XXXIII

One man walked so close behind me that I could feel his breath on the back of my head. The other was in front of me, separating me from Jeanine, Morris, and Irene as they led me to the elevator. Irene hadn’t said a word since I slipped on the stairs. She knew it was me before Morris called me by name. Morris and Jeanine had asked her what I was doing here, but they got only silence. I took this as a cue. I didn’t say anything either.

They took us up to the Academic Integrity Department, and as we got off the elevator, Irene’s hand clumsily wrapped around mine. Hastily, she began walking to her office with me in tow, as if if she powerwalked fast enough then they wouldn’t catch us. It didn’t work. Morris grabbed the shoulder that had hit the stairs and pulled me back.

I was already on edge, but the rough grab didn’t help. Morris’ fingers dug into the bruise. I panicked and jerked away, hitting his wrist. “Let go!”

“You’re not going with her,” Morris said. “You have some explaining to do.”

“I invoke my right to legal counsel,” I stammered. It was the first thing that came to mind. But it was the wrong response. I looked up at Morris and Jeanine, staring at me like I was a bug under a microscope. Jeanine’s gaze was a grey so cold that it hurt.

“If you haven’t done anything wrong, you shouldn’t need it,” said Jeanine.

Her two lackeys came up behind me, cutting me off from Irene. I caught one more glimpse of her face before one man pushed my shoulder to get me moving. In the struggle, Irene’s glasses had slipped down her face. Her unfocused eyes stared, empty, at the wall.

And something cold pressed into the palm of my hand. I swallowed.

Right.

I could do this.

Morris stayed with Irene, which I was actually grateful for. He was a talented investigator and I wouldn’t survive being questioned by him. Jeanine, however, was not a Candor. I warned myself not to let my guard down too much, because I could still slip up in a way that you didn’t need to be Candor to see. But my anxiety was also going through the roof, so I was also careful not to scare myself more. It was a thin line to walk.

Jeanine and her lackeys took me into a place I knew well, one of the testing rooms for the Arguments exam, the little white room with the one-way mirror. The two lackeys went behind the mirror and Jeanine sat at one end of the metal table.

“Sit,” Jeanine said. Her voice sounded even more familiar when she was irritated.

“I’d rather not.”

“Sit,” she said again.

I had definitely heard her voice before. Not just speaking to Morris and Irene. Sometime—forever ago, it felt like—

“It was your voice in the simulation,” I said. “The aptitude test, I mean.”

She was the danger that Irene and my mother warned me about, the danger of being Divergent. Sitting right in front of me.

“Oh...yes. Just one of my humble contributions to science.” She looked pleased that I had noticed, and even more pleased that she got to talk about it. Humble, indeed. “Speaking of which, Beatrice…excuse me...Phoebe.”

It was a small slip up, but intentional. It told me enough. She looked at me and saw Abnegation, not Candor. Automatically, I sat a little straighter and tilted my chin.

“You were the student with abnormal test results,” she said. “There was some sort of...problem with your test. It was never recorded, and your results had to be reported manually. By Irene. Did you know that?”

I looked her in the eye.

“Yes.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Chicago Code Title XII, Chapter 2 forbids initiate members from revealing their aptitude test results to anyone during initiation,” I said flatly.

“And why might you have that memorized?”

Because I was Divergent. Because I’d rather be called a stickler about the rules than have one of my Candor peers pressure me into telling a lie that one of them might see through. Because I knew that Jeanine had been given one testimony from Irene, and the addition of my testimony would just double the chances that they’d find a hole somewhere.

“Because you know which result I got,” I replied, “and I would rather forget.”

Her mouth pinched for a second. “Abnegation. Yes, we know.”

Like a match striking, a bright little flame awoke inside me. I was learning it well. I had a foothold.

“Can I ask you something?” I said. “Do you know what it’s like? Transferring into a place like Candor from a place like Abnegation?”

“I can’t imagine it’s easy.”

“No. It’s not. I already get hell from my peers because of where I came from. Who I’m related to. Telling them that my brain ticks on an Abnegation clock, that’s not a good way to make friends.”

“That’s a good point, Phoebe,” said Jeanine, leaning forward. “You’re a bright thing, I don’t see why a challenge like that would come as a surprise to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I find this whole thing peculiar, that’s all. An Abnegation, leaving her home of her own free will. Transferring to a faction she had no aptitude for, knowing full well that she would be out of place, that it would be extra difficult, that she might fail. Succeeding nonetheless—even solving a case that the pros couldn’t solve. Seeking out her test proctor for an internship. Being found trespassing the day that the proctor’s character is called into question...it almost seems like you’re following her. Or...following the same kind of trouble.”

Divergence. Factions splitting. The factionless tragedies. Sajida and Judge Touma. Ace.

I inhaled. I inclined my chin.

“And what of it?” I asked.

“Excuse me?”

“What if I did?” I leaned forward too, folding my arms. I didn’t break her gaze. “What if I just—ignored my aptitude test? Picked something different out of my own free will? Is that not allowed?”

“It’s allowed,” said Jeanine. “But it’s not beyond questioning.”

“Question this, then. Why anyone would leave Abnegation. I’ve read your papers—you’ve got a few theories about it. I’ve got something better. Ask me about what it’s like, knowing that my whole faction has warped the meaning of selflessness. Ask me about what it’s like, getting only glimpses at the mirror, and when I look, all I see is ‘future wife, future mother, future servant’. Ask me about suddenly, on the day I’m supposed to find myself, meeting someone who’s such a polar opposite to the women I’m told to look up to.”

My hands began shaking. I didn’t want them to. This was just an act, I told myself. Did I really mean it? I saw Irene’s face in my mind’s eye—she was striking. But a second later, I realized it wasn’t Irene I saw. It was Mom. The last time I saw Mom had been on the roof of the Institute, her eyes flashing Dauntless. Reflecting Candor, right back at me.

I shook my head. Tears were beading under my lashes.

“If you met someone like that, you’d follow her too,” I said. “To hell with what’s easy.”

I stretched out my hand and opened my fist. One of Irene’s headphone buds clattered on the table.

“And that was why I was following her today.”

For a second, Jeanine just stared at it.

“It’s an earbud,” I said. “Irene uses it to navigate her computers. I accidentally took it last week, it got folded in with some paperwork. I know Erudite’s not big on disabled rights, but I think you can figure out why I’d be so desperate to give it back.”

She picked it up, holding it to the light as she turned it slowly. Of course, I was terrified that she had seen when Irene grabbed my hand and pressed the earbud into my palm, but I didn’t show it. Just glared.

Finally Jeanine set the earbud down and met my glare again. “Alright,” she said, in the kind of voice that said it was not actually all right. “I was only curious. I know you Candor like to think that Academic Integrity has full jurisdiction over the aptitude tests, but this version is my rightful creation. Any errors must be investigated, so future students aren’t at risk of…worse errors.”

The lie was so loud it hurt my head. She didn’t care about the technology—she suspected that something is awry with my test results. She was on a hunt for Divergents. Was that why she was after Irene? What did Judge Touma have to do with all of it?

“As for your trespassing into the distillery… I’ll let the Candor handle your discipline.”

“I don’t know if it’s trespassing,” I said, my voice level. “Obviously, I don’t have a key. But the door was practically open when I got there.”

Jeanine hesitated. I could see the gears in her head turning as she tried to remember if the door had locked behind them. Her eyes, to my relief, never once traveled up to my hair, where some oddly-shaped hairpins had their home. I gave an innocent smile.

“May I see that bag?” she asked.

“Go ahead,” I said.

I slung my computer bag off my shoulder and placed it on the table between us. When she unzipped it, a whole stack of papers spilled out, case files and briefs from my classes. She fumbled with those for a second, pushing them aside, before pulling out my laptop computer.

“All of my browsing history is on public record and can be accessed through the Candor law library computers,” I said.

“Nothing to hide, hm?”

I didn’t respond.

Jeanine’s fingernail caught on a flap on the inside corner of the bag—the hidden pocket. Pinching it in two fingers, she pulled out my little leather journal. “What’s this, then?”

“Why don’t we find out?” I asked, unflinching.

When Jeanine looked at me, her left eyelid twitched. Slowly, she unwrapped the leather cord and opened the front cover.

Folded papers, Candor newspapers and Erudite journals alike, slipped out. The first article was one I knew well—an Erudite report on the Beauregard investigation. My face was on the cover. Candor Initiate Saves Erudite Philanthropist From Deadly Factionless Murderer, read the headline.

“That’s the first picture anyone’s ever taken of me, besides the one on my ID,” I said.

“You sound proud,” said Jeanine.

“I am,” I replied. “But the picture is awful.”

I actually got a chuckle from her over that. “Yes, pictures tend to be like that. Pride, though...I would think that’s a difficult emotion to feel.”

I thought about that for a while. Jeanine’s assumption was that if I truly had gotten an Abnegation result—which I had—then I wouldn’t feel pride. But that wasn’t right. Despite my Erudite result, I still felt stupid. Despite my Candor result, I still lied. Despite my Amity result, I was still angry, and despite my Dauntless result, I was still afraid.

“I think it’s a human emotion to feel,” I finally said. “But that’s what makes the faction system so nice, isn’t it? You’re not supposed to pretend your flaws don’t exist, or ease yourself into thinking that you’re without flaws. You’re supposed to acknowledge they’re there and choose to be better than them.”

Jeanine tilted her head, her look calculating. I added, “When the Abnegation say they naturally don’t feel pride, they’re lying.”

It seemed like the right answer. The tilt turned to a satisfied little nod.

She began rifling through some of the other articles. Most of them were more recent publications, all of them about the factionless.

“You like to read about the factionless,” she commented.

“One of them tried to kill me, so I like to stay updated.”

Raising an eyebrow, Jeanine set aside the articles and turned to the first page of the journal. I watched her face carefully. The eyebrows went back down. They furrowed. Jeanine’s gaze flicked up to me and then back at the pages. She flipped a while before seeming to give up.

“What is this?” she asked.

“That’s my handwriting.”

“It’s...backwards.” She frowned, as if she doubted even that. I knew she wouldn’t be able to read it. The letters were so far removed from their origins that they all just kind of looked like loops. “Is this some kind of code?”

“No, just shorthand. Not a shorthand that someone else could read, of course, just the kind of shorthand that’s fastest to me. I’ve boiled the whole alphabet down into seven different symbols.”

“Why write like this?”

“It’s my Full Unveiling journal,” I told her. “I started keeping it after the Beauregard case. I wrote all my deepest and darkest secrets in that.” Not a lie. “The sort of stuff that you’d rather not tell people. Well, they don’t really look on those fondly here, so I decided, might as well start by being honest with myself. It’s my first draft, you know, because you can choose to do the Full Unveiling as a prepared speech. But I don’t want the secrets to come out yet until I’ve figured out how to say them right.”

“And what kind of secrets are those?”

Now I smiled. It was a genuine smile. It filled my whole face and my chest, and I reached slowly across the table to take the book.

“I can read some of it to you, if you want,” I said.

Jeanine was looking slightly uncomfortable. But she nodded gingerly and gestured for me to continue. My smile couldn’t grow bigger, but if it could, it would have. I cleared my throat.

“ ‘Tuesday ,’” I read. “ ‘I am positive now. I know I am in love with her. If I had any doubt before, I know now that I chose the right faction; if I had stayed with my parents in Abnegation, or followed my brother to Erudite, I would be told that these feelings are selfish or unnatural. But, oh, this feels so good, it feels so right. Whenever I see her, I look at her lips and her hands, and I wonder what they would feel like discovering every inch of my body. Today Ravi told me about a lesbian thing that I think I like the idea of very much, ‘scissoring’, where one woman—’ ”

“Stop! Please. You’ve made your point.” Jeanine’s face was bright, florid red.

I nodded solemnly. “It crossed my mind to transfer to Erudite with my brother. But, as it does, love wins.”

“I—suppose Candor and Erudite will never see eye-to-eye on some matters,” said Jeanine haltingly.

“Likely, no.”

She took a minute to compose herself again, unable to meet my eyes. Then she inhaled.

“I have one more question.”

“I might have an answer.”

“Can I take this to mean…” Jeanine pursed her lips and paused for a few seconds before finishing, “...that if Erudite were to stand against Abnegation’s factionless crisis, you would join the Candor who supported us?”

Abnegation’s factionless crisis? The crisis that Erudite was equally responsible for covering up? The crisis that led to missing Erudite journalists and Candor judges? And stand in what way? It curled my stomach into a knot. Knowing that this woman knew so much more than me, that she saw the tangle of this city from the bird’s eye view while I was still stuck on the ground. And that her response to it were a smug grin and accusations against Irene, one of the few people I felt like I could trust anymore.

I smiled.

“Wholeheartedly,” I said.

+ + +

Judge Morris walked me back to the Institute. It was the most uncomfortable walk of my life.

After speaking to me, Jeanine took me back to the lobby and pulled him out of Irene’s office for a private chat, during which there were a lot of side glances to me. He didn’t seem too happy with what she had to say, but I wasn’t concerned with his happiness, only that Jeanine believed me. I also tried not to look too concerned with the lights on in Irene’s office. Three figures stood inside; I couldn’t make them out. I wondered what kind of interrogation Irene was suffering. I wondered how much of it had to do with me.

Finally, Jeanine seemed to make Morris agree to something, and he begrudgingly led me into the elevator. We were silent as we left. I hoped it would stay that way. But when we stepped out the front doors, Morris said, “I don’t trust you, Miss Prior.”

I swallowed.

“That’s okay,” I said. “Less than two weeks, and I won’t have anything to hide.”

I glanced up at him. He was tall. He didn’t look back down, but his frown grew tighter. “Jeanine likes you.”

“Huh.”

“She couldn’t find any evidence against you. And Irene seems to have adopted you.”

“Can’t help that I’m a charmer.”

“You can’t help that you’re a liar,” he said, his tone harsher. At his sides, his fists were clenched. “Jeanine wouldn’t believe me, but I know what you told her—lies. You learned that from someone.”

I said nothing.

“Your so-called ‘internship’ is over. Irene has been told not to make contact with you, and if you so much as look in the direction of the Merciless Mart, I’m opening an investigation in your name.”

Again, I was quiet. We crossed the street and stepped up to the Institute. Judge Morris opened the door for me, waited for me to step inside, closed it, and stood there, as if blocking me from leaving again.

“You’re late for class,” he said.

I didn’t have words. I just turned and ran down the empty halls, only fear to feel.