“Something about a plan,” I say slowly.
He gets up and walks toward me, oddly tense. I lean away from him by instinct.
“Is it happening?” he says. “Do you know when?”
“What’s going on?” I say. “Why would you help Nita?”
“Because all this ‘genetic damage’ nonsense is ridiculous,” he says. “It’s very important that you answer my questions.”
“It is happening. And I don’t know when, but I think it will be soon.”
“Shit.” Matthew puts his hands on his face. “Nothing good can come of this.”
“If you don’t stop saying cryptic things, I’m going to slap you,” I say, getting to my feet.
“I was helping Nita until she told me what she and those fringe people wanted to do,” Matthew says. “They want to get to the Weapons Lab and—”
“—steal the memory serum, yeah, I heard.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “No, they don’t want the memory serum, they want the death serum. Similar to the one the Erudite have—the one you were supposed to be injected with when you were almost executed. They’re going to use it for assassinations, a lot of them. Set off an aerosol can and it’s easy, see? Give it to the right people and you have an explosion of anarchy and violence, which is exactly what those fringe people want.”
I do see. I see the tilt of a vial, the quick press of a button on an aerosol can. I see Abnegation bodies and Erudite bodies sprawled over streets and staircases. I see the little pieces of this world that we’ve managed to cling to bursting into flames.
“I thought I was helping her with something smarter,” Matthew says. “If I had known I was helping her start another war, I wouldn’t have done it. We have to do something about this.”
“I told him,” I say softly, but not to Matthew, to myself. “I told him she was lying.”
“We may have a problem with the way we treat GDs in this country, but it’s not going to be solved by killing a bunch of people,” he says. “Now come on, we’re going to David’s office.”
I don’t know what’s right or wrong. I don’t know anything about this country or the way it works or what it needs to change. But I do know that a bunch of death serum in the hands of Nita and some people from the fringe is no better than a bunch of death serum in the Weapons Lab of the Bureau. So I chase Matthew down the hallway outside. We walk quickly in the direction of the front entrance, where I first entered this compound.
When we walk past the security checkpoint, I spot Uriah near the sculpture. He lifts a hand to wave to me, his mouth pressed into a line that could be a smile if he was trying harder. Above his head, light refracts through the water tank, the symbol of the compound’s slow, pointless struggle.
I’m just passing the security checkpoint when I see the wall next to Uriah explode.
It is like fire blossoming from a bud. Shards of glass and metal spray from the center of the bloom, and Uriah’s body is among them, a limp projectile. A deep rumble moves through me like a shudder. My mouth is open; I am screaming his name, but I can’t hear myself over the ringing in my ears.
Around me, everyone is crouched, their arms curled around their heads. But I am on my feet, watching the hole in the compound wall. No one comes through it.
Seconds later, everyone around me starts running away from the blast, and I hurl myself against them, shoulder first, toward Uriah. An elbow hits me in the side and I fall down, my face scraping something hard and metal—the side of a table. I struggle to my feet, wiping blood from my eyebrow with a sleeve. Fabric slides over my arms, and limbs, hair, and wide eyes are all I can see, except the sign over their heads that says COMPOUND EXIT.
“Signal the alarms!” one of the guards at the security checkpoint screams. I duck under an arm and trip to the side.
“I did!” another guard shouts. “They aren’t working!”
Matthew grabs my shoulder and yells into my ear. “What are you doing? Don’t go toward—”
I move faster, finding an empty channel where there are no people to obstruct my path. Matthew runs after me.
“We shouldn’t be going to the explosion site—whoever set it off is already in the building,” he says. “Weapons Lab, now! Come on!”
The Weapons Lab. Holy words.
I think of Uriah lying on the tile surrounded by glass and metal. My body is straining toward him, every muscle, but I know there’s nothing I can do for him right now. The more important thing for me to do is to use my knowledge of chaos, of attacks, to keep Nita and her friends from stealing the death serum.
Matthew was right. Nothing good can come of this.
Matthew takes the lead, plunging into the crowd like it is a pool of water. I try to look only at the back of his head, to keep track of him, but the oncoming faces distract me, the mouths and eyes rigid with terror. I lose him for a few seconds and then find him again, several yards ahead, turning right at the next hallway.
“Matthew!” I shout, and I push my way through another group of people. Finally I catch up, grabbing the back of his shirt. He turns and grabs my hand.
“Are you okay?” he says, staring just above my eyebrow. In the rush I almost forgot about my cut. I press my sleeve to it, and it comes away red, but I nod.
“I’m fine! Let’s go!”
We sprint side by side down the hallway—this one is not as crowded as the others, but I can see that whoever infiltrated the building has been here already. There are guards lying on the floor, some alive and some not. I see a gun on the tile near a drinking fountain and lurch toward it, breaking my grip on Matthew’s hand.
I grab the gun and offer it to Matthew. He shakes his head. “I’ve never fired one.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” My finger curls around the trigger. It’s different from the guns we had in the city—it doesn’t have a barrel that shifts to the side, or the same tension in the trigger, or even the same distribution of weight. It’s easier to hold, as a result, because it doesn’t spark the same memories.
Matthew is gasping for air. So am I, only I don’t notice it the same way, because I’ve done this sprint through chaos so many times. The next hallway he guides us to is empty except for one fallen soldier. She’s not moving.
“It’s not far,” he says, and I touch my finger to my lips to tell him to be quiet.
We slow to a walk, and I squeeze the gun, my sweat making it slip. I don’t know how many bullets are in it, or how to check. When we pass the soldier, I pause to search her for a weapon. I find a gun tucked under her hip, where she fell on her own wrist. Matthew stares at her, unblinking, as I take her weapon.
“Hey,” I say quietly. “Just keep moving. Move now, process later.”
I elbow him and lead the way down the hallway. Here the hallways are dim, the ceilings crossed with bars and pipes. I can hear people ahead and don’t need Matthew’s whispered directions to find them.
When we reach the place where we’re supposed to turn, I press against the wall and look around the corner, careful to keep myself as hidden as possible.
There’s a set of double-walled glass doors that look as heavy as metal doors would be, but they’re open. Beyond them is a cramped hallway, empty except for three people in black. They wear heavy clothing and carry guns so big I’m not sure I would be able to lift one. Their faces are covered with dark fabric, disguising all but their eyes.
On his knees before the double doors is David, a gun barrel pressed to his temple, blood trailing down his chin. And standing among the invaders, wearing the same mask as the others, is a girl with a dark ponytail.
Nita.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
TRIS
“GET US IN, David,” Nita says, her voice garbled by the mask.
David’s eyes slide lazily to the side, to the man pointing the gun at him.
“I don’t believe you’ll shoot me,” he says. “Because I’m the only one in this building who knows this information, and you want that serum.”
“Won’t shoot you in the head, maybe,” the man says, “but there are other places.”
The man and Nita exchange a look. Then the man shifts the gun down, to David’s feet, and fires. I squeeze my eyes shut as David’s screams fill the hallway. He might be one of the people who offered Jeanine Matthews the attack simulation, but I still don’t relish his screams of pain.
I stare at the guns I carry, one in each hand, my fingers pale against the black triggers. I imagine myself trimming back all the stray branches of my thoughts, focusing on just this place, just this time.
I put my mouth right next to Matthew’s ear and mutter, “Go for help. Now.”
Matthew nods and starts down the hallway. To his credit, he moves quietly, his footsteps silent on the tile. At the end of the hallway he looks back at me, and then disappears around the bend.
“I’m sick of this shit,” the red-haired woman says. “Just blow up the doors.”
“An explosion would activate one of the backup security measures,” says Nita. “We need the pass code.”
I look around the corner again, and this time, David’s eyes shift to mine. His face is pale and shiny with sweat, and there is a wide pool of blood around his ankles. The others are looking at Nita, who takes a black box from her pocket and opens it to reveal a syringe and needle.
“Thought you said that stuff doesn’t work on him,” the man with the gun says.
“I said he could resist it, not that it didn’t work at all,” she says. “David, this is a very potent blend of truth serum and fear serum. I’m going to stick you with it if you don’t tell us the pass code.”
“I know this is just the fault of your genes, Nita,” David says weakly. “If you stop now, I can help you, I can—”
Nita smiles a twisted smile. With relish, she sticks the needle in his neck and presses the plunger. David slumps over, and then his body shudders, and shudders again.
He opens his eyes wide and screams, staring at the empty air, and I know what he’s seeing, because I’ve seen it myself, in Erudite headquarters, under the influence of the terror serum. I watched my worst fears come to life.
Nita kneels in front of him and grabs his face.
“David!” she says urgently. “I can make it stop if you tell us how to get into this room. Hear me?”
He pants, and his eyes aren’t focused on her, but rather on something over her shoulder. “Don’t do it!” he shouts, and he lunges forward, toward whatever phantom the serum is showing him. Nita puts an arm across his chest to keep him steady, and he screams, “Don’t—!”
Nita shakes him. “I’ll stop them from doing it if you tell me how to get in!”
“Her!” David says, and tears gleam in his eyes. “The—the name—”
“Whose name?”
“We’re running out of time!” the man with the gun trained on David says. “Either we get the serum or we kill him—”
“Her,” David says, pointing at the space in front of him.
Pointing at me.
I stretch my arms around the corner of the wall and fire twice. The first bullet hits the wall. The second hits the man in the arm, so the huge weapon topples to the floor. The red-haired woman points her weapon at me—or the part of me that she can see, half hidden by the wall—and Nita screams, “Hold your fire!”
“Tris,” Nita says, “you don’t know what you’re doing—”
“You’re probably right,” I say, and I fire again. This time my hand is steadier, my aim is better; I hit Nita’s side, right above her hip. She screams into her mask and clutches the hole in her skin, sinking to her knees, her hands covered in blood.
David surges toward me with a grimace of pain as he puts weight on his injured leg. I wrap my arm around his waist and swing his body around so he’s between me and the remaining soldiers. Then I press one of my guns to the back of his head.
They all freeze. I can feel my heartbeat in my throat, in my hands, behind my eyes.
“Fire, and I’ll shoot him in the head,” I say.
“You wouldn’t kill your own leader,” the red-haired woman says.
“He’s not my leader. I don’t care if he lives or dies,” I say. “But if you think I’m going to let you gain control of that death serum, you’re insane.”
I start to shuffle backward, with David whimpering in front of me, still under the influence of the serum cocktail. I duck my head and turn my body sideways so it’s safely behind his. I keep one of the guns against his head.
We reach the end of the hallway, and the woman calls my bluff. She fires, and hits David just above the knee, in his other leg. He collapses with a scream, and I am exposed. I dive to the ground, slamming my elbows into the floor, as a bullet goes past me, the sound vibrating inside my head.
Then I feel something hot spreading through my left arm, and I see blood and my feet scramble on the floor, searching for traction. I find it and fire blindly down the hallway. I grab David by the collar and drag him around the corner, pain searing through my left arm.
I hear running footsteps and groan. But they aren’t coming from behind me; they’re coming from in front. People surround me, Matthew among them, and some of them pick David up and run with him down the hallway. Matthew offers me his hand.
My ears are ringing. I can’t believe I did it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
TRIS
THE HOSPITAL IS packed with people, all of them yelling or racing back and forth or yanking curtains shut. Before I sat down I checked all the beds for Tobias. He wasn’t in any of them. I am still shaking with relief.
Uriah is not here either. He is in one of the other rooms, and the door is closed—not a good sign.