Page 70 of The Sixth Fraction

So it seems particularly cruel when, right as the song ends, a group of Dauntless sentries surges up from the tunnel, their guns pointed at us.

Chapter 23

Tris

“On your knees!”

For a split second after the first few Dauntless storm into the Rookery, I marvel at how well-choreographed they are. They rush into the room in two even lines, then divide, one of them going right and the other going left, row by row, until the hall is surrounded.

A sentry near me—the one who first told me to get to my knees—pushes his weapon into my shoulder. “Knees!”

We outnumber them, but the only gun in the building is Jove’s, and she doesn’t draw it. She nods to the people closest to her, and slowly, we all sink to our knees. I search the crowd for Evelyn, but I don’t find her. She must still be upstairs. Keeping herself out of sight.

I realize I’m panting, and I need to slow down my breaths so I don’t pass out. I see some of the others putting their arms up, their hands on their heads, like they’ve done this before.

Maybe they have. Don’t get caught is probably our most important rule for a reason. I never asked what happens when we do get caught.

The tile is cold under my knees. I look up at the sentry to my left. He still has a soft face, like a child’s, and there’s a second gun in a holster on his leg, right near my shoulder. He’s maybe Four’s age, I think, and I wonder if they know each other, and then I wonder if Four is the one who told them about this place.

I didn’t think he would. But people keep surprising me.

“This is a peaceful gathering,” Jove says to the sentry who seems to be acting as the leader of this . . . squad, or whatever they call them. I realize I recognize her: It’s Weaver, the guard who hassled us at the water-treatment facility. She’s older than the rest, but not by much, her left eyebrow pierced in a long line of rings, her throat covered in tattoos. “There’s no reason to—”

“No reason?” Weaver says, cutting her off. “You’re harboring a kidnapper and the child he stole from her mother. That reason enough for you?”

I glance at Christina. I have no idea what she’s talking about, until I do.

Mae and the Mender.

The Mender took Mae to get her away from their mother.

Weaver points at Mae, who’s just a few feet away from me, huddled against her older brother’s side with her face hidden in his shoulder. The Mender has one hand up in surrender, but the other is on the back of Mae’s head, his gold-ringed fingers sparkling in the low light. Two Dauntless make their way through the crowd of now-kneeling dancers and stand in front of him. In front of us.

“Hand her over,” one of them says.

“She’s my sister,” the Mender says, glaring at the Dauntless through the lock of dark hair that’s fallen in his eyes. “She doesn’t want to live with our mother; you can ask her.”

“She’s a child,” the Dauntless replies. “And she belongs with her family, not in some factionless hovel that’s practically collapsing around her.”

“She’s not safe at home,” the Mender snaps, his hand convulsing against Mae’s head. “Did they tell you that, when they sent you in here to terrorize us? They were hurting her—”

“Enough!” Weaver calls out. “Just take her.”

The Dauntless soldiers lunge at Mae, and everything erupts.

All the factionless around me leap to their feet. Christina and Colin, Jove and T, who likes to fold paper into birds and teaches everyone about maps—they surge toward the Mender. Dauntless guards converge on us from every direction.

My chest is tight. I think of the factionless woman with a needle in her neck, dead on the floor. I think of Robert’s ashes packed into a memorial stone.

Everyone is screaming: The Dauntless are shouting for everyone to freeze, the factionless are shouting for them to back off, and the Mender is still on the floor next to me, holding a sobbing, screeching Mae against his chest.

A gun goes off, the muffled bang of a nonlethal—but still horribly painful—projectile, and someone who sounds a lot like Rory screams in agony. Colin throws a punch; the Dauntless start grappling with Colin and T. I lurch forward to cover Mae, falling against the Mender.

Out of the corner of my eye I see it: the gun in its holster on a Dauntless guard’s thigh. The Mender spots it at the same time I do. I feel like everything around me is slowing down, going quiet. The Mender reaches for the gun with his spare hand, and I react, slamming my hand down on his elbow to knock him back.

“Don’t!” I say, my eyes finding his. “Don’t.”

It’s just an instinct that turns into a certainty: If the Mender steals that gun, this will all turn even more violent than it is now. Like the Choosing Ceremony—the needle that killed the factionless woman led to the bullet that killed Robert.