LITMIR.BIZ

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I talk to you?”

      “Are you kidding?” Will squeezes my shoulders. “You don’t get to come near her ever again.”

      “I won’t hurt you. I never wanted to…” Al covers his face with both hands. “I just want to say that I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I don’t…I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I…please forgive me, please….”

      He reaches for me like he’s going to touch my shoulder, or my hand, his face wet with tears.

      Somewhere inside me is a merciful, forgiving person. Somewhere there is a girl who tries to understand what people are going through, who accepts that people do evil things and that desperation leads them to darker places than they ever imagined. I swear she exists, and she hurts for the repentant boy I see in front of me.

      But if I saw her, I wouldn’t recognize her.

      “Stay away from me,” I say quietly. My body feels rigid and cold, and I am not angry, I am not hurt, I am nothing. I say, my voice low, “Never come near me again.”

      Our eyes meet. His are dark and glassy. I am nothing.

      “If you do, I swear to God I will kill you,” I say. “You coward.”

       CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

      “TRIS.”

      In my dream, my mother says my name. She beckons to me, and I cross the kitchen to stand beside her. She points to the pot on the stove, and I lift the lid to peek inside. The beady eye of a crow stares back at me, its wing feathers pressed to the side of the pot, its fat body covered with boiling water.

      “Dinner,” she says.

      “Tris!” I hear again. I open my eyes. Christina stands next to my bed, her cheeks streaked with mascara-tinted tears.

      “It’s Al,” she says. “Come on.”

      Some of the other initiates are awake, and some aren’t. Christina grabs my hand and pulls me out of the dormitory. I run barefoot over the stone floor, blinking clouds from my eyes, my limbs still heavy with sleep. Something terrible has happened. I feel it with every thump of my heart. It’s Al.

      We run across the Pit floor, and then Christina stops. A crowd has gathered around the ledge, but everyone stands a few feet from one another, so there is enough space for me to maneuver past Christina and around a tall, middle-aged man to the front.

      Two men stand next to the ledge, hoisting something up with ropes. They both grunt from the effort, heaving their weight back so the ropes slide over the railing, and then reaching forward to grab again. A huge, dark shape appears above the ledge, and a few Dauntless rush forward to help the two men haul it over.

      The shape falls with a thud on the Pit floor. A pale arm, swollen with water, flops onto the stone. A body. Christina pulls herself tight to my side, clinging to my arm. She turns her head into my shoulder and sobs, but I can’t look away. A few of the men turn the body over, and the head flops to the side.

      The eyes are open and empty. Dark. Doll’s eyes. And the nose has a high arch, a narrow bridge, a round tip. The lips are blue. The face itself is something other than human, half corpse and half creature. My lungs burn; my next breath rattles on the way in. Al.

      “One of the initiates,” says someone behind me. “What happened?”

      “Same thing that happens every year,” someone else replies. “He pitched himself over the ledge.”

      “Don’t be so morbid. Could have been an accident.”

      “They found him in the middle of the chasm. You think he tripped over his shoelace and…whoopsies, just stumbled fifteen feet forward?”

      Christina’s hands get tighter and tighter around my arm. I should tell her to let go of me; it’s starting to hurt. Someone kneels next to Al’s face and pushes his eyelids shut. Trying to make it look like he’s sleeping, maybe. Stupid. Why do people want to pretend that death is sleep? It isn’t. It isn’t.

      Something inside me collapses. My chest is so tight, suffocating, can’t breathe. I sink to the ground, dragging Christina down with me. The stone is rough under my knees. I hear something, a memory of sound. Al’s sobs; his screams at night. Should have known. Still can’t breathe. I press both palms to my chest and rock back and forth to free the tension in my chest.

      When I blink, I see the top of Al’s head as he carries me on his back to the dining hall. I feel the bounce of his footsteps. He is big and warm and clumsy. No, was. That is death—shifting from “is” to “was.”

      I wheeze. Someone has brought a large black bag to put the body in. I can tell that it will be too small. A laugh rises in my throat and flops from my mouth, strained and gurgling. Al’s too big for the body bag; what a tragedy. Halfway through the laugh, I clamp my mouth shut, and it sounds more like a groan. I pull my arm free and stand, leaving Christina on the ground. I run.

      “Here you go,” Tori says. She hands me a steaming mug that smells like peppermint. I hold it with both hands, my fingers prickling with warmth.

      She sits down across from me. When it comes to funerals, the Dauntless don’t waste any time. Tori said they want to acknowledge death as soon as it happens. There are no people in the front room of the tattoo parlor, but the Pit is crawling with people, most of them drunk. I don’t know why that surprises me.

      At home, a funeral is a somber occasion. Everyone gathers to support the deceased’s family, and no one has idle hands, but there is no laughter, or shouting, or joking. And the Abnegation don’t drink alcohol, so everyone is sober. It makes sense that funerals would be the opposite here.

      “Drink it,” she says. “It will make you feel better, I promise.”

      “I don’t think tea is the solution,” I say slowly. But I sip it anyway. It warms my mouth and my throat and trickles into my stomach. I didn’t realize how deeply cold I was until I wasn’t anymore.

      “‘Better’ is the word I used. Not ‘good.’” She smiles at me, but the corners of her eyes don’t crinkle like they usually do. “I don’t think ‘good’ will happen for a while.”

      I bite my lip. “How long…” I struggle for the right words. “How long did it take for you to be okay again, after your brother…”

      “Don’t know.” She shakes her head. “Some days I feel like I’m still not okay. Some days I feel fine. Happy, even. It took me a few years to stop plotting revenge, though.”

      “Why did you stop?” I ask.

      Her eyes go vacant as she stares at the wall behind me. She taps her fingers against her leg for a few seconds and then says, “I don’t think of it as stopping. More like I’m…waiting for my opportunity.”

      She comes out of her daze and checks her watch.

      “Time to go,” she says.

      I pour the rest of my tea down the sink. When I lift my hand from the mug, I realize that I’m shaking. Not good. My hands usually shake before I start to cry, and I can’t cry in front of everyone.

      I follow Tori out of the tattoo place and down the path to the Pit floor. All the people that were milling around earlier are gathered by the ledge now, and the air smells potently of alcohol. The woman in front of me lurches to the right, losing her balance, and then erupts into giggles as she falls against the man next to her. Tori grabs my arm and steers me away.

      I find Uriah, Will, and Christina standing among the other initiates. Christina’s eyes are swollen. Uriah is holding a silver flask. He offers it to me. I shake my head.

      “Surprise, surprise,” says Molly from behind me. She nudges Peter with her elbow. “Once a Stiff, always a Stiff.”

      I should ignore her.

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