moving specks—silver, when the light catches them. Cars with black roofs—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
