Page 142 of The Sixth Fraction

“That,” she says. “Is too much control for any one group to have. Don’t you think?”

Chapter 49

Four

Tris and I meet on the train early on Thursday morning. Fourth car back, the same one we were on when we first crossed paths.

The first time I met her, she hadn’t yet gotten her train legs. She stumbled into me and then looked at me like she was taking me apart and putting me back together again.

Now, when she boards, it’s with the same ease as any experienced Dauntless. The burst of speed on the platform, the timing of the jump just right, her hand firm on the handle, her steady feet.

Now, she looks a little wild-eyed, like she’s afraid of what’s next.

“Evelyn said yes,” Tris says. “We’re supposed to meet her—and the rest of the radicals, I assume—in the train yard behind the Museum at three in the morning. She said she’d introduce us to everyone.”

She looks as scared as I feel. Wide-eyed and, for once, exactly as young as she is. As young as we both are—because I only just stopped growing, only just started filling out my T-shirt sleeves; I’m barely anything, barely anyone.

“So what’s the plan?” I say.

“I’ll leave a message for my mother, so she knows to warn Marcus,” she says. “You . . . get ready to leave Dauntless, I guess.”

My stomach lurches, even though I made this decision hours ago, even though I’ve made this decision a hundred times since then.

“We could run instead,” she says. “The city is so big, with so many empty spaces. We could go to one of them, and . . .” She trails off, and I know exactly why.

Because what then? What comes next? The city is hemmed in by walls. Those walls are studded with signal repeaters that transmit fear simulations. And that’s not even accounting for the armed Dauntless guarding it. We’re trapped here.

“We can’t,” I say.

“I know.” She puts her hands on my shoulders and stands on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek. “The point is,” she says, against my jaw. “That I would.”

I run my fingers through her hair. “I would, too.”

We turn our heads at the same time, our lips meeting in the space between us. But the Dauntless stop is coming up, and I have to get off the train. I have to pack my bag, and say one last goodbye, before I commit myself to this path I’ve decided to walk.

So I pull away, and move toward the door.

“There’s something else,” Tris says. “Evelyn told me if I needed to persuade you, I should tell you that her ‘dream’ is about to come true. It sounded like she was referring to something specific.”

I frown. “That’s all she said?”

Tris nods.

“I’ll try to remember.”

If she responds, it’s a moment too late. I jump off the train and run along the platform toward the steps.

I don’t have that much to pack, really. My clothes. A few odds and ends. Apart from my mother’s quilt, which I leave on the bed, since I’ll be spending one last night here, it all fits in one bag, with my spare boots dangling by their laces from the straps. I leave the bag at the foot of my bed for me to pick up on my way out. But before that, and before sleep, there’s one last thing I have to do.

I go around the back of Zeke’s apartment that evening, since I don’t want to run into Hana and wind up invited to dinner. I never quite understood why he didn’t move out when he was finished with initiation, like the rest of our cohort did. When I asked him about it, he just said he would move out when Uriah was grown up. Uriah may be his little brother, but Zeke’s more than just a brother to him.

I stand on the third-floor landing and reach across to the nearest window. I tap it three times and wait. He might be here, and he might not. I’ll just have to wait and see.

His window opens a crack, and his dark eyes fix on me.

“Hold on, I’ll let you in.”

A few seconds later the back door opens. Zeke’s in ratty old sweatpants and a T-shirt with a big hole in the shoulder seam. He beckons me in, and I walk through the laundry room, with its stacks of black clothes and old shoes piled up by the back door, crusted in dirt.