the roof convert sunlight into energy. I stop listening after sixty seconds and stare out the window.
I don’t know what they’ll do to me when I get back. I suspect it will be bad. I imagine my feet dangling over the chasm and bite my lip.
When the driver pulls up to the glass building above the Dauntless compound, Eric is waiting for me by the door. He takes my arm and leads me into the building without thanking the driver. Eric’s fingers squeeze so hard I know I’ll have bruises.
He stands between me and the door that leads inside. He starts to crack his knuckles. Other than that, he is completely still.
I shudder involuntarily.
The faint pop of his knuckle-cracking is all I hear apart from my own breaths, which grow faster by the second. When he is finished, Eric laces his fingers together in front of him.
“Welcome back, Tris.”
“Eric.”
He walks toward me, carefully placing one foot in front of the other.
“What…” His first word is quiet. “Exactly,” he adds, louder this time, “were you thinking?”
“I…” He is so close I can see the holes his metal piercings fit into. “I don’t know.”
“I am tempted to call you a traitor, Tris,” he says. “Have you never heard the phrase ‘faction before blood’?”
I have seen Eric do terrible things. I have heard him say terrible things. But I have never seen him like this. He is not a maniac anymore; he is perfectly controlled, perfectly poised. Careful and quiet.
For the first time, I recognize Eric for what he is: an Erudite disguised as a Dauntless, a genius as well as a sadist, a hunter of the Divergent.
I want to run.
“Were you unsatisfied with the life you have found here? Do you perhaps regret your choice?” Both of Eric’s metal-ridden eyebrows lift, forcing creases into his forehead. “I would like to hear an explanation for why you betrayed Dauntless, yourself, and me…” He taps his chest. “…by venturing into another faction’s headquarters.”
“I…” I take a deep breath. He would kill me if he knew what I was, I can feel it. His hands curl into fists. I am alone here; if something happens to me, no one will know and no one will see it.
“If you cannot explain,” he says softly, “I may be forced to reconsider your rank. Or, because you seem to be so attached to your previous faction…perhaps I will be forced to reconsider your friends’ ranks. Perhaps the little Abnegation girl inside of you would take that more seriously.”
My first thought is that he couldn’t do that, it wouldn’t be fair. My second thought is that of course he would, he would not hesitate to do it for a second. And he is right—the thought that my reckless behavior could force someone else out of a faction makes my chest ache from fear.
I try again. “I…”
But it is hard to breathe.
And then the door opens. Tobias walks in.
“What are you doing?” he asks Eric.
“Leave the room,” Eric says, his voice louder and not as monotone. He sounds more like the Eric I am familiar with. His expression, too, changes, becomes more mobile and animated. I stare, amazed that he can turn it on and off so easily, and wonder what the strategy behind it is.
“No,” Tobias says. “She’s just a foolish girl. There’s no need to drag her here and interrogate her.”
“Just a foolish girl.” Eric snorts. “If she were just a foolish girl, she wouldn’t be ranked first, now would she?”
Tobias pinches the bridge of his nose and looks at me through the spaces between his fingers. He is trying to tell me something. I think quickly. What advice has Four given me recently?
The only thing I can think of is: pretend some vulnerability.
It’s worked for me before.
“I…I was just embarrassed and didn’t know what to do.” I put my hands in my pockets and look at the ground. Then I pinch my leg so hard that tears well up in my eyes, and I look up at Eric, sniffing. “I tried to…and…” I shake my head.
“You tried to what?” asks Eric.
“Kiss me,” says Tobias. “And I rejected her, and she went running off like a five-year-old. There’s really nothing to blame her for but stupidity.”
We both wait.
Eric looks from me to Tobias and laughs, too loudly and for too long—the sound is menacing and grates against me like sandpaper. “Isn’t he a little too old for you, Tris?” he says, smiling again.