The Divergent Library: Divergent; Insurgent; Allegiant; Four: The Transfer, The Initiate, The Son, and The Traitor (Divergent Series) (89 page)

My face feels hot, and I shrink into myself, my shoulders curving in.

Marcus is shaking his head. “No, Tobias is—”

Johanna holds up a hand. She speaks with her eyes closed, like she can’t stand to look at him. “Please. I have watched how your son behaves, how your wife behaves. I know what people who are stained with violence look like.” She pushes her hair behind her ear. “We recognize our own.”

“You can’t possibly believe—” Marcus starts. He shakes his head. “I’m a disciplinarian, yes, but I only wanted what was best—”

“A husband should not
discipline
his wife,” Johanna says. “Not even in Abnegation. And as for your son . . . well, let us say that I
do
believe it of you.”

Johanna’s fingers skip over the scar on her cheek. My heart overwhelms me with its rhythm. She knows. She knows, not because she heard me confess to my shame in the Candor interrogation room, but because she
knows
, she has experienced it herself, I’m sure of it. I wonder who it was for her—mother? Father? Someone else?

Part of me always wondered what my father would do if directly confronted with the truth. I thought he might shift from the self-effacing Abnegation leader to the nightmare I knew at home, that he might lash out and reveal himself for who he is. It would be a satisfying reaction for me to see, but it is not his real reaction.

He just stands there looking confused, and for a moment I wonder if he
is
confused, if in his sick heart he believes his own lies about disciplining me. The thought creates a storm inside me, a rumbling of thunder and a rush of wind.

“Now that I’ve been honest,” Johanna says, a little more calm now, “you can tell me why you asked me to come here.”

Marcus shifts to a new subject like the old one was never discussed. I see in him a man who divides himself into compartments and can switch between them on command. One of those compartments was reserved only for my mother and me.

The Bureau employees move the camera in closer, so that the Hancock building is just a black backdrop behind Marcus’s and Johanna’s torsos. I follow a girder diagonally across the screen so I don’t have to look at him.

“Evelyn and the factionless are tyrants,” Marcus says. “The peace we experienced among the factions, before Jeanine’s first attack,
can
be restored, I’m sure of it. And I want to try to restore it. I think this is something you want too.”

“It is,” Johanna says. “How do you think we should go about it?”

“This is the part you might not like, but I hope you will keep an open mind,” Marcus says. “Evelyn controls the city because she controls the weapons. If we take those weapons away, she won’t have nearly as much power, and she can be challenged.”

Johanna nods, and scrapes her shoe against the pavement. I can only see the smooth side of her face from this angle, the limp but curled hair, the full mouth.

“What would you like me to do?” she says.

“Let me join you in leading the Allegiant,” he says. “I was an Abnegation leader. I was practically the leader of this entire city. People will rally behind me.”

“People have rallied already,” Johanna points out. “And not behind a person, but behind the desire to reinstate the factions. Who says I need you?”

“Not to diminish your accomplishments, but the Allegiant are still too insignificant to be any more than a small uprising,” Marcus says. “There are more factionless than any of us knew. You do need me. You know it.”

My father has a way of persuading people without charm that has always confused me. He states his opinions as if they’re facts, and somehow his complete lack of doubt makes you believe him. That quality frightens me now, because I know what he told me: that I was broken, that I was worthless, that I was nothing. How many of those things did he make me believe?

I can see Johanna beginning to believe him, thinking of the small cluster of people she has gathered to the Allegiant cause. Thinking of the group she sent outside the fence, with Cara, and never heard from again. Thinking of how alone she is, and how rich his history of leadership is. I want to scream at her through the screens not to trust him, to tell her that he only wants the factions back because he knows he can then take up his place as their leader again. But my voice can’t reach her, wouldn’t be able to even if I was standing right next to her.

Carefully, Johanna says to him, “Can you promise me that you will, wherever possible, try to limit the destruction we will cause?”

Marcus says, “Of course.”

She nods again, but this time it looks like she’s nodding to herself.

“Sometimes we need to fight for peace,” she says, more to the pavement than to Marcus. “I think this is one of those times. And I do think you would be useful for people to rally behind.”

It’s the beginning of the Allegiant rebellion I’ve been expecting since I first heard the group had formed. Even though it has seemed inevitable to me since I saw how Evelyn chose to rule, I feel sick. It seems like the rebellions never stop, in the city, in the compound, anywhere. There are just breaths between them, and foolishly, we call those breaths “peace.”

I move away from the screen, intending to leave the control room behind me, to get some fresh air wherever I can.

But as I walk away, I catch sight of another screen, showing a dark-haired woman pacing back and forth in an office in Erudite headquarters. Evelyn—of course they keep footage of Evelyn on the most prominent screens in the control room, it only makes sense.

Evelyn pushes her hands into her hair, clenching her fingers around the thick locks. She drops to a crouch, papers littering the floor all around her, and I think,
She’s crying
, but I’m not sure why, since I don’t see her shoulders shake.

I hear, through the screen speakers, a knock on the office door. Evelyn straightens, pats her hair, wipes her face, and says, “Come in!”

Therese comes in, her factionless armband askew. “Just got an update from the patrols. They say they haven’t seen any sign of him.”

“Great.” Evelyn shakes her head. “I exile him, and he stays inside the city. He must be doing this just to spite me.”

“Or he’s joined the Allegiant, and they’re harboring him,” Therese says, slinging her body across one of the office chairs. She twists paper into the floor with her boot soles.

“Well, obviously.” Evelyn puts her arm against the window and leans into it, looking out over the city and beyond it, the marsh. “Thank you for the update.”

“We’ll find him,” Therese says. “He can’t have gone far. I swear we’ll find him.”

“I just want him to be gone,” Evelyn says, her voice tight and small, like a child’s. I wonder if she’s still afraid of him, in the way that I’m still afraid of him, like a nightmare that keeps resurfacing during the day. I wonder how similar my mother and I are, deep down where it counts.

“I know,” Therese says, and she leaves.

I stand for a long time, watching Evelyn stare out the window, her fingers twitching at her side.

I feel like what I have become is halfway between my mother and my father, violent and impulsive and desperate and afraid. I feel like I have lost control of what I have become.

T
RIS

D
AVID SUMMONS ME
to his office the next day, and I am afraid that he remembers how I used him as a shield when I was backing away from the Weapons Lab, how I pointed a gun at his head and said I didn’t care if he lived or died.

Zoe meets me in the hotel lobby and leads me through the main hallway and down another one, long and narrow, with windows on my right that show the small fleet of airplanes perched in rows on the concrete. Light snow touches the glass, an early taste of winter, and melts within seconds.

I sneak looks at her as we walk, hoping to see what she is like when she doesn’t think anyone is watching, but she seems just the same as always—chipper, but businesslike. Like the attack never happened.

“He’ll be in a wheelchair,” she says when we reach the end of the narrow hallway. “It’s best not to make a big deal of it. He doesn’t like to be pitied.”

“I don’t pity him.” I struggle to keep the anger out of my voice. It would make her suspicious. “He’s not the first person to ever be hit with a bullet.”

“I always forget that you have seen far more violence than we have,” Zoe says, and she scans her card at the next security barrier we reach. I stare through the glass at the guards on the other side—they stand erect, their guns at their shoulders, facing forward. I get the sense they have to stand that way all day.

I feel heavy and achy, like my muscles are communicating a deeper, emotional pain. Uriah is still in a coma. I still can’t look at Tobias when I see him in the dormitory, in the cafeteria, in the hallway, without seeing the exploded wall next to Uriah’s head. I’m not sure when, or if, anything will ever get better, not sure if these wounds are the kind that can heal.

We walk past the guards, and the tile turns to wood beneath my feet. Small paintings with gilded frames line the walls, and just outside David’s office is a pedestal with a bouquet of flowers on it. They are small touches, but the effect is that I feel like my clothes are smudged with dirt.

Zoe knocks, and a voice within calls out, “Come in!”

She opens the door for me but doesn’t follow me in. David’s office is spacious and warm, the walls lined with books where they are not lined with windows. On the left side is a desk with glass screens suspended above it, and on the right side is a small laboratory with wood furnishings instead of metal ones.

David sits in a wheelchair, his legs covered in a stiff material—to keep the bones in place so they can heal, I assume. He looks pale and wan, but healthy enough. Though I know that he had something to do with the attack simulation, and with all those deaths, I find it difficult to pair those actions with the man I see in front of me. I wonder if this is how it is with all evil men, that to someone, they look just like good men, talk like good men, are just as likable as good men.

“Tris.” He pushes himself toward me and presses one of my hands between his. I keep my hand firmly in his, though his skin feels dry as paper and I am repulsed by him.

“You are so very brave,” he says, and then he releases my hand. “How are your injuries?”

I shrug. “I’ve had worse. How are yours?”

“It will take me some time to walk again, but they’re confident that I will. Some of our people are developing sophisticated leg braces anyway, so I can be their first test case if I have to,” he says, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Could you push me behind the desk again? I am still having trouble steering.”

I do, guiding his stiff legs under the tabletop and letting the rest of him follow. When I’m sure he’s positioned correctly, I sit in the chair across from him and try to smile. In order to find some way to avenge my parents, I need to keep his trust and his fondness for me intact. And I won’t do that with a scowl.

“I asked you to come here mostly so that I could thank you,” he says. “I can’t think of many young people who would have come after me instead of running for cover, or who would have been able to save this compound the way you did.”

I think of pressing a gun to his head and threatening his life, and swallow hard.

“You and the people you came with have been in a regrettable state of flux since your arrival,” he says. “We aren’t quite sure what to do with all of you, to be honest, and I’m sure you don’t know what to do with yourselves, but I have thought of something I would like
you
to do. I am the official leader of this compound, but apart from that, we have a similar system of governance to the Abnegation, so I am advised by a small group of councilors. I would like you to begin training for that position.”

My hands tighten around the armrests.

“You see, we are going to need to make some changes around here now that we have been attacked,” he says. “We are going to have to take a stronger stand for our cause. And I think you know how to do that.”

I can’t argue with that.

“What . . .” I clear my throat. “What would training for that entail?”

“Attending our meetings, for one thing,” he says, “and learning the ins and outs of our compound—how we function, from top to bottom, our history, our values, and so on. I can’t allow you to be a part of the council in any official capacity at such a young age, and there is a track you must follow—assisting one of the current council members—but I am inviting you to travel down the road, if you would like to.”

His eyes, not his voice, ask me the question.

The councilors are probably the same people who authorized the attack simulation and ensured that it was passed on to Jeanine at the right time. And he wants me to sit among them, learn to become them. Even though I can taste bile in the back of my mouth, I have no trouble answering.

“Of course,” I say, and smile. “I would be honored.”

If someone offers you an opportunity to get closer to your enemy, you always take it. I know that without having learned it from anyone.

He must believe my smile, because he grins.

“I thought you would say yes,” he says. “It’s something I wanted your mother to do with me, before she volunteered to enter the city. But I think she had fallen in love with the place from afar and couldn’t resist it.”

“Fallen in love . . . with the city?” I say. “No accounting for taste, I suppose.”

It’s just a joke, but my heart isn’t in it. Still, David laughs, and I know I’ve said the right thing.

“You were . . . close with my mother, while she was here?” I say. “I’ve been reading her journal, but she’s not very wordy.”

“No, she wouldn’t be, would she? Natalie was always very straightforward. Yes, we were close, your mother and I.” His voice softens when he talks about her—he is no longer the toughened leader of this compound, but an old man, reflecting on some fonder past.

The past that happened before he got her killed.

“We had a similar history. I was also plucked right out of the damaged world as a child . . . my parents were severely dysfunctional people who were both taken to prison when I was young. Rather than succumbing to an adoption system overburdened with orphans, my siblings and I ran to the fringe—the same place where your mother also took refuge, years later—and only I came out of there alive.”