Insurgent

Chapter 25

SOMEONE RAIDS THE Dauntless kitchens and heats up the imperishables kept there, so we have a warm dinner that night. I sit at the same table I used to claim with Christina, Al, and Will. From the moment I sit down, I feel a lump in my throat. How is it that only half of us are left?

I feel responsible for that. My forgiveness could have saved Al, but I withheld it. My clearheadedness could have spared Will, but I could not summon it.

Before I can sink too far into my guilt, Uriah drops his tray next to me. It is loaded with beef stew and chocolate cake. I stare at the cake pile.

“There was cake?” I say, looking at my own plate, which is more sensibly stocked than Uriah’s.

“Yeah, someone just brought it out. Found a couple boxes of the mix in the back and baked it,” he says. “You can have a few bites of mine.”

“A few bites? So you’re planning on eating that mountain of cake by yourself?”

“Yes.” He looks confused. “Why?”

“Never mind.”

Christina sits across the table, as far away from me as she can get. Zeke puts his tray down next to her. We are soon joined by Lynn, Hector, and Marlene. I see a flash of movement under the table, and see Marlene’s hand meet Uriah’s over his knee. Their fingers twist together. They are both clearly trying to look casual, but they sneak looks at each other.

To Marlene’s left, Lynn looks like she just tasted something sour. She shovels food into her mouth.

“Where’s the fire?” Uriah asks her. “You’re going to hurl if you keep eating that fast.”

Lynn scowls at him. “I’m going to hurl anyway, with you two making eyes at each other all the time.”

Uriah’s ears turn red. “What are you talking about?”

“I am not an idiot, and neither is anyone else. So why don’t you just make out with her and get it over with?”

Uriah looks stunned. Marlene, however, glares at Lynn, leans over, and kisses Uriah firmly on the mouth, her fingers sliding around his neck, under the collar of his shirt. I notice that all the peas have fallen off my fork, which was on its way to my mouth.

Lynn grabs her tray and storms away from the table.

“What was that all about?” says Zeke.

“Don’t ask me,” says Hector. “She’s always angry about something. I’ve stopped trying to keep track.”

Uriah’s and Marlene’s faces are still close together. And they are still smiling.

I force myself to stare at my plate. It is so strange to see two people you have known separately join together, though I have watched it happen before. I hear a squeak as Christina scratches her plate with her fork idly.

“Four!” Zeke calls out, beckoning. He looks relieved. “C’mere, there’s room.”

Tobias rests his hand on my good shoulder. A few of his knuckles are split, and the blood looks fresh. “Sorry, I can’t stay.”

He leans down and says, “Can I borrow you for a while?”

I get up, waving a good-bye to everyone at the table who is paying attention — which is just Zeke, really, because Christina and Hector are staring at their plates, and Uriah and Marlene are talking quietly. Tobias and I walk out of the cafeteria.

“Where are we going?”

“The train,” he says. “I have a meeting, and I want you there to help me read the situation.”

We walk up one of the paths that lines the Pit walls, toward the stairs that lead us to the Pire.

“Why do you need me to—”

“Because you’re better at it than I am.”

I don’t have a response to that. We ascend the stairs and cross the glass floor. On our way out, we walk through the dank room in which I faced my fear landscape. Judging by the syringe on the floor, someone has been there recently.

“Did you go through your fear landscape today?” I say.

“What makes you say that?” His dark eyes skirt mine. He pushes the front door open, and the summer air swims around me. There is no wind.

“Your knuckles are cut up and someone’s been using that room.”

“This is exactly what I mean. You’re far more perceptive than most.” He checks his watch. “They told me to catch the one leaving at 8:05. Come on.”

I feel a surge of hope. Maybe we won’t argue this time. Maybe things will finally get better between us.

We walk to the tracks. The last time we did this, he wanted to show me that the lights were on in the Erudite compound, wanted to tell me that Erudite was planning an attack on Abnegation. Now I get the sense we are about to meet with the factionless.

“Perceptive enough to know you’re evading the question,” I say.

He sighs. “Yes, I went through my fear landscape. I wanted to see if it had changed.”

“And it has. Hasn’t it?”

He brushes a stray hair away from his face and avoids my eyes. I didn’t know his hair was so thick — it was hard to tell when it was buzzed short, Abnegation hair, but now it’s two inches long and almost hangs over his forehead. It makes him look less threatening, more like the person I’ve come to know in private.

“Yes,” he says. “But the number is still the same.”

I hear the train horn blasting to my left, but the light fixed to the first car is not on. Instead it slides over the rails like some hidden, creeping thing.

“Fifth car back!” he shouts.

We both break into a sprint. I find the fifth car and grab the handle on the side with my left hand, pulling as hard as I can. I try to swing my legs inside, but they don’t quite make it; they are dangerously close to the wheels — I shriek, and scrape my knee against the floor as I yank myself inside.

Tobias gets in after me and crouches by my side. I clutch my knee and grit my teeth.

“Here, let me see,” he says. He pushes my jeans up my leg and over my knee. His fingers leave streaks of cold on my skin, invisible to the eye, and I think about wrapping his shirt around my fist and pulling him in to kiss me; I think about pressing myself against him, but I can’t, because all our secrets would keep a space between us.

My knee is red with blood. “It’s shallow. It’ll heal quickly,” he says.

I nod. The pain is already subsiding. He rolls my jeans so they will stay up. I lie back, staring at the ceiling.

“So is he still in your fear landscape?” I say.

It looks like someone lit a match behind his eyes. “Yes. But not in the same way.”

He told me, once, that his fear landscape hadn’t changed since he first went through it, during his initiation. So if it has, even in a small way, that’s something.

“You’re in it, though.” He frowns at his hands. “Instead of having to shoot that woman, like I used to, I have to watch you die. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

His hands shake. I try to think of something helpful to say. I’m not going to die— but I don’t know that. We live in a dangerous world, and I am not so attached to life that I will do anything to survive. I can’t reassure him.

He checks his watch. “They’ll be here any minute.”

I get up, and see Evelyn and Edward standing next to the tracks. They run before the train passes them, and jump in with almost as little trouble as Tobias. They must have been practicing.

Edward smirks at me. Today his eye patch has a big blue “X” stitched over it.

“Hello,” Evelyn says. She looks only at Tobias as she says it, like I’m not even there.