Page 129 of The Sixth Fraction

I shrug. “Not everyone eats at the same time, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“So if I pulled up our register of members, I’d find her?” Eric says. “What’s her name?”

“I didn’t catch it.”

He snorts a laugh.

“Does the council leader know what a clever son he has?” Eric says.

My throat feels tight at the mention of Marcus. It always does. This is the well Eric draws from when I’ve really pissed him off. The threat he’s been holding over my head since the day he figured out who I really am—and that I was desperate to keep it quiet. If I don’t stay in line, he’ll tell everyone who I am and where I came from. He’ll take away my safe haven.

“What do you want?” I say.

“Jeanine Matthews is stopping by the simulation room today to update our system. She’ll be with Max and me,” Eric says.

I keep my face as neutral as I can while I process my alarm. Jeanine Matthews, in Dauntless headquarters. In the simulation room. What are the odds that has nothing to do with whatever it is she’s planning? Or that it has nothing to do with what her Erudite plant saw in my fear simulation?

Slim. Very slim.

“So what I want . . .” Eric says, “is for you to be a model Dauntless citizen. I want you to talk to me like you know your goddamn place here. Do that, and you and I won’t have a problem. But if you don’t . . . well. I’m not going to just let your insubordination reflect poorly on me, am I? I’ll just have to start referring to you by your full name.”

You will speak to me with respect, my father’s voice whispers.

And I know the script here. I know how to make the threats stop.

I force the words out. “Yes, sir.”

Eric smiles, the rings in his lips glinting. “See what a good little soldier you can be, when you try?”

He picks up his tray and walks away. I burn with shame, with embarrassment, with rage. I quake with it. I had to, I tell myself. I want to stay here; I want to be myself, not Marcus Eaton’s son.

Instead of eating, though, I return my tray and walk to the training room. I’ve never needed to punch something more than I need to punch something now.

“Next,” I call out, not bothering to get up.

It’s the last fear simulation of the day, and I’m ready to leave. My body aches from punching the heavy bag earlier—as hard as I could, for as long as I could. And I’m ready to get the hell out of here.

Only I won’t get to, I remind myself. Once the initiates are done, Jeanine Matthews will be here.

Will walks into the simulation room, his head ducked, like he knows what kind of mood I’m in and doesn’t want to set me off. It reminds me to control myself. I don’t mind if the initiates are a little afraid of me, but it shouldn’t be because I’m moody.

I sit up straighter against the stone wall.

“Are you ready?” I ask him.

Will oozes good-naturedness. Even when he’s not smiling, it sort of seems like he is. Not today, though . . . and maybe not since Al died. There’s no obvious signs of it—he still looks well-groomed and well-rested, still has color in his cheeks—but it’s like a light has gone out in his eyes. I guess I don’t blame him. He had two friends in Dauntless initiation. One of them got stabbed, and the other is dead.

He nods at me. I tip my head back against the wall, and cue the computer to start the simulation.

Most of Will’s simulations are typical. Sometimes he’s in a classroom failing an exam—typical Erudite imagery. Sometimes he’s getting kicked out of Dauntless. I don’t like the one where he’s dangling from the edge of a building and can’t pull himself up, and I especially don’t like the one where he’s losing all his teeth and keeps trying to shove them back into his mouth.

But this one, today, is new.

He’s standing in a field. I recognize it as one of the Amity wheat fields, only I can’t see the city skyline from here, or Amity headquarters—it’s just wheat in every direction. He’s tense, obviously waiting for something, but there’s nothing in sight. Wind blows through the wheat stalks, tossing them back and forth. The sky is an ominous, sickening green.

There’s a bang, like a gunshot. A flock of birds rises up from the wheat. They assemble into a shapeless mass, high above the ground. Another bang, and one of them falls like a rock to the ground right in front of Will’s feet.

“No,” he says, and he starts running. “No!”