XXIV

“Whatever we do, leave the talking to me,” said Ace as she led me down a narrow tunnel. The walls were made of stone and the ceiling sloped as if we were descending into the heart of the earth. The tunnel was lit at long intervals, so in the dark space between each dim lamp, I drew closer towards Ace until I felt my shoulder brush her arm. In the circles of light I was safe again.

“We have to pass through the Pit to get to the training centers,” said Ace. “I’m going to tell you some stories as we walk, and I need you to laugh like you’re really interested in what I’m saying.”

“What if someone notices me?” I asked, my voice almost a whisper.

“Notices what?”

“That I don’t belong.”

“If you keep your head up and pretend like you belong, you’ll fit right in. Glare. Swagger a little. Dauntless is the largest faction by far, no one knows everybody.”

I thought of how easily I’d gotten Sajida’s library checkout history. Right. Act like you know what you’re doing, and nobody will suspect that you don’t. I tried to mimic Ace’s strides, long and purposeful. I even stuck my hands in my pants pockets. Confidence. Like a Dauntless.

After some stairs down, we reached a set of double doors and she pushed them open.

I understood immediately why it was called the “Pit”. It was an underground cavern so huge I couldn’t see the other end of it from where we stood, at the bottom. Uneven rock walls soared a hundred feet above my head. Built into the stone walls were what seemed like storefronts, displaying food, clothing, supplies, leisure activities. A web of rickety bridges and spiraling iron staircases connected the whole strange town.

A slant of orange light stretched across one of the rock walls. Forming the roof of the Pit were panes of glass and, above them, a building that let in sunlight. It must have looked just like another city building when we passed it on the train. As the sunlight died, strange blue lanterns flickered on, hanging from random intervals above the metal bridges.

People were everywhere, all dressed in black, all shouting and talking, expressive, gesturing. In Candor, I was getting used to loud rooms full of expressive people—and had even begun to talk with my hands myself—but this was a different discord, more intense, lawless. Everywhere I looked, there were scars and colored hair and tattoos and piercings, even a woman with a giant crystal embedded in her cheek. Ripped clothes and metal spikes. Leather and belts heavy with knives. Ace seemed tame in comparison. The few elderly folk I saw were as wiry and muscular as the teenager in her prime.

I tried not to stare, and to focus instead on the story Ace began to tell about a mission gone awry in Amity.

“So on the train ride out,” she said, laughing, “the old farmer’s huddled in the back of the car, scared shitless. Then the train stops so we can clear a fallen tree off the track, and when we turn around next, the old man’s gone! He was so scared, he didn’t even care about his stolen crops anymore, he just wanted off! It took us hours to find him, and when we did, he was vomiting under a tree. Had to tase him to get him back in.”

I didn’t find the story very funny, but I laughed loudly anyway. To my relief, when passing Dauntless glanced at us, their gazes seemed to be pulled more to Ace than to me. That was the advantage of being short.

We entered the main floor of the Pit with ease, but halfway through, Ace grabbed my hand.

“Real quick. I wanna show you something,” she said in a lower voice.

Still shocked by the hand-holding, I followed. She led me to the right side of the Pit, which was conspicuously dark, shielded by a rock outcrop. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that the ground we stood on ended at an iron railing. The air became colder, damper. And somewhere, something roared.

We leaned over the railing. The floor dropped off at a sharp angle, and several stories below was a river. Gushing water struck the wall beneath me, spraying my shoes. To my left, the water was calmer, but to the right it was white, battling with the rock.

I glanced around. Only one other Dauntless was nearby, leaning against a rock and napping. The roar of the river would do enough to drown my voice.

“Gotta love how Dauntless has a death river running through their compound,” I said.

“The chasm reminds us that there’s a fine line between bravery and idiocy,” said Ace. “A daredevil jump off the ledge will end your life in a snap—no surviving this.”

“And someone needed to jump to figure that out?” I said, backing away from the rail.

Ace’s lip twitched in a smirk, but it was a grim smirk.

“Just a reminder,” she said. “Never get too cocky.”

She led me back through the Pit toward a stairwell. Ace pulled out an old-fashioned key to get through the door, then at the top of the stairs, a second key. I wondered how easy it would be for a good lockpicker to get around Dauntless. Unlike the Candor, the Dauntless seemed to prefer simplicity over technology.

The room she took me to reeked with sweat. It was huge, with a cracked wood floor painted with a circle in the middle. Hanging at three-foot intervals along the end of the room were faded black punching bags. On the right wall were all kinds of weights and handheld targets. On the left wall hung a green chalkboard, scrawled with names I only vaguely recognized. Edward, Peter, Will, Christina. Dauntless initiates—they might’ve been in my Upper Levels classes at some point.

“We should have this place to ourselves,” said Ace, closing the door behind us. “This time of the night, nobody comes back to practice.”

“Is this where the initiates are training?” I asked.

“Trained,” she corrected. “Dauntless initiation occurs in three stages, each designed to train you in a different way. The first stage, which happens here, is the physical training. By week four, our initiates have already moved on.”

“To what?”

She gave me a look. “You know, if all you wanted to do was ask questions, we could’ve stayed back at Candor.”

I got the message. I didn’t ask another question.

She led me into the center of the ring and directed me to take off my shoes and socks. That also begged a question, but I held it.

“Normally, if a Candor wanted to learn how to defend themselves,” began Ace, “they would apply for something called a risk license. The risk license grants privileges normally reserved for Dauntless—carrying a weapon, learning fighting techniques, and so on. But you can only apply for the license if you work in a department like Major Crimes, or if you decide to become a court bailiff. And you don’t have the time for paperwork.”

“I don’t actually know how much time I have,” I confessed.

She nodded. “Exactly. So I’m going to work with you as much as I can for now. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can get you an early risk license as part of witness protection.”

“Witness protection?” I asked. “So I am in danger?”

Ace hesitated. I smirked. Got her.

“Nevermind,” she snapped. “The point is, though I don’t teach Dauntless, I do teach the Candor classes. I’m not going to teach you like either.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

She pulled off her jacket and gloves and tossed them aside. Then she bent down and began to untie her boots.

“You’re going to learn how to fight like a factionless.”

+ + +

We started, to my surprise, with how to escape.

“When I lived in the projects,” Ace explained, “one of the many pastimes was something we called the Cage. You put money on the line. Two people go in the Cage, no weapons, no shoes, no gloves, as many clothes off as you’re comfortable with. And you fight. There’s no restrictions or limits on what you can or can’t do. First person to call—or first person to die—is the loser. The winner goes home with the money.”

“That sounds...brutal,” I said.

“Oh, it was,” she grinned. “But when I came here and fought with the other transfers, it put me ahead like you wouldn’t believe. In Dauntless, they got expectations.”

“In the projects, they don’t.”

“Correct.”

“So you play dirty?”

“Yes. But more importantly, you play it safe.”

She began by teaching me evasion maneuvers—how to avoid getting kicked, hit, or grabbed. Stance was everything. Fists up to guard the face. Shoulders and hips in line. Light on the balls of the feet. Weight distributed evenly. Body loose and ready to snap into action. She taught me how to dodge to the sides, how to slide and jump back, and how to drop low without losing balance. How to deflect blows with my arms.

“They say the first few seconds of a fight are the most important,” said Ace. “Most Dauntless—most fighters in general—take this to mean that you go all in at first. But if you can survive long enough to exhaust your opponent, or long enough that they get sloppy, you can get the upper hand.”

After demonstrating and guiding me through the motions, she stood across from me and attacked. Powerful kicks that soared inches above my head, hooks that I was only barely able to deflect, punches that glanced my shoulders and sides. I did manage to get the upper hand when I realized that she was more careful to protect her right side, where her vision was impaired because of the scar, so I started dodging into the blind spot. But she figured that out quickly.

By the end of the session, I felt like jelly. Ace had pulled most of her strikes, and since she was barehanded and barefoot, it shouldn’t have hurt too badly, but I knew my body would be mottled with bruises in the morning. She got me a bottle of water and I guzzled it in a few minutes.

“That concludes our warm-up exercises,” Ace said brightly.

I glared at her. A light glow of perspiration dusted her brow, but other than that, she seemed just peachy. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

She grinned and punched my shoulder. “We can cover strikes later. You’re done for tonight, congrats.”

Groaning, I fell back against the floor. My chest heaved and the lights above me were hazy, dewy with sweat.

After a while, I glanced over at Ace. She nursed a water bottle idly, a gentle smile on her face. I realized I’d never seen her like this—content, relaxed. This was home for her. That was what it looked like to belong. Ever since we’d left the Institute, she’d changed into an entirely different person, someone who was confident, not in the fact that she was the most intimidating person in the room, but in the fact that she wasn’t. I wondered if I would ever reach that place. I wondered how Ace had figured out this was where she’d find it.

After a little while longer, she helped me up and let me put my shoes on again.

“There’s one more thing we should do while we’re here,” she said.

She led me out the door and down the hall. The next room was much longer, with a row of stalls when we walked in. At the far end of the room were targets. Sheets of paper with outlines of humans and concentric circles drawn over the vital areas.

“I’m going to…?” I began, unable to finish the question.

Ace nodded. “Getting the risk license might take a while, so you can’t carry. But I can still teach you.”

I saw the hole in Lady Rose’s head. The pool of blood behind her. My ears began to ring again with the boom of the gun.

“No,” I said shakily. “I can’t do it.”

“If something happens—if—if maybe I go down, or whoever’s protecting you isn’t there, I really think it’s important that you know how. I’m not asking you to shoot anyone. But if it comes to it—”

My eyes were brimming with tears. “I wouldn’t do it.”

“This isn’t up for discussion—”

Her breath hitched. Her eyes went wide. A half-second later, the door behind us opened.

We turned. A young man walked in, his heavy bootfalls echoing in the silence. His face was pierced in so many places I lost count, and his hair was long, dark, and greasy. But that wasn’t what made him so menacing. It was the ice in his eyes as they passed over us.

“Well, well,” he said. “Look what crawled out of the gutters.”

Ace’s back straightened. “Eric.”

Eric stepped towards us, almost uncomfortably close. His ice eyes flicked to me, scanning me top to bottom. I didn’t even need to adjust my stance to look more Dauntless. I was already ready to fight. I did not like this man, not one bit.

“What’s a leader of Dauntless doing in the initiates’ wing at night?” asked Ace. Her subtle way of telling me who Eric was, I supposed.

“Security check,” he said, his eyes still on me. “Well, aren’t you going to introduce me?”

Ace put her hand on my shoulder. I wasn’t sure if it was to reassure me or to reassure her.

“This is—Tris,” she said.

I could see the gears turning in her head with the name. Had she gotten it from Beatrice? If so, had I told her my old name? I couldn’t remember doing so. Eric raised an eyebrow, pulling at the piercings and making the holes they occupied wider. I tried to hide a wince. “You’re not an initiate, are you?”

“She’s fifteen,” said Ace. “Heard from her friends that initiation’s getting harder, so she asked me if I’d give prep lessons.”

“I’m asking the girl, not you,” said Eric. “I haven’t seen you before. What family are you from?”

I met his eyes. My mind flickered back to my red spiderweb, the sticky cluster of thoughts that was Mom. Where she was from. I thought of how she could pick locks, how she had accepted my sexuality from the very beginning. The two strange indentations in her earlobe. I now knew what they were. The scars of closed piercings.

“McCandless,” I said.

Eric’s second eyebrow shot up. “She’s a—”

“Yeah,” said Ace. She’d caught on fast. Guess she’d made the connection before I did. “There’s so many of them, I’m not surprised you don’t know her.”

“But you will,” I said. “You’ll know me pretty well.”

Eric shifted his weight and nodded. He wasn’t impressed; he didn’t seem like someone who would be impressed easily. But at least he was satisfied.

“Alright. Show me what you’ve got,” he said.

He pointed at the targets. Ace’s hand tensed slightly on my shoulder.

“Tris hasn’t had a chance to fire a gun yet,” said Ace. “We were just about to start.”

“Don’t care,” said Eric.

Ace let go. Then she motioned me towards the nearest stall.

“Show him,” she said.

I guess I didn’t have a choice anymore. I stepped into the stall and reached into the drawer, slowly pulling out the practice weapon. It felt real. Ace stepped behind me and helped me load the cartridge. It was a real cartridge with real bullets. The weight was cold in my hand. Never in my life did I expect to hold a gun, let alone fire one. I felt as if, just by touching it, I could hurt someone.

“Feet apart, use both hands,” said Ace in a low voice.

She stepped out of the stall and stood beside Eric, who was watching me intently. When I turned to look at them, Eric said, “You gonna shoot, or stare while someone shoots you?”

I turned back to the target. The man-shaped target. I remembered how cleanly Ace had killed Lady Rose, a perfect shot at the bridge of her brow. Right in the X in the center.

It took all my strength to push Lady Rose from my mind, set my feet shoulder-width apart, and wrap both hands around the handle of the gun. It was heavier than I expected, hard to lift away from my body, but I wanted it to be as far from my face as possible. Then I squeezed the trigger as hard as I could.

BANG!

The recoil sent my hands flying back at my nose. I stumbled against the back of the stall. I didn’t know where my bullet went, but I knew it wasn’t near the target. Over the ringing in my ears, all I could hear was raucous laughter.

“Oh god,” Eric cackled. “At this rate, maybe she’ll make second-tier street patrol. Good luck, Dishwater.”

“Pulling out schoolchild nicknames, very mature,” said Ace.

Eric ignored the retort and turned to her, folding his arms. His knuckles were scabbed over, right where they would split if he punched something too hard. “What have you been doing lately?”

“Working,” said Ace.

Were they friends? My eyes flicked between Eric and Ace. I knew from the Dauntless transfers that callousness often translated to affection. Everything Eric did—lingering for small talk, teasing Ace—suggested that they were friends. But even after Eric was convinced of me being Dauntless, the way Ace stood, tense as a pulled wire, suggested they were something else. Rivals, maybe. Or (I grew afraid) a romantic relationship, past or future.

“Max tells me he keeps trying to meet with you, and you don’t show up,” Eric said. “He requested that I find out what’s going on with you.”

Ace looked at Eric for a second before saying, “Tell him that I am satisfied with the position I currently hold.”

“So he wants to give you a job.”

The rings in Eric’s eyebrow caught the light. Maybe Eric perceived Ace as a potential threat to his position. My father once said that those who wanted power and got it lived in terror of losing it. That was why we had to give power to those who did not want it.

“So it would seem,” said Ace.

“And you’d rather work for Candor than your own faction.”

“Perhaps.”

“Well,” said Eric, “let’s hope he gets the point, then.”

He clapped Ace on the shoulder, a little too hard, and left. When the door closed, I slouched. I hadn’t realized I was so tense.

“You know what,” said Ace, “I think we’re done here.”