Divergent Series
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.”