He leads us past the first building to the second one on the left. All the buildings except the greenhouses are made of the same dark wood, unpainted, rough. I hear laughter through an open window. The contrast between the laughter and the stone stillness within me is jarring.
Marcus opens one of the doors. I would be shocked by the lack of security if we were not at Amity headquarters. They often straddle the line between trust and stupidity.
In this building the only sound is of our squeaking shoes. I don’t hear Caleb crying anymore, but then, he was quiet about it before.
Marcus stops before an open room, where Johanna Reyes, representative of Amity, sits, staring out the window. I recognize her because it is hard to forget Johanna’s face, whether you’ve seen her once or a thousand times. A scar stretches in a thick line from just above her right eyebrow to her lip, rendering her blind in one eye and giving her a lisp when she talks. I have only heard her speak once, but I remember. She would have been a beautiful woman if not for that scar.
“Oh, thank God,” she says when she sees Marcus. She walks toward him with her arms open. Instead of embracing him, she just touches his shoulders, like she remembers the Abnegation’s distaste for casual physical contact.
“The other members of your party got here a few hours ago, but they weren’t sure if you had made it,” she says. She is referring to the group of Abnegation who were with my father and Marcus in the safe house. I didn’t even think to worry about them.
She looks over Marcus’s shoulder, first at Tobias and Caleb, then at me, then at Peter.
“Oh my,” she says, her eyes lingering on the blood soaking Peter’s shirt. “I’ll send for a doctor. I can grant you all permission to stay the night, but tomorrow, our community must decide together. And”—she eyes Tobias and me—“they will likely not be enthusiastic about a Dauntless presence in our compound. I of course ask you to turn over any weapons you might have.”
I wonder, suddenly, how she knows that I am Dauntless. I am still wearing a gray shirt. My father’s shirt.
At that moment, his smell, which is an even mixture of soap and sweat, wafts upward, and it fills my nose, fills my entire head with him. I clench my hands so hard into fists that my fingernails cut into my skin. Not here. Not here.
Tobias hands over his gun, but when I reach behind me to take out my own concealed weapon, he grabs my hand, guiding it away from my back. Then he laces his fingers with mine to cover up what he just did.
I know it’s smart to keep one of our guns. But it would have been a relief to hand it over.
“My name is Johanna Reyes,” she says, extending her hand to me, and then Tobias. A Dauntless greeting. I am impressed by her awareness of the customs of other factions. I always forget how considerate the Amity are until I see it for myself.
“This is T—” Marcus starts, but Tobias interrupts him.
“My name is Four,” he says. “This is Tris, Caleb, and Peter.”
A few days ago, “Tobias” was a name only I knew, among the Dauntless; it was the piece of himself that he gave me. Outside Dauntless headquarters, I remember why he hid that name from the world. It binds him to Marcus.
“Welcome to the Amity compound.” Johanna’s eyes fix on my face, and she smiles crookedly. “Let us take care of you.”
We do let them. An Amity nurse gives me a salve—developed by Erudite to speed healing—to put on my shoulder, and then escorts Peter to the hospital ward to mend his arm. Johanna takes us to the cafeteria, where we find some of the Abnegation who were in the safe house with Caleb and my father. Susan is there, and some of our old neighbors, and rows of wooden tables as long as the room itself. They greet us—especially Marcus—with held-in tears and suppressed smiles.
I cling to Tobias’s arm. I sag under the weight of the members of my parents’ faction, their lives, their tears.
One of the Abnegation puts a cup of steaming liquid under my nose and says, “Drink this. It will help you sleep as it helped some of the others sleep. No dreams.”
The liquid is pink-red, like strawberries. I grab the cup and drink it fast. For a few seconds the heat from the liquid makes me feel like I am full of something again. And as I drain the last drops from the cup, I feel myself relaxing. Someone leads me down the hallway, to a room with a bed in it. That is all.
CHAPTER TWO
I OPEN MY eyes, terrified, my hands clutching at the sheets. But I am not running through the streets of the city or the corridors of Dauntless headquarters. I am in a bed in Amity headquarters, and the smell of sawdust is in the air.
I shift, and wince as something digs into my back. I reach behind me, and my fingers wrap around the gun.
For a moment I see Will standing before me, both our guns between us—his hand, I could have shot his hand, why didn’t I, why?—and I almost scream his name.
Then he’s gone.
I get out of bed and lift the mattress with one hand, propping it up on my knee. Then I shove the gun beneath it and let the mattress bury it. Once it is out of sight and no longer pressed to my skin, my head feels clearer.
Now that the adrenaline rush of yesterday is gone, and whatever made me sleep has worn off, the deep ache and shooting pains of my shoulder are intense. I am wearing the same clothes I wore last night. The corner of the hard drive peeks out from under my pillow, where I shoved it right before I fell asleep. On it is the simulation data that controlled the Dauntless, and the record of what the Erudite did. It feels too important for me to even touch, but I can’t leave it here, so I grab it and wedge it between the dresser and the wall. Part of me thinks it would be a good idea to destroy it, but I know it contains the only record of my parents’ deaths, so I’ll settle for keeping it hidden.
Someone knocks on my door. I sit on the edge of the bed and try to smooth my hair down.
“Come in,” I say.