LITMIR.BIZ

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to balance. I’m clumsy again, just like I was when I was younger. My mother used to smile at me and say, “Be careful where you put your feet, Beatrice. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

      I walk outside and the green on the trees seems greener, so potent I can almost taste it. Maybe I can taste it, and it is like the grass I decided to chew when I was a child just to see what it was like. I almost fall down the stairs because of the swaying and burst into laughter when the grass tickles my bare feet. I wander toward the orchard.

      “Four!” I call out. Why am I calling out a number? Oh yes. Because that’s his name. I call out again, “Four! Where are you?”

      “Tris?” says a voice from the trees on my right. It almost sounds like the tree is talking to me. I giggle, but of course it’s just Tobias, ducking under a branch.

      I run toward him, and the ground lurches to the side, so I almost fall. His hand touches my waist, steadies me. The touch sends a shock through my body, and all my insides burn like his fingers ignited them. I pull closer to him, pressing my body against his, and lift my head to kiss him.

      “What did they—” he starts, but I stop him with my lips. He kisses me back, but too quickly, so I sigh heavily.

      “That was lame,” I say. “Okay, no it wasn’t, but …”

      I stand on my tiptoes to kiss him again, and he presses his finger to my lips to stop me.

      “Tris,” he says. “What did they do to you? You’re acting like a lunatic.”

      “That’s not very nice of you to say,” I say. “They put me in a good mood, that’s all. And now I really want to kiss you, so if you could just relax—”

      “I’m not going to kiss you. I’m going to figure out what’s going on,” he says.

      I pout my lower lip for a second, but then I grin as the pieces come together in my mind.

      “That’s why you like me!” I exclaim. “Because you’re not very nice either! It makes so much more sense now.”

      “Come on,” he says. “We’re going to see Johanna.”

      “I like you, too.”

      “That’s encouraging,” he replies flatly. “Come on. Oh, for God’s sake. I’ll just carry you.”

      He swings me into his arms, one arm under my knees and the other around my back. I wrap my arms around his neck and plant a kiss on his cheek. Then I discover that the air feels nice on my feet when I kick them, so I move my feet up and down as he walks us toward the building where Johanna works.

      When we reach her office, she is sitting behind a desk with a stack of paper in front of her, chewing on a pencil eraser. She looks up at us, and her mouth drifts open slightly. A hunk of dark hair covers the left side of her face.

      “You really shouldn’t cover up your scar,” I say. “You look prettier with your hair out of your face.”

      Tobias sets me down too heavily. The impact is jarring and hurts my shoulder a little, but I like the sound my feet made when they hit the floor. I laugh, but neither Johanna nor Tobias laughs with me. Strange.

      “What did you do to her?” Tobias says, terse. “What in God’s name did you do?”

      “I …” Johanna frowns at me. “They must have given her too much. She’s very small; they probably didn’t take her height and weight into account.”

      “They must have given her too much of what?” he says.

      “You have a nice voice,” I say.

      “Tris,” he says, “please be quiet.”

      “The peace serum,” Johanna says. “In small doses, it has a mild, calming effect and improves the mood. The only side effect is some slight dizziness. We administer it to members of our community who have trouble keeping the peace.”

      Tobias snorts. “I’m not an idiot. Every member of your community has trouble keeping the peace, because they’re all human. You probably dump it into the water supply.”

      Johanna does not respond for a few seconds. She folds her hands in front of her.

      “Clearly you know that is not the case, or this conflict would not have occurred,” she says. “But whatever we agree to do here, we do together, as a faction. If I could give the serum to everyone in this city, I would. You would certainly not be in the situation you are in now if I had.”

      “Oh, definitely,” he says. “Drugging the entire population is the best solution to our problem. Great plan.”

      “Sarcasm is not kind, Four,” she says gently. “Now, I am sorry about the mistake in giving too much to Tris, I really am. But she violated the terms of our agreement, and I’m afraid that you might not be able to stay here much longer as a result. The conflict between her and the boy—Peter—is not something we can forget.”

      “Don’t worry,” says Tobias. “We intend to leave as soon as humanly possible.”

      “Good,” she says with a small smile. “Peace between Amity and Dauntless can only happen when we maintain our distance from each other.”

      “That explains a lot.”

      “Excuse me?” she says. “What are you insinuating?”

      “It explains,” he says, gritting his teeth, “why, under a pretense of neutrality—as if such a thing is possible!—you have left us to die at the hands of the Erudite.”

      Johanna sighs quietly and looks out the window. Beyond it is a small courtyard with vines growing in it. The vines creep onto the window’s corners, like they are trying to come in and join the conversation.

      “The Amity wouldn’t do something like that,” I say. “That’s mean.”

      “It is for the sake of peace that we remain uninvolved—” Johanna begins.

      “Peace.” Tobias almost spits the word. “Yes, I’m sure it will be very peaceful when we are all either dead or cowering in submission under the threat of mind control or stuck in an endless simulation.”

      Johanna’s face contorts, and I mimic her, to see what it feels like to have my face that way. It doesn’t feel very good. I’m not sure why she did it to begin with.

      She says slowly, “The decision was not mine to make. If it was, perhaps we would be having a different conversation right now.”

      “Are you saying you disagree with them?”

      “I am saying,” she says, “that it isn’t my place to disagree with my faction publicly, but I might, in the privacy of my own heart.”

      “Tris and I will be gone in two days,” says Tobias. “I hope your faction doesn’t change their decision to make this compound a safe house.”

      “Our decisions are not easily unmade. What about Peter?”

      “You’ll have to deal with him separately,” he says. “Because he won’t be coming with us.”

      Tobias takes my hand, and his skin feels nice against mine, though it’s not smooth or soft. I smile apologetically at Johanna, and her expression remains unchanged.

      “Four,” she says. “If you and your friends would like to remain … untouched by our serum, you may want to avoid the bread.”

      Tobias says thank you over his shoulder as we make our way down the hallway together, me skipping every other step.

      

      THE SERUM WEARS off five hours later, when the sun is just beginning to set. Tobias shut me in my room for the rest of the day, checking on me every

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