LITMIR.BIZ

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and I would have to leave you here to … smell flowers, or whatever you wanted to do while you were on that stuff.”

      “I’ll kill them,” I say. “I will kill them.”

      “Don’t bother. We’re leaving soon anyway,” he says, closing the door behind him. He takes the hard drive from his back pocket. “I thought we could hide this behind your dresser.”

      “That’s where it was before.”

      “Yeah, and that’s why Peter won’t look for it here again.” Tobias pulls the dresser away from the wall with one hand and wedges the hard drive behind it with the other.

      “Why couldn’t I fight the peace serum?” I say. “If my brain is weird enough to resist the simulation serum, why not this one?”

      “I don’t know, really,” he says. He drops down next to me on the bed, jostling the mattress. “Maybe in order to fight off a serum, you have to want to.”

      “Well, obviously I wanted to,” I say, frustrated, but without conviction. Did I want to? Or was it nice to forget about anger, forget about pain, forget about everything for a few hours?

      “Sometimes,” he says, sliding his arm across my shoulders, “people just want to be happy, even if it’s not real.”

      He’s right. Even now, this peace between us comes from not talking about things—about Will, or my parents, or me almost shooting him in the head, or Marcus. But I do not dare to disturb it with the truth, because I am too busy clinging to it for support.

      “You might be right,” I say quietly.

      “Are you conceding?” he says, his mouth falling open with mock surprise. “Seems like that serum did you some good after all….”

      I shove him as hard as I can. “Take that back. Take it back now.”

      “Okay, okay!” He puts up his hands. “It’s just … I’m not very nice either, you know. That’s why I like you so—”

      “Out!” I shout, pointing at the door.

      Laughing to himself, Tobias kisses my cheek and leaves the room.

      That evening, I am too embarrassed by what happened to go to dinner, so I spend the time in the branches of an apple tree at the far end of the orchard, picking ripe apples. I climb as high as I dare to get them, muscles burning. I have discovered that sitting still leaves little spaces for the grief to get in, so I stay busy.

      I am wiping my forehead with the hem of my shirt, standing on a branch, when I hear the sound. It is faint, at first, joining the buzz of cicadas. I stand still to listen, and after a moment, I realize what it is: cars.

      The Amity own about a dozen trucks that they use for transporting goods, but they only do that on weekends. The back of my neck tingles. If it isn’t the Amity, it’s probably the Erudite. But I have to be sure.

      I grab the branch above me with both hands, but pull myself up with only my left arm. I’m surprised I’m still able to do that. I stand hunched, twigs and leaves tangled in my hair. A few apples fall to the ground when I shift my weight. Apple trees aren’t very tall; I may not be able to see far enough.

      I use the nearby branches as steps, with my hands to steady me, twisting and leaning around the tree’s maze. I remember climbing the Ferris wheel on the pier, my muscles shaking, my hands throbbing. I am wounded now, but stronger, and the climbing feels easier.

      The branches get thinner, weaker. I lick my lips and look at the next one. I need to climb as high as possible, but the branch I’m aiming for is short and looks pliable. I put my foot on it, testing its strength. It bends, but holds. I start to lift myself up, to put the other foot down, and the branch snaps.

      I gasp as I fall back, seizing the tree trunk at the last second. This will have to be high enough. I stand on my tiptoes and squint in the direction of the sound.

      At first I see nothing but a stretch of farmland, a strip of empty ground, the fence, and the fields and beginnings of buildings that lie beyond it. But approaching the gate are a few moving specks—silver, when the light catches them. Cars with black roofs—solar panels, which means only one thing. Erudite.

      A breath hisses between my teeth. I don’t allow myself to think; I just put one foot down, then the other, so fast that bark peels off the branches and drifts toward the ground. As soon as my feet touch the earth, I run.

      I count the rows of trees as I pass them. Seven, eight. The branches dip low, and I pass just beneath them. Nine, ten. I hold my right arm against my chest as I sprint faster, the bullet wound in my shoulder throbbing with each footstep. Eleven, twelve.

      When I reach the thirteenth row, I throw my body to the right, down one of the aisles. The trees are close together in the thirteenth row. Their branches grow into one another, creating a maze of leaves and twigs and apples.

      My lungs sting from a lack of oxygen, but I am not far from the end of the orchard. Sweat runs into my eyebrows. I reach the dining hall and throw open the door, shoving my way through a group of Amity men, and he is there; Tobias sits at one end of the cafeteria with Peter and Caleb and Susan. I can barely see them between the spots on my vision, but Tobias touches my shoulder.

      “Erudite,” is all I manage to say.

      “Coming here?” he says.

      I nod.

      “Do we have time to run?”

      I am not sure about that.

      By now, the Abnegation at the other end of the table are paying attention. They gather around us.

      “Why do we need to run?” says Susan. “The Amity established this place as a safe house. No conflict allowed.”

      “The Amity will have trouble enforcing that policy,” says Marcus. “How do you stop conflict without conflict?”

      Susan nods.

      “But we can’t leave,” Peter says. “We don’t have time. They’ll see us.”

      “Tris has a gun,” Tobias says. “We can try to fight our way out.”

      He starts toward the dormitory.

      “Wait,” I say. “I have an idea.” I scan the crowd of Abnegation. “Disguises. The Erudite don’t know for sure that we’re still here. We can pretend to be Amity.”

      “Those of us who aren’t dressed like the Amity should go to the dormitories, then,” Marcus says. “The rest of you, put your hair down; try to mimic their behavior.”

      The Abnegation who are dressed in gray leave the dining hall in a pack and cross the courtyard to the guests’ dormitory. Once inside, I run to my bedroom, get on my hands and knees, and reach under the mattress for the gun.

      I feel around for a few seconds before I find it, and when I do, my throat pinches, and I can’t swallow. I don’t want to touch the gun. I don’t want to touch it again.

      Come on, Tris. I shove the gun under the waistband of my red pants. It is lucky they are so baggy. I notice the vials of healing salve and pain medicine on the bedside table and shove them in my pocket, just in case we do manage to escape.

      Then I reach behind the dresser for the hard drive.

      If the Erudite catch us—which is likely—they will search us, and I don’t want to just hand over the attack simulation again. But this hard drive also contains the surveillance footage from the attack. The record of our losses. Of my parents’ deaths. The only piece of them I have left. And because the Abnegation don’t take photographs, the only documentation I have of how they looked.

      Years from now, when my memories begin to fade, what will I have to remind me of what they looked like? Their faces will change in my mind. I will never see them again.

      Don’t be stupid. It’s not important.

      I

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