Niles offers me the syringe. I position it over the vein in my neck, insert the needle, and press the plunger. I barely feel the pinch. I am too charged with adrenaline.
Someone comes forward with a trash can, and I toss the needle in. I feel the effects of the serum immediately afterward. It makes my blood feel like lead in my veins. I almost collapse on my way to the chair—Niles has to grab my arm and guide me toward it.
Seconds later my brain goes silent. What was I thinking about? It doesn’t seem to matter. Nothing matters except the chair beneath me and the man sitting across from me.
“What is your name?” he says.
The second he asks the question, the answer pops out of my mouth. “Beatrice Prior.”
“But you go by Tris?”
“I do.”
“What are the names of your parents, Tris?”
“Andrew and Natalie Prior.”
“You are also a faction transfer, are you not?”
“Yes,” I say, but a new thought whispers at the back of my mind. Also? Also refers to someone else, and in this case, someone else is Tobias. I frown as I try to picture Tobias, but it is difficult to force the image of him into my mind. Not so difficult that I can’t do it, though. I see him, and then I see a flash of him sitting in the same chair I’m sitting in.
“You came from Abnegation? And chose Dauntless?”
“Yes,” I say again, but this time, the word sounds terse. I don’t know why, exactly.
“Why did you transfer?”
That question is more complicated, but I still know the answer. I was not good enough for Abnegation is on the tip of my tongue, but another phrase replaces it: I wanted to be free. They are both true. I want to say them both. I squeeze the armrests as I try to remember where I am, what I’m doing. I see people all around me, but I don’t know why they’re there.
I strain, the way I used to strain when I could almost remember the answer to a test question but couldn’t call it to mind. I used to close my eyes and picture the textbook page the answer was on. I struggle for a few seconds, but I can’t do it; I can’t remember.
“I wasn’t good enough for Abnegation,” I say, “and I wanted to be free. So I chose Dauntless.”
“Why weren’t you good enough?”
“Because I was selfish,” I say.
“You were selfish? You aren’t anymore?”
“Of course I am. My mother said that everyone is selfish,” I say, “but I became less selfish in Dauntless. I discovered there were people I would fight for. Die for, even.”
The answer surprises me—but why? I pinch my lips together for a moment. Because it’s true. If I say it here, it must be true.
That thought gives me the missing link in the chain of thought I was trying to find. I am here for a lie-detector test. Everything I say is true. I feel a bead of sweat roll down the back of my neck.
Lie-detector test. Truth serum. I have to remind myself. It is too easy to get lost in honesty.
“Tris, would you please tell us what happened the day of the attack?”
“I woke up,” I say, “and everyone was under the simulation. So I played along until I found Tobias.”
“What happened after you and Tobias were separated?”
“Jeanine tried to have me killed, but my mother saved me. She used to be Dauntless, so she knew how to use a gun.” My body feels even heavier now, but no longer cold. I feel something stir in my chest, something worse than sadness, worse than regret.
I know what comes next. My mother died and then I killed Will; I shot him; I killed him.
“She distracted the Dauntless soldiers so I could get away, and they killed her,” I say.
Some of them ran after me, and I killed them. But there are Dauntless in the crowd around me, Dauntless, I killed some of the Dauntless, I shouldn’t talk about it here.
“I kept running,” I say, “And . . .” And Will ran after me. And I killed him. No, no. I feel sweat near my hairline.
“And I found my brother and father,” I say, my voice strained. “We formed a plan to destroy the simulation.”
The edge of the armrest digs into my palm. I withheld some of the truth. Surely that counts as deception.
I fought the serum. And in that short moment, I won.
I should feel triumphant. Instead I feel the weight of what I did crush me again.
“We infiltrated the Dauntless compound, and my father and I went up to the control room. He fought off Dauntless soldiers at the expense of his life,” I say. “I made it to the control room, and Tobias was there.”
“Tobias said you fought him, but then stopped. Why did you do that?”
“Because I realized that one of us would have to kill the other,” I say, “and I didn’t want to kill him.”
“You gave up?”
“No!” I snap. I shake my head. “No, not exactly. I remembered something I had done in my fear landscape in Dauntless initiation . . . in a simulation, a woman demanded that I kill my family, and I let her shoot me instead. It worked then. I thought . . .” I pinch the bridge of my nose. My head is starting to ache and my control is gone and my thoughts run into words. “I was so frantic, but all I could think was that there was something to it; there was a strength in it. And I couldn’t kill him, so I had to try.”
I blink tears from my eyes.
“So you were never under the simulation?”
“No.” I press the heel of my hands to my eyes, pushing the tears out of them so they don’t fall on my cheeks where everyone can see them.
“No,” I say again. “No, I am Divergent.”
“Just to clarify,” says Niles. “Are you telling me that you were almost murdered by the Erudite . . . and then fought your way into the Dauntless compound . . . and destroyed the simulation?”
“Yes,” I say.
“I think I speak for everyone,” he says, “when I say that you have earned the title of Dauntless.”
Shouts rise up from the left side of the room, and I see blurs of fists pressing into the dark air. My faction, calling to me.
But no, they’re wrong, I’m not brave, I’m not brave, I shot Will and I can’t admit it, I can’t even admit it. . . .
“Beatrice Prior,” says Niles, “what are your deepest regrets?”
What do I regret? I do not regret choosing Dauntless or leaving Abnegation. I do not even regret shooting the guards outside the control room, because it was so important that I get past them.