Page 154 of The Sixth Fraction

But I’m used to panic. Used to making fear, not nonexistent, but unimportant. I try to slow down my breathing as I run down the steps, Peter’s gun in one hand, my father at my heels. I can feel him like a specter haunting me, prickling at the back of my neck. It makes me so tense that by the time we reach the street, my shoulders are aching.

I usher them all in front of me so I can keep an eye on all of them. We run in silence for a while before I hear the first gunshot, a loud snap in the distance. I see black out of the corner of my eye and turn to shoot without hesitating, aiming low so I don’t kill anyone under a simulation.

I hit Marlene in the leg. She screams and staggers into a wall, her legs giving way beneath her. But the gun is still in her hand. She raises it.

I dive at the person closest to me—who just happens to be my father. I put my hand on his head and force it down as the gun goes off. The bullet hits the brick a foot to our left; Marlene’s never been the best shot. Brick dust sprays across the side of my face.

“Run!” I scream, even though we were already running.

We sprint to the end of the block, and turn the corner. I don’t think Marlene will be able to chase us, but the gunshot will draw attention, and I don’t know what the simulation will do with that attention.

I can see the church up ahead, an elaborate structure of warm gray stone with a green domed roof. It’s caved in on one side, and most of its windows are broken or boarded up. Andrew seems to know where he’s going; he runs around the building to a door on the side, and shoves it open with his shoulder.

The sanctuary beyond is dark and dusty and empty. I turn to Caleb.

“What does this simulation do, exactly?” I say.

“I don’t know,” Caleb says, his eyes wide. “I don’t have all the details, I just know that the council is in danger.”

I narrow my eyes. “And how do you know that?”

“Someone’s coming,” Andrew says from deeper in the sanctuary. He’s looking out one of the windows in the front, a stained glass depiction of a saint.

I hold up my gun, pointing it at the door as the footsteps come closer and closer. Then: a flash of gold hair, and bright blue eyes, wet with tears.

Tris.

Chapter 55

Tris

I can’t feel my fingers.

I close the door behind me before I move into the church sanctuary, so I know my fingers are still working, but I can’t feel them.

My father steps in front of me, and sets his hands on my shoulders. I hiss as he makes contact with the wound in my arm, but the pain isn’t what makes me pull away from him; it’s the weight. The weight of his hands, dragging me down when I’m already so heavy, is unbearable.

“Your mother?” he asks me, his hands still raised, hovering in the air over where I was just standing.

There’s something dangerous in the question. Or maybe in the answer. I can’t tell him what happened, because that will make it real. But I have to tell him what happened, because I can’t carry it alone.

“She saved my life,” I say, and then I choke on the next words, and I can’t continue.

Sometimes I feel like a child. Small and uncertain, only pretending at adulthood. But watching my father realize that his wife is—

dead, a small voice in my mind whispers—

I’ve never felt so old.

His face falls. Mouth gone slack, eyes empty. Like a doll of him instead of the real him. Caleb chokes on a sob. Suddenly I can’t stand to be here, watching them react to this when I’m the one who had to see it, I’m the one who had to watch.

I feel a tug on my sleeve. Tobias materializes from the dark, like I dreamed him into being. He guides me away from my father, away from Caleb.

“Sit,” he says, his voice soft. I obey, and it’s a relief to finally let myself stop. I set my gun down on the pew beside me. My fingers ache from holding it so tightly.

We’re in the church I always wanted to see the inside of, I remember. It’s too dark to see much of it. But the walls—every inch of them is painted with figures too worn to identify, with plants and shapes and flourishes. It’s a kind of excess I’ve never known.

Tobias kneels in front of me on the dusty tile. He frowns up at me, his cool fingers touching my cheek and then hovering over my arm.