Page 30 of The Sixth Fraction

She veers to the right, down an alley stuffed with discarded furniture and ripped-apart trash bags. I see a train platform ahead. My mother leads the way up the stairs to the wooden landing that stretches in each direction. She beckons me toward the end of the platform, and we stand together there.

The wind tosses my hair loose from its knot, and I brush the strands out of my eyes.

She looks over her shoulder at a dark shape moving in the distance. A train is coming, though it’s still a ways off.

“I’ve heard there are factionless stealing from the factions,” my mother says. “And I was thinking . . . if you can figure out who they are, maybe you can find out more about the gun that killed Robert—since it was stolen from the wall.”

I stare at her. The way she’s talking, it’s like I’ve been planning to defect for weeks. I still feel like I’m at the Choosing Ceremony with my hand over the stones, and she’s already piecing together a plan.

She goes on, “That’s the only starting place I can think of. If you find anything, leave a message for me at the donation center—behind the loose brick near the back door.”

I nod, but I’m too preoccupied with the thought of jumping on a moving train to react to what she says. I’ve seen the Dauntless do this so many times, but I’ve also heard horror stories about people toppling off the train platform and dying, crushed under the train’s weight or falling to the pavement below.

“The train?”

“Right, right.” My mother points to the other end of the wooden platform. “When I tell you to run, you’re going to run as fast as you can toward the other end of the platform. When I tell you to jump, you’re going to throw your body to the right as hard as you can. That’s not the most graceful way to get on, but it’s the least tricky.”

My mouth is dry. I check the straps of my bag to make sure it’s secure to my back.

“Who are we meeting?” I say. “What’s their name?”

“Well,” my mother says. “That’s an interesting question, actually. Let’s just say you already know her.”

I don’t know what she means, and I’m in no position to puzzle it over right now. I feel sluggish with fear, stupid with it. She doesn’t seem to notice.

“I’m given to understand she’s important to the factionless. And I once helped her to do the exact same thing you’re doing right now, so she owes me a favor. She’s promised to look out for you.”

The sound of the train approaching the platform is like thunder. A low rumble that builds to a roar. My mother tells me to run, so I do, the bag bumping against my spine as I sprint toward the other end of the platform. The train overtakes me. It’s so loud I’m worried I won’t hear her command to jump.

But then I do.

“Jump!”

I don’t think; I just trust her. I jump to the right. I’m half convinced I’m going to hit a wall of metal. I fall, weightless for just a moment before I hit something hard enough to make my shoulder ache.

It’s the metal floor of a train car.

I sit up, dazed, to see my mother swinging into the same car, her hand still on one of the handles next to the door. Her hair isn’t even out of place. I feel like I’m looking at a woman I’ve never met before, one who just happens to be wearing my mother’s skin.

“All right?” she asks me.

“Yeah.” I follow her gaze to a dark shape standing in the corner of the train car. I didn’t notice it before. It moves toward us, and I tense before realizing she’s just a woman.

She’s taller than my mother and me, with dark curly hair and a stern set to her mouth. She’s wearing an array of clothing from three different factions: deep red pants from Amity, a white shirt from Candor, a black Dauntless jacket. There’s a knife strapped to her thigh.

And my mother was right. I do know her.

She’s the reason I’m in this mess to begin with.

My mother says, “Hello, Evelyn.”

Yesterday, when my mother told me she knew that Evelyn was alive, she didn’t mention any of this. That she’d helped her. That they still knew each other.

I didn’t know my mother had so many secrets.

A memory surfaces: After Evelyn Eaton died I went with my mother to bring a meal to Marcus’s house. She thought Marcus’s son might want some company his own age, but Marcus said he wasn’t feeling well. So I sat in the living room with my mother, watching Marcus blink away tears, instead.

I don’t know how I ever thought it wasn’t Evelyn I saw. There’s no one else this woman could be.