Breathing—who cares about breathing?
I turn from the sight, listening to my heart beat in my ears. Christina’s mouth moves. I ignore her, and walk to the door and down the stairs and down the hallway and into the elevator.
The doors close and as I drop to the earth, just as Marlene did after I decided not to save her, I scream, my hands tearing at my clothes. My throat is raw after just a few seconds, and there are scratches on my arms where I missed the fabric, but I keep screaming.
The elevator stops with a ding. The doors open.
I straighten my shirt, smooth my hair down, and walk out.
I have a message for the Divergent.
I am Divergent.
This is not a negotiation.
No, it is not.
It is a warning.
I understand.
Every two days until one of you delivers yourself to Erudite headquarters . . .
I will.
. . . this will happen again.
It will never happen again.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I WEAVE THROUGH the crowd next to the chasm. It’s loud in the Pit, and not just because of the river’s roar. I want to find some silence, so I escape into the hallway that leads to the dormitories. I don’t want to hear the speech Tori will make on Marlene’s behalf or be around for the toasting and the shouting as the Dauntless celebrate her life and her bravery.
This morning Lauren reported that we missed some of the cameras in the initiate dormitories, where Christina, Zeke, Lauren, Marlene, Hector, and Kee, the girl with the green hair, were sleeping. That’s how Jeanine figured out who the simulation was controlling. I do not doubt that Jeanine chose young Dauntless because she knew their deaths would affect us more.
I stop in an unfamiliar hallway and press my forehead to the wall. The stone feels rough and cool on my skin. I can hear the Dauntless shouting behind me, their voices muffled by layers of rock.
I hear someone approaching, and look to the side. Christina, still wearing the same clothes she wore last night, stands a few feet away.
“Hey,” she says.
“I’m not really in the mood to feel more guilt right now. So go away, please.”
“I just want to say one thing, and then I will.”
Her eyes are puffy and her voice sounds a little sleepy, which is either due to exhaustion or a little alcohol, or both. But her stare is direct enough that she must know what she’s saying. I pull away from the wall.
“I’d never seen that kind of simulation before. You know, from the outside. But yesterday . . .” She shakes her head. “You were right. They couldn’t hear you, couldn’t see you. Just like Will . . .”
She chokes on his name. Stops, takes a breath, swallows hard. Blinks a few times. Then looks at me again.
“You told me you had to do it, or he would have shot you, and I didn’t believe you. I believe you now, and . . . I’m going to try to forgive you. That’s . . . all I wanted to say.”
There’s a part of me that feels relief. She believes me, she’s trying to forgive me, even though it won’t be easy.
But a larger part of me feels anger. What did she think, before now? That I wanted to shoot Will, one of my best friends? She should have trusted me from the beginning, should have known that I wouldn’t have done it if I had been able to see another option at the time.
“How fortunate for me that you finally got proof that I’m not a cold-blooded murderer. You know, other than my word. I mean, what reason would you have to trust that?” I force a laugh, trying to stay nonchalant. She opens her mouth, but I keep talking, unable to stop myself. “You’d better hurry on that forgiving-me thing, because there isn’t much time—”
My voice cracks, and I can’t hold myself together anymore. I start sobbing. I lean against the wall for support and feel myself sliding down as my legs get weak.
My eyes are too blurry to see her, but I feel her when she wraps her arms around me and squeezes so hard it hurts. She smells like coconut oil and she feels strong, exactly like she was during initiation into Dauntless, when she hung over the chasm by her fingertips. Back then—which was not so long ago—she made me feel weak, but now her strength makes me feel like I could be stronger too.
We kneel together on the stone floor, and I clutch her as tightly as she clutches me.
“It’s already done,” she says. “That’s what I meant to say. That the forgiving was already done.”
All the Dauntless go quiet when I walk into the cafeteria that night. I don’t blame them. As one of the Divergent, I have the power to let Jeanine kill one of them. Most of them probably want me to sacrifice myself. Or they are terrified that I won’t.
If this were Abnegation, no Divergent would be sitting here right now.
For a moment I don’t know where to go or how to get there. But then Zeke waves me over to his table, looking grim, and I guide my feet in that direction. But before I make it there, Lynn approaches me.
She is a different Lynn from the one I have always known. She doesn’t have a fierce look in her eyes. Instead she is pale and biting her lip to hide its wobble.
“Um . . .” she says. She looks to the left, to the right, anywhere but at my face. “I really . . . I miss Marlene. I’ve known her for a long time, and I . . .” She shakes her head. “The point is, don’t think that my saying this means anything about Marlene,” she says, like she’s scolding me, “but . . . thank you for saving Hec.”
Lynn shifts her weight from one foot to the other, her eyes flicking around the room. Then she hugs me with one arm, her hand gripping my shirt. Pain shoots through my shoulder. I don’t say anything about it.
She lets go, sniffs, and walks back to her table like nothing happened. I stare at her retreating back for a few seconds, and then sit down.
Zeke and Uriah sit side by side at the otherwise empty table. Uriah’s face is slack, like he’s not completely awake. He has a dark brown bottle in front of him that he sips from every few seconds.
I feel cautious around him. I saved Hec—which means I failed to save Marlene. But Uriah doesn’t look at me. I pull out the chair across from him and sit on the edge of it.
“Where’s Shauna?” I say. “Still in the hospital?”
“No, she’s over there,” says Zeke, nodding to the table Lynn walked back to. I see her there, so pale she might as well be translucent, sitting in a wheelchair. “Shauna shouldn’t be up, but Lynn’s pretty messed up, so she’s keeping her company.”
“But if you’re wondering why they’re all the way over there . . . Shauna found out I’m Divergent,” says Uriah sluggishly. “And she doesn’t want to catch it.”
“Oh.”
“She got all weird with me, too,” says Zeke, sighing. “‘How do you know your brother isn’t working against us? Have you been watching him?’ What I wouldn’t give to punch whoever poisoned her mind.”
“You don’t have to give anything,” says Uriah. “Her mother’s sitting right there. Go ahead and hit her.”
I follow his gaze to a middle-aged woman with blue streaks in her hair and earrings all the way down her earlobe. She is pretty, just like Lynn.
Tobias enters the room a moment later, followed by Tori and Harrison. I have been avoiding him. I haven’t spoken to him since that fight we had, before Marlene . . .