Insurgent d-2

by Veronica Roth

  “You have a nice voice,” I say.

  “Tris,” he says, “please be quiet.”

  “The peace serum,” Johanna says. “In small doses, it has a mild, calming effect and improves the mood. The only side effect is some slight dizziness. We administer it to members of our community who have trouble keeping the peace.”

  Tobias snorts. “I’m not an idiot. Every member of your community has trouble keeping the peace, because they’re all human. You probably dump it into the water supply.”

  Johanna does not respond for a few seconds. She folds her hands in front of her.

  “Clearly you know that is not the case, or this conflict would not have occurred,” she says. “But whatever we agree to do here, we do together, as a faction. If I could give the serum to everyone in this city, I would. You would certainly not be in the situation you are in now if I had.”

  “Oh, definitely,” he says. “Drugging the entire population is the best solution to our problem. Great plan.”

  “Sarcasm is not kind, Four,” she says gently. “Now, I am sorry about the mistake in giving too much to Tris, I really am. But she violated the terms of our agreement, and I’m afraid that you might not be able to stay here much longer as a result. The conflict between her and the boy — Peter — is not something we can forget.”

  “Don’t worry,” says Tobias. “We intend to leave as soon as humanly possible.”

  “Good,” she says with a small smile. “Peace between Amity and Dauntless can only happen when we maintain our distance from each other.”

  “That explains a lot.”

  “Excuse me?” she says. “What are you insinuating?”

  “It explains,” he says, gritting his teeth, “why, under a pretense of neutrality—as if such a thing is possible! — you have left us to die at the hands of the Erudite.”

  Johanna sighs quietly and looks out the window. Beyond it is a small courtyard with vines growing in it. The vines creep onto the window’s corners, like they are trying to come in and join the conversation.

  “The Amity wouldn’t do something like that,” I say. “That’s mean.”

  “It is for the sake of peace that we remain uninvolved—” Johanna begins.

  “Peace.” Tobias almost spits the word. “Yes, I’m sure it will be very peaceful when we are all either dead or cowering in submission under the threat of mind control or stuck in an endless simulation.”

  Johanna’s face contorts, and I mimic her, to see what it feels like to have my face that way. It doesn’t feel very good. I’m not sure why she did it to begin with.

  She says slowly, “The decision was not mine to make. If it was, perhaps we would be having a different conversation right now.”

  “Are you saying you disagree with them?”

  “I am saying,” she says, “that it isn’t my place to disagree with my faction publicly, but I might, in the privacy of my own heart.”

  “Tris and I will be gone in two days,” says Tobias. “I hope your faction doesn’t change their decision to make this compound a safe house.”

  “Our decisions are not easily unmade. What about Peter?”

  “You’ll have to deal with him separately,” he says. “Because he won’t be coming with us.”

  Tobias takes my hand, and his skin feels nice against mine, though it’s not smooth or soft. I smile apologetically at Johanna, and her expression remains unchanged.

  “Four,” she says. “If you and your friends would like to remain … untouched by our serum, you may want to avoid the bread.”

  Tobias says thank you over his shoulder as we make our way down the hallway together, me skipping every other step.

  Chapter 7

  THE SERUM WEARS off five hours later, when the sun is just beginning to set. Tobias shut me in my room for the rest of the day, checking on me every hour. This time when he comes in, I am sitting on the bed, glaring at the wall.

  “Thank God,” he says, pressing his forehead to the door. “I was beginning to think it would never wear off and I would have to leave you here to … smell flowers, or whatever you wanted to do while you were on that stuff.”

  “I’ll kill them,” I say. “I will kill them.”

  “Don’t bother. We’re leaving soon anyway,” he says, closing the door behind him. He takes the hard drive from his back pocket. “I thought we could hide this behind your dresser.”

  “That’s where it was before.”

  “Yeah, and that’s why Peter won’t look for it here again.” Tobias pulls the dresser away from the wall with one hand and wedges the hard drive behind it with the other.

  “Why couldn’t I fight the peace serum?” I say. “If my brain is weird enough to resist the simulation serum, why not this one?”

  “I don’t know, really,” he says. He drops down next to me on the bed, jostling the mattress. “Maybe in order to fight off a serum, you have to want to.”

  “Well, obviously I wanted to,” I say, frustrated, but without conviction. Did I want to? Or was it nice to forget about anger, forget about pain, forget about everything for a few hours?

  “Sometimes,” he says, sliding his arm across my shoulders, “people just want to be happy, even if it’s not real.”

  He’s right. Even now, this peace between us comes from not talking about things — about Will, or my parents, or me almost shooting him in the head, or Marcus. But I do not dare to disturb it with the truth, because I am too busy clinging to it for support.

  “You might be right,” I say quietly.

  “Are you conceding?” he says, his mouth falling open with mock surprise. “Seems like that serum did you some good after all….”

  I shove him as hard as I can. “Take that back. Take it back now.”

  “Okay, okay!” He puts up his hands. “It’s just … I’m not very nice either, you know. That’s why I like you so—”

  “Out!” I shout, pointing at the door.

  Laughing to himself, Tobias kisses my cheek and leaves the room.

  That evening, I am too embarrassed by what happened to go to dinner, so I spend the time in the branches of an apple tree at the far end of the orchard, picking ripe apples. I climb as high as I dare to get them, muscles burning. I have discovered that sitting still leaves little spaces for the grief to get in, so I stay busy.

  I am wiping my forehead with the hem of my shirt, standing on a branch, when I hear the sound. It is faint, at first, joining the buzz of cicadas. I stand still to listen, and after a moment, I realize what it is: cars.

  The Amity own about a dozen trucks that they use for transporting goods, but they only do that on weekends. The back of my neck tingles. If it isn’t the Amity, it’s probably the Erudite. But I have to be sure.

  I grab the branch above me with both hands, but pull myself up with only my left arm. I’m surprised I’m still able to do that. I stand hunched, twigs and leaves tangled in my hair. A few apples fall to the ground when I shift my weight. Apple trees aren’t very tall; I may not be able to see far enough.

  I use the nearby branches as steps, with my hands to steady me, twisting and leaning around the tree’s maze. I remember climbing the Ferris wheel on the pier, my muscles shaking, my hands throbbing. I am wounded now, but stronger, and the climbing feels easier.

  The branches get thinner, weaker. I lick my lips and look at the next one. I need to climb as high as possible, but the branch I’m aiming for is short and looks pliable. I put my foot on it, testing its strength. It bends, but holds. I start to lift myself up, to put the other foot down, and the branch snaps.

  I gasp as I fall back, seizing the tree trunk at the last second. This will have to be high enough. I stand on my tiptoes and squint in the direction of the sound.

  At first I see nothing but a stretch of farmland, a strip of empty ground, the fence, and the fields and beginnings of buildings that lie beyond it. But approaching the gate are a few moving specks — silver, when the light catches them. Cars with black ro
ofs — solar panels, which means only one thing. Erudite.

  A breath hisses between my teeth. I don’t allow myself to think; I just put one foot down, then the other, so fast that bark peels off the branches and drifts toward the ground. As soon as my feet touch the earth, I run.

  I count the rows of trees as I pass them. Seven, eight. The branches dip low, and I pass just beneath them. Nine, ten. I hold my right arm against my chest as I sprint faster, the bullet wound in my shoulder throbbing with each footstep. Eleven, twelve.

  When I reach the thirteenth row, I throw my body to the right, down one of the aisles. The trees are close together in the thirteenth row. Their branches grow into one another, creating a maze of leaves and twigs and apples.

  My lungs sting from a lack of oxygen, but I am not far from the end of the orchard. Sweat runs into my eyebrows. I reach the dining hall and throw open the door, shoving my way through a group of Amity men, and he is there; Tobias sits at one end of the cafeteria with Peter and Caleb and Susan. I can barely see them between the spots on my vision, but Tobias touches my shoulder.

  “Erudite,” is all I manage to say.

  “Coming here?” he says.

  I nod.

  “Do we have time to run?”

  I am not sure about that.

  By now, the Abnegation at the other end of the table are paying attention. They gather around us.

  “Why do we need to run?” says Susan. “The Amity established this place as a safe house. No conflict allowed.”

  “The Amity will have trouble enforcing that policy,” says Marcus. “How do you stop conflict without conflict?”

  Susan nods.

  “But we can’t leave,” Peter says. “We don’t have time. They’ll see us.”

  “Tris has a gun,” Tobias says. “We can try to fight our way out.”

  He starts toward the dormitory.

  “Wait,” I say. “I have an idea.” I scan the crowd of Abnegation. “Disguises. The Erudite don’t know for sure that we’re still here. We can pretend to be Amity.”

  “Those of us who aren’t dressed like the Amity should go to the dormitories, then,” Marcus says. “The rest of you, put your hair down; try to mimic their behavior.”

  The Abnegation who are dressed in gray leave the dining hall in a pack and cross the courtyard to the guests’ dormitory. Once inside, I run to my bedroom, get on my hands and knees, and reach under the mattress for the gun.

  I feel around for a few seconds before I find it, and when I do, my throat pinches, and I can’t swallow. I don’t want to touch the gun. I don’t want to touch it again.

  Come on, Tris. I shove the gun under the waistband of my red pants. It is lucky they are so baggy. I notice the vials of healing salve and pain medicine on the bedside table and shove them in my pocket, just in case we do manage to escape.

  Then I reach behind the dresser for the hard drive.

  If the Erudite catch us — which is likely — they will search us, and I don’t want to just hand over the attack simulation again. But this hard drive also contains the surveillance footage from the attack. The record of our losses. Of my parents’ deaths. The only piece of them I have left. And because the Abnegation don’t take photographs, the only documentation I have of how they looked.

  Years from now, when my memories begin to fade, what will I have to remind me of what they looked like? Their faces will change in my mind. I will never see them again.

  Don’t be stupid. It’s not important.

  I squeeze the hard drive so tightly it hurts.

  Then why does it feel so important?

  “Don’t be stupid,” I say aloud. I grit my teeth and grab the lamp from my bedside table. I yank the plug from the socket, throw the lampshade onto the bed, and crouch over the hard drive. Blinking tears from my eyes, I slam the base of the lamp into it, creating a dent.

  I bring the lamp down again, and again, and again, until the hard drive cracks and pieces of it spread across the floor. Then I kick the shards under the dresser, put the lamp back, and walk into the hallway, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

  A few minutes later, a small crowd of gray-clad men and women — and Peter — stand in the hallway, sorting through stacks of clothes.

  “Tris,” says Caleb. “You’re still wearing gray.”

  I pinch my father’s shirt, and hesitate.

  “It’s Dad’s,” I say. If I change out of it, I will have to leave it behind. I bite my lip so that the pain will steady me. I have to get rid of it. It’s just a shirt. That’s all it is.

  “I’ll put it on under mine,” Caleb says. “They’ll never see it.”

  I nod and grab a red shirt from the dwindling pile of clothes. It is large enough to conceal the bulge of the gun. I duck into a nearby room to change, and hand off the gray shirt to Caleb when I get to the hallway. The door is open, and through it I see Tobias stuffing Abnegation clothes into the trash bin.

  “Do you think the Amity will lie for us?” I ask him, leaning out the open doorway.

  “To prevent conflict?” Tobias nods. “Absolutely.”

  He wears a red collared shirt and a pair of jeans that are fraying at the knee. The combination looks ridiculous on him.

  “Nice shirt,” I say.

  He wrinkles his nose at me. “It was the only thing that covered up the neck tattoo, okay?”

  I smile nervously. I forgot about my tattoos, but the shirt hides them well enough.

  The Erudite cars pull up to the compound. There are five of them, all silver with black roofs. Their engines seem to purr as the wheels bump over uneven ground. I slip just inside the building, leaving the door open behind me, and Tobias busies himself with the latch on the trash bin.

  The cars all pull to a stop, and the doors pop open, revealing at least five men and women in Erudite blue.

  And about fifteen in Dauntless black.

  When the Dauntless come closer, I see strips of blue fabric wrapped around their arms that can only signify their allegiance to Erudite. The faction that enslaved their minds.

  Tobias takes my hand and leads me into the dormitory.

  “I didn’t think our faction would be that stupid,” he says. “You have the gun, right?”

  “Yes,” I say. “But there’s no guarantee I can fire it with any accuracy with my left hand.”

  “You should work on that,” he says. Always an instructor.

  “I will,” I say. I shake a little as I add, “If we live.”

  His hands skim my bare arms. “Just bounce a little when you walk,” he says, kissing my forehead, “and pretend you’re afraid of their guns”—another kiss between my eyebrows—“and act like the shrinking violet you could never be”—a kiss on my cheek—“and you’ll be fine.”

  “Okay,” I say. My hands tremble as I grip his shirt collar. I pull his mouth down to mine.

  A bell sounds, once, twice, three times. It is a summons to the dining hall, where the Amity gather for less formal occasions than the meeting we attended. We join the crowd of Abnegation-turned-Amity.

  I pull pins from Susan’s hair — the hairstyle is too severe for Amity. She gives me a small, grateful smile as her hair falls on her shoulders, the first time I have ever seen it that way. It softens her square jaw.

  I am supposed to be braver than the Abnegation, but they don’t seem as worried as I am. They offer each other smiles and walk in silence — in too much silence. I wedge my way between them and jab one of the older women in the shoulder.

  “Tell the kids to play tag,” I say to her.

  “Tag?” she says.

  “They’re acting respectful and … Stiff,” I say, cringing as I say the word that was my nickname in Dauntless. “And Amity kids would be causing a ruckus. Just do it, okay?”

  The woman touches one Abnegation child on the shoulder and whispers something to him, and a few seconds later a small group of children run down the hallway, dodging Amity feet and yelling, “I touched you! You’re
it!” “No, that was my sleeve!”

  Caleb catches on, jabbing Susan in the ribs so she shrieks with laughter. I try to relax, injecting a bounce into my step as Tobias suggested, letting my arms swing as I turn corners. It is amazing how pretending to be in a different faction changes everything — even the way I walk. That must be why it’s so strange that I could easily belong in three of them.

  We catch up to the Amity in front of us as we cross the courtyard to the dining hall and disperse among them. I keep Tobias in my peripheral vision, not wanting to stray too far from him. The Amity don’t ask questions; they just let us dissolve into their faction.

  A pair of Dauntless traitors stand by the door to the dining hall, their guns in hand, and I stiffen. It feels real to me, suddenly, that I am unarmed and being herded into a building surrounded by Erudite and Dauntless, and if they discover me, there will be nowhere to run. They will shoot me on the spot.

  I consider making a break for it. But where would I go that they could not catch me? I try to breathe normally. I am almost past them—don’t look, don’t look. A few steps away—eyes away, away.

  Susan loops her arm through mine.

  “I’m telling you a joke,” she says, “that you find very funny.”

  I cover my hand with my mouth and force a giggle that sounds high-pitched and foreign, but judging by the smile she gives me, it was believable. We hang on each other the way Amity girls do, glancing at the Dauntless and then giggling again. I am amazed by how I manage to do it, with the leaden feeling inside me.

  “Thank you,” I mutter once we’re inside.

  “You’re welcome,” she replies.

  Tobias sits across from me at one of the long tables, and Susan sits next to me. The rest of the Abnegation spread throughout the room, and Caleb and Peter are a few seats down from me.

  I tap my fingers on my knees as we wait for something to happen. For a long time we just sit there, and I pretend to be listening to an Amity girl telling a story on my left. But every so often I look at Tobias, and he looks back at me, like we’re passing fear back and forth between us.