I get up, waving a good-bye to everyone at the table who is paying attention—which is just Zeke, really, because Christina and Hector are staring at their plates, and Uriah and Marlene are talking quietly. Tobias and I walk out of the cafeteria.
“Where are we going?”
“The train,” he says. “I have a meeting, and I want you there to help me read the situation.”
We walk up one of the paths that lines the Pit walls, toward the stairs that lead us to the Pire.
“Why do you need me to—”
“Because you’re better at it than I am.”
I don’t have a response to that. We ascend the stairs and cross the glass floor. On our way out, we walk through the dank room in which I faced my fear landscape. Judging by the syringe on the floor, someone has been there recently.
“Did you go through your fear landscape today?” I say.
“What makes you say that?” His dark eyes skirt mine. He pushes the front door open, and the summer air swims around me. There is no wind.
“Your knuckles are cut up and someone’s been using that room.”
“This is exactly what I mean. You’re far more perceptive than most.” He checks his watch. “They told me to catch the one leaving at 8:05. Come on.”
I feel a surge of hope. Maybe we won’t argue this time. Maybe things will finally get better between us.
We walk to the tracks. The last time we did this, he wanted to show me that the lights were on in the Erudite compound, wanted to tell me that Erudite was planning an attack on Abnegation. Now I get the sense we are about to meet with the factionless.
“Perceptive enough to know you’re evading the question,” I say.
He sighs. “Yes, I went through my fear landscape. I wanted to see if it had changed.”
“And it has. Hasn’t it?”
He brushes a stray hair away from his face and avoids my eyes. I didn’t know his hair was so thick—it was hard to tell when it was buzzed short, Abnegation hair, but now it’s two inches long and almost hangs over his forehead. It makes him look less threatening, more like the person I’ve come to know in private.
“Yes,” he says. “But the number is still the same.”
I hear the train horn blasting to my left, but the light fixed to the first car is not on. Instead it slides over the rails like some hidden, creeping thing.
“Fifth car back!” he shouts.
We both break into a sprint. I find the fifth car and grab the handle on the side with my left hand, pulling as hard as I can. I try to swing my legs inside, but they don’t quite make it; they are dangerously close to the wheels—I shriek, and scrape my knee against the floor as I yank myself inside.
Tobias gets in after me and crouches by my side. I clutch my knee and grit my teeth.
“Here, let me see,” he says. He pushes my jeans up my leg and over my knee. His fingers leave streaks of cold on my skin, invisible to the eye, and I think about wrapping his shirt around my fist and pulling him in to kiss me; I think about pressing myself against him, but I can’t, because all our secrets would keep a space between us.
My knee is red with blood. “It’s shallow. It’ll heal quickly,” he says.
I nod. The pain is already subsiding. He rolls my jeans so they will stay up. I lie back, staring at the ceiling.
“So is he still in your fear landscape?” I say.
It looks like someone lit a match behind his eyes. “Yes. But not in the same way.”
He told me, once, that his fear landscape hadn’t changed since he first went through it, during his initiation. So if it has, even in a small way, that’s something.
“You’re in it, though.” He frowns at his hands. “Instead of having to shoot that woman, like I used to, I have to watch you die. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
His hands shake. I try to think of something helpful to say. I’m not going to die—but I don’t know that. We live in a dangerous world, and I am not so attached to life that I will do anything to survive. I can’t reassure him.
He checks his watch. “They’ll be here any minute.”
I get up, and see Evelyn and Edward standing next to the tracks. They run before the train passes them, and jump in with almost as little trouble as Tobias. They must have been practicing.
Edward smirks at me. Today his eye patch has a big blue “X” stitched over it.
“Hello,” Evelyn says. She looks only at Tobias as she says it, like I’m not even there.
“Nice meeting location,” says Tobias. It is almost dark now, so I see only shadows of buildings against a dark blue sky, and a few glowing lights near the lake that must belong to Erudite headquarters.
The train takes a turn it doesn’t usually take—left, away from the glow of Erudite and into the abandoned part of the city. I can tell by the growing quiet in the car that it is slowing down.
“It seemed safest,” says Evelyn. “So you wanted to meet.”
“Yes. I’d like to discuss an alliance.”
“An alliance,” repeats Edward. “And who gave you the authority to do that?”
“He’s a Dauntless leader,” I say. “He has the authority.”
Edward raises his eyebrows, looking impressed. Evelyn’s eyes finally shift to me, but only for a second before she smiles at Tobias again.
“Interesting,” she says. “And is she also a Dauntless leader?”
“No,” he says. “She’s here to help me decide whether or not to trust you.”
Evelyn purses her lips. Part of me wants to thumb my nose at her and say, “Ha!” But I settle for a small smile.
“We will, of course, agree to an alliance . . . under a certain set of conditions,” Evelyn says. “A guaranteed—and equal—place in whatever government forms after Erudite is destroyed, and full control over Erudite data after the attack. Clearly—”
“What are you going to do with the Erudite data?” I interrupt her.
“Obviously we will destroy it. The only way to deprive the Erudite of power is to deprive them of knowledge.”
My first instinct is to tell her she’s a fool. But something stops me. Without the simulation technology, without the data they had about all the other factions, without their focus on technological advancement, the attack on Abnegation would not have happened. My parents would be alive.
Even if we manage to kill Jeanine, could the Erudite be trusted not to attack and control us again? I am not sure.