I wake with his name in my mouth.
Will, before I open my eyes,
I watch him crumple to the pavement again.
Dead, my doing.
Tobias crouches in front of me,
his hand on my left shoulder.
The train car bumps over the rails and
Marcus, Peter, and
Caleb stand by the doorway.
I take a deep breath and hold it in,
in an attempt to relieve some of
the pressure that is building in my chest.
An hour ago,
nothing that happened felt real to me.
Now it does.
I breathe out and
the pressure is still there.
Tris, come on, Tobias says,
his eyes are searching mine.
We have to jump.
It is too dark to see where we are,
but if we are getting off,
we are probably close to the fence.
Tobias helps me to my feet and
guides me toward the doorway.
The others jump off one by one,
Peter first, then Marcus, then Caleb.
I take Tobias' hand.
The wind picks up as we stand
at the edge of the car opening,
like a hand pushing me
back towards safety.
But we launch ourselves into darkness and
land hard on the ground.
The impact hurts the bullet
wound in my shoulder.
I bite my lip to keep from crying out,
in search for my brother.
Okay, I say, when I see him sitting in the
grass a few feet away, rubbing his knee.
He nods.
I hear him sniff like he's fending
off tears, and I have to turn away.
We landed in the grass near the fence,
several yards away from the worn path that
the amity trucks travel to deliver food to
the city and the gate that lets them out.
The gate that is currently shut,
locking us in.
The fence towers over us,
too high and flexible to climb over,
too sturdy to knock down.
There's supposed to Dauntless guards here,
says Marcus.
Where are they?
They were probably under the simulation,
Tobias says, and are now.
He pauses.
Who knows where, doing who knows what.
We stopped the simulation.
The weight of the hard drive in
my back pocket reminds me, but
we didn’t pause to see the aftermath.
What happened to our friends,
our peers, our leaders, our factions?
There is no way to know.
Tobias approaches a small metal box
on the right side of the gate and
opens it, revealing a keypad.
Let's hope the Erudite didn't
think to change this combination,
he says as he types in
a series of numbers.
He stops at the eighth one,
and the gate clicks open.
How did you know that, says Caleb,
his voice sounds thick with emotion.
So thick, I am surprised it does
not choke him on the way out.
I worked in the Dauntless control room,
monitoring the security system.
We only change the codes twice a year,
Tobias says.
How lucky, says Caleb.
He gives Tobias a weary look.
Luck has nothing to do with it,
Tobias says.
I only worked there because I wanted
to make sure I could get out.
I shiver, the way he talks about getting
out, it's like he thinks we're trapped.
I never thought about it that way before,
and now that seems foolish.
We walk in a small pack, Peter
cradling his bloody arm to his chest.
The arm that I shot, and
Marcus with his hand on Peter's
shoulder keeping him stable.
Caleb wipes his cheeks every few seconds,
and I know he's crying.
But I don't know how to comfort him or
why I am not crying myself.
Instead, I take the lead,
Tobias silent at my side.
And though he does not touch me,
he studies me.
Pinpricks of light are the first sign
that we are nearing Amity headquarters,
then squares of light that
turn into glowing windows.
A cluster of wooden and glass buildings.
Before we can reach them,
we have to walk through an orchard.
My feet sink into the ground, and
above me, the branches grow into one
another, forming a kind of tunnel.
Dark fruit hangs among the leaves,
ready to drop.
The sharp, sweet smell of rotting
apples mixes with the scent of wet
earth in my nose.
When we get close, Marcus leaves
Peter's side and walks in front.
I know where to go, he says.
He leads us past the first building
to the second one on the left.
All the buildings except the greenhouses
are made of the same dark wood,
unpainted, rough.
I hear laughter through an open window.
The contrast between the laughter and
the stone stillness within me is jarring.
Marcus opens one of the doors.
I would be shocked by the lack of security
if we were not at Amity headquarters.
They often straddle the line
between trust and stupidity.
In this building,
the only sound is of our squeaking shoes.
I don't hear Caleb crying anymore.
But then he was quiet about it before.
Marcus stops before an open room,
where Johanna Reyes,
representative of Amity,
sits, staring out the window.
I recognize her because it is
hard to forget Johanna's face,
whether you've see her once or
1,000 times.
A scar stretches in a thick line from
just above her right eyebrow to her lip,
rendering her blind in one eye and
giving her a lisp when she talks.
I've only heard her speak once,
but I remember.
She would have been a beautiful
woman if not for that scar.
Thank God, she says when she sees Marcus.
She walks toward him with her arms open.
Instead of embracing him,
she just touches his shoulders,
like she remembers the Abnegation's
distaste for casual physical contact.
The other members of your party
got here a few hours ago.
But they weren't sure if you had made it,
she says.
She's referring to the group of
Abnegation who are with my father and
Marcus in the safe house.
I didn't even think to worry about them.
She looks over Marcus' shoulder,
first at Tobias and Caleb,
then at me, then at Peter.
My, she says, her eyes lingering on
the blood soaking Peter's shirt.
I'll send for a doctor.
I can grant you all permission
to stay the night, but
tomorrow our community
must decide together.
And she eyes Tobias and me,
they will likely not be enthusiastic about
a Dauntless presence in our compound.
I of course, ask you to turn
over any weapons you might have.
I wonder suddenly how she
knows that I'm Dauntless.
I'm still wearing a gray shirt,
my father's shirt.
At that moment, his smell, which is
an even mixture of soap and sweat,
wafts upward, and it fills my noise,
fills my entire head with him.
I clench my hands so hard into fists
that my fingernails cut into my skin.
Not here, not here.
Tobias hands over his gun.
But when I reach behind me to
take out my own concealed weapon,
he grabs my hand,
guiding it away from my back.
Then he laces his fingers with
mine to cover up what he just did.
I know it's smart to keep one of our guns,
but
it would have been
a relief to hand it over.
My name is Johanna Reyes, she says,
extending her hand to me and then Tobias.
A dauntless greeting.
I'm impressed by her awareness of
the customs of other factions.
I always forget how considerate
the Amity are until I see it for myself.
This is, Marcus starts,
but Tobias interrupts him.
My name is Four, he says.
This is Triss, Caleb and Peter.
A few days ago, Tobias was a name
only I knew among the dauntless.
It was a piece of himself that he gave
me outside dauntless headquarters.
I remember why he hid
that name from the world.
It binds him to Marcus.
Welcome to Amity Compound.
Johanna's eyes fixed on my face,
and she smiles crookedly.
Let us take care of you.
We do let them.
An Amity nurse gives me a sauve developed
by Erudite to speed healing, to
put on my shoulder, and then escorts Peter
to the hospital ward to mend his arm.
Johanna takes us to the cafeteria where
we find some of the Abnegation who
are in the safe house with Caleb and
my father.
Susan is there and
some of our old neighbors and
rows of wooden tables,
as long as the room itself.
They greet us, especially Marcus,
with held in tears and suppressed smiles.
I cling to Tobias' arm.
I sag under the weight of
the members of my parents' faction,
their lives, their tears.
One of the Abnegation puts a cup of
steaming liquid under my nose and
says, drink this.
It will help you sleep as it
helped some of the others sleep.
No dreams.
The liquid is pink red like strawberries.
I grab the cup and drink it fast.
For a few seconds,
the heat from the liquid makes me feel
like I'm full of something again.
And as I drain the last drops from
the cup, I feel myself relaxing.
Someone leads me down the hallway
to a room with a bed in it.
That is all.
Chapter Two.
I open my eyes, terrified, my hands
clutching at the sheets, but I'm not
running through the streets of the city or
the corridors of dauntless headquarters.
I'm in a bed in the Amity headquarters,
and the smell of sawdust is in the air.
I shift and
wince as something digs into my back,
I reach behind me and
my fingers wrap around the gun.
For a moment I see Will standing
before me, both our guns between us.
His hand, I could have shot his hand.
Why didn't I?
Why?
And I almost scream his name.
And then he's gone.
I get out of bed and lift the mattress
with one hand, propping it up on my knee.
Then I shove the gun beneath it and
let the mattress bury it.
Once it is out of sight and no longer
pressed to my skin, my head feels clear.
Now that the adrenaline rush of yesterday
is gone and whatever made me sleep has
worn off, the deep ache and
shooting pains of my shoulder are intense.
I'm wearing the same
clothes I wore last night.
The corner of the hard drive
peeks out from under my pillow
where I shoved it right
before I fell asleep.
On it is the simulation data that
controlled the Dauntless, and
the record of what the Erudite did.
It feels too important for
me to even touch, but
I can't leave it here, so I grab it and
wedge it between the dresser and the wall.
Part of me thinks it would be
a good idea to destroy it.
But I know it contains the only record
of my parents' death, so I'll settle for
keeping it hidden.
Someone knocks on my door.
I sit on the edge of the bed and
try to smooth my hair down.
Come in, I say.
The door opens and
Tobias steps halfway in.
The door dividing his body in half.
He wears the same jeans as yesterday,
but a dark red T-shirt
instead of his black one,
probably borrowed from one of the Amity.
It's a strange color on him, too bright.
But when he leans his head
back against the door-frame,
I see that it makes the blue
in his eyes lighter.
The Amity are meeting in a half hour.
He quirks his eyebrows and adds, with
a touch of melodrama, to decide our fate.
I shake my head.
Never thought my fate would be in
the hands of a bunch of Amity.
Me either.
I brought you something.
He unscrews the cap of a small bottle and
holds out a dropper filled with
clear liquid, pain medicine.
Take a dropper full every six hours.
Thanks.
I squeeze the dropper into
the back of my throat.
Medicine tastes like old lemon.
He hooks a thumb in one of his belt
loops and says, how are you Beatrice?
Did you just call me Beatrice?
Thought I would give it a try.
He smiles.
Not good.
Maybe on special occasions only,
initiation days, choosing days.
I pause.
I was about to rattle off
a few more holidays but
only the Abnegation celebrate them.
The Dauntless have holidays of their own
I assume but I don't know what they are.
And anyway, the idea that we would
celebrate anything right now is so
ludicrous I don't continue.
It's a deal.
His smile fades.
How are you, Tris?
It's not a strange question.
After what we've been through, but
I tense up when he asks it, worried
that he'll somehow see into my mind.
I haven't told him about Will yet.
I want to, but I don't know how.
Just the though thought of saying
the words out loud makes me feel so
heavy, I can break
through the floorboards.
I shake my head a few times.
I don't know, four.
I'm awake, I'm still shaking my head.
He slides his hand over my cheek,
one finger anchored behind my ear.
Then he tilts his head down and kisses me,
sending a warm ache through my body.
I wrap my hands around his arm,
holding him there as long as I can.
When he touches me,
the hollowed out feeling in my chest and
stomach is not as noticeable.
I don't have to tell him.
I can just try to forget.
He can help me forget.
I know, he says, sorry,
I shouldn't have asked.
For a moment all I can think is,
how could you possibly know?
But something about his expression reminds
me that he does know something about loss.
He lost his mother when he was young.
I don't remember how she died just
that we attended her funeral.
Suddenly I remember him clutching
the curtains in his living room.
About nine years old, wearing gray,
his dark eyes shut, the image is fleeting.
And it could be my imagination,
not a memory.
He releases me.
I'll let you get ready.
The women's bathroom is two doors down.
The floor is dark brown tile, and
each shower stall has wooden walls and
plastic curtains separating
it from the central aisle.
A sign on the back wall says,
remember, to conserve resources,
showers run for only five minutes.
The stream of water is cold, so
I wouldn't want the extra minutes
even if I could have them.
I wash quickly with my left hand,
leaving my right hand hanging at my side.
The pain medicine Tobias
gave me worked fast.
The pain in my shoulder has
already faded to a dull throb.
When I get out of the shower,
a stack of clothes waits on my bed.
It contains some yellow and
red from the Amity, and
some gray from the Abnegation,
colors I rarely see side by side.
If I had to guess, I would say that one of
the Abnegation put the stack there for me.
It's something they would think to do.
I pull on a pair of dark red pants made
of denim, so long I have to roll them
up three times, and a gray abnegation
shirt that is too big for me.
The sleeves come down to my fingertips,
and I roll them up, too.
It hurts to move my right hand, so
I keep the movements small and slow.
Someone knocks on the door.
Beatrice?
The soft voice is Susan's.
I open the door for her.
She carries a tray of food
which she sets down on the bed.
I search her face for
a sign of what she has lost.
Her father, an Abnegation leader
didn't survive the attack.
But I see only the placid determination
characteristic of my old faction.
I'm sorry the clothes don't fit, she says.
I'm sure we can find some better ones for
you if the Amity allow us to stay.
They're fine, I say.
Thank you, I heard you were shot.
Do you need my help with your hair or
your shoes?
I'm about to refuse, but
I really do need help.
Yes, thank you.
I sit down on a stool in front of
the mirror and she stands behind me.
Her eyes dutifully trained on the task
at hand, rather than her reflection.
They do not lift, not even for an instant,
as she runs a comb through my hair.
And she doesn't ask about my shoulder,
how I was shot,
what happened when I left the Abnegation
safe house to stop the simulation.
I get the sense that if I were here
to whittle her down to her core,
she would be Abnegation
all the way through.
Have you seen Robert yet, I say.
Her brother Robert chose
Amity when I chose Dauntless,
so he is somewhere in this compound.
I wonder if their reunion will be
anything like Caleb's and mine.
Briefly, last night, she says.
I left him to grieve with his
faction as I grieved with mine.
It is nice to see him again, though.
I hear a finality in her tone that
tells me the subject is closed.
It's a shame this happened when it did,
Susan says.
Our leaders were about to
do something wonderful.
Really, what?
I don't know, Susan blushes.
I just knew that something was happening.
I didn't mean to be curious.
I just noticed things.
I wouldn't blame you for
being curious even if you had been.
She nods and keeps combing.
I wonder what the Abnegation leaders,
including my father, were doing, and
I can't help but
marvel at Susan's assumption that
whatever they were doing was wonderful.
I wish I could believe that of
people again, if I ever did.
The Dauntless wear their hair down,
right, she says.
Sometimes, I say.
Do you know how to braid?
So her deft fingers tuck pieces
of my hair into one braid
that tickles the middle of my spine.
I stare hard at my reflection
until she finishes.
I thank her when she's done, and
she leaves with a small smile,
closing the door behind her.
I keep staring, but I don't see myself.
I can still feel her fingers
brushing the back of my neck, so
much like my mother's fingers
the last morning I spent with her.
My eyes wet with tears,
I rock back and forth on the stool,
trying to push the memory from my mind.
I'm afraid that if I start to sob,
I will never stop until I
shrivel up like a raisin.
I see a sewing kit on the dresser.
In it are two colors of thread,
red and yellow, and a pair of scissors.
I feel calm as I undo the braid
in my hair and comb it again.
I part my hair down the middle to make
sure that it is straight and flat.
I close the scissors
over the hair by my chin.
How can I look the same when she's
gone and everything is different?
I can't.
I cut, in as straight a line as I can,
using my jaw as a guide.
The tricky part is the back,
which I can't see very well.
So I do the best I can by
touch instead of sight.
Locks of blond hair surround me
on the floor in a semi-circle.
I leave the room without
looking at my reflection again.
