“Put the gun down,” says Tobias, pointing his revolver at the Erudite woman. “I have very good aim, and I’m betting that you don’t.”
I blink a few times to get the blurriness out of my eyes. Peter stares back at me. I just saved his life. He does not thank me, and I don’t acknowledge him.
The Erudite woman drops her gun. Together Peter and I walk toward the door. Tobias follows us, walking backward so he can keep his gun on the Erudite woman. At the last second before he passes through the threshold, he slams the door between him and her.
And we all run.
We sprint down the center aisle of the orchard in a breathless pack. The night air is heavy as a blanket and smells like rain. Shouts follow us. Car doors slam. I run faster than I can possibly run, like I’m breathing adrenaline instead of air. The purr of engines chases me into the trees. Tobias’s hand closes around mine.
We run through a cornfield in a long line. By then, the cars have caught up to us. The headlights creep through the tall stalks, illuminating a leaf here, an ear of corn there.
“Split up!” someone yells, and it sounds like Marcus.
We divide and spread through the field like spilling water. I grab Caleb’s arm. I hear Susan gasping behind Caleb.
We crash over cornstalks. The heavy leaves cut my cheeks and arms. I stare between Tobias’s shoulder blades as we run. I hear a heavy thump and a scream. There are screams everywhere, to my left, to my right. Gunshots. The Abnegation are dying again, dying like they were when I pretended to be under the simulation. And all I’m doing is running.
Finally we reach the fence. Tobias runs along it, pushing it until he finds a hole. He holds the chain links back so Caleb, Susan, and I can crawl through. Before we start running again, I stop and look back at the cornfield we just left. I see headlights distantly glowing. But I don’t hear anything.
“Where are the others?” whispers Susan.
I say, “Gone.”
Susan sobs. Tobias pulls me to his side roughly, and starts forward. My face burns with shallow cuts from the corn leaves, but my eyes are dry. The Abnegation deaths are just another weight I am unable to set down.
We stay away from the dirt road the Erudite and Dauntless took to get to the Amity compound, following the train tracks toward the city. There is nowhere to hide out here, no trees or buildings that can shield us, but it doesn’t matter. The Erudite can’t drive through the fence anyway, and it will take them a while to reach the gate.
“I have to . . . stop . . .” says Susan from somewhere in the darkness behind me.
We stop. Susan collapses to the ground, crying, and Caleb crouches next to her. Tobias and I look toward the city, which is still illuminated, because it’s not midnight yet. I want to feel something. Fear, anger, grief. But I don’t. All I feel is the need to keep moving.
Tobias turns toward me.
“What was that, Tris?” he says.
“What?” I say, and I am ashamed of how weak my voice sounds. I don’t know whether he’s talking about Peter or what came before or something else.
“You froze! Someone was about to kill you and you just sat there!” He is yelling now. “I thought I could rely on you at least to save your own life!”
“Hey!” says Caleb. “Give her a break, all right?”
“No,” says Tobias, staring at me. “She doesn’t need a break.” His voice softens. “What happened?”
He still believes that I am strong. Strong enough that I don’t need his sympathy. I used to think he was right, but now I am not sure. I clear my throat.
“I panicked,” I say. “It won’t happen again.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“It won’t,” I say again, louder this time.
“Okay.” He looks unconvinced. “We have to get somewhere safe. They’ll regroup and start looking for us.”
“You think they care that much about us?” I say.
“Us, yes,” he says. “We were probably the only ones they were really after, apart from Marcus, who is most likely dead.”
I don’t know how I expected him to say it—with relief, maybe, because Marcus, his father and the menace of his life, is finally gone. Or with pain and sadness, because his father might have been killed, and sometimes grief doesn’t make much sense. But he says it like it’s just a fact, like the direction we’re moving or the time of day.
“Tobias . . .” I start to say, but then I realize I don’t know what comes after it.
“Time to go,” Tobias says over his shoulder.
Caleb coaxes Susan to her feet. She moves only with the help of his arm across her back, pressing her forward.
I didn’t realize until that moment that Dauntless initiation had taught me an important lesson: how to keep going.
Chapter Eight
WE DECIDE TO follow the railroad tracks to the city, because none of us is good at navigation. I walk from tie to tie, Tobias balances on the rail, wobbling only occasionally, and Caleb and Susan shuffle behind us. I twitch at every unidentified noise, tensing until I realize it is just the wind, or the squeak of Tobias’s shoes on the rail. I wish we could keep running, but it’s a feat that my legs are even moving at this point.
Then I hear a low groan from the rails.
I bend down and press my palms to the rail, closing my eyes to focus on the feeling of the metal beneath my hands. The vibration feels like a sigh going through my body. I stare between Susan’s knees down the tracks and see no train light, but that doesn’t mean anything. The train could be running with no horns and no lamps to announce its arrival.
I see the gleam of a small train car, far away now but approaching fast.
“It’s coming,” I say. It is an effort to get to my feet when all I want to do is sit down, but I do, brushing my hands on my jeans. “I think we should get on.”
“Even if it’s run by the Erudite?” says Caleb.
“If the Erudite were running the train, they would have taken it to the Amity compound to look for us,” Tobias says. “I think it’s worth the risk. We’ll be able to hide in the city. Here we’re just waiting for them to find us.”
We all get off the tracks. Caleb gives Susan step-by-step instructions for getting on a moving train, the way only a former Erudite can. I watch the first car approach; listen to the rhythmic bump of the car over the ties, the whisper of metal wheel against metal rail.
As the first car passes me, I start to run. I ignore the burning in my legs. Caleb helps Susan into a middle car first, then jumps in himself. I take a quick breath and throw my body to the right, slamming into the floor of the car with my legs dangling over the edge. Caleb grabs my left arm and pulls me in the rest of the way. Tobias uses the handle to swing himself in after me.
I look up, and stop breathing.
Eyes glitter in the darkness. Dark shapes sit in the car, more numerous than we are.
The factionless.
The wind whistles through the car. Everyone is on their feet and armed—except Susan and me, who have no weapons. A factionless man with an eye patch has a gun pointed at Tobias. I wonder how he got it.
Next to him, an older factionless woman holds a knife—the kind I used to cut bread with. Behind him, someone else holds a large plank of wood with a nail sticking out of it.