as she
trims my hair, and I want to scream rather than insult her like
this.
“Can I take that to mean…” Jeanine purses her lips and
pauses for a few seconds before finishing. “…that you
agree with the reports that have been released about the
political leaders of this city?”
The reports that label my family as corrupt, power-hungry,
moralizing dictators? The reports that carry subtle threats
and hint at revolution? They make me sick to my stomach.
Knowing that she is the one who released them makes me
want to strangle her.
I smile.
“Wholeheartedly,” I say.
One of Jeanine’s lackeys, a man in a blue collared shirt and
sunglasses, drives me back to the Dauntless compound in a
sleek silver car, the likes of which I have never seen before.
The engine is almost silent. When I ask the man about it, he
tells me it’s solar-powered and launches into a lengthy
explanation of how the panels on the roof convert sunlight
into energy. I stop listening after sixty seconds and stare out
the window.
I don’t know what they’ll do to me when I get back. I
suspect it will be bad. I imagine my feet dangling over the
chasm and bite my lip.
When the driver pulls up to the glass building above the
Dauntless compound, Eric is waiting for me by the door. He
takes my arm and leads me into the building without
thanking the driver. Eric’s fingers squeeze so hard I know I’ll
have bruises.
He stands between me and the door that leads inside. He
starts to crack his knuckles. Other than that, he is completely
still.
I shudder involuntarily.
The faint pop of his knuckle-cracking is all I hear apart
from my own breaths, which grow faster by the second.
When he is finished, Eric laces his fingers together in front
of him.
“Welcome back, Tris.”
“Eric.”
He walks toward me, carefully placing one foot in front of
the other.
“What…” His first word is quiet. “Exactly,” he adds, louder
this time, “were you thinking?”
“I…” He is so close I can see the holes his metal piercings
fit into. “I don’t know.”
“I am tempted to call you a traitor, Tris,” he says. “Have
you never heard the phrase ‘faction before blood’?”
I have seen Eric do terrible things. I have heard him say
terrible things. But I have never seen him like this. He is not
a maniac anymore; he is perfectly controlled, perfectly
poised. Careful and quiet.
For the first time, I recognize Eric for what he is: an
Erudite disguised as a Dauntless, a genius as well as a
sadist, a hunter of the Divergent.
I want to run.
“Were you unsatisfied with the life you have found here?
Do you perhaps regret your choice?” Both of Eric’s metalridden
eyebrows lift, forcing creases into his forehead. “I
would like to hear an explanation for why you betrayed
Dauntless, yourself, and me…” He taps his chest. “…by
venturing into another faction’s headquarters.”
“I…” I take a deep breath. He would kill me if he knew
what I was, I can feel it. His hands curl into fists. I am alone
here; if something happens to me, no one will know and no
one will see it.
“If you cannot explain,” he says softly, “I may be forced to
reconsider your rank. Or, because you seem to be so
attached to your previous faction…perhaps I will be forced
to reconsider your friends’ ranks. Perhaps the little
Abnegation girl inside of you would take that more
seriously.”
My first thought is that he couldn’t do that, it wouldn’t be
fair. My second thought is that of course he would, he would
not hesitate to do it for a second. And he is right—the
thought that my reckless behavior could force someone else
out of a faction makes my chest ache from fear.
I try again. “I…”
But it is hard to breathe.
And then the door opens. Tobias walks in.
“What are you doing?” he asks Eric.
“Leave the room,” Eric says, his voice louder and not as
monotone. He sounds more like the Eric I am familiar with.
His expression, too, changes, becomes more mobile and
animated. I stare, amazed that he can turn it on and off so
easily, and wonder what the strategy behind it is.
“No,” Tobias says. “She’s just a foolish girl. There’s no
need to drag her here and interrogate her.”
“Just a foolish girl.” Eric snorts. “If she were just a foolish
girl, she wouldn’t be ranked first, now would she?”
Tobias pinches the bridge of his nose and looks at me
through the spaces between his fingers. He is trying to tell
me something. I think quickly. What advice has Four given
me recently?
The only thing I can think of is: pretend some
vulnerability.
It’s worked for me before.
“I…I was just embarrassed and didn’t know what to do.” I
put my hands in my pockets and look at the ground. Then I
pinch my leg so hard that tears well up in my eyes, and I look
up at Eric, sniffing. “I tried to…and…” I shake my head.
“You tried to what?” asks Eric.
“Kiss me,” says Tobias. “And I rejected her, and she went
running off like a five-year-old. There’s really nothing to
blame her for but stupidity.”
We both wait.
Eric looks from me to Tobias and laughs, too loudly and
for too long—the sound is menacing and grates against me
like sandpaper. “Isn’t he a little too old for you, Tris?” he
says, smiling again.
I wipe my cheek like I’m wiping a tear. “Can I go now?”
“Fine,” Eric says, “but you are not allowed to leave the
compound without supervision again, you hear me?” He
turns toward Tobias. “And you… had better make sure none
of the transfers leave this compound again. And that none of
the others try to kiss you.”
Tobias rolls his eyes. “Fine.”
I leave the room and walk outside again, shaking my
hands to get rid of the jitters. I sit down on the pavement and
wrap my arms around my knees.
I don’t know how long I sit there, my head down and my
eyes closed, before the door opens again. It might have
been twenty minutes and it might have been an hour. Tobias
walks toward me.
I stand and cross my arms, waiting for the scolding to
start. I slapped him and then got myself into trouble with the
Dauntless—there has to be scolding.
“What?” I say.
“Are you all right?” A crease appears between his
eyebrows, and he touches my cheek gently. I bat his hand
away.
“Well,” I say, “first I got reamed out in front of everyone,
and then I had to chat with the woman who’s trying to destroy
my old faction, and then Eric almost tossed my friends out of
Dauntless, so yeah, it’s shaping up to be a pretty great day,
Four.”
He shakes his head and looks at the dilapidated building
to his right, which is made of brick and barely resembles the
sleek glass spire behind me. It must be ancient. No one
builds with brick anymore.
“Why do you care, anyway?” I say. “You can be either
cruel instructor or concerned boyfriend.” I tense up at the
word “boyfriend.” I didn’t mean to use it so flippantly, but it’s
too late now. “You can’t play both parts at the same time.”
“I am not cruel.” He scowls at me. “I was protecting you
this morning. How do you think Peter and his idiot friends
would have reacted if they discovered that you and I were…”
He sighs. “You would never win. They would always call your
ranking a result of my favoritism rather than your skill.”
I open my mouth to object, but I can’t. A few smart
remarks come to mind, but I dismiss them. He’s right. My
cheeks warm, and I cool them with my hands.
“You didn’t have to insult me to prove something to them,”
I say finally.
“And you didn’t have to run off to your brother just because
I hurt you,” he says. He rubs at the back of his neck.
“Besides—it worked, didn’t it?”
“At my expense.”
“I didn’t think it would affect you this way.” Then he looks
down and shrugs. “Sometimes I forget that I can hurt you.
That you are capable of being hurt.”
I slide my hands into my pockets and rock back on my
heels. A strange feeling goes through me—a sweet, aching
weakness. He did what he did because he believed in my
strength.
At home it was Caleb who was strong, because he could
forget himself, because all the characteristics my parents
valued came naturally to him. No one has ever been so
convinced of my strength.
I stand on my tiptoes, lift my head, and kiss him. Only our
lips touch.
“You’re brilliant, you know that?” I shake my head. “You
always know exactly what to do.”
“Only because I’ve been thinking about this for a long
time,” he says, kissing me briefly. “How I would handle it, if
you and I…” He pulls back and smiles. “Did I hear you call
me your boyfriend, Tris?”
“Not exactly.” I shrug. “Why? Do you want me to?”
He slips his hands over my neck and presses his thumbs
under my chin, tilting my head back so his forehead meets
mine. For a moment he stands there, his eyes closed,
breathing my air. I feel the pulse in his fingertips. I feel the
quickness of his breath. He seems nervous.
“Yes,” he finally says. Then his smile fades. “You think we
convinced him you’re just a silly girl?”
“I hope so,” I say. “Sometimes it helps to be small. I’m not
sure I convinced the Erudite, though.”
The corners of his mouth tug down, and he gives me a
grave look. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“Not now.” He glances around. “Meet me back here at
eleven thirty. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”
I nod, and he turns away, leaving just as quickly as he
came.
“Where have you been all day?” Christina asks when I walk
back into the dormitory. The room is empty; everyone else
must be at dinner. “I looked for you outside, but I couldn’t find
you. Is everything okay? Did you get in trouble for hitting
Four?”
I shake my head. The thought of telling her the truth about
where I was makes me feel exhausted. How can I explain
the impulse to hop on a train and visit my brother? Or the
eerie calm in Eric’s voice as he questioned me? Or the
reason that I exploded and hit Tobias to begin with?
“I just had to get away. I walked around for a long time,” I
say. “And no, I’m not in trouble. He yelled at me, I
apologized…that’s it.”
As I speak, I’m careful to keep my eyes steady on hers
and my hands still at my sides.
“Good,” she says. “Because I have something to tell you.”
She looks over my head at the door and then stands on
her tiptoes to see all the bunks—checking if they’re empty,
probably. Then she sets her hands on my shoulders.
“Can you be a girl for a few seconds?”
“I’m always a girl.” I frown.
“You know what I mean. Like a silly, annoying girl.”
I twirl my hair around my finger. “’Kay.”
She grins so wide I can see her back row of teeth. “Will
kissed me.”
“What?” I demand. “When? How? What happened?”
“You can be a girl!” She straightens, taking her hands
from my shoulders. “Well, right after your little episode, we
ate lunch and then we walked around near the train tracks.
We were just talking about…I don’t even remember what we
were talking about. And then he just stopped, and leaned in,
and…kissed me.”
“Did you know that he liked you?” I say. “I mean, you know.
Like that.”
“No!” She laughs. “The best part was, that was it. We just
kept walking and talking like nothing happened. Well, until I
kissed him.”
“How long have you known you liked him?”
“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t. But then little things…how he
put his arm around me at the funeral, how he opens doors
for me like I’m a girl instead of someone who could beat the
crap out of him.”
I laugh. Suddenly I want to tell her about Tobias and
everything that has happened between us. But the same
reasons Tobias gave for pretending we aren’t together hold
me back. I don’t want her to think that my rank has anything
to do with my relationship with him.
So I just say, “I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks,” she says. “I’m happy too. And I thought it would
be a while before I could feel that way…you know.”
She sits down on the edge of my bed and looks around
the dormitory. Some of the initiates have already packed
their things. Soon we’ll move into apartments on the other
side of the compound. Those with government jobs will
move to the glass building above the Pit. I won’t have to
worry about Peter attacking me in my sleep. I won’t have to
look at Al’s empty bed.
“I can’t believe it’s almost over,” she says. “It’s like we just
got here. But it’s also like…like I haven’t seen home in
forever.”
“You miss it?” I lean into the bed frame.
“Yeah.” She shrugs. “Some things are the same, though. I
mean, everyone at home is just as loud as everyone here,
so that’s good. But it’s easier there. You always know where
you stand with everyone, because they tell you. There’s no…
manipulation.”
I nod. Abnegation prepared me for that aspect of
Dauntless life. The Abnegation aren’t manipulative, but they
aren’t forthright, either.
“I don’t think I could have made it through Candor
initiation, though.” She shakes her head. “There, instead of
simulations, you get lie detector tests. All day, every day.
And the final test…” She wrinkles her nose. “They give you
this stuff they call truth serum and sit you in front of everyone
and ask you a load of really personal questions. The theory
is that if you spill all your secrets, you’ll have no desire to lie
about anything, ever again. Like the worst about you is
already in the open, so why not just be honest?”
I don’t know when I accumulated so many secrets. Being
Divergent. Fears. How I really feel about my friends, my
family, Al, Tobias. Candor initiation would reach things that
even the simulations can’t touch; it would wreck me.
“Sounds awful,” I say.
“I always knew I couldn’t be Candor. I mean, I try to be
honest, but some things you just don’t want people to know.
Plus, I like to be in control of my own mind.”
Don’t we all.
“Anyway,” she says. She opens the cabinet to the left of
our bunk beds. When she pulls the door open, a moth
flutters out, its white wings carrying it toward her face.
Christina shrieks so loud I almost jump out of my skin and
slaps at her cheeks.
“Get it off! Get it off get it off get it off!” she screams.
The moth flutters away.
“It’s gone!” I say. Then I laugh. “You’re afraid of…moths?”
“They’re disgusting. Those papery wings and their stupid
bug bodies…” She shudders.
I keep laughing. I laugh so hard I have to sit down and hold
my stomach.
“It’s not funny!” she snaps. “Well…okay, maybe it is. A
little.”
When I find Tobias late that night, he doesn’t say anything;
he just grabs my hand and pulls me toward the train tracks.
He draws himself into a train car as it passes with
bewildering ease and pulls me in after him. I fall against him,
my cheek against his chest. His fingers slide down my arms,
and he holds me by the elbows as the car bumps along the
steel rails. I watch the glass building above the Dauntless
compound shrink behind us.
“What is it you need to tell me?” I shout over the cry of the
wind.
“Not yet,” he says.
He sinks to the floor and pulls me down with him, so he’s
sitting with his back against the wall and I’m facing him, my
legs trailing to the side on the dusty floor. The wind pushes
strands of my hair loose and tosses them over my face. He
presses his palms to my face, his index fingers sliding
behind my ears, and pulls my mouth to his.
I hear the screech of the rails as the train slows, which
means we must be nearing the middle of the city. The air is
cold, but his lips are warm and so are his hands. He tilts his
head and kisses the skin just beneath my jaw. I’m glad the
air is so loud he can’t hear me sigh.
The train car wobbles, throwing off my balance, and I put
my hand down to steady myself. A split second later I realize
that my hand is on his hip. The bone presses into my palm. I
should move it, but I don’t want to. He told me once to be
brave, and though I have stood still while knives spun toward
my face and jumped off a roof, I never thought I would need
bravery in the small moments of my life. I do.
I shift, swinging a leg over him so I sit on top of him, and
with my heartbeat in my throat, I kiss him. He sits up
straighter and I feel his hands on my shoulders. His fingers
slip down my spine and a shiver follows them down to the
small of my back. He unzips my jacket a few inches, and I
press my hands to my legs to stop them from shaking. I
should not be nervous. This is Tobias.
Cold air slips across my bare skin. He pulls away and
looks carefully at the tattoos just above my collarbone. His
fingers brush over them, and he smiles.
“Birds,” he says. “Are they crows? I keep forgetting to
ask.”
I try to return his smile. “Ravens. One for each member of
my family,” I say. “You like them?”
He doesn’t answer. He tugs me closer, pressing his lips
to each bird in turn. I close my eyes. His touch is light,
sensitive. A heavy, warm feeling, like spilling honey, fills my
body, slowing my thoughts. He touches my cheek.
“I hate to say this,” he says, “but we have to get up now.”
I nod and open my eyes. We both stand, and he tugs me
with him to the open door of the train car. The wind is not as
strong now that the train has slowed. It’s past midnight, so all
the street lights are dark, and the buildings look like
mammoths as they rise from the darkness and then sink into
it again. Tobias lifts a hand and points at a cluster of
buildings, so far away they are the size of a fingernail. They
are the only bright spot in the dark sea around us. Erudite
headquarters again.
“Apparently the city ordinances don’t mean anything to
them,” he says, “because their lights will be on all night.”
“No one else has noticed?” I say, frowning.
“I’m sure they have, but they haven’t done anything to stop
it. It may be because they don’t want to cause a problem
over something so small.” Tobias shrugs, but the tension in
his features worries me. “But it made me wonder what the
Erudite are doing that requires night light.”
He turns toward me, leaning against the wall.
“Two things you should know about me. The first is that I
am deeply suspicious of people in general,” he says. “It is
my nature to expect the worst of them. And the second is
that I am unexpectedly good with computers.”
I nod. He said his other job was working with computers,
but I still have trouble picturing him sitting in front of a screen
all day.
“A few weeks ago, before training started, I was at work
and I found a way into the Dauntless secure files. Apparently
we are not as skilled as the Erudite are at security,” he says,
“and what I discovered was what looked like war plans.
Thinly veiled commands, supply lists, maps. Things like that.
And those files were sent by Erudite.”
“War?” I brush my hair away from my face. Listening to my
father insult Erudite all my life has made me wary of them,
and my experiences in the Dauntless compound make me
wary of authority and human beings in general, so I’m not
shocked to hear that a faction could be planning a war.
And what Caleb said earlier. Something big is
happening, Beatrice. I look up at Tobias.
“War on Abnegation?”
He takes my hands, lacing his fingers with mine, and
says, “The faction that controls the government. Yes.”
My stomach sinks.
“All those reports are supposed to stir up dissension
against Abnegation,” he says, his eyes focused on the city
beyond the train car. “Evidently the Erudite now want to
speed up the process. I have no idea what to do about it…
or what could even be done.”
“But,” I say, “why would Erudite team up with Dauntless?”
And then something occurs to me, something that hits me
in the gut and gnaws at my insides. Erudite doesn’t have
weapons, and they don’t know how to fight—but the
Dauntless do.
I stare wide-eyed at Tobias.
“They’re going to use us,” I say.
“I wonder,” he says, “how they plan to get us to fight.”
I told Caleb that the Erudite know how to manipulate
people. They could coerce some of us into fighting with
misinformation, or by appealing to greed—any number of
ways. But the Erudite are as meticulous as they are
manipulative, so they wouldn’t leave it up to chance. They
would need to make sure that all their weaknesses are
shored up. But how?
The wind blows my hair across my face, cutting my vision
into strips, and I leave it there.
“I don’t know,” I say.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I HAVE ATTENDED Abnegation’s initiation ceremony every year
except this one. It is a quiet affair. The initiates, who spend
thirty days performing community service before they can
become full members, sit side by side on a bench. One of
the older members reads the Abnegation manifesto, which
is a short paragraph about forgetting the self and the
dangers of self-involvement. Then all the older members
wash the initiates’ feet. Then they all share a meal, each
person serving food to the person on his left.
The Dauntless don’t do that.
Initiation day plunges the Dauntless compound into
insanity and chaos. There are people everywhere, and most
of them are inebriated by noon. I fight my way through them
to get a plate of food at lunch and carry it back to the
dormitory with me. On the way I see someone fall off the
path on the Pit wall and, judging by his screams and the way
he grabs at his leg, he broke something.
The dormitory, at least, is quiet. I stare at my plate of food.
I just grabbed what looked good to me at the time, and now
that I take a closer look, I realize that I chose a plain chicken
breast, a scoop of peas, and a piece of brown bread.
Abnegation food.
I sigh. Abnegation is what I am. It is what I am when I’m
not thinking about what I’m doing. It is what I am when I am
put to the test. It is what I am even when I appear to be
brave. Am I in the wrong faction?
The thought of my former faction sends a tremor through
my hands. I have to warn my family about the war the Erudite
are planning, but I don’t know how. I will find a way, but not
today. Today I have to focus on what awaits me. One thing
at a time.
I eat like a robot, rotating from chicken to peas to bread
and back again. It doesn’t matter what faction I really belong
in. In two hours I will walk to the fear landscape room with the
other initiates, go through my fear landscape, and become
Dauntless. It’s too late to turn back.
When I finish, I bury my face in my pillow. I don’t mean to
fall asleep, but after a while, I do, and I wake up to Christina
shaking my shoulder.
“Time to go,” she says. She looks ashen.
I rub my eyes to press the sleep from them. I have my
shoes on already. The other initiates are in the dormitory,
tying shoelaces and buttoning jackets and throwing smiles
around like they don’t mean it. I pull my hair into a bun and
put on my black jacket, zipping it up to my throat. The torture
will be over soon, but can we forget the simulations? Will we
ever sleep soundly again, with the memories of our fears in
our heads? Or will we finally forget our fears today, like
we’re supposed to?
We walk to the Pit and up the path that leads to the glass
building. I look up at the glass ceiling. I can’t see daylight
because the soles of shoes cover every inch of glass above
us. For a second I think I hear the glass creak, but it is my
imagination. I walk up the stairs with Christina, and the
crowd chokes me.
I am too short to see above anyone’s head, so I stare at
Will’s back and walk in his wake. The heat of so many
bodies around me makes it difficult to breathe. Beads of
sweat gather on my forehead. A break in the crowd reveals
what they are all clustered around: a series of screens on
the wall to my left.
I hear a cheer and stop to look at the screens. The screen
on the left shows a black-clothed girl in the fear landscape
room—Marlene. I watch her move, her eyes wide, but I can’t
tell what obstacle she’s facing. Thank God no one out here
will see my fears either—just my reactions to them.
The middle screen shows her heart rate. It picks up for a
second and then decreases. When it reaches a normal rate,
the screen flashes green and the Dauntless cheer. The
screen on the right shows her time.
I tear my eyes from the screen and jog to catch up to
Christina and Will. Tobias stands just inside a door on the
left side of the room that I barely noticed the last time I was
here. It is next to the fear landscape room. I walk past him
without looking at him.
The room is large and contains another screen, similar to
the one outside. A line of people sit in chairs in front of it.
Eric is one of them, and so is Max. The others are also
older. Judging by the wires connected to their heads, and
their blank eyes, they are observing the simulation.
Behind them is another line of chairs, all occupied now. I
am the last to enter, so I don’t get one.
“Hey, Tris!” Uriah calls out from across the room. He sits
with the other Dauntless-born initiates. Only four of them are
left; the rest have gone through their fear landscapes
already. He pats his leg. “You can sit on my lap, if you want.”
“Tempting,” I call back, grinning. “It’s fine. I like to stand.”
I also don’t want Tobias to see me sitting on someone
else’s lap.
The lights lift in the fear landscape room, revealing
Marlene in a crouch, her face streaked with tears. Max, Eric,
and a few others shake off the simulation daze and walk out.
A few seconds later I see them on the screen, congratulating
her for finishing.
“Transfers, the order in which you go through the final test
was taken from your rankings as they now stand,” Tobias
says. “So Drew will go first, and Tris will go last.”
That means five people will go before I do.
I stand in the back of the room, a few feet away from
Tobias. He and I exchange glances when Eric sticks Drew
with the needle and sends him into the fear landscape room.
By the time it’s my turn, I will know how well the others did,
and how well I will have to do to beat them.
The fear landscapes are not interesting to watch from the
outside. I can see that Drew is moving, but I don’t know what
he is reacting to. After a few minutes, I close my eyes
instead of watching and try to think of nothing. Speculating
about which fears I will have to face, and how many there will
be, is useless at this point. I just have to remember that I
have the power to manipulate the simulations, and that I
have practiced it before.
Molly goes next. It takes her half as long as it takes Drew,
but even Molly has trouble. She spends too much time
breathing heavily, trying to control her panic. At one point
she even screams at the top of her lungs.
It amazes me how easy it is to tune out everything else—
thoughts of war on Abnegation, Tobias, Caleb, my parents,
my friends, my new faction fade away. All I can do now is get
past this obstacle.
Christina is next. Then Will. Then Peter. I don’t watch
them. I know only how much time it takes them: twelve
minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. And then my name.
“Tris.”
I open my eyes and walk to the front of the observation
room, where Eric stands with a syringe full of orange liquid. I
barely feel the needle as it plunges into my neck, barely see
Eric’s pierced face as he presses the plunger down. I
imagine that the serum is liquid adrenaline rushing through
my veins, making me strong.
“Ready?” he asks.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I AM READY. I step into the room, armed not with a gun or a
knife, but with the plan I made the night before. Tobias said
that stage three is about mental preparation—coming up
with strategies to overcome my fears.
I wish I knew what order the fears will come in. I bounce on
the balls of my feet as I wait for the first fear to appear. I am
already short of breath.
The ground beneath me changes. Grass rises from the
concrete and sways in a wind I cannot feel. A green sky
replaces the exposed pipes above me. I listen for the birds
and feel my fear as a distant thing, a hammering heart and a
squeezed chest, but not something that exists in my mind.
Tobias told me to figure out what this simulation means. He
was right; it isn’t about the birds. It’s about control.
Wings flap next to my ear, and the crow’s talons dig into
my shoulder.
This time, I do not hit the bird as hard as I can. I crouch,
listening to the thunder of wings behind me, and run my hand
through the grass, just above the ground. What combats
powerlessness? Power. And the first time I felt powerful in
the Dauntless compound was when I was holding a gun.
A lump forms in my throat and I want the talons off. The
bird squawks and my stomach clenches, but then I feel
something hard and metal in the grass. My gun.
I point the gun at the bird on my shoulder, and it detaches
from my shirt in an explosion of blood and feathers. I spin on
my heel, aiming the gun at the sky, and see the cloud of dark
feathers descending. I squeeze the trigger, firing again and
again into the sea of birds above me, watching their dark
bodies drop to the grass.
As I aim and shoot, I feel the same rush of power I felt the
first time I held a gun. My heart stops racing and the field,
gun, and birds fade away. I stand in the dark again.
I shift my weight, and something squeaks beneath my
foot. I crouch down and slide my hand along a cold, smooth
panel—glass. I press my hands to glass on either side of my
body. The tank again. I am not afraid of drowning. This is not
about the water; it is about my inability to escape the tank. It
is about weakness. I just have to convince myself that I am
strong enough to break the glass.
The blue lights come on, and water slips over the floor, but
I don’t let the simulation get that far. I slam my palm against
the wall in front of me, expecting the pane to break.
My hand bounces off, causing no damage.
My heartbeat speeds up. What if what worked in the first
simulation doesn’t work here? What if I can’t break the glass
unless I’m under duress? The water laps over my ankles,
flowing faster by the second. I have to calm down. Calm
down and focus. I lean against the wall behind me and kick
as hard as I can. And again. My toes throb, but nothing
happens.
I have another option. I can wait for water to fill the tank—
and it’s already at my knees—and try to calm down as I
drown. I brace myself against the wall, shaking my head. No.
I can’t let myself drown. I can’t.
I ball my hands up into fists and pound on the wall. I am
stronger than the glass. The glass is as thin as newly frozen
ice. My mind will make it so. I close my eyes. The glass is
ice. The glass is ice. The glass is—
The glass shatters under my hand, and water spills onto
the floor. And then the dark returns.
I shake out my hands. That should have been an easy
obstacle to overcome. I’ve faced it before in simulations. I
can’t afford to lose time like that again.
What feels like a solid wall hits me from the side, forcing
the air from my lungs, and I fall hard, gasping. I can’t swim;
I’ve only seen bodies of water this large, this powerful, in
pictures. Beneath me is a rock with a jagged edge, slick
with water. The water pulls at my legs, and I cling to the rock,
tasting salt on my lips. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a
dark sky and a blood-red moon.
Another wave hits, slamming against my back. I hit my
chin against the stone and wince. The sea is cold, but my
blood is hot, running down my neck. I stretch my arm and
find the edge of the rock. The water pulls at my legs with
irresistible force. I cling as hard as I can, but I am not strong
enough—the water pulls me and the wave throws my body
back. It flings my legs over my head and my arms to each
side, and I collide with the stone, my back pressed against
it, water gushing over my face. My lungs scream for air. I
twist and grab the edge of the rock, pulling myself above the
water. I gasp, and another wave hits me, this one harder
than the first, but I have a better hold.
I must not really be afraid of the water. I must be afraid of
being out of control. To face it, I have to regain control.
With a scream of frustration, I throw my hand forward and
find a hole in the rock. My arms shake violently as I drag
myself forward, and I pull my feet up under me before the
wave can take me with it. Once my feet are free, I get up and
throw my body into a run, into a sprint, my feet quick on the
stone, the red moon in front of me, the ocean gone.
Then everything is gone, and my body is still. Too still.
I try to move my arms, but they are bound tightly to my
sides. I look down and see rope wrapped around my chest,
my arms, my legs. A stack of logs rises around my feet, and
I see a pole behind me. I am high above the ground.
People creep out of the shadows, and their faces are
familiar. They are the initiates, carrying torches, and Peter is
at the front of the pack. His eyes look like black pits, and he
wears a smirk that spreads too wide across his face,
forcing wrinkles into his cheeks. A laugh starts somewhere
in the center of the crowd and rises as voice after voice
joins it. Cackling is all I hear.
As the cackling grows louder, Peter lowers his torch to the
wood, and flames leap up near the ground. They flicker at
the edges of each log and then creep over the bark. I don’t
struggle against the ropes, as I did the first time I faced this
fear. Instead I close my eyes and gulp as much air as I can.
This is a simulation. It can’t hurt me. The heat from the
flames rises around me. I shake my head.
“Smell that, Stiff?” Peter says, his voice louder than even
the cackling.
“No,” I say. The flames are getting higher.
He sniffs. “That’s the smell of your burning flesh.”
When I open my eyes, my vision is blurry with tears.
“Know what I smell?” My voice strains to be louder than
the laughter all around me, the laughter that oppresses me
as much as the heat. My arms twitch, and I want to fight
against the ropes, but I won’t, I won’t struggle pointlessly, I
won’t panic.
I stare through the flames at Peter, the heat bringing blood
to the surface of my skin, flowing through me, melting the
toes of my shoes.
“I smell rain,” I say.
Thunder roars above my head, and I scream as a flame
touches my fingertips and pain shrieks over my skin. I tilt my
head back and focus on the clouds gathering above my
head, heavy with rain, dark with rain. A line of lightning
sprawls over the sky and I feel the first drop on my forehead.
Faster, faster! The drop rolls down the side of my nose, and
the second drop hits my shoulder, so big it feels like it’s
made of ice or rock instead of water.
Sheets of rain fall around me, and I hear sizzling over the
laughter. I smile, relieved, as the rain puts out the fire and
soothes the burns on my hands. The ropes fall away, and I
push my hands through my hair.
I wish I was like Tobias and had only four fears to face, but
I am not that fearless.
I smooth my shirt down, and when I look up, I stand in my
bedroom in the Abnegation sector of the city. I have never
faced this fear before. The lights are off, but the room is lit
by the moonlight coming through the windows. One of my
walls is covered with mirrors. I turn toward it, confused. That
isn’t right. I am not allowed to have mirrors.
I look at the reflection in the mirror: my wide eyes, the bed
with the gray sheets pulled taut, the dresser that holds my
clothes, the bookcase, the bare walls. My eyes skip to the
window behind me.
And to the man standing just outside.
Cold drops down my spine like a bead of sweat, and my
body goes rigid. I recognize him. He is the man with the
scarred face from the aptitude test. He wears black and he
stands still as a statue. I blink, and two men appear at his
left and right, just as still as he is, but their faces are
featureless—skin-covered skulls.
I whip my body around, and they stand in my room. I press
my shoulders to the mirror.
For a moment, the room is silent, and then fists pound
against my window, not just two or four or six, but dozens of
fists with dozens of fingers, slamming into the glass. The
noise vibrates in my rib cage, it is so loud, and then the
scarred man and his two companions begin to walk with
slow, careful movements toward me.
They are here to take me, like Peter and Drew and Al; to
kill me. I know it.
Simulation. This is a simulation. My heart hammering in
my chest, I press my palm to the glass behind me and slide
it to the left. It is not a mirror but a closet door. I tell myself
where the weapon will be. It will be hanging against the right
wall, just inches away from my hand. I don’t shift my eyes
from the scarred man, but I find the gun with my fingertips
and wrap my hand around the handle.
I bite my lip and fire at the scarred man. I don’t wait to see
if the bullet hits him—I aim at each featureless man in turn,
as fast as I can. My lip aches from biting it so hard. The
pounding on the window stops, but a screeching sound
replaces it, and the fists turn into hands with bent fingers,
scratching at the glass, fighting to get in. The glass creaks
under the pressure of their hands, and then cracks, and then
shatters.
I scream.
I don’t have enough bullets in my gun.
Pale bodies—human bodies, but mangled, arms bent at
odd angles, too-wide mouths with needle teeth, empty eye
sockets—topple into my bedroom, one after the other, and
scramble to their feet, scramble toward me. I pull back into
the closet and shut the door in front of me. A solution. I need
a solution. I sink into a crouch and press the side of the gun
to my head. I can’t fight them off. I can’t fight them off, so I
have to calm down. The fear landscape will register my
slowing heartbeat and my even breath and it will move on to
the next obstacle.
I sit down on the floor of the closet. The wall behind me
creaks. I hear pounding—the fists are at it again, hitting the
closet door—but I turn and peer through the dark at the
panel behind me. It is not a wall but another door. I fumble to
push it aside and reveal the upstairs hallway. Smiling, I crawl
through the hole and stand. I smell something baking. I am at
home.
Taking a deep breath, I watch my house fade. I forgot, for
a second, that I was in Dauntless headquarters.
And then Tobias is standing in front of me.
But I’m not afraid of Tobias. I look over my shoulder.
Maybe there’s something behind me that I’m supposed to
focus on. But no—behind me is just a four-poster bed.
A bed?
Tobias walks toward me, slowly.
What’s going on?
I stare up at him, paralyzed. He smiles down at me. That
smile looks kind. Familiar.
He presses his mouth to mine, and my lips part. I thought
it would be impossible to forget I was in a simulation. I was
wrong; he makes everything else disintegrate.
His fingers find my jacket zipper and pull it down in one
slow swipe until the zipper detaches. He tugs the jacket from
my shoulders.
Oh, is all I can think, as he kisses me again. Oh.
My fear is being with him. I have been wary of affection all
my life, but I didn’t know how deep that wariness went.
But this obstacle doesn’t feel the same as the others. It is
a different kind of fear—nervous panic rather than blind
terror.
He slides his hands down my arms and then squeezes my
hips, his fingers sliding over the skin just above my belt, and
I shiver.
I gently push him back and press my hands to my
forehead. I have been attacked by crows and men with
grotesque faces; I have been set on fire by the boy who
almost threw me off a ledge; I have almost drowned
—twice—and this is what I can’t cope with? This is the fear I
have no solutions for—a boy I like, who wants to…have sex
with me?
Simulation Tobias kisses my neck.
I try to think. I have to face the fear. I have to take control of
the situation and find a way to make it less frightening.
I look Simulation Tobias in the eye and say sternly, “I am
not going to sleep with you in a hallucination. Okay?”
Then I grab him by his shoulders and turn us around,
pushing him against the bedpost. I feel something other than
fear—a prickle in my stomach, a bubble of laughter. I press
against him and kiss him, my hands wrapping around his
arms. He feels strong. He feels…good.
And he’s gone.
I laugh into my hand until my face gets hot. I must be the
only initiate with this fear.
A trigger clicks in my ear.
I almost forgot about this one. I feel the heft of a gun in my
hand and curl my fingers around it, slipping my index finger
over the trigger. A spotlight shines from the ceiling, its
source unknown, and standing in the center of its circle of
light are my mother, my father, and my brother.
“Do it,” hisses a voice next to me. It is female, but harsh,
like it’s cluttered with rocks and broken glass. It sounds like
Jeanine.
The barrel of a gun presses to my temple, a cold circle
against my skin. The cold travels across my body, making
the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I wipe my
sweaty palm on my pants and look at the woman through the
corner of my eye. It is Jeanine. Her glasses are askew, and
her eyes are empty of feeling.
My worst fear: that my family will die, and that I will be
responsible.
“Do it,” she says again, more insistent this time. “Do it or
I’ll kill you.”
I stare at Caleb. He nods, his eyebrows tugged in,
sympathetic. “Go ahead, Tris,” he says softly. “I understand.
It’s okay.”
My eyes burn. “No,” I say, my throat so tight it aches. I
shake my head.
“I’ll give you ten seconds!” the woman shouts. “Ten! Nine!”
My eyes skip from my brother to my father. The last time I
saw him, he gave me a look of contempt, but now his eyes
are wide and soft. I have never seen him wear that
expression in real life.
“Tris,” he says. “You have no other option.”
“Eight!”
“Tris,” my mother says. She smiles. She has a sweet
smile. “We love you.”
“Seven!”
“Shut up!” I shout, holding up the gun. I can do it. I can
shoot them. They understand. They’re asking me to. They
wouldn’t want me to sacrifice myself for them. They aren’t
even real. This is all a simulation.
“Six!”
It isn’t real. It doesn’t mean anything. My brother’s kind
eyes feel like two drills boring a hole in my head. My sweat
makes the gun slippery.
“Five!”
I have no other option. I close my eyes. Think. I have to
think. The urgency making my heart race depends on one
thing, and one thing only: the threat to my life.
“Four! Three!”
What did Tobias tell me? Selflessness and bravery aren’t
that different.
“Two!”
I release the trigger of my gun and drop it. Before I can
lose my nerve, I turn and press my forehead to the barrel of
the gun behind me.
Shoot me instead.
“One!”
I hear a click, and a bang.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE LIGHTS COME on. I stand alone in the empty room with the
concrete walls, shaking. I sink to my knees, wrapping my
arms around my chest. It wasn’t cold when I walked in, but it
feels cold now. I rub my arms to get rid of the goose bumps.
I have never felt relief like this before. Every muscle in my
body relaxes at once and I breathe freely again. I can’t
imagine going through my fear landscape in my spare time,
like Tobias does. It seemed like bravery to me before, but
now it seems more like masochism.
The door opens, and I stand. Max, Eric, Tobias, and a few
people I don’t know walk into the room in a line, standing in
a small crowd in front of me. Tobias smiles at me.
“Congratulations, Tris,” says Eric. “You have successfully
completed your final evaluation.”
I try to smile. It doesn’t work. I can’t shake the memory of
the gun against my head. I can still feel the barrel between
my eyebrows.
“Thanks,” I say.
“There is one more thing before you can go and get ready
for the welcoming banquet,” he says. He beckons to one of
the unfamiliar people behind him. A woman with blue hair
hands him a small black case. He opens it and takes out a
syringe and a long needle.
I tense up at the sight of it. The orange-brown liquid in the
syringe reminds me of what they inject us with before
simulations. And I am supposed to be finished with those.
“At least you aren’t afraid of needles,” he says. “This will
inject you with a tracking device that will be activated only if
you are reported missing. Just a precaution.”
“How often do people go missing?” I ask, frowning.
“Not often.” Eric smirks. “This is a new development,
courtesy of the Erudite. We have been injecting every
Dauntless throughout the day, and I assume all other
factions will comply as soon as possible.”
My stomach twists. I can’t let him inject me with anything,
especially not anything developed by Erudite—maybe even
by Jeanine. But I also can’t refuse. I can’t refuse or he will
doubt my loyalty again.
“All right,” I say, my throat tight.
Eric approaches me with the needle and syringe in hand. I
pull my hair away from my neck and tilt my head to the side. I
look away as Eric wipes my neck with an antiseptic wipe
and eases the needle into my skin. The deep ache spreads
through my neck, painful but brief. He puts the needle back
in its case and sticks an adhesive bandage on the injection
site.
“The banquet is in two hours,” he says. “Your ranking
among the other initiates, Dauntless-born included, will be
announced then. Good luck.”
The small crowd files out of the room, but Tobias lingers.
He pauses by the door and beckons for me to follow him, so
I do. The glass room above the Pit is full of Dauntless, some
of them walking the ropes above our heads, some talking
and laughing in groups. He smiles at me. He must not have
been watching.
“I heard a rumor that you only had seven obstacles to
face,” he says. “Practically unheard of.”
“You…you weren’t watching the simulation?”
“Only on the screens. The Dauntless leaders are the only
ones who see the whole thing,” he says. “They seemed
impressed.”
“Well, seven fears isn’t as impressive as four,” I reply, “but
it will suffice.”
“I would be surprised if you weren’t ranked first,” he says.
We walk into the glass room. The crowd is still there, but it
is thinner now that the last person—me—has gone.
People notice me after a few seconds. I stay close to
Tobias’s side as they point, but I can’t walk fast enough to
avoid some cheers, some claps on the shoulder, some
congratulations. As I look at the people around me, I realize
how strange they would look to my father and brother, and
how normal they seem to me, despite all the metal rings in
their faces and the tattoos on their arms and throats and
chests. I smile back at them.
We descend the steps into the Pit and I say, “I have a
question.” I bite my lip. “How much did they tell you about my
fear landscape?”
“Nothing, really. Why?” he says.
“No reason.” I kick a pebble to the side of the path.
“Do you have to go back to the dormitory?” he asks.
“Because if you want peace and quiet, you can stay with me
until the banquet.”
My stomach twists.
“What is it?” he asks.
I don’t want to go back to the dormitory, and I don’t want to
be afraid of him.
“Let’s go,” I say.
He closes the door behind us and slips off his shoes.
“Want some water?” he says.
“No thanks.” I hold my hands in front of me.
“You okay?” he says, touching my cheek. His hand
cradles the side of my head, his long fingers slipping
through my hair. He smiles and holds my head in place as
he kisses me. Heat spreads through me slowly. And fear,
buzzing like an alarm in my chest.
His lips still on mine, he pushes the jacket from my
shoulders. I flinch when I hear it drop, and push him back, my
eyes burning. I don’t know why I feel this way. I didn’t feel like
this when he kissed me on the train. I press my palms to my
face, covering my eyes.
“What? What’s wrong?”
I shake my head.
“Don’t tell me it’s nothing.” His voice is cold. He grabs my
arm. “Hey. Look at me.”
I take my hands from my face and lift my eyes to his. The
hurt in his eyes and the anger in his clenched jaw surprise
me.
“Sometimes I wonder,” I say, as calmly as I can, “what’s in
it for you. This…whatever it is.”
“What’s in it for me,” he repeats. He steps back, shaking
his head. “You’re an idiot, Tris.”
“I am not an idiot,” I say. “Which is why I know that it’s a
little weird that, of all the girls you could have chosen, you
chose me. So if you’re just looking for…um, you
know…that…”
“What? Sex?” He scowls at me. “You know, if that was all I
wanted, you probably wouldn’t be the first person I would go
to.”
I feel like he just punched me in the stomach. Of course
I’m not the first person he would go to—not the first, not the
prettiest, not desirable. I press my hands to my abdomen
and look away, fighting off tears. I am not the crying type.
Nor am I the yelling type. I blink a few times, lower my hands,
and stare up at him.
“I’m going to leave now,” I say quietly. And I turn toward
the door.
“No, Tris.” He grabs my wrist and wrenches me back. I
push him away, hard, but he grabs my other wrist, holding
our crossed arms between us.
“I’m sorry I said that,” he says. “What I meant was that you
aren’t like that. Which I knew when I met you.”
“You were an obstacle in my fear landscape.” My lower lip
wobbles. “Did you know that?”
“What?” He releases my wrists, and the hurt look is back.
“You’re afraid of me?”
“Not you,” I say. I bite my lip to keep it still. “Being with
you…with anyone. I’ve never been involved with someone
before, and…you’re older, and I don’t know what your
expectations are, and…”
“Tris,” he says sternly, “I don’t know what delusion you’re
operating under, but this is all new to me, too.”
“Delusion?” I repeat. “You mean you haven’t…” I raise my
eyebrows. “Oh. Oh. I just assumed…” That because I am so
absorbed by him, everyone else must be too. “Um. You
know.”
“Well, you assumed wrong.” He looks away. His cheeks
are bright, like he’s embarrassed. “You can tell me anything,
you know,” he says. He takes my face in his hands, his
fingertips cold and his palms warm. “I am kinder than I
seemed in training. I promise.”
I believe him. But this has nothing to do with his kindness.
He kisses me between the eyebrows, and on the tip of my
nose, and then carefully fits his mouth to mine. I am on edge.
I have electricity coursing through my veins instead of blood.
I want him to kiss me, I want him to; I am afraid of where it
might go.
His hands shift to my shoulders, and his fingers brush
over the edge of my bandage. He pulls back with a
puckered brow.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
“No. It’s another tattoo. It’s healed, I just…wanted to keep
it covered up.”
“Can I see?”
I nod, my throat tight. I pull my sleeve down and slip my
shoulder out of it. He stares down at my shoulder for a
second, and then runs his fingers over it. They rise and fall
with my bones, which stick out farther than I’d like. When he
touches me, I feel like everywhere his skin meets mine is
changed by the connection. It sends a thrill through my
stomach. Not just fear. Something else, too. A wanting.
He peels the corner of the bandage away. His eyes roam
over the symbol of Abnegation, and he smiles.
“I have the same one,” he says, laughing. “On my back.”
“Really? Can I see it?”
He presses the bandage over the tattoo and pulls my shirt
back over my shoulder.
“Are you asking me to undress, Tris?”
A nervous laugh gurgles from my throat. “Only…partially.”
He nods, his smile suddenly fading. He lifts his eyes to
mine and unzips his sweatshirt. It slides from his shoulders,
and he tosses it onto the desk chair. I don’t feel like laughing
now. All I can do is stare at him.
His eyebrows pull to the center of his forehead, and he
grabs the hem of his T-shirt. In one swift motion, he pulls it
over his head.
A patch of Dauntless flames covers his right side, but
other than that, his chest is unmarked. He averts his eyes.
“What is it?” I ask, frowning. He looks…uncomfortable.
“I don’t invite many people to look at me,” he says. “Any
people, actually.”
“I can’t imagine why,” I say softly. “I mean, look at you.”
I walk slowly around him. On his back is more ink than
skin. The symbols of each faction are drawn there—
Dauntless at the top of his spine, Abnegation just below it,
and the other three, smaller, beneath them. For a few
seconds I look at the scales that represent Candor, the eye
that stands for Erudite, and the tree that symbolizes Amity. It
makes sense that he would tattoo himself with the symbol of
Dauntless, his refuge, and even the symbol of Abnegation,
his place of origin, like I did. But the other three?
“I think we’ve made a mistake,” he says softly. “We’ve all
started to put down the virtues of the other factions in the
process of bolstering our own. I don’t want to do that. I want
to be brave, and selfless, and smart, and kind, and honest.”
He clears his throat. “I continually struggle with kindness.”
“No one’s perfect,” I whisper. “It doesn’t work that way.
One bad thing goes away, and another bad thing replaces
it.”
I traded cowardice for cruelty; I traded weakness for
ferocity.
I brush over Abnegation’s symbol with my fingertips. “We
have to warn them, you know. Soon.”
“I know,” he says. “We will.”
He turns toward me. I want to touch him, but I’m afraid of
his bareness; afraid that he will make me bare too.
“Is this scaring you, Tris?”
“No,” I croak. I clear my throat. “Not really. I’m only…afraid
of what I want.”
“What do you want?” Then his face tightens. “Me?”
Slowly I nod.
He nods too, and takes my hands in his gently. He guides
my palms to his stomach. His eyes lowered, he pushes my
hands up, over his abdomen and over his chest, and holds
them against his neck. My palms tingle with the feel of his
skin, smooth, warm. My face is hot, but I shiver anyway. He
looks at me.
“Someday,” he says, “if you still want me, we can…” He
pauses, clears his throat. “We can…”
I smile a little and wrap my arms around him before he
finishes, pressing the side of my face to his chest. I feel his
heartbeat against my cheek, as fast as my own.
“Are you afraid of me, too, Tobias?”
“Terrified,” he replies with a smile.
I turn my head and kiss the hollow beneath his throat.
“Maybe you won’t be in my fear landscape anymore,” I
murmur.
He bends his head and kisses me slowly.
“Then everyone can call you Six.”
“Four and Six,” I say.
We kiss again, and this time, it feels familiar. I know
exactly how we fit together, his arm around my waist, my
hands on his chest, the pressure of his lips on mine. We
have each other memorized.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I WATCH TOBIAS’S face carefully as we walk to the dining hall,
searching for any sign of disappointment. We spent the two
hours lying on his bed, talking and kissing and eventually
dozing until we heard shouts in the hallway—people on their
way to the banquet.
If anything, he seems lighter now than he was before. He
smiles more, anyway.
When we reach the entrance, we separate. I go in first,
and run to the table I share with Will and Christina. He enters
second, a minute later, and sits down next to Zeke, who
hands him a dark bottle. He waves it away.
“Where did you go?” asks Christina. “Everyone else went
back to the dormitory.”
“I just wandered around,” I say. “I was too nervous to talk
to everyone else about it.”
“You have no reason to be nervous,” Christina says,
shaking her head. “I turned around to talk to Will for one
second, and you were already done.”
I detect a note of jealousy in her voice, and again, I wish I
could explain that I was well prepared for the simulation,
because of what I am. Instead I just shrug.
“What job are you going to pick?” I ask her.
“I’m thinking I might want a job like Four’s. Training
initiates,” she says. “Scaring the living daylights out of them.
You know, fun stuff. What about you?”
I was so focused on getting through initiation that I barely
thought about it. I could work for the Dauntless leaders—but
they would kill me if they discover what I am. What else is
there?
“I guess…I could be an ambassador to the other factions,”
I say. “I think being a transfer would help me.”
“I was so hoping you would say Dauntless-leader-intraining,”
sighs Christina. “Because that’s what Peter wants.
He couldn’t shut up about it in the dorm earlier.”
“And it’s what I want,” adds Will. “Hopefully I ranked higher
than him…oh, and all the Dauntless-born initiates. Forgot
about them.” He groans. “Oh God. This is going to be
impossible.”
“No, it isn’t,” she says. Christina reaches for his hand and
laces her fingers with his, like it’s the most natural thing in
the world. Will squeezes her hand.
“Question,” says Christina, leaning forward. “The leaders
who were watching your fear landscape…they were
laughing about something.”
“Oh?” I bite my lip hard. “I’m glad my terror amuses them.”
“Any idea which obstacle it was?” she asks.
“No.”
“You’re lying,” she says. “You always bite the inside of
your cheek when you lie. It’s your tell.”
I stop biting the inside of my cheek.
“Will’s is pinching his lips together, if it makes you feel
better,” she adds.
Will covers his mouth immediately.
“Okay, fine. I was afraid of…intimacy,” I say.
“Intimacy,” repeats Christina. “Like…sex?”
I tense up. And force myself to nod. Even if it was just
Christina, and no one else was around, I would still want to
strangle her right now. I go over a few ways to inflict
maximum injury with minimum force in my head. I try to throw
flames from my eyes.
Will laughs.
“What was that like?” she says. “I mean, did someone
just…try to do it with you? Who was it?”
“Oh, you know. Faceless…unidentifiable male,” I say.
“How were your moths?”
“You promised you would never tell!” cries Christina,
smacking my arm.
“Moths,” repeats Will. “You’re afraid of moths?”
“Not just a cloud of moths,” she says, “like…a swarm of
them. Everywhere. All those wings and legs and…” She
shudders and shakes her head.
“Terrifying,” Will says with mock seriousness. “That’s my
girl. Tough as cotton balls.”
“Oh, shut up.”
A microphone squeals somewhere, so loud I clap my
hands over my ears. I look across the room at Eric, who
stands on one of the tables with the microphone in hand,
tapping it with his fingertips. After the tapping is done and
the crowd of Dauntless is quiet, Eric clears his throat and
begins.
“We aren’t big on speeches here. Eloquence is for
Erudite,” he says. The crowd laughs. I wonder if they know
that he was an Erudite once; that under all the pretense of
Dauntless recklessness and even brutality, he is more like
an Erudite than anything else. If they did, I doubt they would
laugh at him. “So I’m going to keep this short. It’s a new
year, and we have a new pack of initiates. And a slightly
smaller pack of new members. We offer them our
congratulations.”
At the word “congratulations” the room erupts, not into
applause, but into the pounding of fists on tabletops. The
noise vibrates in my chest, and I grin.
“We believe in bravery. We believe in taking action. We
believe in freedom from fear and in acquiring the skills to
force the bad out of our world so that the good can prosper
and thrive. If you also believe in those things, we welcome
you.”
Even though I know Eric probably doesn’t believe in any
of those things, I find myself smiling, because I believe in
them. No matter how badly the leaders have warped the
Dauntless ideals, those ideals can still belong to me.
More pounding fists, this time accompanied by whoops.
“Tomorrow, in their first act as members, our top ten
initiates will choose their professions, in the order of how
they are ranked,” Eric says. “The rankings, I know, are what
everyone is really waiting for. They are determined by a
combination of three scores—the first, from the combat
stage of training; the second, from the simulation stage; and
the third, from the final examination, the fear landscape. The
rankings will appear on the screen behind me.”
As soon as the word “me” leaves his mouth, the names
appear on the screen, which is almost as large as the wall
itself. Next to the number one is my picture, and the name
“Tris.”
A weight in my chest lifts. I didn’t realize it was there until it
was gone, and I didn’t have to feel it anymore. I smile, and a
tingling spreads through me. First. Divergent or not, this
faction is where I belong.
I forget about war; I forget about death. Will’s arms wrap
around me and he gives me a bear hug. I hear cheering and
laughing and shouting. Christina points at the screen, her
eyes wide and filled with tears.
1. Tris
2. Uriah
3. Lynn
4. Marlene
5. Peter
Peter stays. I suppress a sigh. But then I read the rest of
the names.
6. Will
7. Christina
I smile, and Christina reaches across the table to hug me.
I am too distracted to protest against the affection. She
laughs in my ear.
Someone grabs me from behind and shouts in my ear. It’s
Uriah. I can’t turn around, so I reach back and squeeze his
shoulder.
“Congratulations!” I shout.
“You beat them!” he shouts back. He releases me,
laughing, and runs into a crowd of Dauntless-born initiates.
I crane my neck to look at the screen again. I follow the list
down.
Eight, nine, and ten are Dauntless-borns whose names I
barely recognize.
Eleven and twelve are Molly and Drew.
Molly and Drew are cut. Drew, who tried to run away while
Peter held me by the throat over the chasm, and Molly, who
fed the Erudite lies about my father, are factionless.
It isn’t quite the victory I wanted, but it’s a victory
nonetheless.
Will and Christina kiss, a little too sloppily for my taste. All
around me is the pounding of Dauntless fists. Then I feel a
tap on my shoulder and turn to see Tobias standing behind
me. I get up, beaming.
“You think giving you a hug would give away too much?”
he says.
“You know,” I say, “I really don’t care.”
I stand on my tiptoes and press my lips to his.
It is the best moment of my life.
A moment later, Tobias’s thumb brushes over the
injection site in my neck, and a few things come together at
once. I don’t know how I didn’t figure this out before.
One: Colored serum contains transmitters.
Two: Transmitters connect the mind to a simulation
program.
Three: Erudite developed the serum.
Four: Eric and Max are working with the Erudite.
I break away from the kiss and stare wide-eyed at Tobias.
“Tris?” he says, confused.
I shake my head. “Not now.” I meant to say not here. Not
with Will and Christina standing a foot away from me—
staring with open mouths, probably because I just kissed
Tobias—and the clamor of the Dauntless surrounding us.
But he has to know how important it is.
“Later,” I say. “Okay?”
He nods. I don’t even know how I’ll explain it later. I don’t
even know how to think straight.
But I do know how Erudite will get us to fight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I TRY TO get Tobias alone after the rankings are announced,
but the crowd of initiates and members is too thick, and the
force of their congratulations pulls him away from me. I
decide to sneak out of the dormitory after everyone is
asleep and find him, but the fear landscape exhausted me
more than I realized, so soon enough, I drift off too.
I wake to squeaking mattresses and shuffling feet. It’s too
dark for me to see clearly, but as my eyes adjust, I see that
Christina is tying her shoelaces. I open my mouth to ask her
what she’s doing, but then I notice that across from me, Will
is putting on a shirt. Everyone is awake, but everyone is
silent.
“Christina,” I hiss. She doesn’t look at me, so I grab her
shoulder and shake it. “Christina!”
She just keeps tying her shoelaces.
My stomach squeezes when I see her face. Her eyes are
open, but blank, and her facial muscles are slack. She
moves without looking at what she’s doing, her mouth halfopen,
not awake but seeming awake. And everyone else
looks just like her.
“Will?” I ask, crossing the room. All the initiates fall into a
line when they finish dressing. They start to file silently out of
the dormitory. I grab Will’s arm to keep him from leaving, but
he moves forward with irrepressible force. I grit my teeth and
hold on as hard as I can, digging my heels into the ground.
He just drags me along with him.
They are sleepwalkers.
I fumble for my shoes. I can’t stay here alone. I tie my
shoes in a hurry, pull on a jacket, and sprint out of the room,
catching up to the line of initiates quickly, conforming my
pace to theirs. It takes me a few seconds to realize that they
move in unison, the same foot forward as the same arm
swings back. I mimic them as best I can, but the rhythm feels
strange to me.
We march toward the Pit, but when we reach the
entrance, the front of the line turns left. Max stands in the
hallway, watching us. My heart hammers in my chest and I
stare as vacantly as possible ahead of me, focusing on the
rhythm of my feet. I tense as I pass him. He’ll notice. He’ll
notice I’m not brain-dead like the rest of them and
something bad will happen to me, I just know it.
Max’s dark eyes pass right over me.
We climb a flight of stairs and travel at the same rhythm
down four corridors. Then the hallway opens up to a huge
cavern. Inside it is a crowd of Dauntless.
There are rows of tables with mounds of black on them. I
can’t see what the piles are until I am a foot away from them.
Guns.
Of course. Eric said every Dauntless was injected
yesterday. So now the entire faction is brain-dead,
obedient, and trained to kill. Perfect soldiers.
I pick up a gun and a holster and a belt, copying Will, who
is directly in front of me. I try to match his movements, but I
can’t predict what he’s going to do, so I end up fumbling
more than I’d like to. I grit my teeth. I just have to trust that no
one is watching me.
Once I’m armed, I follow Will and the other initiates toward
the exit.
I can’t wage war against Abnegation, against my family. I
would rather die. My fear landscape proved that. My list of
options narrows, and I see the path I must take. I will pretend
long enough to get to the Abnegation sector of the city. I will
save my family. And whatever happens after that doesn’t
matter. A blanket of calm settles over me.
The line of initiates passes into a dark hallway. I can’t see
Will ahead of me, or anything ahead of him. My foot hits
something hard, and I stumble, my hands outstretched. My
knee hits something else—a step. I straighten, so tense my
teeth are almost chattering. They didn’t see that. It’s too
dark. Please let it be too dark.
As the staircase turns, light flows into the cavern, until I
can finally see Will’s shoulders in front of me again. I focus
on matching my rhythm to his as I reach the top of the stairs,
passing another Dauntless leader. Now I know who the
Dauntless leaders are, because they are the only people
who are awake.
Well, not the only people. I must be awake because I am
Divergent. And if I am awake, that means Tobias is too,
unless I am wrong about him.
I have to find him.
I stand next to the train tracks in a group that stretches as
far as I can see with my peripheral vision. The train is
stopped in front of us, every car open. One by one, my fellow
initiates climb into the train car in front of us.
I can’t turn my head to scan the crowd for Tobias, but I let
my eyes skirt to the side. The faces on my left are unfamiliar,
but I see a tall boy with short hair a few yards to my right. It
might not be him, and I can’t make sure, but it’s the best
chance I have. I don’t know how to get to him without
attracting attention. I have to get to him.
The car in front of me fills up, and Will turns toward the
next one. I take my cues from him, but instead of stopping
where he stops, I slip a few feet to the right. The people
around me are all taller than I am; they will shield me. I step
to the right again, clenching my teeth. Too much movement.
They will catch me. Please don’t catch me.
A blank-faced Dauntless in the next car offers a hand to
the boy in front of me, and he takes it, his movements
robotic. I take the next hand without looking at it, and climb
as gracefully as I can into the car.
I stand facing the person who helped me. My eyes twitch
up, just for a second, to see his face. Tobias, as blank-faced
as the rest of them. Was I wrong? Is he not Divergent?
Tears spark behind my eyes, and I blink them back as I turn
away from him.
People crowd into the car around me, so we stand in four
rows, shoulder-to-shoulder. And then something peculiar
happens: fingers lace with mine, and a palm presses to my
palm. Tobias, holding my hand.
My entire body is alive with energy. I squeeze his hand,
and he squeezes back. He is awake. I was right.
I want to look at him, but I force myself to stand still and
keep my eyes forward as the train starts to move. He moves
his thumb in a slow circle over the back of my hand. It is
meant to comfort me, but it frustrates me instead. I need to
talk to him. I need to look at him.
I can’t see where the train is going because the girl in
front of me is so tall, so I stare at the back of her head and
focus on Tobias’s hand in mine until the rails squeal. I don’t
know how long I’ve been standing there, but my back aches,
so it must have been a long time. The train screeches to a
stop, and my heart pounds so hard it’s difficult to breathe.
Right before we jump down from the car, I see Tobias turn
his head in my periphery, and I glance back at him. His dark
eyes are insistent as he says, “Run.”
“My family,” I say.
I look straight ahead again, and jump down from the train
car when it’s my turn. Tobias walks in front of me. I should
focus on the back of his head, but the streets I walk now are
familiar, and the line of Dauntless I follow fades from my
attention. I pass the place I went every six months with my
mother to pick up new clothes for our family; the bus stop
where I once waited in the morning to get to school; the strip
of sidewalk so cracked Caleb and I played a hopping,
jumping game to get across it.
They are all different now. The buildings are dark and
empty. The roads are packed with Dauntless soldiers, all
marching at the same rhythm except the officers, who stand
every few hundred yards, watching us walk by, or gathering
in clusters to discuss something. No one seems to be doing
anything. Are we really here for war?
I walk a half mile before I get an answer to that question.
I start to hear popping sounds. I can’t look around to see
where they’re coming from, but the farther I walk, the louder
and sharper they get, until I recognize them as gunshots. I
clench my jaw. I must keep walking; I have to stare straight
ahead.
Far ahead of us, I see a Dauntless soldier push a grayclothed
man to his knees. I recognize the man—he is a
council member. The soldier takes her gun out of her holster
and, with sightless eyes, fires a bullet into the back of the
council member’s skull.
The soldier has a gray streak in her hair. It’s Tori. My
steps almost falter.
Keep walking. My eyes burn. Keep walking.
We march past Tori and the fallen council member. When
I step over his hand, I almost burst into tears.
Then the soldiers in front of me stop walking, and so do I. I
stand as still as I can, but all I want to do is find Jeanine and
Eric and Max and shoot them all. My hands are shaking and
I can’t do anything to stop it. I breathe quickly through my
nose.
Another gunshot. From the corner of my left eye, I see a
gray blur collapse to the pavement. All the Abnegation will
die if this continues.
The Dauntless soldiers carry out unspoken orders without
hesitation and without question. Some adult members of
Abnegation are herded toward one of the nearby buildings,
along with the Abnegation children. A sea of black-clothed
soldiers guard the doors. The only people I do not see are
the Abnegation leaders. Maybe they are already dead.
One by one, the Dauntless soldiers in front of me step
away to perform one task or another. Soon the leaders will
notice that whatever signals everyone else is getting, I’m not
getting them. What will I do when that happens?
“This is insane,” coos a male voice on my right. I see a
lock of long, greasy hair, and a silver earring. Eric. He
pokes my cheek with his index finger, and I struggle against
the impulse to slap his hand away.
“They really can’t see us? Or hear us?” a female voice
asks.
“Oh, they can see and hear. They just aren’t processing
what they see and hear the same way,” says Eric. “They
receive commands from our computers in the transmitters
we injected them with…” At this, he presses his fingers to
the injection site to show the woman where it is. Stay still, I
tell myself. Still, still, still. “…and carry them out seamlessly.”
Eric shifts a step to the side and leans close to Tobias’s
face, grinning.
“Now, this is a happy sight,” he says. “The legendary Four.
No one’s going to remember that I came in second now, are
they? No one’s going to ask me, ‘What was it like to train
with the guy who has only four fears?’” He draws his gun and
points it at Tobias’s right temple. My heart pounds so hard I
feel it in my skull. He can’t shoot; he wouldn’t. Eric tilts his
head. “Think anyone would notice if he accidentally got
shot?”
“Go ahead,” the woman says, sounding bored. She must
be a Dauntless leader if she can give Eric permission. “He’s
nothing now.”
“Too bad you didn’t just take Max up on his offer, Four.
Well, too bad for you, anyway,” says Eric quietly, as he
clicks the bullet into its chamber.
My lungs burn; I haven’t breathed in almost a minute. I see
Tobias’s hand twitch in the corner of my eye, but my hand is
already on my gun. I press the barrel to Eric’s forehead. His
eyes widen, and his face goes slack, and for a second he
looks like another sleeping Dauntless soldier.
My index finger hovers over the trigger.
“Get your gun away from his head,” I say.
“You won’t shoot me,” Eric replies.
“Interesting theory,” I say. But I can’t murder him; I can’t. I
grit my teeth and shift my arm down, firing at Eric’s foot. He
screams and grabs his foot with both hands. The moment
his gun is no longer pointed at Tobias’s head, Tobias draws
his gun and fires at Eric’s friend’s leg. I don’t wait to see if
the bullet hits her. I grab Tobias’s arm and sprint.
If we can make it to the alley, we can disappear into the
buildings and they won’t find us. There are two hundred
yards to go. I hear footsteps behind us, but I don’t look back.
Tobias grabs my hand and squeezes, pulling me forward,
faster than I have ever run, faster than I can run. I stumble
behind him. I hear a gunshot.
The pain is sharp and sudden, beginning in my shoulder
and spreading outward with electric fingers. A scream stops
in my throat, and I fall, my cheek scraping the pavement. I lift
my head to see Tobias’s knees by my face, and yell, “Run!”
His voice is calm and quiet as he replies, “No.”
In seconds we are surrounded. Tobias helps me up,
supporting my weight. I have trouble focusing through the
pain. Dauntless soldiers surround us and point their guns.
“Divergent rebels,” Eric says, standing on one foot. His
face is a sickly white. “Surrender your weapons.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I LEAN HEAVILY on Tobias. A gun barrel pressed to my spine
urges me forward, through the front doors of Abnegation
headquarters, a plain gray building, two stories high. Blood
trickles down my side. I’m not afraid of what’s coming; I’m in
too much pain to think about it.
The gun barrel pushes me toward a door guarded by two
Dauntless soldiers. Tobias and I walk through it and enter a
plain office that contains just a desk, a computer, and two
empty chairs. Jeanine sits behind the desk, a phone against
her ear.
“Well, send some of them back on the train, then,” she
says. “It needs to be well guarded, it’s the most important
part—I’m not talk—I have to go.” She snaps the phone shut
and focuses her gray eyes on me. They remind me of
melted steel.
“Divergent rebels,” one of the Dauntless says. He must be
a Dauntless leader—or maybe a recruit who was removed
from the simulation.
“Yes, I can see that.” She takes her glasses off, folds
them, and sets them on the desk. She probably wears the
glasses out of vanity rather than necessity, because she
thinks they make her look smarter—my father said so.
“You,” she says, pointing at me, “I expected. All the
trouble with your aptitude test results made me suspicious
from the beginning. But you…”
She shakes her head as she shifts her eyes to Tobias.
“You, Tobias—or should I call you Four?—managed to
elude me,” she says quietly. “Everything about you checked
out: test results, initiation simulations, everything. But here
you are nonetheless.” She folds her hands and sets her chin
on top of them. “Perhaps you could explain to me how that
is?”
“You’re the genius,” he says coolly. “Why don’t you tell
me?”
Her mouth curls into a smile. “My theory is that you really
do belong in Abnegation. That your Divergence is weaker.”
She smiles wider. Like she’s amused. I grit my teeth and
consider lunging across the table and strangling her. If I
didn’t have a bullet in my shoulder, I might.
“Your powers of deductive reasoning are stunning,” spits
Tobias. “Consider me awed.”
I look sideways at him. I had almost forgotten about this
side of him—the part that is more likely to explode than to lie
down and die.
“Now that your intelligence has been verified, you might
want to get on with killing us.” Tobias closes his eyes. “You
have a lot of Abnegation leaders to murder, after all.”
If Tobias’s comments bother Jeanine, she doesn’t let on.
She keeps smiling and stands smoothly. She wears a blue
dress that hugs her body from shoulder to knee, revealing a
layer of pudge around her middle. The room spins as I try to
focus on her face, and I slump against Tobias for support.
He slides his arm around me, supporting me from the waist.
“Don’t be silly. There is no rush,” she says lightly. “You are
both here for an extremely important purpose. You see, it
perplexed me that the Divergent were immune to the serum
that I developed, so I have been working to remedy that. I
thought I might have, with the last batch, but as you know, I
was wrong. Luckily I have another batch to test.”
“Why bother?” She and the Dauntless leaders had no
problem killing the Divergent in the past. Why would it be
any different now?
She smirks at me.
“I have had a question since I began the Dauntless
project, and it is this.” She sidesteps her desk, skimming
the surface with her finger. “Why are most of the Divergent
weak-willed, God-fearing nobodies from Abnegation, of all
factions?”
I didn’t know that most of the Divergent came from
Abnegation, and I don’t know why that would be. And I
probably won’t live long enough to figure it out.
“Weak-willed,” Tobias scoffs. “It requires a strong will to
manipulate a simulation, last time I checked. Weak-willed is
mind-controlling an army because it’s too hard for you to
train one yourself.”
“I am not a fool,” says Jeanine. “A faction of intellectuals is
no army. We are tired of being dominated by a bunch of
self-righteous idiots who reject wealth and advancement, but
we couldn’t do this on our own. And your Dauntless leaders
were all too happy to oblige me if I guaranteed them a place
in our new, improved government.”
“Improved,” Tobias says, snorting.
“Yes, improved,” Jeanine says. “Improved, and working
toward a world in which people will live in wealth, comfort,
and prosperity.”
“At whose expense?” I ask, my voice thick and sluggish.
“All that wealth…doesn’t come from nowhere.”
“Currently, the factionless are a drain on our resources,”
Jeanine replies. “As is Abnegation. I am sure that once the
remains of your old faction are absorbed into the Dauntless
army, Candor will cooperate and we will finally be able to
get on with things.”
Absorbed into the Dauntless army. I know what that
means—she wants to control them, too. She wants
everyone to be pliable and easy to control.
“Get on with things,” Tobias repeats bitterly. He raises his
voice. “Make no mistake. You will be dead before the day is
out, you—”
“Perhaps if you could control your temper,” Jeanine says,
her words cutting cleanly across Tobias’s, “you would not be
in this situation to begin with, Tobias.”
“I’m in this situation because you put me here,” he snaps.
“The second you orchestrated an attack against innocent
people.”
“Innocent people.” Jeanine laughs. “I find that a little funny,
coming from you. I would expect Marcus’s son to understand
that not all those people are innocent.” She perches on the
edge of the desk, her skirt pulling away from her knees,
which are crossed with stretch marks. “Can you tell me
honestly that you wouldn’t be happy to discover that your
father was killed in the attack?”
“No,” says Tobias through gritted teeth. “But at least his
evil didn’t involve the widespread manipulation of an entire
faction and the systematic murder of every political leader
we have.”
They stare at each other for a few seconds, long enough
to make me feel tense to my core, and then Jeanine clears
her throat.
“What I was going to say,” she says, “is that soon, dozens
of the Abnegation and their young children will be my
responsibility to keep in order, and it does not bode well for
me that a large number of them may be Divergent like
yourselves, incapable of being controlled by the
simulations.”
She stands and walks a few steps to the left, her hands
clasped in front of her. Her nail beds, like mine, are bitten
raw.
“Therefore, it was necessary that I develop a new form of
simulation to which they are not immune. I have been forced
to reassess my own assumptions. That is where you come
in.” She paces a few steps to the right. “You are correct to
say that you are strong-willed. I cannot control your will. But
there are a few things I can control.”
She stops and turns to face us. I lean my temple into
Tobias’s shoulder. Blood trails down my back. The pain has
been so constant for the past few minutes that I have gotten
used to it, like a person gets used to a siren’s wail if it
remains consistent.
She presses her palms together. I see no vicious glee in
her eyes, and not a hint of the sadism I expect. She is more
machine than maniac. She sees problems and forms
solutions based on the data she collects. Abnegation stood
in the way of her desire for power, so she found a way to
eliminate it. She didn’t have an army, so she found one in
Dauntless. She knew that she would need to control large
groups of people in order to stay secure, so she developed
a way to do it with serums and transmitters. Divergence is
just another problem for her to solve, and that is what makes
her so terrifying—because she is smart enough to solve
anything, even the problem of our existence.
“I can control what you see and hear,” she says. “So I
created a new serum that will adjust your surroundings to
manipulate your will. Those who refuse to accept our
leadership must be closely monitored.”
Monitored—or robbed of free will. She has a gift with
words.
“You will be the first test subject, Tobias. Beatrice,
however…” She smiles. “You are too injured to be of much
use to me, so your execution will occur at the conclusion of
this meeting.”
I try to hide the shudder that goes through me at the word
“execution,” my shoulder screaming with pain, and look up
at Tobias. It’s hard to blink the tears back when I see the
terror in Tobias’s wide, dark eyes.
“No,” says Tobias. His voice trembles, but his look is
stern as he shakes his head. “I would rather die.”
“I’m afraid you don’t have much of a choice in the matter,”
replies Jeanine lightly.
Tobias takes my face in his hands roughly and kisses me,
the pressure of his lips pushing mine apart. I forget my pain
and the terror of approaching death and for a moment, I am
grateful that the memory of that kiss will be fresh in my mind
as I meet my end.
Then he releases me and I have to lean against the wall
for support. With no more warning than the tightening of his
muscles, Tobias lunges across the desk and wraps his
hands around Jeanine’s throat. Dauntless guards by the
door leap at him, their guns held ready, and I scream.
It takes two Dauntless soldiers to pull Tobias away from
Jeanine and shove him to the ground. One of the soldiers
pins him, his knees on Tobias’s shoulders and his hands on
Tobias’s head, pressing his face to the carpet. I lunge
toward them, but another guard slams his hands against my
shoulders, forcing me against the wall. I am weak from
blood loss and too small.
Jeanine braces herself against the desk, spluttering and
gasping. She rubs her throat, which is bright red with
Tobias’s fingerprints. No matter how mechanical she
seems, she’s still human; there are tears in her eyes as she
takes a box from her desk drawer and opens it, revealing a
needle and syringe.
Still breathing heavily, she carries it toward Tobias.
Tobias grits his teeth and elbows one of the guards in the
face. The guard slams the heel of his gun into the side of
Tobias’s head, and Jeanine sticks the needle into Tobias’s
neck. He goes limp.
A sound escapes my mouth, not a sob or a scream, but a
croaking, scraping moan that sounds detached, like it is
coming from someone else.
“Let him up,” says Jeanine, her voice scratchy.
The guard gets up, and so does Tobias. He does not look
like the sleepwalking Dauntless soldiers; his eyes are alert.
He looks around for a few seconds as if confused by what
he sees.
“Tobias,” I say. “Tobias!”
“He doesn’t know you,” says Jeanine.
Tobias looks over his shoulder. His eyes narrow and he
starts toward me, fast. Before the guards can stop him, he
closes a hand around my throat, squeezing my trachea with
his fingertips. I choke, my face hot with blood.
“The simulation manipulates him,” says Jeanine. I can
barely hear her over the pounding in my ears. “By altering
what he sees—making him confuse enemy with friend.”
One of the guards pulls Tobias off me. I gasp, drawing a
rattling breath into my lungs.
He is gone. Controlled by the simulation, he will now
murder the people he called innocent not three minutes ago.
Jeanine killing him would have hurt less than this.
“The advantage to this version of the simulation,” she
says, her eyes alight, “is that he can act independently, and
is therefore far more effective than a mindless soldier.” She
looks at the guards who hold Tobias back. He struggles
against them, his muscles taut, his eyes focused on me, but
not seeing me, not seeing me the way they used to. “Send
him to the control room. We’ll want a sentient being there to
monitor things and, as I understand it, he used to work
there.”
Jeanine presses her palms together in front of her. “And
take her to room B13,” she says. She flaps her hand to
dismiss me. That flapping hand commands my execution,
but to her it is just crossing off an item from a list of tasks,
the only logical progression of the particular path that she is
on. She surveys me without feeling as two Dauntless
soldiers pull me out of the room.
They drag me down the hallway. I feel numb inside, but
outside I am a screaming, thrashing force of will. I bite a
hand that belongs to the Dauntless man on my right and
smile as I taste blood. Then he hits me, and there is nothing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
I WAKE IN the dark, wedged in a hard corner. The floor
beneath me is smooth and cold. I touch my throbbing head
and liquid slips across my fingertips. Red—blood. When I
bring my hand back down, my elbow hits a wall. Where am
I?
A light flickers above me. The bulb is blue and dim when
it’s lit. I see the walls of a tank around me, and my
shadowed reflection across from me. The room is small,
with concrete walls and no windows, and I am alone in it.
Well, almost—a small video camera is attached to one of
the concrete walls.
I see a small opening near my feet. Connected to it is a
tube, and connected to the tube, in the corner of the room, is
a huge tank.
The trembling starts in my fingertips and spreads up my
arms, and soon my body is shuddering.
I’m not in a simulation this time.
My right arm is numb. When I push myself out of the
corner, I see a pool of blood where I was sitting. I can’t panic
now. I stand, leaning against a wall, and breathe. The worst
thing that can happen to me now is that I drown in this tank. I
press my forehead to the glass and laugh. That is the worst
thing I can imagine. My laugh turns into a sob.
If I refuse to give up now, it will look brave to whoever
watches me with that camera, but sometimes it isn’t fighting
that’s brave, it’s facing the death you know is coming. I sob
into the glass. I’m not afraid of dying, but I want to die a
different way, any other way.
It is better to scream than cry, so I scream and slam my
heel into the wall behind me. My foot bounces off, and I kick
again, so hard my heel throbs. I kick again and again and
again, then pull back and throw my left shoulder into the wall.
The impact makes the wound in my right shoulder burn like it
got stuck with a hot poker.
Water trickles into the bottom of the tank.
The video camera means they’re watching me—no,
studying me, as only the Erudite would. To see if my
reaction in reality matches my reaction in the simulation. To
prove that I’m a coward.
I uncurl my fists and drop my hands. I am not a coward. I
lift my head and stare at the camera across from me. If I
focus on breathing, I can forget that I’m about to die. I stare
at the camera until my vision narrows and it is all I see.
Water tickles my ankles, then my calves, then my thighs. It
rises over my fingertips. I breathe in; I breathe out. The water
is soft and feels like silk.
I breathe in. The water will wash my wounds clean. I
breathe out. My mother submerged me in water when I was
a baby, to give me to God. It has been a long time since I
thought about God, but I think about him now. It is only
natural. I am glad, suddenly, that I shot Eric in the foot
instead of the head.
My body rises with the water. Instead of kicking my feet to
stay abreast of it, I push all the air from my lungs and sink to
the bottom. The water muffles my ears. I feel its movement
over my face. I think about snorting the water into my lungs
so it kills me faster, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I blow
bubbles from my mouth.
Relax. I close my eyes. My lungs burn.
I let my hands float up to the top of the tank. I let the water
fold me in its silken arms.
When I was young, my father used to hold me over his
head and run with me so I felt like I was flying. I remember
how the air felt, gliding over my body, and I am not afraid. I
open my eyes.
A dark figure stands in front of me. I must be close to
death if I’m seeing things. Pain stabs my lungs. Suffocating
is painful. A palm presses to the glass in front of my face,
and for a moment as I stare through the water, I think I see
my mother’s blurry face.
I hear a bang, and the glass cracks. Water sprays out a
hole near the top of the tank, and the pane cracks in half. I
turn away as the glass shatters, and the force of the water
throws my body at the ground. I gasp, swallowing water as
well as air, and cough, and gasp again, and hands close
around my arms, and I hear her voice.
“Beatrice,” she says. “Beatrice, we have to run.”
She pulls my arm across her shoulders and hauls me to
my feet. She is dressed like my mother and she looks like
my mother, but she is holding a gun, and the determined
look in her eyes is unfamiliar to me. I stumble beside her
over broken glass and through water and out an open
doorway. Dauntless guards lie dead next to the door.
My feet slip and slide on the tile as we walk down the
hallway, as fast as my weak legs can muster. When we turn
the corner, she fires at the two guards standing by the door
at the end. The bullets hit them both in the head, and they
slump to the floor. She pushes me against the wall and
takes off her gray jacket.
She wears a sleeveless shirt. When she lifts her arm, I
see the corner of a tattoo under her armpit. No wonder she
never changed clothes in front of me.
“Mom,” I say, my voice strained. “You were Dauntless.”
“Yes,” she says, smiling. She makes her jacket into a
sling for my arm, tying the sleeves around my neck. “And it
has served me well today. Your father and Caleb and some
others are hiding in a basement at the intersection of North
and Fairfield. We have to go get them.”
I stare at her. I sat next to her at the kitchen table, twice a
day, for sixteen years, and never once did I consider the
possibility that she could have been anything but
Abnegation-born. How well did I actually know my mother?
“There will be time for questions,” she says. She lifts her
shirt and slips a gun from under the waistband of her pants,
offering it to me. Then she touches my cheek. “Now we must
go.”
She runs to the end of the hallway, and I run after her.
We are in the basement of Abnegation headquarters. My
mother has worked there for as long as I can remember, so
I’m not surprised when she leads me down a few dark
hallways, up a dank staircase, and into daylight again
without interference. How many Dauntless guards did she
shoot before she found me?
“How did you know to find me?” I say.
“I’ve been watching the trains since the attacks started,”
she replies, glancing over her shoulder at me. “I didn’t know
what I would do when I found you. But it was always my
intention to save you.”
My throat feels tight. “But I betrayed you. I left you.”
“You’re my daughter. I don’t care about the factions.” She
shakes her head. “Look where they got us. Human beings
as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps
back in and poisons us again.”
She stops where the alley intersects with the road.
I know now isn’t the time for conversation. But there is
something I need to know.
“Mom, how do you know about Divergence?” I ask. “What
is it? Why…”
She pushes the bullet chamber open and peers inside.
Seeing how many bullets she has left. Then takes a few out
of her pocket and reloads. I recognize her expression as the
one she wears when she threads a needle.
“I know about them because I am one,” she says as she
shoves a bullet in place. “I was only safe because my mother
was a Dauntless leader. On Choosing Day, she told me to
leave my faction and find a safer one. I chose Abnegation.”
She puts an extra bullet in her pocket and stands up
straighter. “But I wanted you to make the choice on your
own.”
“I don’t understand why we’re such a threat to the
leaders.”
“Every faction conditions its members to think and act a
certain way. And most people do it. For most people, it’s not
hard to learn, to find a pattern of thought that works and stay
that way.” She touches my uninjured shoulder and smiles.
“But our minds move in a dozen different directions. We
can’t be confined to one way of thinking, and that terrifies
our leaders. It means we can’t be controlled. And it means
that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for
them.”
I feel like someone breathed new air into my lungs. I am
not Abnegation. I am not Dauntless.
I am Divergent.
And I can’t be controlled.
“Here they come,” she says, looking around the corner. I
peek over her shoulder and see a few Dauntless with guns,
moving to the same beat, heading toward us. My mother
looks back. Far behind us, another group of Dauntless run
down the alley, toward us, moving in time with one another.
She grabs my hands and looks me in the eyes. I watch
her long eyelashes move as she blinks. I wish I had
something of hers in my small, plain face. But at least I have
something of hers in my brain.
“Go to your father and brother. The alley on the right, down
to the basement. Knock twice, then three times, then six
times.” She cups my cheeks. Her hands are cold; her palms
are rough. “I’m going to distract them. You have to run as
fast as you can.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m not going anywhere without
you.”
She smiles. “Be brave, Beatrice. I love you.”
I feel her lips on my forehead and then she runs into the
middle of the street. She holds her gun above her head and
fires three times into the air. The Dauntless start running.
I sprint across the street and into the alley. As I run, I look
over my shoulder to see if any Dauntless follow me. But my
mother fires into the crowd of guards, and they are too
focused on her to notice me.
I whip my head over my shoulder when I hear them fire
back. My feet falter and stop.
My mother stiffens, her back arching. Blood surges from a
wound in her abdomen, dyeing her shirt crimson. A patch of
blood spreads over her shoulder. I blink, and the violent red
stains the inside of my eyelids. I blink again, and I see her
smile as she sweeps my hair trimmings into a pile.
She falls, first to her knees, her hands limp at her sides,
and then to the pavement, slumped to the side like a rag
doll. She is motionless and without breath.
I clamp my hand over my mouth and scream into my palm.
My cheeks are hot and wet with tears I didn’t feel beginning.
My blood cries out that it belongs to her, and struggles to
return to her, and I hear her words in my mind as I run, telling
me to be brave.
Pain stabs through me as everything I am made of
collapses, my entire world dismantled in a moment. The
pavement scrapes my knees. If I lie down now, this can all
be done. Maybe Eric was right, and choosing death is like
exploring an unknown, uncertain place.
I feel Tobias brushing my hair back before the first
simulation. I hear him telling me to be brave. I hear my
mother telling me to be brave.
The Dauntless soldiers turn as if moved by the same
mind. Somehow I get up and start running.
I am brave.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
THREE DAUNTLESS SOLDIERS pursue me. They run in unison,
their footsteps echoing in the alley. One of them fires, and I
dive, scraping my palms on the ground. The bullet hits the
brick wall to my right, and pieces of brick spray everywhere.
I throw myself around the corner and click a bullet into the
chamber of my gun.
They killed my mother. I point the gun into the alley and
fire blindly. It wasn’t really them, but it doesn’t matter—can’t
matter, and just like death itself, can’t be real right now.
Just one set of footsteps now. I hold the gun out with both
hands and stand at the end of the alley, pointing at the
Dauntless soldier. My finger squeezes the trigger, but not
hard enough to fire. The man running toward me is not a
man, he is a boy. A shaggy-haired boy with a crease
between his eyebrows.
Will. Dull-eyed and mindless, but still Will. He stops
running and mirrors me, his feet planted and his gun up. In
an instant, I see his finger poised over the trigger and hear
the bullet slide into the chamber, and I fire. My eyes
squeezed shut. Can’t breathe.
The bullet hit him in the head. I know because that’s where
I aimed it.
I turn around without opening my eyes and stumble away
from the alley. North and Fairfield. I have to look at the street
sign to see where I am, but I can’t read it; my vision is
blurred. I blink a few times. I stand just yards away from the
building that contains what’s left of my family.
I kneel next to the door. Tobias would call me unwise to
make any noise. Noise might attract Dauntless soldiers.
I press my forehead to the wall and scream. After a few
seconds I clamp my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound
and scream again, a scream that turns into a sob. The gun
clatters to the ground. I still see Will.
He smiles in my memory. A curled lip. Straight teeth. Light
in his eyes. Laughing, teasing, more alive in memory than I
am in reality. It was him or me. I chose me. But I feel dead
too.
I pound on the door—twice, then three times, then six times,
as my mother told me to.
I wipe the tears from my face. This is the first time I will
see my father since I left him, and I don’t want him to see me
half-collapsed and sobbing.
The door opens, and Caleb stands in the doorway. The
sight of him stuns me. He stares at me for a few seconds
and then throws his arms around me, his hand pressing to
the wound in my shoulder. I bite my lip to keep from crying
out, but a groan escapes me anyway, and Caleb yanks
back.
“Beatrice. Oh God, are you shot?”
“Let’s go inside,” I say weakly.
He drags his thumb under his eyes, catching the moisture.
The door falls shut behind us.
The room is dimly lit, but I see familiar faces, former
neighbors and classmates and my father’s coworkers. My
father, who stares at me like I’ve grown a second head.
Marcus. The sight of him makes me ache—Tobias…
No. I will not do that; I will not think of him.
“How did you know about this place?” Caleb says. “Did
Mom find you?”
I nod. I don’t want to think about Mom, either.
“My shoulder,” I say.
Now that I am safe, the adrenaline that propelled me here
is fading, and the pain is getting worse. I sink to my knees.
Water drips from my clothes onto the cement floor. A sob
rises within me, desperate for release, and I choke it back.
A woman named Tessa who lived down the street from us
rolls out a pallet. She was married to a council member, but I
don’t see him here. He is probably dead.
Someone else carries a lamp from one corner to the
other so we have light. Caleb produces a first-aid kit, and
Susan brings me a bottle of water. There is no better place
to need help than a room full of members of Abnegation. I
glance at Caleb. He’s wearing gray again. Seeing him in the
Erudite compound feels like a dream now.
My father comes to me, lifts my arm across his shoulders,
and helps me across the room.
“Why are you wet?” Caleb says.
“They tried to drown me,” I say. “Why are you here?”
“I did what you said—what Mom said. I researched the
simulation serum and found out that Jeanine was working to
develop long-range transmitters for the serum so its signal
could stretch farther, which led me to information about
Erudite and Dauntless…anyway, I dropped out of initiation
when I figured out what was happening. I would have warned
you, but it was too late,” he says. “I’m factionless now.”
“No, you aren’t,” my father says sternly. “You’re with us.”
I kneel on the pallet and Caleb cuts a piece of my shirt
away from my shoulder with a pair of medical scissors.
Caleb peels the square of fabric away, revealing first the
Abnegation tattoo on my right shoulder and second, the
three birds on my collarbone. Caleb and my father stare at
both tattoos with the same look of fascination and shock but
say nothing about them.
I lie on my stomach. Caleb squeezes my palm as my
father gets the antiseptic from the first aid kit.
“Have you ever taken a bullet out of someone before?” I
ask, a shaky laugh in my voice.
“The things I know how to do might surprise you,” he
replies.
A lot of things about my parents might surprise me. I think
of Mom’s tattoo and bite my lip.
“This will hurt,” he says.
I don’t see the knife go in, but I feel it. Pain spreads
through my body and I scream through gritted teeth, crushing
Caleb’s hand. Over the screaming, I hear my father ask me
to relax my back. Tears run from the corners of my eyes and
I do as he tells me. The pain starts again, and I feel the knife
moving under my skin, and I am still screaming.
“Got it,” he says. He drops something on the floor with a
ding.
Caleb looks at my father and then at me, and then he
laughs. I haven’t heard him laugh in so long that the sound
makes me cry.
“What’s so funny?” I say, sniffling.
“I never thought I would see us together again,” he says.
My father cleans the skin around my wound with
something cold. “Stitching time,” he says.
I nod. He threads the needle like he’s done it a thousand
times.
“One,” he says, “two…three.”
I clench my jaw and stay quiet this time. Of all the pain I
have suffered today—the pain of getting shot and almost
drowning and taking the bullet out again, the pain of finding
and losing my mother and Tobias, this is the easiest to
bear.
My father finishes stitching my wound, ties off the thread,
and covers the stitches with a bandage. Caleb helps me sit
up and separates the hems of his two shirts, pulling the longsleeved
one over his head and offering it to me.
My father helps me guide my right arm through the shirt
sleeve, and I pull the rest over my head. It is baggy and
smells fresh, smells like Caleb.
“So,” my father says quietly. “Where is your mother?”
I look down. I don’t want to deliver this news. I don’t want
to have this news to begin with.
“She’s gone,” I say. “She saved me.”
Caleb closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
My father looks momentarily stricken and then recovers
himself, averting his glistening eyes and nodding.
“That is good,” he says, sounding strained. “A good
death.”
If I speak right now, I will break down, and I can’t afford to
do that. So I just nod.
Eric called Al’s suicide brave, and he was wrong. My
mother’s death was brave. I remember how calm she was,
how determined. It isn’t just brave that she died for me; it is
brave that she did it without announcing it, without hesitation,
and without appearing to consider another option.
He helps me to my feet. Time to face the rest of the room.
My mother told me to save them. Because of that, and
because I am Dauntless, it’s my duty to lead now. I have no
idea how to bear that burden.
Marcus gets up. A vision of him whipping my arm with a
belt rushes into my mind when I see him, and my chest
squeezes.
“We are only safe here for so long,” Marcus says
eventually. “We need to get out of the city. Our best option is
to go to the Amity compound in the hope that they’ll take us
in. Do you know anything about the Dauntless strategy,
Beatrice? Will they stop fighting at night?”
“It’s not Dauntless strategy,” I say. “This whole thing is
masterminded by the Erudite. And it’s not like they’re giving
orders.”
“Not giving orders,” my father says. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I say, “ninety percent of the Dauntless are
sleepwalking right now. They’re in a simulation and they
don’t know what they’re doing. The only reason I’m not just
like them is that I’m…” I hesitate on the word. “The mind
control doesn’t affect me.”
“Mind control? So they don’t know that they’re killing
people right now?” my father asks me, his eyes wide.
“No.”
“That’s…awful.” Marcus shakes his head. His sympathetic
tone sounds manufactured to me. “Waking up and realizing
what you’ve done…”
The room goes quiet, probably as all the Abnegation
imagine themselves in the place of the Dauntless soldiers,
and that’s when it occurs to me.
“We have to wake them up,” I say.
“What?” Marcus says.
“If we wake the Dauntless up, they will probably revolt
when they realize what’s going on,” I explain. “The Erudite
won’t have an army. The Abnegation will stop dying. This will
be over.”
“It won’t be that simple,” my father says. “Even without the
Dauntless helping them, the Erudite will find another way to
—” “And how are we supposed to wake them up?” Marcus
says.
“We find the computers that control the simulation and
destroy the data,” I say. “The program. Everything.”
“Easier said than done,” Caleb says. “It could be
anywhere. We can’t just appear at the Erudite compound
and start poking around.”
“It’s…” I frown. Jeanine. Jeanine was talking about
something important when Tobias and I came into her
office, important enough to hang up on someone. You can’t
just leave it undefended. And then, when she was sending
Tobias away: Send him to the control room. The control
room where Tobias used to work. With the Dauntless
security monitors. And the Dauntless computers.
“It’s at Dauntless headquarters,” I say. “It makes sense.
That’s where all the data about the Dauntless is stored, so
why not control them from there?”
I faintly register that I said them. As of yesterday, I
technically became Dauntless, but I don’t feel like one. And I
am not Abnegation, either.
I guess I am what I’ve always been. Not Dauntless, not
Abnegation, not factionless. Divergent.
“Are you sure?” my father asks.
“It’s an informed guess,” I say, “and it’s the best theory I
have.”
“Then we’ll have to decide who goes and who continues
on to Amity,” he says. “What kind of help do you need,
Beatrice?”
The question stuns me, as does the expression he wears.
He looks at me like I’m a peer. He speaks to me like I’m a
peer. Either he has accepted that I am an adult now, or he
has accepted that I am no longer his daughter. The latter is
more likely, and more painful.
“Anyone who can and will fire a gun,” I say, “and isn’t
afraid of heights.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
ERUDITE AND DAUNTLESS forces are concentrated in the
Abnegation sector of the city, so as long as we run away
from the Abnegation sector, we are less likely to encounter
difficulty.
I didn’t get to decide who is coming with me. Caleb was
the obvious choice, since he knows the most about the
Erudite plan. Marcus insisted that he go, despite my
protests, because he is good with computers. And my father
acted like his place was assumed from the beginning.
I watch the others run in the opposite direction—toward
safety, toward Amity—for a few seconds, and then I turn
away, toward the city, toward the war. We stand next to the
railroad tracks, which will carry us into danger.
“What time is it?” I ask Caleb.
He checks his watch. “Three twelve.”
“Should be here any second,” I say.
“Will it stop?” he asks.
I shake my head. “It goes slowly through the city. We’ll run
next to the car for a few feet and then climb inside.”
Jumping on trains seems easy to me now, natural. It won’t
be as easy for the rest of them, but we can’t stop now. I look
over my left shoulder and see the headlights burning gold
against the gray buildings and roads. I bounce on the balls
of my feet as the lights grow larger and larger, and then the
front of the train glides past me, and I start jogging. When I
see an open car, I pick up my pace to keep stride with it and
grab the handle on the left, swinging myself inside.
Caleb jumps, landing hard and rolling on his side to get in,
and he helps Marcus. My father lands on his stomach,
pulling his legs in behind him. They move away from the
doorway, but I stand on the edge with one hand on a handle,
watching the city pass.
If I were Jeanine, I would send the majority of Dauntless
soldiers to the Dauntless entrance above the Pit, outside the
glass building. It would be smarter to go in the back
entrance, the one that requires jumping off a building.
“I assume you now regret choosing Dauntless,” Marcus
says.
I am surprised my father didn’t ask that question, but he,
like me, is watching the city. The train passes the Erudite
compound, which is dark now. It looks peaceful from a
distance, and inside those walls, it probably is peaceful. Far
removed from the conflict and the reality of what they have
done.
I shake my head.
“Not even after your faction’s leaders decided to join in a
plot to overthrow the government?” Marcus spits.
“There were some things I needed to learn.”
“How to be brave?” my father says quietly.
“How to be selfless,” I say. “Often they’re the same thing.”
“Is that why you got Abnegation’s symbol tattooed on your
shoulder?” Caleb asks. I am almost sure that I see a smile in
my father’s eyes.
I smile faintly back and nod. “And Dauntless on the other.”
The glass building above the Pit reflects sunlight into my
eyes. I stand, holding the handle next to the door for
balance. Almost there.
“When I tell you to jump,” I say, “you jump, as far as you
can.”
“Jump?” Caleb asks. “We’re seven stories up, Tris.”
“Onto a roof,” I add. Seeing the stunned look on his face, I
say, “That’s why they call it a test of bravery.”
Half of bravery is perspective. The first time I did this, it
was one of the hardest things I had ever done. Now,
preparing to jump off a moving train is nothing, because I
have done more difficult things in the past few weeks than
most people will in a lifetime. And yet none of it compares to
what I am about to do in the Dauntless compound. If I
survive, I will undoubtedly go on to do far more difficult things
than even that, like live without a faction, something I never
imagined possible.
“Dad, you go,” I say, stepping back so he can stand by the
edge. If he and Marcus go first, I can time it so they have to
jump the shortest distance. Hopefully Caleb and I can jump
far enough to make it, because we’re younger. It’s a chance
I have to take.
The train tracks curve, and when they line up with the
edge of the roof, I shout, “Jump!”
My father bends his knees and launches himself forward. I
don’t wait to see if he makes it. I shove Marcus forward and
shout, “Jump!”
My father lands on the roof, so close to the edge that I
gasp. He sits down on the gravel, and I push Caleb in front
of me. He stands at the edge of the train car and jumps
without me having to tell him to. I take a few steps back to
give myself a running start and leap out of the car just as the
train reaches the end of the roof.
For an instant I am suspended in nothingness, and then
my feet slam into cement and I stumble to the side, away
from the roof’s edge. My knees ache, and the impact
shudders through my body, making my shoulder throb. I sit
down, breathing hard, and look across the rooftop. Caleb
and my father stand at the edge of the roof, their hands
around Marcus’s arms. He didn’t make it, but he hasn’t
fallen yet.
Somewhere inside me, a vicious voice chants: fall, fall,
fall.But he doesn’t. My father and Caleb haul him onto the
roof. I stand up, brushing gravel off my pants. The thought of
what comes next has me preoccupied. It is one thing to ask
people to jump off a train, but a roof?
“This next part is why I asked about fear of heights,” I say,
walking to the edge of the roof. I hear their shuffling
footsteps behind me and step onto the ledge. Wind rushes
up the side of the building and lifts my shirt from my skin. I
stare down at the hole in the ground, seven stories below
me, and then close my eyes as the air blows over my face.
“There’s a net at the bottom,” I say, looking over my
shoulder. They look confused. They haven’t figured out what
I am asking them to do yet.
“Don’t think,” I say. “Just jump.”
I turn, and as I turn, I lean back, compromising my
balance. I drop like a stone, my eyes closed, one arm
outstretched to feel the wind. I relax my muscles as much as
I can before I hit the net, which feels like a slab of cement
hitting my shoulder. I grit my teeth and roll to the edge,
grabbing the pole that supports the net, and swing my leg
over the side. I land on my knees on the platform, my eyes
blurry with tears.
Caleb yelps as the net curls around his body and then
straightens. I stand with some difficulty.
“Caleb!” I hiss. “Over here!”
Breathing heavily, Caleb crawls to the side of the net and
drops over the edge, hitting the platform hard. Wincing, he
pushes himself to his feet and stares at me, his mouth open.
“How many times…have you…done that?” he asks
between breaths.
“Twice now,” I say.
He shakes his head.
When my father hits the net, Caleb helps him across.
When he stands on the platform, he leans and vomits over
the side. I descend the stairs, and when I get to the bottom, I
hear Marcus hit the net with a groan.
The cavern is empty and the hallways stretch into
darkness.
Jeanine made it sound like there was no one left in the
Dauntless compound except the soldiers she sent back to
guard the computers. If we can find Dauntless soldiers, we
can find the computers. I look over my shoulder. Marcus
stands on the platform, white as a sheet but unharmed.
“So this is the Dauntless compound,” says Marcus.
“Yes,” I say. “And?”
“And I never thought I would get to see it,” he replies, his
hand skimming a wall. “No need to be so defensive,
Beatrice.”
I never noticed how cold his eyes were before.
“Do you have a plan, Beatrice?” my father says.
“Yes.” And it’s true. I do, though I’m not sure when I
developed it.
I’m also not sure it will work. I can count on a few things:
There aren’t many Dauntless in the compound, the
Dauntless aren’t known for their subtlety, and I’ll do anything
to stop them.
We walk down the hallway that leads to the Pit, which is
striped with light every ten feet. When we walk into the first
patch of light, I hear a gunshot and drop to the ground.
Someone must have seen us. I crawl into the next dark
patch. The spark from the gun flashed across the room by
the door that leads to the Pit.
“Everyone okay?” I ask.
“Yes,” my father says.
“Stay here, then.”
I run to the side of the room. The lights protrude from the
wall, so directly beneath each one is a slit of shadow. I am
small enough to hide in it, if I turn to the side. I can creep
along the edge of the room and surprise whatever guard is
shooting at us before he gets the chance to fire a bullet into
my brain. Maybe.
One of the things I thank Dauntless for is the
preparedness that eliminates my fear.
“Whoever’s there,” a voice shouts, “surrender your
weapons and put your hands up!”
I turn to the side and press my back to the stone wall. I
shuffle quickly sideways, one foot crossing over the other,
squinting to see through the semidarkness. Another gunshot
fires into silence. I reach the last light and stand for a
moment in shadow, letting my eyes adjust.
I can’t win a fight, but if I can move fast enough, I won’t
have to fight. My footsteps light, I walk toward the guard who
stands by the door. A few yards away, I realize that I know
that dark hair that always gleams, even in relative darkness,
and that long nose with a narrow bridge.
It’s Peter.
Cold slips over my skin and around my heart and into the
pit of my stomach.
His face is tense—he isn’t a sleepwalker. He looks
around, but his eyes search the air above me and beyond
me. Judging by his silence, he does not intend to negotiate
with us; he will kill us without question.
I lick my lips, sprint the last few steps, and thrust the heel
of my hand up. The blow connects with his nose, and he
shouts, bringing both hands up to cover his face. My body
jolts with nervous energy and as his eyes squint, I kick him in
the groin. He drops to his knees, his gun clattering to the
ground. I grab it and press the barrel to the top of his head.
“How are you awake?” I demand.
He lifts his head, and I click the bullet into its chamber,
raising an eyebrow at him.
“The Dauntless leaders…they evaluated my records and
removed me from the simulation,” he says.
“Because they figured out that you already have
murderous tendencies and wouldn’t mind killing a few
hundred people while conscious,” I say. “Makes sense.”
“I’m not…murderous!”
“I never knew a Candor who was such a liar.” I tap the gun
against his skull. “Where are the computers that control the
simulation, Peter?”
“You won’t shoot me.”
“People tend to overestimate my character,” I say quietly.
“They think that because I’m small, or a girl, or a Stiff, I can’t
possibly be cruel. But they’re wrong.”
I shift the gun three inches to the left and fire at his arm.
His screams fill the hallway. Blood spurts from the wound,
and he screams again, pressing his forehead to the ground.
I shift the gun back to his head, ignoring the pang of guilt in
my chest.
“Now that you realize your mistake,” I say, “I will give you
another chance to tell me what I need to know before I shoot
you somewhere worse.”
Another thing I can count on: Peter is not selfless.
He turns his head and focuses a bright eye on me. His
teeth close over his lower lip, and his breaths shake on the
way out. And on the way in. And on the way out again.
“They’re listening,” he spits. “If you don’t kill me, they will.
The only way I’ll tell you is if you get me out of here.”
“What?”
“Take me…ahh…with you,” he says, wincing.
“You want me to take you,” I say, “the person who tried to
kill me…with me?”
“I do,” he groans. “If you expect to find out what you need
to know.”
It feels like a choice, but it isn’t. Every minute that I waste
staring at Peter, thinking about how he haunts my
nightmares and the damage he did to me, another dozen
Abnegation members die at the hands of the brain-dead
Dauntless army.
“Fine,” I say, almost choking on the word. “Fine.”
I hear footsteps behind me. Holding the gun steady, I look
over my shoulder. My father and the others walk toward us.
My father takes off his long-sleeved shirt. He wears a gray
T-shirt beneath it. He crouches next to Peter and loops the
fabric around his arm, tying it tightly. As he presses the
fabric to the blood running down Peter’s arm, he looks up at
me and says, “Was it really necessary to shoot him?”
I don’t answer.
“Sometimes pain is for the greater good,” says Marcus
calmly.
In my head, I see him standing before Tobias with a belt in
hand and hear his voice echo. This is for your own good. I
look at him for a few seconds. Does he really believe that? It
sounds like something the Dauntless would say.
“Let’s go,” I say. “Get up, Peter.”
“You want him to walk?” Caleb demands. “Are you
insane?”
“Did I shoot him in the leg?” I say. “No. He walks. Where
do we go, Peter?”
Caleb helps Peter to his feet.
“The glass building,” he says, wincing. “Eighth floor.”
He leads the way through the door.
I walk into the roar of the river and the blue glow of the Pit,
which is emptier now than I have ever seen it before. I scan
the walls, searching for signs of life, but I see no movement
and no figures standing in darkness. I keep my gun in hand
and start toward the path that leads to the glass ceiling. The
emptiness makes me shiver. It reminds me of the endless
field in my crow nightmares.
“What makes you think you have the right to shoot
someone?” my father says as he follows me up the path. We
pass the tattoo place. Where is Tori now? And Christina?
“Now isn’t the time for debates about ethics,” I say.
“Now is the perfect time,” he says, “because you will soon
get the opportunity to shoot someone again, and if you don’t
realize—”
“Realize what?” I say without turning around. “That every
second I waste means another Abnegation dead and
another Dauntless made into a murderer? I’ve realized that.
Now it’s your turn.”
“There is a right way to do things.”
“What makes you so sure that you know what it is?” I say.
“Please stop fighting,” Caleb interrupts, his voice chiding.
“We have more important things to do right now.”
I keep climbing, my cheeks hot. A few months ago I would
not have dared to snap at my father. A few hours ago I might
not have done it either. But something changed when they
shot my mother. When they took Tobias.
I hear my father huff and puff over the sound of rushing
water. I forgot that he is older than I am, that his frame can
no longer tolerate the weight of his body.
Before I ascend the metal stairs that will carry me above
the glass ceiling, I wait in darkness and watch the light cast
on the Pit walls by the sun. I watch until a shadow shifts over
the sunlit wall and count until the next shadow appears. The
guards make their rounds every minute and a half, stand for
twenty seconds, and then move on.
“There are men with guns up there. When they see me,
they will kill me, if they can,” I tell my father quietly. I search
his eyes. “Should I let them?”
He stares at me for a few seconds.
“Go,” he says, “and God help you.”
I climb the stairs carefully, stopping just before my head
emerges. I wait, watching the shadows move, and when one
of them stops, I step up, point my gun, and shoot.
The bullet does not hit the guard. It shatters the window
behind him. I fire again and duck as bullets hit the floor
around me with a ding. Thank God the glass ceiling is
bulletproof, or the glass would break and I would fall to my
death.
One guard down. I breathe deeply and put just my hand
over the ceiling, looking through the glass to see my target. I
tilt the gun back and fire at the guard running toward me.
The bullet hits him in the arm. Luckily it is his shooting arm,
because he drops his gun and it skids across the floor.
My body shaking, I launch myself through the hole in the
ceiling and snatch the fallen gun before he can get to it. A
bullet whizzes past my head, so close to hitting me that it
moves my hair. Eyes wide, I fling my right arm over my
shoulder, forcing a searing pain through my body, and fire
three times behind me. By some miracle, one of the bullets
hits a guard, and my eyes water uncontrollably from the pain
in my shoulder. I just ripped my stitches. I’m sure of it.
Another guard stands across from me. I lie flat on my
stomach and point both guns at him, my arms resting on the
floor. I stare into the black pinprick that is his gun barrel.
Then something surprising happens. He jerks his chin to
the side. Telling me to go.
He must be Divergent.
“All clear!” I shout.
The guard ducks into the fear landscape room, and he’s
gone.
Slowly I get to my feet, holding my right arm against my
chest. I have tunnel vision. I am running along this path and I
will not be able to stop, will not be able to think of anything,
until I reach the end.
I hand one gun to Caleb and slide the other one under my
belt.
“I think you and Marcus should stay here with him,” I say,
jerking my head toward Peter. “He’ll just slow us down.
Make sure no one comes after us.”
I hope he doesn’t understand what I’m doing—keeping
him here so he stays safe, even though he would gladly give
his life for this. If I go up into the building, I probably won’t
come back down. The best I can hope for is to destroy the
simulation before someone kills me. When did I decide on
this suicide mission? Why wasn’t it more difficult?
“I can’t stay here while you go up there and risk your life,”
says Caleb.
“I need you to,” I say.
Peter sinks to his knees. His face glistens with sweat. For
a second I almost feel bad for him, but then I remember
Edward, and the itch of fabric over my eyes as my attackers
blindfolded me, and my sympathy is lost to hatred. Caleb
eventually nods.
I approach one of the fallen guards and take his gun,
keeping my eyes away from the injury that killed him. My
head pounds. I haven’t eaten; I haven’t slept; I haven’t
sobbed or screamed or even paused for a moment. I bite
my lip and push myself toward the elevators on the right side
of the room. Level eight.
Once the elevator doors close, I lean the side of my head
against the glass and listen to the beeps.
I glance at my father.
“Thank you. For protecting Caleb,” my father says.
“Beatrice, I—”
The elevator reaches the eighth floor and the doors open.
Two guards stand ready with guns in hand, their faces blank.
My eyes widen, and I drop to my belly on the ground as the
shots go off. I hear bullets strike glass. The guards slump to
the ground, one alive and groaning, the other fading fast. My
father stands above them, his gun still held out from his
body.
I stumble to my feet. Guards run down the hallway on the
left. Judging by the synchronicity of their footsteps, they are
controlled by the simulation. I could run down the right
hallway, but if the guards came from the left hallway, that’s
where the computers are. I drop to the ground between the
guards my father just shot and lie as still as I can.
My father jumps out of the elevator and sprints down the
right hallway, drawing the Dauntless guards after him. I clap
my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming at him.
That hallway will end.
I try to bury my head so I don’t see it, but I can’t. I peer
over the fallen guard’s back. My father fires over his
shoulder at the guards pursuing him, but he is not fast
enough. One of them fires at his stomach, and he groans so
loud I can almost feel it in my chest.
He clutches his gut, his shoulders hitting the wall, and fires
again. And again. The guards are under the simulation; they
keep moving even when the bullets hit them, keep moving
until their hearts stop, but they don’t reach my father. Blood
spills over his hand and the color drains from his face.
Another shot and the last guard is down.
“Dad,” I say. I mean for it to be a shout, but it is just a
wheeze.
He slumps to the ground. Our eyes meet like the yards
between us are nothing.
His mouth opens like he’s about to say something, but
then his chin drops to his chest and his body relaxes.
My eyes burn and I am too weak to rise; the scent of
sweat and blood makes me feel sick. I want to rest my head
on the ground and let that be the end of it. I want to sleep
now and never wake.
But what I said to my father before was right—for every
second that I waste, another Abnegation member dies.
There is only one thing left for me in the world now, and it is
to destroy the simulation.
I push myself up and run down the hallway, turning right at
the end. There is only one door ahead. I open it.
The opposite wall is made up entirely of screens, each a
foot tall and a foot wide. There are dozens of them, each
one showing a different part of the city. The fence. The Hub.
The streets in the Abnegation sector, now crawling with
Dauntless soldiers. The ground level of the building below
us, where Caleb, Marcus, and Peter wait for me to return. It
is a wall of everything I have ever seen, everything I have
ever known.
One of the screens has a line of code on it instead of an
image. It breezes past faster than I can read. It is the
simulation, the code already compiled, a complicated list of
commands that anticipate and address a thousand different
outcomes.
In front of the screen is a chair and a desk. Sitting in the
chair is a Dauntless soldier.
“Tobias,” I say.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
TOBIAS’S HEAD TURNS, and his dark eyes shift to me. His
eyebrows draw in. He stands. He looks confused. He raises
his gun.
“Drop your weapon,” he says.
“Tobias,” I say, “you’re in a simulation.”
“Drop your weapon,” he repeats. “Or I’ll fire.”
Jeanine said he didn’t know me. Jeanine also said that
the simulation made Tobias’s friends into enemies. He will
shoot me if he has to.
I set my gun down at my feet.
“Drop your weapon!” shouts Tobias.
“I did,” I say. A little voice in my head sings that he can’t
hear me, he can’t see me, he doesn’t know me. Tongues of
flame press behind my eyes. I can’t just stand here and let
him shoot me.
I run at him, grabbing his wrist. I feel his muscles shift as
he pinches the trigger and duck my head just in time. The
bullet hits the wall behind me. Gasping, I kick him in the ribs
and twist his wrist to the side as hard as I can. He drops the
gun.
I can’t beat Tobias in a fight. I know that already. But I
have to destroy the computer. I dive for the gun, but before I
can touch it, he grabs me and wrenches me to the side.
I stare into his dark, conflicted eyes for an instant before
he punches me in the jaw. My head jerks to the side and I
cringe away from him, flinging my hands up to protect my
face. I can’t fall; I can’t fall or he’ll kick me, and that will be
worse, that will be much worse. I kick the gun back with my
heel so he can’t grab it and, ignoring the throbbing in my
jaw, kick him in the stomach.
He catches my foot and pulls me down so I fall on my
shoulder. The pain makes my vision go black at the edges. I
stare up at him. He pulls his foot back like he’s about to kick
me, and I roll onto my knees, stretching my arm out for the
gun. I don’t know what I’ll do with it. I can’t shoot him, I can’t
shoot him, I can’t. He is in there somewhere.
He grabs me by my hair and yanks me to the side. I reach
back and grab his wrist, but he’s too strong and my
forehead smacks into the wall.
He is in there somewhere.
“Tobias,” I say.
Did his grip falter? I twist and kick back, my heel hitting
him in the leg. When my hair slips through his fingers, I dive
at the gun and my fingertips close around the cool metal. I
flip over onto my back and point the gun at him.
“Tobias,” I say. “I know you’re in there somewhere.”
But if he was, he probably wouldn’t start toward me like
he’s about to kill me for certain this time.
My head throbs. I stand.
“Tobias, please.” I am begging. I am pathetic. Tears
make my face hot. “Please. See me.” He walks toward me,
his movements dangerous, fast, powerful. The gun shakes
in my hands. “Please see me, Tobias, please!”
Even when he scowls, his eyes look thoughtful, and I
remember how his mouth curled when he smiled.
I can’t kill him. I am not sure if I love him; not sure if that’s
why. But I am sure of what he would do if our positions were
reversed. I am sure that nothing is worth killing him for.
I have done this before—in my fear landscape, with the
gun in my hand, a voice shouting at me to fire at the people I
love. I volunteered to die instead, that time, but I can’t
imagine how that would help me now. But I just know, I know
what the right thing to do is.
My father says—used to say—that there is power in selfsacrifice.
I turn the gun in my hands and press it into Tobias’s palm.
He pushes the barrel into my forehead. My tears have
stopped and the air feels cold as it touches my cheeks. I
reach out and rest my hand on his chest so I can feel his
heartbeat. At least his heartbeat is still him.
The bullet clicks into the chamber. Maybe it will be as
easy to let him shoot me as it was in the fear landscape, as
it is in my dreams. Maybe it will just be a bang, and the lights
will lift, and I will find myself in another world. I stand still and
wait.
Can I be forgiven for all I’ve done to get here?
I don’t know. I don’t know.
Please.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
THE SHOT DOESN’T come. He stares at me with the same
ferocity but doesn’t move. Why doesn’t he shoot me? His
heart pounds against my palm, and my own heart lifts. He is
Divergent. He can fight this simulation. Any simulation.
“Tobias,” I say. “It’s me.”
I step forward and wrap my arms around him. His body is
stiff. His heart beats faster. I can feel it against my cheek. A
thud against my cheek. A thud as the gun hits the floor. He
grabs my shoulders—too hard, his fingers digging into my
skin where the bullet was. I cry out as he pulls me back.
Maybe he means to kill me in some crueler way.
“Tris,” he says, and it’s him again. His mouth collides with
mine.
His arm wraps around me and he lifts me up, holding me
against him, his hands clutching at my back. His face and
the back of his neck are slick with sweat, his body is
shaking, and my shoulder blazes with pain, but I don’t care, I
don’t care, I don’t care.
He sets me down and stares at me, his fingers brushing
over my forehead, my eyebrows, my cheeks, my lips.
Something like a sob and a sigh and a moan escapes
him, and he kisses me again. His eyes are bright with tears.
I never thought I would see Tobias cry. It makes me hurt.
I pull myself to his chest and cry into his shirt. All the
throbbing in my head comes back, and the ache in my
shoulder, and I feel like my body weight doubles. I lean
against him, and he supports me.
“How did you do it?” I say.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I just heard your voice.”
After a few seconds, I remember why I’m here. I pull back
and wipe my cheeks with the heels of my hands and turn
toward the screens again. I see one that overlooks the
drinking fountain. Tobias was so paranoid when I was railing
against Dauntless there. He kept looking at the wall above
the fountain. Now I know why.
Tobias and I stand there for a while, and I think I know
what he’s thinking, because I’m thinking it too: How can
something so small control so many people?
“Was I running the simulation?” he says.
“I don’t know if you were running it so much as monitoring
it,” I say. “It’s already complete. I have no idea how, but
Jeanine made it so it could work on its own.”
He shakes his head. “It’s…incredible. Terrible, evil…but
incredible.”
I see movement on one of the screens and see my
brother, Marcus, and Peter standing on the first floor of the
building. Surrounding them are Dauntless soldiers, all in
black, all carrying weapons.
“Tobias,” I say tersely. “Now!”
He runs to the computer screen and taps it a few times
with his finger. I can’t look at what he’s doing. All I can see is
my brother. He holds the gun I gave him straight out from his
body, like he’s ready to use it. I bite my lip. Don’t shoot.
Tobias presses the screen a few more times, typing in
letters that make no sense to me. Don’t shoot.
I see a flash of light—a spark, from one of the guns—and
gasp. My brother and Marcus and Peter crouch on the
ground with their arms over their heads. After a moment they
all stir, so I know they’re still alive, and the Dauntless
soldiers advance. A cluster of black around my brother.
“Tobias,” I say.
He presses the screen again, and everyone on the first
floor goes still.
Their arms drop to their sides.
And then the Dauntless move. Their heads turn from side
to side, and they drop their guns, and their mouths move like
they’re shouting, and they shove each other, and some of
them sink to their knees, holding their heads and rocking
back and forth, back and forth.
All the tension in my chest unravels, and I sit down,
heaving a sigh.
Tobias crouches next to the computer and pulls the side
of the case off.
“I have to get the data,” he says, “or they’ll just start the
simulation again.”
I watch the frenzy on the screen. It is the same frenzy that
must be happening on the streets. I scan the screens, one
by one, looking for one that shows the Abnegation sector of
the city. There is only one—it’s at the far end of the room, on
the bottom. The Dauntless on that screen are firing at one
another, shoving one another, screaming—chaos. Blackclothed
men and women drop to the ground. People sprint
in every direction.
“Got it,” says Tobias, holding up the computer’s hard
drive. It is a piece of metal about the size of his palm. He
offers it to me, and I shove it in my back pocket.
“We have to leave,” I say, getting to my feet. I point at the
screen on the right.
“Yes, we do.” He wraps his arm across my shoulders.
“Come on.”
We walk together down the hallway and around the
corner. The elevator reminds me of my father. I can’t stop
myself from looking for his body.
It is on the floor next to the elevator, surrounded by the
bodies of several guards. A strangled scream escapes me.
I turn away. Bile leaps into my throat and I throw up against
the wall.
For a second I feel like everything inside me is breaking,
and I crouch by a body, breathing through my mouth so I
don’t smell the blood. I clamp my hand over my mouth to
contain a sob. Five more seconds. Five seconds of
weakness and then I get up. One, two. Three, four.
Five.
I am not really aware of my surroundings. There is an
elevator and a glass room and a rush of cold air. There is a
shouting crowd of Dauntless soldiers dressed in black. I
search for Caleb’s face, but it is nowhere, nowhere until we
leave the glass building and step out into sunlight.
Caleb runs to me when I walk through the doors, and I fall
against him. He holds me tightly.
“Dad?” he says.
I just shake my head.
“Well,” he says, almost choking on the word, “he would
have wanted it that way.”
Over Caleb’s shoulder, I see Tobias stop in the middle of
a footstep. His entire body goes rigid as his eyes focus on
Marcus. In the rush to destroy the simulation, I forgot to warn
him.
Marcus walks up to Tobias and wraps his arms around
his son. Tobias stays frozen, his arms at his sides and his
face blank. I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down and
his eyes lift to the ceiling.
“Son,” sighs Marcus.
Tobias winces.
“Hey,” I say, pulling away from Caleb. I remember the belt
stinging on my wrist in Tobias’s fear landscape and slip into
the space between them, pushing Marcus back. “Hey. Get
away from him.”
I feel Tobias’s breaths against my neck; they come in
sharp bursts.
“Stay away,” I hiss.
“Beatrice, what are you doing?” asks Caleb.
“Tris,” Tobias says.
Marcus gives me a scandalized look that seems false to
me—his eyes are too wide and his mouth is too open. If I
could find a way to smack that look off his face, I would.
“Not all those Erudite articles were full of lies,” I say,
narrowing my eyes at Marcus.
“What are you talking about?” Marcus says quietly. “I don’t
know what you’ve been told, Beatrice, but—”
“The only reason I haven’t shot you yet is because he’s the
one who should get to do it,” I say. “Stay away from him or I’ll
decide I no longer care.”
Tobias’s hands slip around my arms and squeeze.
Marcus’s eyes stay on mine for a few seconds, and I can’t
help but see them as black pits, like they were in Tobias’s
fear landscape. Then he looks away.
“We have to go,” Tobias says unsteadily. “The train should
be here any second.”
We walk over unyielding ground toward the train tracks.
Tobias’s jaw is clenched and he stares straight ahead. I feel
a twinge of regret. Maybe I should have let him deal with his
father on his own.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he replies, taking my
hand. His fingers are still shaking.
“If we take the train in the opposite direction, out of the city
instead of in, we can get to Amity headquarters,” I say.
“That’s where the others went.”
“What about Candor?” my brother asks. “What do you
think they’ll do?”
I don’t know how Candor will respond to the attack. They
wouldn’t side with the Erudite—they would never do
something that underhanded. But they may not fight the
Erudite either.
We stand next to the tracks for a few minutes before the
train comes. Eventually Tobias picks me up, because I am
dead on my feet, and I lean my head into his shoulder,
taking deep breaths of his skin. Since he saved me from the
attack, I have associated his smell with safety, so as long as
I focus on it, I feel safe now.
The truth is, I will not feel safe as long as Peter and
Marcus are with us. I try not to look at them, but I feel their
presence like I would feel a blanket over my face. The
cruelty of fate is that I must travel with the people I hate when
the people I love are dead behind me.
Dead, or waking as murderers. Where are Christina and
Tori now? Wandering the streets, plagued with guilt for what
they’ve done? Or turning guns on the people who forced
them to do it? Or are they already dead too? I wish I knew.
At the same time, I hope I never find out. If she is still alive,
Christina will find Will’s body. And if she sees me again, her
Candor-trained eyes will see that I am the one who killed
him, I know it. I know it and the guilt strangles me and
crushes me, so I have to forget it. I make myself forget it.
The train comes, and Tobias sets me down so I can jump
on. I jog a few steps next to the car and then throw my body
to the side, landing on my left arm. I wiggle my body inside
and sit against the wall. Caleb sits across from me, and
Tobias sits next to me, forming a barrier between my body
and Marcus and Peter. My enemies. His enemies.
The train turns, and I see the city behind us. It will get
smaller and smaller until we see where the tracks end, the
forests and fields I last saw when I was too young to
appreciate them. The kindness of Amity will comfort us for a
while, though we can’t stay there forever. Soon the Erudite
and the corrupt Dauntless leaders will look for us, and we
will have to move on.
Tobias pulls me against him. We bend our knees and our
heads so that we are enclosed together in a room of our
own making, unable to see those who trouble us, our breath
mixing on the way in and on the way out.
“My parents,” I say. “They died today.”
Even though I said it, and even though I know it’s true, it
doesn’t feel real.
“They died for me,” I say. That feels important.
“They loved you,” he replies. “To them there was no better
way to show you.”
I nod, and my eyes follow the line of his jaw.
“You nearly died today,” he says. “I almost shot you. Why
didn’t you shoot me, Tris?”
“I couldn’t do that,” I say. “It would have been like shooting
myself.”
He looks pained and leans closer to me, so his lips brush
mine when he speaks.
“I have something to tell you,” he says.
I run my fingers along the tendons in his hand and look
back at him.
“I might be in love with you.” He smiles a little. “I’m waiting
until I’m sure to tell you, though.”
“That’s sensible of you,” I say, smiling too. “We should find
some paper so you can make a list or a chart or something.”
I feel his laughter against my side, his nose sliding along
my jaw, his lips pressing behind my ear.
“Maybe I’m already sure,” he says, “and I just don’t want to
frighten you.”
I laugh a little. “Then you should know better.”
“Fine,” he says. “Then I love you.”
I kiss him as the train slides into unlit, uncertain land. I kiss
him for as long as I want, for longer than I should, given that
my brother sits three feet away from me.
I reach into my pocket and take out the hard drive that
contains the simulation data. I turn it in my hands, letting it
catch the fading light and reflect it. Marcus’s eyes cling
greedily to the movement. Not safe, I think. Not quite.
I clutch the hard drive to my chest, lean my head on
Tobias’s shoulder, and try to sleep.
Abnegation and Dauntless are both broken, their members
scattered. We are like the factionless now. I do not know
what life will be like, separated from a faction—it feels
disengaged, like a leaf divided from the tree that gives it
sustenance. We are creatures of loss; we have left
everything behind. I have no home, no path, and no certainty.
I am no longer Tris, the selfless, or Tris, the brave.
I suppose that now, I must become more than either.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you, God, for your Son and for blessing me beyond
comprehension.
Thanks also to: Joanna Stampfel-Volpe, my badass
agent, who works harder than anyone I know—your
kindness and generosity continue to amaze me. Molly
O’Neill, also known as the Editor of Wonder—I don’t know
how you manage to have a sharp editorial eye and a huge
heart at the same time, but you do. I am so fortunate to have
two people like you and Joanna on my side.
Katherine Tegen, who runs an amazing imprint. Barb
Fitzsimmons, Amy Ryan, and Joel Tippie, who designed a
beautiful and powerful cover. Brenna Franzitta, Amy
Vinchesi, and Jennifer Strada, my production editor, copy
editor, and proofreader (respectively), also known as
grammar/punctuation/formatting ninjas—your work is so
important. Fantastic marketing and publicity directors
Suzanne Daghlian, Patty Rosati, Colleen O’Connell, and
Sandee Roston; Allison Verost, my publicist; and everyone
else in the marketing and publicity departments.
Jean McGinley, Alpha Wong, and the rest of the subrights
team, who have made it possible for my book to be read in
more languages than I will ever be able to read, and thanks
to all the amazing foreign publishers who have given my
book a home. The production team and the HarperMedia
audio and e-book team, for all their hard work. The brilliant
people over in sales, who have done so much for my book,
and who, I’ve heard, have almost as much love for Four as I
do. And everyone else at HarperCollins who has supported
my book—it takes a village, and I’m so happy to live in
yours.
Nancy Coffey, literary agent legend, for believing in my
book and for giving me such a warm welcome. Pouya
Shahbazian, for being a film-rights whiz and for supporting
my Top Chef addiction. Shauna Seliy, Brian Bouldrey, and
Averill Curdy, my professors, for helping me to drastically
improve my writing. Jennifer Wood, my writing buddy, for her
expert brainstorming skills. Sumayyah Daud, Veronique
Pettingill, Kathy Bradey, Debra Driza, Lara Erlich, and
Abigail Schmidt, my beta readers, for all their notes and
enthusiasm. Nelson Fitch, for taking my pictures and being
so supportive.
My friends, who stick with me even when I’m moody and
reclusive. Mike, for teaching me a lot about life. Ingrid and
Karl, my sister and brother, for their unfailing love and
enthusiasm, and Frank, for talking me through the hard stuff
—your support means more to me than you know. And
Barbara, my mother, who always encouraged me to write,
even before any of us knew that it would come to anything.
About the Author
VERONICA ROTH graduated from Northwestern University
with a degree in creative writing. While she was a student,
she often chose to work on the story that would become
DIVERGENT instead of doing her homework. It was indeed a
transforming choice. Now a full-time writer, Ms. Roth lives
near Chicago. DIVERGENT is her first novel.
You can visit her online at WWW.VERONICAROTHBOOKS.COM.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on
your favorite HarperCollins authors.
PRAISE FOR DIVERGENT
“DIVERGENT is a captivating, fascinating book that kept
me in constant suspense and was never short on surprises.
It will be a long time before I quit thinking about this haunting
vision of the future.”
—JAMES DASHNER, NEW YORK TIMES
BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE MAZE RUNNER
“A taut and shiveringly exciting read! Tris is exactly the sort
of unflinching and fierce heroine I love. I couldn’t turn the
pages fast enough.”
—MELISSA MARR, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR OF WICKED LOVELY
“Well written and brilliantly executed, DIVERGENT is a
heart-pounding debut that cannot be missed. Tris stands out
in her action-packed, thrilling, and emotionally honest
journey to determine who she wants to be in a society that
demands she conform. It’s dystopian fiction at its best!”
—KIERSTEN WHITE, NEW YORK TIMES
BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF PARANORMALCY
Credits
Jacket art and design by Joel Tippie
Faction symbol art © 2011 by Rhythm & Hues Design
Copyright
DIVERGENT. Copyright © 2011 by Veronica Roth. All rights
reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have
been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to
access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part
of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded,
decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced
into any information storage and retrieval system, in any
form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical,
now known or hereinafter invented, without the express
written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Roth, Veronica.
Divergent / Veronica Roth.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice
Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to
define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made
more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly
who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she
lives in is not perfect after all.
ISBN 978-0-06-202402-2 (trade bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-06-208432-3 (international edition)
[1. Identity—Fiction. 2. Family—Fiction. 3. Courage—
Fiction. 4. Social classes—Fiction. 5. Science fiction.] I.
Title.
PZ7.R7375Di 2011 2010040579
[Fic]—dc22 CIP
AC
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition © MARCH 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-207701-1
11 12 13 14 15

About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (P.O. Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollins.com

Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher