XXIX

The next morning, as I returned to my apartment, I crossed paths with Oona in the kitchen. She was taking her morning coffee and antidepressants, her eyes still swollen from sleep and her hair pulled in a messy knot.

“Long time no see,” she said.

I gave her a quick good morning. But as I shut myself into the bathroom to shower again, I heard her say, “Weird, because we live in the same apartment.”

She was still there after I dressed, and we left together. As I locked the door behind us and shoved my lanyard into my pocket, I saw her eyes catch on my hands—on the scrapes and redness on my knuckles.

“Where have you been, seriously?” she asked.

I shifted my bookbag. “Around,” I said. “Shadowing at the Merciless Mart.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

The elevator came and we stepped on, alone. Most of the other law students were already at breakfast. Oona and I, on the other hand, had started on a very bad habit of arriving ten minutes before it ended, just so that we could snatch a bit more morning dozing. I normally liked our solitary elevator rides, but Oona was looking right at me. She could see every move I made.

“I’m thinking of doing an internship at Academic Integrity.” I knew the place so well by now that this was barely a lie. If I passed initiation, I’d probably work there for lack of fitting anywhere else. “The director lets me into her office on Tuesdays.” Also not a lie.

“And?”

“What?”

“And what else? Tuesdays, yeah, but I haven’t seen you, like, all week. You disappear after dinner and then I don’t see or hear from you until you walk through the front door at some ungodly hour of the morning. Are you even sleeping in your room?”

I inhaled. Here went nothing. Or half of something.

“I’ve been with Ace,” I admitted. “After—Beauregard’s house—it’s been hard to adjust.” Not a lie. “I thought about therapy, but the Amity don’t know what it’s like, almost dying. But Ace knows. She was there.” All true. “She’s been helping me deal with it.” She had. She’d been making it harder, sometimes, but for the most part, being with her helped clear my head.

The suspicion on Oona’s face cleared. “Oh,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

The elevator let us out.

“Well…we miss you. Me and Ravi. And Sherlock. We started a study group to prepare for finals, I just wanted you to be there.”

I smiled gratefully. “That sounds nice. I can go tonight.”

“Well, not tonight,” said Oona. “Ravi has an appointment for hormone replacement therapy, and Sherlock and I—had, um, plans. We were going to study tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Shit. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I was going to meet with Ace tomorrow, and—”

“It’s okay if you can’t,” she insisted, lying right to my face. “Really, it’s okay.”

“It doesn’t sound okay—”

“No. It’s fine. I understand. I’ll meet you in the dining hall, I have to go.”

Clutching her books to her chest, Oona quickened her pace and ducked inside the girls’ bathroom. “Oona—” I began, but she slammed the door behind me. A glance at my watch told me I was about to miss breakfast.

I shook my head and hurried to the dining hall instead. I’d talk to her later, I promised myself, as soon as I got all of this sorted out.

I really should have known by then that my own promises never held weight.

That night, I fell asleep early, having barely slept in...wow. Weeks, maybe. Ace’s bed was nice, but my bed really was an exquisite thing. I nearly slept through Logical Reasoning on Friday morning, the class I was by far the most lost in. But I couldn’t lean over and ask Oona for help because she was giving me the cold shoulder, and so was Sherlock, both of them glancing over when they thought I wasn’t looking and typing furiously—chatting in a private message I couldn’t hear or see. Ravi had his own issues and I didn’t want to bother him. So I just floundered until class was over.

Finally, the time came. I went up to the roof fifteen minutes early to wait for Ace, adjusting my bandanna and bouncing from foot to foot.

When she arrived, she was scowling. “Right,” she said. “Let’s get this over with.”

We left Candor and rode the train in silence. Part of the reason was that we had company, a small group of adult Dauntless chatting amongst themselves. They didn’t seem to care much about us, but when we got closer to the compound, Ace leaned over and whispered to me that I’d have to jump on my own or they’d definitely notice something off. The thought filled my gut with a sensation like writhing snakes, but I nodded anyway. I jumped where I was supposed to. I landed clumsily, ripping my leggings and skinning my knees on the gravel, but ignored the pain and held my chin high.

Instead of the room with the fighting ring and punching bags, Ace led me through the winding tunnels of Dauntless to a dark, cold hallway. The Dauntless didn’t seem to care much for interior design. Lined up down the halls were uncomfortable metal chairs, and a chalkboard on the wall listed a couple dozen names and numbers. Ace pulled out her impressive keyring and opened the door at the end of the hall. Then she touched my shoulder to guide me into the room, closing the door behind us.

When she turned on the lights, I recoiled, my shoulders hitting her chest.

In the room was a reclining metal chair, similar to the one in my aptitude test. Beside it was a familiar machine and a computer.

“Sit,” said Ace.

I looked at her, my eyes wide. “What is this?”

“This,” she sighed, “is stage two of Dauntless initiation. You know the phrase ‘face your fears’—well, we take it pretty literally here. In short, this simulation makes you face your greatest fears.”

My greatest fears. I touched a wavering hand to my forehead. I knew simulations weren’t real; they posed no real threat to me, so logically, I shouldn’t have been afraid of them, but my reaction was visceral. Ace must have seen my doubt as I forced myself into the chair and reached across to touch my hand.

“Hey,” she said. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

“Your heart is racing,” I told her, my voice thin. I could feel her pulse through her fingers. She pulled back.

“Because we’re not facing your fears today,” said Ace, turning back to the computers. “We’re facing mine, both of us in the simulation together. This is what I was talking about last night.”

Right. The thing that would change my mind about her.

“It’s like the aptitude simulations?” I asked.

“The serum’s a little different. It targets the amygdala, the part of the brain involved in processing negative emotions—like fear—and gathers the patterns of stimuli that are most likely to trigger a fear response. A transmitter in the serum sends the data to the computer, the algorithms analyze your patterns to see which is the most vulnerable, and then the computer spins up a simulated scene and sends it back to the transmitter. You stay in the scene until you calm down—that is, lower your heart rate and control your breathing. Then you get the next scene.”

“How can two people go in the same simulation?”

“Easily. I’m setting up your transmitter as a clone of mine and turning off input on your end, so the computer will only receive my fears.”

I tried to follow her words, but my thoughts were whirring like frightened insects around a light. The insects scattered entirely when Ace turned around again and I saw two huge, orange-tinted syringes in her hands. My mouth went dry. I considered myself alright with needles; Tori’s tattoo needle and the small clear syringe that held the truth serum were my only experiences. But this wasn’t a needle. This was a dagger.

“An injection?”

Ace smiled grimly. “Stronger than what they give you for aptitude.”

“Looks...excessive.”

“Needs to be. Fear landscapes are normally ten to fifteen scenes long. You’ll find the truth serum, the real, pure stuff they use in the Full Unveiling, that’s the same kind.”

She put the syringes on the small table between us and began to work on the computer again. I tried not to look at the gleaming points too long.

“I get that I’ll be going under another type of serum,” I said shakily, “but I don’t see what a fear simulation has to do with learning how to lie.”

Ace sat next to me, taking both syringes. In front of us, the computer glowed serenely, quietly humming a pitch between notes. Her thigh just barely touched mine, and when she closed one syringe in my hand, I shivered.

“It’s because the serums are supposed to read who you really are,” she replied. “And people like you… people like, like me… for whatever reason, they can’t read us. You might not be practicing a lie. But it’s the same principle—constructing a real you that does what it’s supposed to.”

She guided my hand to position the syringe near her neck, tapping her fingernail near a vein.

“I’ve never done this before,” I said. I didn’t want to hurt her. But I also wasn’t sure what I was getting into.

“Just press the button down. It’s fine.”

I had to hold my hand steady with my other one as I pressed the needle in. Ace didn’t even flinch. Then she took the other syringe and her fingers brushed my neck, making my body tense more. A curl of my hair had escaped from my bandanna and she moved it aside to reach my neck.

The needle wasn’t pain so much as a little pinch, and when I pried my eyes open, it was out. A deep, dull ache pulsed where it had entered. I could feel my heart pulsing in my throat, especially when Ace sat down next to me and took both of my hands in hers.

“Be brave, Phoebe,” she said. “The first time’s always the hardest.”

“At least I’m not doing it alone,” I said weakly.

Something like surprise crossed her face. Then she nodded. “Yeah. Least we’re not alone.”

Her eyes were the last thing I saw.

+ + +

The simulation took us.

When I opened my eyes again, the room around us was gone. Instead, I found myself staring at the city unfolded around us, glass buildings and the arc of train tracks. We stood on the top floor of a skeletal tower. As we looked around at the oil-slicked floors, glassless windows, and empty walls, I could feel Ace’s pulse speed up in my hand.

“You’re scared of heights?” I asked.

“Not quite,” she said.

A crash made me jump and I whirled around. One of the lanterns fell, bursting into a shower of sparks. Small flames caught on a paint tarp, and then with a whoosh raced across the spilled oil. The fire spread impossibly fast. It cut us off from the only door, the one to the stairwell. We stood on the only patch of dry ground near a window.

Through the searing heat, Ace’s hand clenched mine so tight it hurt.

“Ace— Ace!” I shouted over the roar of the fire. For a second, her eyes were glazed in nothing but fear. I punched her arm. It made me feel bad, but it did the trick. She shook her head. “Ace, it’s not real.”

“Right,” she said, still a little dazed. “It’s not real.” She closed her eyes, inhaled, and turned to me. “Tell me how you would get out of this.”

I looked back at the flames. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly keen on being so close to fire myself. And it really felt real. An ember popped, landing on my bare arm, and I gasped in pain as it singed my skin. I whirled around to the window.

“We can jump,” I said. “In the aptitude test, there was one where I was killed by a bomb. I didn’t actually die, it just took me to the next scene.”

“Wrong.”

“What?”

“That’s what a Divergent would do. Only Divergents understand that the scene’s not real. Think differently—what would you do in the scene if you didn’t have that level of free will?”

If I didn’t have free will? If I was ruled by my fear instincts, like the simulation was supposed to make me. If I thought I might actually die. I looked over the edge of the windowsill again. The outside of the building was flat and mirrored, impossible to climb down. Coughing on the thickening smoke, I turned back to the burning room. I shielded my eyes with my hand and finally found it. Places where the oil had not spilled and the flames did not burn as high.

“There’s a path to the door,” I yelled. “We have to run through the fire.”

“Good girl,” said Ace, hoisted me up in her arms like I weighed nothing, and charged right into the blaze.

We burst into the stairwell (which was also burning, figured). Ace told me to hold on tight and leapt right over the railing, grabbing a cable. Down, down, down we soared, flames licking our skin, me clutching tight to Ace as her heart pounded against my cheek. When we reached solid ground, we ran, breathless from the thick smoke and heavy hot air, at last, at last, breaking through the doors into fresh air.

I landed on a patch of lawn on my back, chest heaving. Ace thudded down right next to me. The front of my body was hot from the burning building in front of us, but I was just glad to be out, glad to be alive. Although it wasn’t like that could have killed us.

Wiping my eyes, I sat up. “That wasn’t so bad,” I rasped.

But I had spoken too soon. As soon as my hands pressed against the grass, I felt the pain. I saw the black char. My hands were covered in red blisters and burnt black skin. I reached up to my face and gasped.

Ace had gotten the worst of it. Her clothes were tattered and smoking; every inch of her skin was flaming red. When she saw I was looking at her, she ducked her head. But I had seen it. Her crescent scar was fresh. A leathery white thing ringed in boils.

“The height’s not the fear,” she panted. “The fire’s not either. It’s the burns.”

Oh.

I wanted to be helpful, say that the scene would end once her pulse slowed, but I felt like an intruder on something deeply personal. Ace was in so much pain right now, more than me. She hunched over, gasping, her face screwed into a silent scream.

“I’m fine,” she told me.

She was lying.

After a minute, she inhaled, lifted her head, and opened her eyes. The new burns on her face were gone. A new dread took their place. And when I next blinked, I saw what she did. I was on my hands and knees, next to her. Darkness around us. A cold concrete floor. Like the floor of an Abnegation home.

Next to me, Ace gasped and pressed a hand to her chest.

I stood shakily and helped her to her feet. “What’s next?”

“It’s—”

Something solid hit my spine. I crashed into Ace, my head hitting her collarbone, and then we both went down, jostled on every side. Walls appeared on our left and our right. Somewhere, a door slammed, and when I looked down I saw only a horizontal sliver of yellow light. The crack at the bottom of a door. Ace was hunched over, pulling her arms close to her chest to fit. The room was just big enough to accommodate both of us, and no bigger.

“Confinement,” I whispered.

She made a guttural noise. In the dim light, I could barely see her face, and the air was close; we shared breaths. She was grimacing as if the fire was still burning her.

“Hey,” I said, “it’s okay, here—”

I guided her arms around my body so she had more space. I expected her to accept it begrudgingly—not to clutch at my back and bury her head in my shoulder. She was warm, unyielding. My cheeks grew warm. Certainly, she could tell that I was still built like a child.

“This is the first time I’m happy I’m so small.” I laughed. If I joked, maybe I could calm her down. And distract myself.

“Mmhmm,” she replied weakly.

“There’s a door. Maybe we can break out,” I said. “It’s easier to face the fear head on, right?”

She shook her head. It was a tight, tense little gesture, and I felt her earrings against my cheek. “Can’t break anything. Door’s unlocked. Just a knob.”

“But?”

“Can’t move.”

“It’s not that small, we have room to stand up.”

“Can’t,” she echoed.

I went quiet. Could fear really be so strong as to fully paralyze a person? Apparently so. My mind flicked to other possibilities—breaking the door anyway, among them—but those didn’t seem to be within the normal parameters of the simulation. What were the normal parameters? Curious, I turned, curling into a ball and pressing my back into her chest. A row of wood planks screeched, and the wall pushed up against my chest. The room was smaller. One of Ace’s knees was bent next to my head and the other curled beneath me so I was sitting on her ankle. We were a jumble of limbs. Harsh breath inhaled next to my ear.

“ Ah, ” Ace rasped. “This is worse. This is definitely…”

“Shh,” I said. “Arms around me.”

Obediently, she slipped both arms around my waist. I smiled at the wall. I was not enjoying this. I was not, not even a little bit, no.

“The simulation measures your fear response,” I said softly. I was just repeating what she told me, but reminding her might help. “So...if you can calm your heartbeat down, it will move on to the next one. The correct response is to embrace the fear.”

“Yeah?” Her lips moved against my ear as she spoke, and heat coursed through me. “That easy for you, huh?”

“Most bisexuals don’t mind being trapped in small rooms with attractive women,” I pointed out.

“Not claustrophobic ones, Phoebe!”

“Wait—you’re—”

“Yes, I’m queer. I have an undercut, I play baseball, I own eight leather jackets, don’t act surprised.”

“Baseball? And you own how many?!”

“This is not a conversation for now!”

“Okay, okay.” I set my hand on top of hers and guided it to my chest, right over my heart. “Feel my heartbeat. Can you feel it?”

“Yes.”

“Is it steady?”

“No. It’s really fast.”

Ah. “I don’t think that has to do with the room,” I said frankly. “Well...focus on my breathing. Every time I do it, you do it too.”

“Okay.”

I inhaled deeply, counting the seconds, and her chest rose against my back. A few seconds. I held the breath. I closed my eyes as I let it out. We did it a couple times, and then I said, “Why don’t you tell me where this fear comes from? Maybe talking about it will help us.”

It was what my mother told me to do when I got anxious about something like school, or Caleb, or my father finding out about something I had done. It sounded right.

“Um...okay.” She breathed with me again. “This one is from my fantastic childhood. Childhood punishments. The tiny closet upstairs, under the bottom shelf.”

I pressed my lips together. The home that was less preferable than the streets. I had been punished before—sent to my room without dinner, revoked of this or that, firm scoldings. Never shut in a closet. I didn’t know what to say, so I tried to keep it casual.

“My mother kept our winter coats in our closet.”

“I don’t…” she gasped, “I don’t really want to talk anymore.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“I can talk. If that’s easier. Ask me something.”

“Okay.” She laughed shakily. “Why is your heart racing?”

I pressed my lips together. “You know. I told you.”

“You’re in love with me.”

“‘In love with’ is a very strong phrase.”

“You said it.”

“I said I think I love you. That’s not the same thing.”

“You already said it, why are you still afraid?”

I was quiet for a while. I searched for an excuse that didn’t involve her arms around me when I had put them there. How could I explain the fear that she might one day want to do it of her own free will?

“If we were in your fear landscape,” she said, “would I be in it?”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Are you?”

“No,” I said, more confidently now. “You’re the only person I can be honest with.”

There was a crack. The walls retreated. And, trembling, Ace shifted, pushing herself to her feet and taking my hand to help me up. I shivered, my back cold from the sudden absence of her.

“Shall we, for turn of phrase, come out of the closet?” she asked sheepishly.

The joke was so stupid that I burst into a laugh. “Yes, I think we should.”

She pushed the door open. I half-hoped that it might lead to the building where this closet was in her memories, that it might give me another glimpse of what it was like to grow up a factionless orphan. That was a fascination I always felt guilty about, but it was hard to shake off.

Except it wasn’t a building, it was a void, a white non-space that should have blinded my eyes if it was real. It felt like how television static looked. A few yards away, facing us, there was someone that made my blood freeze cold.

Lady Rose.

Dressed all in white. Her greasy blond hair fell around her face and her eyes were blank, blind, as she pointed a gun at us. When I looked back at Ace, an identical gun appeared in one hand, a single bullet in the other. Lady Rose just stared. Why wasn’t she shooting us?

It struck me like the knife across my chest. The fear had nothing to do with Ace’s life. It had everything to do with Lady Rose’s.

“You have to kill her,” I said softly.

“Every time.”

“Even before you…?”

“Before it was her, it was someone without a face. Or someone I loved. Nowadays, it’s always her.”

I inhaled. I had to force out the next words. “She’s already gone.”

“She looks alive.” Ace bit her lip. “She didn’t have to die.”

“She would have killed me,” I said. The words didn’t feel like mine.

She nodded quickly. “I know. Just...turn around. You don’t have to watch.”

“If you have to do it, I should watch.”

“It’s not...not so bad. Not as much panic involved.”

Not as much panic, but far more regret. It was rooted deep in her eyes as she turned away, as she held the gun and opened the chamber like she’d done it a thousand times—and maybe she had. She clicked the bullet into the chamber and raised the gun, and I turned around.

The bang did not echo. The white, wall-less room absorbed it. But I still heard it again and again and again in my head. I smelled the mothballs and the sickly breath and the stab of iron from fresh blood. I felt, beneath my feet, the crumpling of her body to the floor. Then, right after, the thump of Ace’s gun. What she said was true—it did feel real.

She put her hand on my shoulder. I had not realized I was covering my ears.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I shook my head. “You?”

“No,” she agreed. “We have to keep moving.”

As we turned to leave, the blurry form of Lady Rose disappeared. Except in my memory and Ace’s. From her familiarity with it, Ace must have gone through this process dozens, maybe hundreds of times. What would it be like to kill someone every time I went inside my own head? I could no longer blame Ace for being so cold. I couldn’t imagine how she was still sane.

But something in particular puzzled me: these were supposed to be Ace’s worst fears. And though she panicked in the building and the box, she killed the image of Lady Rose without my help. Why was it a fear? Fear of causing harm to others? She said it had been there before and hadn’t changed much. Surely having to kill someone in cold blood in real life would have changed the scenario, other than just putting Lady Rose there. It almost seemed like the simulation was grasping at any fears it could find within her, and hadn’t found much.

Ace squeezed my hand as we reached an unseen wall, and she slid her free hand across it until finding something at eye level.

“Here goes nothing,” she whispered.

She slid her hand horizontally and something clicked. I blinked. The thing was the lock of a window—a window that looked out at a very familiar landscape. Grey houses. Pebble walkways. Rows of identical mailboxes.

“Abnegation?” I asked, turning to Ace.

But she wasn’t listening to me. She turned from the closed window and stared across the kitchen, fists by her sides. She was trembling again, worse than ever. Her eyes fixated on the handle of the front door, and when it turned, her feet shifted wider. A fighting stance. Ace stifled a sob.

The man who emerged was tall and slim, with hair cut close to his scalp. He held his hands behind his back; his feet in an identical stance to Ace’s. And he wore the grey clothes of Abnegation.

“Marcus,” I whispered.

“Abigail,” said Marcus.

My eyes widened. I looked at Ace, only to recoil. Ace was gone. In her place was an Abnegation girl of about twelve, tall and stocky for her age, but diminutive in the shadow of the person she’d left behind. Her strong form was replaced with a hunched, soft one. Her black hair was long and pulled into a bun. Her face was pale, round, free of scars. But not free of the fear.

Everything came together.

Ace was Abigail Eaton—the cold case, the missing girl, the tragedy of Abnegation.

Marcus dropped his hands to his sides. A belt curled around one of his fists, a snake. Slowly, his face blank of emotion, he unwound it from his fingers.

“This is for your own good,” he said.

Ace—Abigail—stepped back. She bumped into the countertop. Strewn across the surface were spices and cooking tools, ingredients and pots. A knife and a cutting board. On the stove, a pan of oil crackled and popped. The answer was so easy; grab the knife, pick up the pan, throw the dishes. Abigail didn’t seem to see any of them. She just stared at Marcus, tears glimmering. As if she didn’t know he wasn’t real.

“Ace,” I said, grabbing her hand. Her smaller, softer hand. She didn’t react. “ Abigail!” That got her attention. She whirled to me, her dark eyes wide. “Look at me. It’s not real. This isn’t happening.”

For a long time, she didn’t respond. It didn’t even seem like she was breathing. Her pulse still raced where our hands met, but Abigail didn’t even blink.

“You’re wrong,” she said quietly. “It already did.”

Marcus pressed forward. Abigail jerked to the side, our hands breaking. First Marcus kicked her. She cried out, a young animal’s cry, clutching at the edge of the counter. Hanging there, her back to Marcus. Trembling. Not running, not fighting, just waiting. Marcus yanked his arm back and the belt sailed over his shoulder.

I charged in front of him. The belt cracked against my face, and my vision exploded with white, hot pain. I grit my teeth and forced my eyes open again. Marcus was just drawing back, so I lunged forward and grabbed the belt, twisting my wrist to wrap my grip around it. Then I pulled as hard as I could. Marcus stumbled and let go.

“Abigail!” I gasped.

For a moment, fear seized me. I wanted Ace, but she was gone. It was just the scared little girl in the corner, looking at me as if I was the one who was supposed to lead her, not the other way around. Then Abigail shook her head. The moment passed. In her young eyes burned a fury so bright that now, I was almost afraid of her.

Marcus lunged at me with a roar. But Abigail was faster. She grabbed the belt from my hands and pushed me behind her, putting herself between me and Marcus. And then she drew back her arm.

The moment the leather struck his cheek, everything vanished.

I sat bolt upright. We were back in the Dauntless simulation room, Ace leaning heavily against me. It was her again. My Ace. She was trembling, her eyes wide, almost vulnerable in the dim lights. Any other time, I might have made some sort of remark about how awkward it was, two of us sitting in a chair made for one, but now it didn’t seem the time. I let her lean on me and touched her shoulder.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I said softly. “We got through it.”

Swallowing, she nodded quickly. Then she pulled me into a tight hug.

“You got me through it,” she said finally.

“Well.” My throat was dry. Nerves like electricity pulsed through me every second she touched me. “It’s easy to be brave when they’re not my fears.” Most of them.

I let my hands drop and casually wiped them on my leggings, hoping she didn’t notice. If she did, she didn’t say so. Slowly, she laced her fingers with mine.

“We have a lot to talk about,” she said.

“Yeah.” I laughed breathily. “I think so.”