Veronica Roth - Allegiant

I must be getting paranoid.

I open one of the doors off the main corridor, hoping to find a window so I can reorient myself, but I find only a ransacked laboratory, beakers and test tubes scattered across each counter. Torn pieces of paper litter the floor, and I’m bending to pick one up when the lights shut off.

I lunge toward the door. A hand grabs my arm and drags me to the side. Someone shoves a sack over my head while someone else pushes me against the wall. I thrash against them, struggling with the fabric covering my face, and all I can think is, Not again not again not again . I twist one arm free and punch, hitting someone in a shoulder or a chin, I can’t tell.

“Hey!” a voice says. “That hurt !”

“We’re sorry for frightening you, Tris,” another voice says, “but anonymity is integral to our operation. We mean you no harm.”

“Let go of me, then!” I say, almost growling. All the hands holding me to the wall fall away.

“Who are you?” I demand.

“We are the Allegiant,” the voice replies. “And we are many, yet we are no one. . . .”

I can’t help it: I laugh. Maybe it’s the shock—or the fear, my pounding heart slowing by the second, my hands shaking with relief.

The voice continues, “We have heard that you are not loyal to Evelyn Johnson and her factionless lackeys.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Not as ridiculous as trusting someone with your identity when you don’t have to.”

I try to see through the fibers of whatever is over my head, but they are too dense and it is too dark. I try to relax against the wall, but it’s difficult without my vision to orient me. I crush the side of a beaker under my shoe.

“No, I’m not loyal to her,” I say. “Why does that matter?”

“Because it means you want to leave,” the voice says. I feel a prickle of excitement. “We want to ask you for a favor, Tris Prior. We’re going to have a meeting tomorrow night, at midnight. We want you to bring your Dauntless friends.”

“Okay,” I say. “Let me ask you this: If I’m going to see who you are tomorrow, why is it so important to keep this thing over my head today?”

This seems to temporarily stump whoever I’m talking to.

“A day contains many dangers,” the voice says. “We’ll see you tomorrow, at midnight, in the place where you made your confession.”

All at once, the door swings open, blowing the sack against my cheeks, and I hear running footsteps down the hallway. By the time I’m able to pull the sack from my head, the corridor is silent. I look down at it—it’s a dark-blue pillowcase with the words “Faction before blood” painted on it.

Whoever they are, they certainly have a flair for the dramatic.

The place where you made your confession.

There’s only one place that could be: Candor headquarters, where I succumbed to the truth serum.

When I finally make it back to the dormitory that evening, I find a note from Tobias tucked under the glass of water on my bedside table.

VI—

Your brother’s trial will be tomorrow morning, and it will be private. I can’t go or I’ll raise suspicion, but I’ll get you the verdict as soon as possible. Then we can make some kind of plan.

No matter what, this will be over soon.

—IV

TRIS

IT’S NINE O’CLOCK. They could be deciding Caleb’s verdict right now, as I tie my shoes, as I straighten my sheets for the fourth time today. I put my hands through my hair. The factionless only make trials private when they feel the verdict is obvious, and Caleb was Jeanine’s right-hand man before she was killed.

I shouldn’t worry about his verdict. It’s already decided. All of Jeanine’s closest associates will be executed.

Why do you care? I ask myself. He betrayed you. He didn’t try to stop your execution.

I don’t care. I do care. I don’t know.

“Hey, Tris,” Christina says, rapping her knuckles against the door frame. Uriah lurks behind her. He still smiles all the time, but now his smiles look like they’re made of water, about to drip down his face.

“You had some news?” she says.

I check the room again, though I already know it’s empty. Everyone is at breakfast, as required by our schedules. I asked Uriah and Christina to skip a meal so that I could tell them something. My stomach is already rumbling.

“Yeah,” I say.

They sit on the bed across from mine, and I tell them about getting cornered in one of the Erudite laboratories the night before, about the pillowcase and the Allegiant and the meeting.

“I’m surprised all you did was punch one of them,” Uriah says.

“Well, I was outnumbered,” I say, feeling defensive. It wasn’t very Dauntless of me to just trust them immediately, but these are strange times. And I’m not sure how Dauntless I really am, anyway, now that the factions are gone.

I feel a strange little ache at the thought, right in the middle of my chest. Some things are hard to let go of.

“So what do you think they want?” Christina says. “Just to leave the city?”

“It sounds that way, but I don’t know,” I say.

“How do we know they’re not Evelyn’s people, trying to trick us into betraying her?”

“I don’t know that, either,” I say. “But it’s going to be impossible to get out of the city without someone’s help, and I’m not just going to stay here, learning how to drive buses and going to bed when I’m told to.”

Christina gives Uriah a worried look.

“Hey,” I say. “You don’t have to come, but I need to get out of here. I need to know who Edith Prior was, and who’s waiting for us outside the fence, if anyone. I don’t know why, but I need to.”

I take a deep breath. I’m not sure where that swell of desperation came from, but now that I’ve acknowledged it, it’s impossible to ignore, like a living thing has awakened from a long sleep inside me. It writhes in my stomach and throat. I need to leave. I need the truth.

For once, the weak smile playing over Uriah’s lips is gone. “So do I,” he says.

“Okay,” Christina says. Her dark eyes are still troubled, but she shrugs. “So we go to the meeting.”

“Good. Can one of you tell Tobias? I’m supposed to be keeping my distance, since we’re ‘broken up,’” I say. “Let’s meet in the alley at eleven thirty.”

“I’ll tell him. I think I’m in his group today,” Uriah says. “Learning about the factories. I can’t wait .” He smirks. “Can I tell Zeke, too? Or is he not trustworthy enough?”

“Go ahead. Just make sure he doesn’t spread it around.”

I check my watch again. Nine fifteen. Caleb’s verdict has to be decided by now; it’s almost time for everyone to go learn their factionless jobs. I feel like the slightest thing could make me jump right out of my skin. My knee bounces of its own volition.

Christina puts her hand on my shoulder, but she doesn’t ask me about it, and I’m grateful. I don’t know what I would say.

Christina and I weave a complicated path through Erudite headquarters on our way to the back staircase, avoiding patrolling factionless. I pull my sleeve down over my wrist. I drew a map on my arm before I left—I know how to get to Candor headquarters from here, but I don’t know the side streets that will keep us away from prying factionless eyes.

Uriah waits for us just outside the door. He wears all black, but I can see a hint of Abnegation gray peeking over the collar of his sweatshirt. It’s strange to see my Dauntless friends in Abnegation colors, as if they’ve been with me my entire life. Sometimes it feels that way anyway.