me what she was like then. Even if they did, they probably wouldn’t want to discuss her. Faction transfers are not really supposed to discuss their old factions once they become members. It’s supposed to make it easier for them to change their allegiance from family to faction—to embrace the principle “faction before blood.”
I bury my face in the pillow. She asked me to tell Caleb to research the simulation serum—why? Does it have something to do with me being Divergent, with me being in danger, or is it something else? I sigh. I have a thousand questions, and she left before I could ask any of them. Now they swirl in my head, and I doubt I’ll be able to sleep until I can answer them.
I hear a scuffle across the room and lift my head from the pillow. My eyes aren’t adjusted to the dark, so I stare into pure black, like the backs of my eyelids. I hear shuffling and the squeak of a shoe. A heavy thud.
And then a wail that curdles my blood and makes my hair stand on end. I throw the blankets back and stand on the stone floor with bare feet. I still can’t see well enough to find the source of the scream, but I see a dark lump on the floor a few bunks down. Another scream pierces my ears.
“Turn on the lights!” someone shouts.
I walk toward the sound, slowly so I don’t trip over anything. I feel like I’m in a trance. I don’t want to see where the screaming is coming from. A scream like that can only mean blood and bone and pain; that scream that comes from the pit of the stomach and extends to every inch of the body.
The lights come on.
Edward lies on the floor next to his bed, clutching at his face. Surrounding his head is a halo of blood, and jutting between his clawing fingers is a silver knife handle. My heart thumping in my ears, I recognize it as a butter knife from the dining hall. The blade is stuck in Edward’s eye.
Myra, who stands at Edward’s feet, screams. Someone else screams too, and someone yells for help, and Edward is still on the floor, writhing and wailing. I crouch by his head, my knees pressing to the pool of blood, and put my hands on his shoulders.
“Lie still,” I say. I feel calm, though I can’t hear anything, like my head is submerged in water. Edward thrashes again and I say it louder, sterner. “I said, lie still. Breathe.”
“My eye!” he screams.
I smell something foul. Someone vomited.
“Take it out!” he yells. “Get it out, get it out of me, get it out!”
I shake my head and then realize that he can’t see me. A laugh bubbles in my stomach. Hysterical. I have to suppress hysteria if I’m going to help him. I have to forget myself.
“No,” I say. “You have to let the doctor take it out. Hear me? Let the doctor take it out. And breathe.”
“It hurts,” he sobs.
“I know it does.” Instead of my voice I hear my mother’s voice. I see her crouching before me on the sidewalk in front of our house, brushing tears from my face after I scraped my knee. I was five at the time.
“It will be all right.” I try to sound firm, like I’m not idly reassuring him, but I am. I don’t know if it will be all right. I suspect that it won’t.
When the nurse arrives, she tells me to step back, and I do. My hands and knees are soaked with blood. When I look around, I see that only two faces are missing.
Drew.
And Peter.
After they take Edward away, I carry a change of clothes into the bathroom and wash my hands. Christina comes with me and stands by the door, but she doesn’t say anything, and I’m glad. There isn’t much to say.
I scrub at the lines in my palms and run one fingernail under my other fingernails to get the blood out. I change into the pants I brought and throw the soiled ones in the trash. I get as many paper towels as I can hold. Someone needs to clean up the mess in the dormitory, and since I doubt I’ll ever be able to sleep again, it might as well be me.
As I reach for the door handle, Christina says, “You know who did that, right?”