she fell in love with the city by watching it in the control room.
I turn on the screen, hoping to distract myself from the noise.
Today I volunteered to go inside the city. David said the Divergent are dying and someone has to stop it, because that's a waste of our best genetic material. I think that's a pretty sick way to put it, but David doesn't mean it that way—he just means that if it wasn't the Divergent dying, we wouldn't intervene until a certain level of destruction, but since it's them it has to be taken care of now.
Just a few years, he said. All I have here are a few friends, no family, and I'm young enough that it will be easy to insert me— just wipe and resupply a few people's memories, and I'm in. They'll put me in Dauntless, at first, because I already have tattoos, and that would be hard to explain to the people inside the experiment. The only problem is that at my Choosing Ceremony next year I'll have to join Erudite, because that's where the killer is, and I'm not sure I'm smart enough to make it through initiation. David says it doesn't matter, he can alter my results, but that feels wrong. Even if the Bureau thinks the factions don't mean anything, that they're just a kind of behavioral modification that will help with the damage, those people believe they do, and it feels wrong to play with their system.
I've been watching them for a couple years now, so there's not much I need to know about fitting in. I bet I know the city better than they do, at this point. It's going to be difficult to send my updates—someone might notice that I'm connecting to a distant server instead of an intracity server, so my entries will probably come less often, if at all. It will be hard to separate myself from everything I know, but maybe it will be good. Maybe it will be a fresh start.
I could really use one of those.
It's a lot to take in, but I find myself rereading the sentence: The only problem is that at my Choosing Ceremony next year I'll have to join Erudite, because that's where the killer is. I don't know what killer she's referring to—Jeanine Matthews's predecessor, maybe?—but more confusing even than that is that she didn't join Erudite.
What happened to make her join
Abnegation instead?
The alarms stop, and my ears feel muffled in their absence. The others trickle out slowly, but Tobias lingers for a moment, tapping his fingers against his leg. I don't speak to him—I'm not sure I want to hear what he has to say right now, when we're both on edge.
But all he says is, "Can I kiss you?"
"Yes," I say, relieved.
He bends down and touches my cheek, then kisses me softly.
Well, he knows how to improve my mood, at least.
"I didn't think about Marcus. I should have," I say.
He shrugs. "It's over now."
I know it's not over. It's never over
with Marcus; the wrongs he committed are too great. But I don't press the issue.
"More journal entries?" he says.
"Yes," I say. "Just some memories of the compound so far. But it's getting interesting."
"Good," he says. "I'll leave you with it."
He smiles a little, but I can tell he's still tired, still upset. I don't try to stop him from going. In a way, it feels like we are leaving each other to our grief, his over the loss of his Divergence and whatever hopes he had for Marcus's trial, and mine, finally, over the loss of my parents.
I tap the screen to read the next entry. Dear David,
I raise my eyebrows. Now she's writing to David?
Dear David,
I'm sorry, but it's not going to happen the way we planned it. I can't do it. I know you're just going to think I'm being a stupid teenager, but this is my life and if I'm going to be here for years, I have to do this my way. I'll still be able to do my job from outside of Erudite. So tomorrow, at the Choosing Ceremony, Andrew and I are going to choose Abnegation together.
I hope you're not angry. I guess even if you are, I won't hear about it.
—Natalie
I read the entry again, and again, letting the words sink in. Andrew and I are going to choose Abnegation together.
I smile into my hand, lean my head against the window, and let the tears fall in