It’s easier to think of biology than the line of the Divergent sitting between the elevators. A Candor boy who can’t be older than eleven sits to my left. He’s braver than the woman to my right—he stares at the Dauntless soldier in front of him, unflinching.
Air in, air out. Blood pushed all the way to my extremities—the heart is a powerful muscle, the strongest muscle in the body in terms of longevity. More Dauntless arrive, reporting successful sweeps of specific floors of the Merciless Mart. Hundreds of people unconscious on the floor, shot with something other than bullets, and I have no idea why.
But I am thinking of the heart. Not of my heart anymore, but of Eric’s, and how empty his chest will sound when his heart is no longer beating. Despite how much I hate him, I don’t really want to kill him, at least not with a knife, up close where I can see the life leave him. But I have one chance left to do something useful, and if I want to hit the Erudite where it hurts, I have to take one of their leaders from them.
I notice that no one ever brought the Candor girl I warned to the elevator bank, which means she must have gotten away. Good.
Eric clasps his hands behind his back and begins to pace, back and forth, before the line of Divergent.
“My orders are to take only two of you back to Erudite headquarters for testing,” says Eric. “The rest of you are to be executed. There are several ways to determine who among you will be least useful to us.”
His footsteps slow when he approaches me. I tense my fingers, about to grab the knife handle, but he doesn’t come close enough. He keeps walking and stops in front of the boy to my left.
“The brain finishes developing at age twenty-five,” says Eric. “Therefore your Divergence is not completely developed.”
He lifts his gun and fires.
A strangled scream leaps out of my body as the boy slumps to the ground, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Every muscle in my body strains toward him, but I hold myself back. Wait, wait, wait. I can’t think of the boy. Wait. I force my eyes open and blink tears from them.
My scream accomplished one thing: now Eric stands in front of me, smiling. I caught his attention.
“You are also rather young,” he says. “Nowhere near finished developing.”
He steps toward me. My fingertips inch closer to the knife handle.
“Most of the Divergent get two results in the aptitude test. Some only get one. No one has ever gotten three, not because of aptitude, but simply because in order to get that result, you have to refuse to choose something,” he says, moving closer still. I tilt my head back to look at him, at all the metal gleaming in his face, at his empty eyes.
“My superiors suspect that you got two, Tris,” he says. “They don’t think you’re that complex—just an even blend of Abnegation and Dauntless—selfless to the point of idiocy. Or is that brave to the point of idiocy?”
I close my hand around the knife handle and squeeze. He leans closer.
“Just between you and me . . . I think you might have gotten three, because you’re the kind of bullheaded person who would refuse to make a simple choice just because she was told to,” he says. “Care to enlighten me?”
I lurch forward, pulling my hand out of my pocket. I close my eyes as I thrust the blade up and toward him. I don’t want to see his blood.
I feel the knife go in and then pull it out again. My entire body throbs to the rhythm of my heart. The back of my neck is sticky with sweat. I open my eyes as Eric slumps to the ground, and then—chaos.
The Dauntless traitors aren’t holding lethal guns, only ones that shoot whatever it is they shot at us before, so they all scramble for their real guns. As they do, Uriah launches himself at one of them and punches him hard in the jaw. The life goes out of the soldier’s eyes and he falls, knocked out. Uriah takes the soldier’s gun and starts shooting at the Dauntless closest to us.
I reach for Eric’s gun, so panicked I can barely see, and when I look up, I swear the amount of Dauntless in the room has doubled. Gunshots fill my ears, and I drop to the ground as everyone starts running. My fingers brush the gun barrel, and I shudder. My hands are too weak to grasp it.
A heavy arm wraps around my shoulders and shoves me toward the wall. My right shoulder burns, and I see the Dauntless symbol tattooed on the back of a neck. Tobias turns, crouched around me to shield me from the gunfire, and shoots.
“Tell me if anyone’s behind me!” he says.
I peer over his shoulder, curling my hands into fists around his shirt.
There are more Dauntless in the room, Dauntless without blue armbands—loyal Dauntless. My faction. My faction has come to save us. How are they awake?
The Dauntless traitors sprint away from the elevator bank. They were not prepared for an attack, not from all sides. Some of them fight back, but most run for the stairs. Tobias fires over and over again, until his gun runs out of bullets, and the trigger makes a clicking sound instead. My vision is too blurry with tears and my hands too useless to fire a gun. I scream into gritted teeth, frustrated. I can’t help. I am worthless.
On the floor, Eric moans. Still alive, for now.
The gunshots gradually stop. My hand is wet. One glimpse of red tells me it’s covered in blood—Eric’s. I wipe it off on my pants and try to blink the tears away. My ears ring.
“Tris,” Tobias says. “You can put the knife down now.”
Chapter Seventeen
TOBIAS TELLS ME this story:
When the Erudite reached the lobby stairwell, one of them didn’t go up to the second floor. Instead, she ran up to one of the highest levels of the building. There she evacuated a group of loyal Dauntless—including Tobias—to a fire escape the Dauntless traitors had not sealed off. Those loyal Dauntless gathered in the lobby and split into four groups that stormed the stairwells simultaneously, surrounding the Dauntless traitors, who had clustered around the elevator banks.
The Dauntless traitors were not prepared for that much resistance. They thought everyone but the Divergent was unconscious, so they ran.
The Erudite woman was Cara. Will’s older sister.
Heaving a sigh, I let the jacket slide from my arms and examine my shoulder. A metal disc about the size of my pinkie fingernail is pressed against my skin. Surrounding it is a patch of blue strands, like someone injected blue dye into the tiny veins just beneath the surface of my skin. Frowning, I try to peel the metal disc away from my arm, and feel a sharp pain.
Gritting my teeth, I wedge the flat of my knife blade under the disc and force it up. I scream into my teeth as the pain races through me, making everything go black for a moment. But I keep pushing, as hard as I can, until the disc lifts from my skin enough for me to get my fingers around it. Attached to the bottom of the disc is a needle.
I gag, grasp the disc in my fingertips, and pull one last time. This time, the needle comes free. It’s as long as my littlest finger and smeared with my blood. I ignore the blood running down my arm and hold the disc and the needle up to the light above the sink.
Judging by the blue dye in my arm and the needle, they must have injected us with something. But what? Poison? An explosive?
I shake my head. If they had wanted to kill us, most of us were unconscious already, so they could have just shot us all. Whatever they injected us with isn’t meant to kill us.
Someone knocks on the door. I don’t know why—I’m in a public restroom, after all.
“Tris, you in there?” Uriah’s muffled voice asks.
“Yeah,” I call back.
Uriah looks better than he did an hour ago—he washed the blood from his mouth, and some of the color has returned to his face. I’m struck, suddenly, by how handsome he is—all his features are proportionate, his eyes dark and lively, his skin bronze-brown. And he has probably always been that handsome. Only boys who have been handsome from a young age have that arrogance in their smile.
Not like Tobias, who is almost shy when he smiles, like he is surprised you bothered to look at h
im in the first place.
My throat aches. I put the needle and disc on the edge of the sink.
Uriah looks from me to the needle in my hand to the line of blood running from my shoulder to my wrist.
“Gross,” he says.
“Wasn’t paying attention,” I say. I set the needle down and grab a paper towel, mopping up the blood on my arm. “How are the others?”
“Marlene’s cracking jokes, as usual.” Uriah’s smile grows, putting a dimple in his cheek. “Lynn’s grumbling. Wait, you yanked that out of your own arm?” He points to the needle. “God, Tris. Do you have no nerve endings or something?”
“I think I need a bandage.”
“You think?” Uriah shakes his head. “You should get some ice for your face, too. So, everyone’s waking up now. It’s a madhouse out there.”
I touch my jaw. It is tender where Eric’s gun struck me—I will have to put healing salve on it so it doesn’t bruise.
“Is Eric dead?” I don’t know which answer I’m hoping for, yes or no.
“No. Some of the Candor decided to give him medical treatment.” Uriah scowls at the sink. “Something about honorable treatment of prisoners. Kang’s interrogating him in private right now. Doesn’t want us there, disturbing the peace or whatever.”
I snort.
“Yeah. Anyway, no one gets it,” he says, perching on the edge of the sink next to mine. “Why storm in here and fire those things at us and then knock us all out? Why not just kill us?”
“No idea,” I say. “The only use I see for it is that it helped them figure out who’s Divergent and who’s not. But that can’t be the only reason they did it.”
“I don’t get why they have it out for us. I mean, when they were trying to mind control themselves an army, sure, but now? Seems useless.”
I frown as I press a clean paper towel to my shoulder, to stop the bleeding. He’s right. Jeanine already has an army. So why kill the Divergent now?
“Jeanine doesn’t want to kill everyone,” I say slowly. “She knows that would be illogical. Without each faction, society doesn’t function, because each faction trains its members for particular jobs. What she wants is control.”
I glance up at my reflection. My jaw is swollen, and fingernail marks are still on my arms. Disgusting.
“She must be planning another simulation,” I say. “Same thing as before, but this time, she wants to make sure that everyone is either under its influence or dead.”
“But the simulation only lasts for a certain period of time,” he says. “It’s not useful unless you’re trying to accomplish something specific.”
“Right.” I sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t get it.” I pick up the needle. “I don’t get what this thing is either. If it was like the other simulation-inducing injections, it was just meant for one use. So why shoot these things at us just to put us unconscious? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I dunno, Tris, but right now we’ve got a huge building full of panicked people to deal with. Let’s go get you a bandage.” He pauses and then says, “Can you do me a favor?”
“What is it?”
“Don’t tell anyone I’m Divergent.” He bites his lip. “Shauna’s my friend, and I don’t want her to suddenly become afraid of me.”
“Sure,” I say, forcing a smile. “I’ll keep it to myself.”
I am awake all night removing needles from people’s arms. After a few hours I stop trying to be gentle. I just pull as hard as I can.
I find out that the Candor boy Eric shot in the head was named Bobby, and that Eric is in stable condition, and that of the hundreds of people in the Merciless Mart, only eighty don’t have needles buried in their flesh, seventy of whom are Dauntless, one of whom is Christina. All night I puzzle over needles and serums and simulations, trying to inhabit the minds of my enemies.
In the morning, I run out of needles to remove and go to the cafeteria, rubbing my eyes. Jack Kang announced that we would have a meeting at noon, so maybe I can fit in a long nap after I eat.
When I walk into the cafeteria, though, I see Caleb.
Caleb runs up to me and folds me carefully into his arms. I breathe a sigh of relief. I thought I had gotten to the point where I didn’t need my brother anymore, but I don’t think such a point actually exists. I relax against him for a moment, and catch Tobias’s eye over Caleb’s shoulder.
“Are you all right?” Caleb says, pulling back. “Your jaw . . .”
“It’s nothing,” I say. “Just swollen.”
“I heard they got a bunch of the Divergent and started shooting them. Thank God they didn’t find you.”
“Actually, they did. But they only killed one,” I say. I pinch the bridge of my nose to relieve some of the pressure in my head. “But I’m all right. When did you get here?”
“About ten minutes ago. I came with Marcus,” he says. “As our only legal political leader, he felt it was his duty to be here—we didn’t hear about the attack until an hour ago. One of the factionless saw the Dauntless storming into the building, and news takes a while to travel among the factionless.”
“Marcus is alive?” I say. We never actually saw him die when we escaped the Amity compound, but I just assumed he had—I’m not sure how I feel. Disappointed, maybe, because I hate him for how he treated Tobias? Or relieved, because the last Abnegation leader is still alive? Is it possible to feel both?
“He and Peter escaped, and walked back to the city,” says Caleb.
I am not at all relieved to find out that Peter is still alive. “Where’s Peter, then?”
“He is where you would expect him to be,” Caleb replies.
“Erudite,” I say. I shake my head. “What a—”
I can’t even think of a word strong enough to describe him. Apparently I need to expand my vocabulary.
Caleb’s face twists for a moment, then he nods and touches my shoulder. “Are you hungry? Want me to get you something?”
“Yes, please,” I say. “I’ll be back in a little while, okay? I have to talk to Tobias.”
“All right.” Caleb squeezes my arm and walks off, probably to get in the miles-long cafeteria line. Tobias and I stand yards away from each other for a few seconds.
He approaches me slowly.
“You okay?” he says.
“I might throw up if I have to answer that one more time,” I say. “I don’t have a bullet in my head, do I? So I’m good.”
“Your jaw is so swollen you look like you have a wad of food in your cheek, and you just stabbed Eric,” he says, frowning. “I’m not allowed to ask if you’re okay?”
I sigh. I should tell him about Marcus, but I don’t want to do it here, with so many people around. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
His arm jerks like he was thinking of touching me but decided against it. Then he reconsiders and slides his arm around me, pulling me to him.
Suddenly I think maybe I’ll let someone else take all the risks, maybe I’ll just start acting selfishly so that I can stay close to Tobias without hurting him. All I want is to bury my face in his neck and forget anything else exists.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to come get you,” he whispers into my hair.
I sigh and touch his back with just my fingertips. I could stand here until I go unconscious from exhaustion, but I shouldn’t; I can’t. I pull back and say, “I need to talk to you. Can we go somewhere quiet?”
He nods, and we leave the cafeteria. One of the Dauntless we pass yells, “Oh, look! It’s Tobias Eaton!”
I had almost forgotten about the interrogation, and the name it revealed to all of Dauntless.
Another one yells, “I saw your daddy here earlier, Eaton! Are you gonna go hide?”
Tobias straightens and stiffens, like someone is training a gun at his chest instead of jeering at him.
“Yeah, are you gonna hide, coward?”
A few people around us laugh. I grab Tobias’s arm and steer him toward the elevators before he can re
act. He looked like he was about to punch someone. Or worse.
“I was going to tell you—he came with Caleb,” I say. “He and Peter escaped Amity—”
“What were you waiting for, then?” he says, but not harshly. His voice sounds somehow detached from him, like it is floating between us.
“It’s not the kind of news you deliver in a cafeteria,” I say.
“Fair enough,” he says.
We wait in silence for the elevator, Tobias chewing on his lip and staring into space. He does that all the way to the eighteenth floor, which is empty. There, the silence wraps around me like Caleb’s embrace did, calming me. I sit down on one of the benches on the edge of the interrogation room, and Tobias pulls Niles’s chair over to sit in front of me.
“Didn’t there used to be two of these?” he says, frowning at the chair.
“Yeah,” I say. “I, uh . . . it got thrown out the window.”
“Strange,” he says. He sits. “So what did you want to talk about? Or was that about Marcus?”
“No, that wasn’t it. Are you . . . all right?” I say cautiously.
“I don’t have a bullet in my head, do I?” he says, staring at his hands. “So I’m fine. I’d like to talk about something else.”
“I want to talk about simulations,” I say. “But first, something else—your mother thought Jeanine would go after the factionless next. Obviously she was wrong—and I’m not sure why. It’s not like the Candor are battle ready or anything—”
“Well, think about it,” he says. “Think it through, like the Erudite.”
I give him a look.
“What?” he says. “If you can’t, the rest of us have no hope.”
“Fine,” I say. “Um . . . it had to be because Dauntless and Candor were the most logical targets. Because . . . the factionless are in multiple places, whereas we’re all in the same place.”
“Right,” he says. “Also, when Jeanine attacked Abnegation, she got all the Abnegation data. My mother told me that the Abnegation had documented the factionless Divergent populations, which means that after the attack, Jeanine must have found out that the proportion of Divergent among the factionless is higher than among the Candor. That makes them an illogical target.”
The Divergent Library: Divergent; Insurgent; Allegiant; Four: The Transfer, The Initiate, The Son, and The Traitor (Divergent Series) Page 45
