LITMIR.BIZ

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around, I have to ensure that it does not continue to do so, you understand?”

      I understand only one thing: She is lying to me. She doesn’t care about the technology—she suspects that something is awry with my test results. Just like the Dauntless leaders, she is sniffing around for the Divergent. And if my mother wants Caleb to research the simulation serum, it is probably because Jeanine developed it.

      But what is so threatening about my ability to manipulate the simulations? Why would it matter to the representative of the Erudite, of all people?

      I can’t answer either question. But the look she gives me reminds me of the look in the attack dog’s eyes in the aptitude test—a vicious, predatory stare. She wants to rip me to pieces. I can’t lie down in submission now. I have become an attack dog too.

      I feel my pulse in my throat.

      “I don’t know how they work,” I say, “but the liquid I was injected with made me sick to my stomach. Maybe my simulation administrator was distracted because he was worried I would throw up, and he forgot to record it. I got sick after the aptitude test too.”

      “Do you habitually have a sensitive stomach, Beatrice?” Her voice is like a razor’s edge. She taps her trimmed fingernails against the glass desk.

      “Ever since I was young,” I reply as smoothly as I can. I release the chair back and sidestep it to sit down. I can’t seem tense, even though I feel like my insides are writhing within me.

      “You have been extremely successful with the simulations,” she says. “To what do you attribute the ease with which you complete them?”

      “I’m brave,” I say, staring into her eyes. The other factions see the Dauntless a certain way. Brash, aggressive, impulsive. Cocky. I should be what she expects. I smirk at her. “I’m the best initiate they’ve got.”

      I lean forward, balancing my elbows on my knees. I will have to go further with this to make it convincing.

      “You want to know why I chose Dauntless?” I ask. “It’s because I was bored.” Further, further. Lies require commitment. “I was tired of being a wussy little do-gooder and I wanted out.”

      “So you don’t miss your parents?” she asks delicately.

      “Do I miss getting scolded for looking in the mirror? Do I miss being told to shut up at the dinner table?” I shake my head. “No. I don’t miss them. They’re not my family anymore.”

      The lie burns my throat on the way out, or maybe that’s the tears I’m fighting. I picture my mother standing behind me with a comb and a pair of scissors, faintly smiling as she trims my hair, and I want to scream rather than insult her like this.

      “Can I take that to mean…” Jeanine purses her lips and pauses for a few seconds before finishing. “…that you agree with the reports that have been released about the political leaders of this city?”

      The reports that label my family as corrupt, power-hungry, moralizing dictators? The reports that carry subtle threats and hint at revolution? They make me sick to my stomach. Knowing that she is the one who released them makes me want to strangle her.

      I smile.

      “Wholeheartedly,” I say.

      One of Jeanine’s lackeys, a man in a blue collared shirt and sunglasses, drives me back to the Dauntless compound in a sleek silver car, the likes of which I have never seen before. The engine is almost silent. When I ask the man about it, he tells me it’s solar-powered and launches into a lengthy explanation of how the panels on the roof convert sunlight into energy. I stop listening after sixty seconds and stare out the window.

      I don’t know what they’ll do to me when I get back. I suspect it will be bad. I imagine my feet dangling over the chasm and bite my lip.

      When the driver pulls up to the glass building above the Dauntless compound, Eric is waiting for me by the door. He takes my arm and leads me into the building without thanking the driver. Eric’s fingers squeeze so hard I know I’ll have bruises.

      He stands between me and the door that leads inside. He starts to crack his knuckles. Other than that, he is completely still.

      I shudder involuntarily.

      The faint pop of his knuckle-cracking is all I hear apart from my own breaths, which grow faster by the second. When he is finished, Eric laces his fingers together in front of him.

      “Welcome back, Tris.”

      “Eric.”

      He walks toward me, carefully placing one foot in front of the other.

      “What…” His first word is quiet. “Exactly,” he adds, louder this time, “were you thinking?”

      “I…” He is so close I can see the holes his metal piercings fit into. “I don’t know.”

      “I am tempted to call you a traitor, Tris,” he says. “Have you never heard the phrase ‘faction before blood’?”

      I have seen Eric do terrible things. I have heard him say terrible things. But I have never seen him like this. He is not a maniac anymore; he is perfectly controlled, perfectly poised. Careful and quiet.

      For the first time, I recognize Eric for what he is: an Erudite disguised as a Dauntless, a genius as well as a sadist, a hunter of the Divergent.

      I want to run.

      “Were you unsatisfied with the life you have found here? Do you perhaps regret your choice?” Both of Eric’s metal-ridden eyebrows lift, forcing creases into his forehead. “I would like to hear an explanation for why you betrayed Dauntless, yourself, and me…” He taps his chest. “…by venturing into another faction’s headquarters.”

      “I…” I take a deep breath. He would kill me if he knew what I was, I can feel it. His hands curl into fists. I am alone here; if something happens to me, no one will know and no one will see it.

      “If you cannot explain,” he says softly, “I may be forced to reconsider your rank. Or, because you seem to be so attached to your previous faction…perhaps I will be forced to reconsider your friends’ ranks. Perhaps the little Abnegation girl inside of you would take that more seriously.”

      My first thought is that he couldn’t do that, it wouldn’t be fair. My second thought is that of course he would, he would not hesitate to do it for a second. And he is right—the thought that my reckless behavior could force someone else out of a faction makes my chest ache from fear.

      I try again. “I…”

      But it is hard to breathe.

      And then the door opens. Tobias walks in.

      “What are you doing?” he asks Eric.

      “Leave the room,” Eric says, his voice louder and not as monotone. He sounds more like the Eric I am familiar with. His expression, too, changes, becomes more mobile and animated. I stare, amazed that he can turn it on and off so easily, and wonder what the strategy behind it is.

      “No,” Tobias says. “She’s just a foolish girl. There’s no need to drag her here and interrogate her.”

      “Just a foolish girl.” Eric snorts. “If she were just a foolish girl, she wouldn’t be ranked first, now would she?”

      Tobias pinches the bridge of his nose and looks at me through the spaces between his fingers. He is trying to tell me something. I think quickly. What advice has Four given me recently?

      The only thing I can think of is: pretend some vulnerability.

      It’s worked for me before.

      “I…I was just embarrassed and didn’t know what to do.” I put my hands in my pockets and look at the ground. Then I pinch my leg so hard that tears well up in my eyes, and I look up at Eric, sniffing. “I tried to…and…” I shake my head.

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