I sit next to Will.
Al isn’t there—he isn’t anywhere.
Uriah slides into the seat next to me, leaving his half-eaten muffin and half-finished glass of water on the other table. For a second, all three of them just stare at me.
“What happened?” Will asks, lowering his voice.
I look over his shoulder at the table behind ours. Peter sits there, eating a piece of toast and whispering something to Molly. My hand clenches around the edge of the table. I want him to hurt. But now isn’t the time.
Drew is missing, which means he’s still in the infirmary. Vicious pleasure courses through me at the thought.
“Peter, Drew…,” I say quietly. I hold my side as I reach across the table for a piece of toast. It hurts to stretch out my hand, so I let myself wince and hunch over. “And…” I swallow. “And Al.”
“Oh God,” says Christina, her eyes wide.
“Are you all right?” Uriah asks.
Peter’s eyes find mine across the dining hall, and I have to force myself to look away. It brings a bitter taste to my mouth to show him that he scares me, but I have to. Four was right. I have to do everything I can to make sure I don’t get attacked again.
“Not really,” I say.
My eyes burn, and it’s not artifice, unlike the wincing. I shrug. I believe Tori’s warning now. Peter, Drew, and Al were ready to throw me into the chasm out of jealousy—what is so unbelievable about the Dauntless leaders committing murder?
I feel uncomfortable, like I’m wearing someone else’s skin. If I’m not careful, I could die. I can’t even trust the leaders of my faction. My new family.
“But you’re just…” Uriah purses his lips. “It isn’t fair. Three against one?”
“Yeah, and Peter is all about what’s fair. That’s why he grabbed Edward in his sleep and stabbed him in the eye.” Christina snorts and shakes her head. “Al, though? Are you sure, Tris?”
I stare at my plate. I’m the next Edward. But unlike him, I’m not going to leave.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m sure.”
“It has to be desperation,” says Will. “He’s been acting…I don’t know. Like a different person. Ever since stage two started.”
Then Drew shuffles into the dining hall. I drop my toast, and my mouth drifts open.
Calling him “bruised” would be an understatement. His face is swollen and purple. He has a split lip and a cut running through his eyebrow. He keeps his eyes down on the way to his table, not even lifting them to look at me. I glance across the room at Four. He wears the satisfied smile I wish I had on.
“Did you do that?” hisses Will.
I shake my head. “No. Someone—I never saw who—found me right before…” I gulp. Saying it out loud makes it worse, makes it real. “…I got tossed into the chasm.”
“They were going to kill you?” says Christina in a low voice.
“Maybe. They might have been planning on dangling me over it just to scare me.” I lift a shoulder. “It worked.”
Christina gives me a sad look. Will just glares at the table.
“We have to do something about this,” Uriah says in a low voice.
“What, like beat them up?” Christina grins. “Looks like that’s been taken care of already.”
“No. That’s pain they can get over,” replies Uriah. “We have to edge them out of the rankings. That will damage their futures. Permanently.”
Four gets up and stands between the tables. Conversation abruptly ceases.
“Transfers. We’re doing something different today,” he says. “Follow me.”
We stand, and Uriah’s forehead wrinkles. “Be careful,” he tells me.
“Don’t worry,” says Will. “We’ll protect her.”
Four leads us out of the dining hall and along the paths that surround the Pit. Will is on my left, Christina is on my right.
“I never really said I was sorry,” Christina says quietly. “For taking the flag when you earned it. I don’t know what was wrong with me.”
I’m not sure if it’s smart to forgive her or not—to forgive either of them, after what they said to me when the rankings went up yesterday. But my mother would tell me that people are flawed and I should be lenient with them. And Four told me to rely on my friends.
I don’t know who I should rely on more, because I’m not sure who my true friends are. Uriah and Marlene, who were on my side even when I seemed strong, or Christina and Will, who have always protected me when I seemed weak?
When her wide brown eyes meet mine, I nod. “Let’s just forget about it.”
I still want to be angry, but I have to let my anger go.
We climb higher than I’ve gone before, until Will’s face goes white whenever he looks down. Most of the time I like heights, so I grab Will’s arm like I need his support—but really, I’m lending him mine. He smiles gratefully at me.
Four turns around and walks backward a few steps—backward, on a narrow path with no railing. How well does he know this place?
He eyes Drew, who trudges at the back of the group, and says, “Pick up the pace, Drew!”
It’s a cruel joke, but it’s hard for me to fight off a smile. That is, until Four’s eyes shift to my arm around Will’s, and all the humor drains from them. His expression sends a chill through me. Is he…jealous?
We get closer and closer to the glass ceiling, and for the first time in days, I see the sun. Four walks up a flight of metal stairs leading through a hole in the ceiling. They creak under my feet, and I look down to see the Pit and the chasm below us.
We walk across the glass, which is now a floor rather than a ceiling, through a cylindrical room with glass walls. The surrounding buildings are half-collapsed and appear to be abandoned, which is probably why I never noticed the Dauntless compound before. The Abnegation sector is also far away.
The Dauntless mill around the glass room, talking in clusters. At the edge of the room, two Dauntless fight with sticks, laughing when one of them misses and hits only air. Above me, two ropes stretch across the room, one a few feet higher than the other. They probably have something to do with the daredevil stunts the Dauntless are famous for.
Four leads us through another door. Beyond it is a huge, dank space with graffitied walls and exposed pipes. The room is lit by a series of old-fashioned fluorescent tubes with plastic covers—they must be ancient.