“She had an affair.” He shakes his head. “And no wonder, since my father . . .” He shakes his head again. “Well, let’s just say Marcus wasn’t any nicer to her than he was to me.”
“Is . . . that why you’re angry with her? Because she was unfaithful to him?”
“No,” he says too sternly, his eyes opening. “No, that’s not why I’m angry.”
I walk toward him as if approaching a wild animal, each footstep careful on the cement floor. “Then why?”
“She had to leave my father, I get that,” he says. “But did she think of taking me with her?”
I purse my lips. “Oh. She left you with him.”
She left him alone with his worst nightmare. No wonder he hates her.
“Yeah.” He kicks at the floor. “She did.”
My fingers find his, fumbling, and he guides them into the spaces between his own. I know that’s enough questions, for now, so I let the silence linger between us until he decides to break it.
“It seems to me,” he says, “that the factionless are better friends than enemies.”
“Maybe. But what would the cost of that friendship be?” I say.
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. But we may not have any other option.”
CHAPTER NINE
ONE OF THE factionless started a fire so we could heat up our food. Those who want to eat sit in a circle around the large metal bowl that contains the fire, first heating the cans, then passing out spoons and forks, then passing cans around so everyone can have a bite of everything. I try not to think about how many diseases could spread this way as I dip my spoon into a can of soup.
Edward drops to the ground next to me and takes the can of soup from my hands.
“So you were all Abnegation, huh?” He shovels several noodles and a piece of carrot into his mouth, and passes the can to the woman on his left.
“We were,” I say. “But obviously Tobias and I transferred, and . . .” Suddenly it occurs to me that I shouldn’t tell anyone Caleb joined Erudite. “Caleb and Susan are still Abnegation.”
“And he’s your brother. Caleb,” he says. “You ditched your family to become Dauntless?”
“You sound like the Candor,” I say irritably. “Mind keeping your judgments to yourself?”
Therese leans over. “He was Erudite first, actually. Not Candor.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say, “I—”
She interrupts me. “So was I. Had to leave, though.”
“What happened?”
“I wasn’t smart enough.” She shrugs and takes a can of beans from Edward, plunging her spoon into it. “I didn’t get a high enough score on my initiation intelligence test. So they said, ‘Spend your entire life cleaning up the research labs, or leave.’ And I left.”
She looks down and licks her spoon clean. I take the beans from her and pass them along to Tobias, who is staring at the fire.
“Are many of you from Erudite?” I say.
Therese shakes her head. “Most are from Dauntless, actually.” She jerks her head toward Edward, who scowls. “Then Erudite, then Candor, then a handful of Amity. No one fails Abnegation initiation, though, so we have very few of those, except for a bunch who survived the simulation attack and came to us for refuge.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about Dauntless,” I say.
“Well, yeah. You’ve got one of the worst initiations, and there’s that whole old-age thing.”
“Old-age thing?” I say. I glance at Tobias. He is listening now, and he looks almost normal again, his eyes thoughtful and dark in the firelight.
“Once the Dauntless reach a certain level of physical deterioration,” he says, “they are asked to leave. In one way or another.”
“What’s the other way?” My heart pounds, like it already knows an answer I can’t face without prompting.
“Let’s just say,” says Tobias, “that for some, death is preferable to factionlessness.”
“Those people are idiots,” says Edward. “I’d rather be factionless than Dauntless.”
“How fortunate that you ended up where you did, then,” says Tobias coldly.
“Fortunate?” Edward snorts. “Yeah. I’m so fortunate, with my one eye and all.”
“I seem to recall hearing rumors that you provoked that attack,” says Tobias.
“What are you talking about?” I say. “He was winning, that’s all, and Peter was jealous, so he just . . .”
I see the smirk on Edward’s face and stop talking. Maybe I don’t know everything about what happened during initiation.
“There was an inciting incident,” says Edward. “In which Peter did not come out the victor. But it certainly didn’t warrant a butter knife to the eye.”
“No arguments here,” says Tobias. “If it makes you feel any better, he got shot in the arm from a foot away during the simulation attack.”
And it does seem to make Edward feel better, because his smirk carves a deeper line into his face.
“Who did that?” he says. “You?”
Tobias shakes his head. “Tris did.”
“Well done,” Edward says.
I nod, but I feel a little sick to be congratulated for that.
Well, not that sick. It was Peter, after all.
I stare at the flames wrapping around the fragments of wood that fuel them. They move and shift, like my thoughts. I remember the first time I realized I had never seen an elderly Dauntless. And when I realized my father was too old to climb the paths of the Pit. Now I understand more about that than I’d like to.
“Do you know much about how things are right now?” Tobias asks Edward. “Did all the Dauntless side with Erudite? Has Candor done anything?”
“Dauntless is split in half,” Edward says, talking around the food in his mouth. “Half at Erudite headquarters, half at Candor headquarters. What’s left of Abnegation is with us. Nothing much has happened yet. Except for whatever happened to you, I guess.”
Tobias nods. I feel a little relieved to know that half of the Dauntless, at least, are not traitors.
I eat spoonful after spoonful until my stomach is full. Then Tobias gets us sleeping pallets and blankets, and I find an empty corner for us to lie down in. When he bends over to untie his shoes, I see the symbol of Amity on the small of his back, the branches curling over his spine. When he straightens, I step across the blankets and put my arms around him, brushing the tattoo with my fingers.