Page 148 of The Sixth Fraction

Tris

I stand at the back of the silent train car, waiting to disembark.

Half of the Hemlocks went south from the train yard, and the other half—the half that I’m now with—went north. Sly, Gretchen, and Evelyn stand by the open doorway, blocking my view of the city as it smears past us. I didn’t know the trains could move this fast. The wind whipping through the car is too loud to shout over.

The closer we get to the Abnegation sector, the faster my heart races. The train slows, and Evelyn pushes the wall panel open to reveal the bag of clothes and shoes I expect to see. Only she just shoves it aside and takes out something else:

A gun.

My stomach turns as she passes the gun to Sly, and then reaches for another one, and another one. They’re plain black, stolen from the Dauntless wall guards and loaded with bullets, not needles. Evelyn checks the safety on the gun in her hand. The train squeals and lurches as it brakes.

I know where we’re going: to kill Marcus Eaton.

“You first, Tris,” Evelyn says to me.

I feel unsteady as I move to the doorway, like I’ve forgotten how to do this. But muscle memory takes over as the train approaches the platform. I launch myself from the car and land hard on the wood, running a few steps to regain my balance. Sly is right behind me, gun in hand. I have the strangest feeling that if I tried to run, she would chase me.

We walk across the platform to join Evelyn at the top of the stairs. This station is in disrepair. The Abnegation don’t use the train, so no one has bothered to patch up the rotten wood or screw the barriers back into place. I hop over a broken board.

Evelyn steps back, and gestures for me to go ahead of her. “Lead the way, Tris. You know the way to Building B.”

“ ‘Building B’?” Gretchen snorts. “I guess no one ever accused Abnegation of being too imaginative.”

I feel myself pulling up taller, ready to defend my faction. No factions here, a voice in my head reminds me, and I keep my mouth shut.

I descend the steps to the street, and lead the way down the first alley I see. I don’t need to plan our route; I know this part of the city backward and forward. I sidestep a pile of boxes and a broken chair before emerging onto the next street, where I can see Building B in the distance.

It’s just two blocks away, right next to Abnegation headquarters. An unremarkable block of gray stone, studded with windows. It’s where the Abnegation singles live, and though Marcus Eaton is the most powerful man in the city, he lives among them—a pointed reminder that he considers himself no better than anyone else.

I don’t know what I’ll do when I get to his apartment. I want to believe I’ll save his life. I think of my mother’s drumming fingers. Marcus is too important to lose. The Memory Vault’s contents are important to my mother, and no matter what she says, it’s deeper and more personal than just keeping control out of Jeanine Matthews’s hands. If I trust her—and I do—I have to believe that saving Marcus is the right thing to do.

But I’ve become something else over the last few months, something my mother doesn’t know and can’t understand. Someone who sees the entire system the way a factionless would. Someone who knows that if you don’t take what you want when it’s on offer, you might never get a chance at it again. And I want Marcus Eaton gone. I want to live in a world where he can’t hurt Tobias anymore—and he hurts him just by existing.

So maybe I won’t save him. Maybe I won’t.

I’m moving fast, almost running with Evelyn, Sly, and Gretchen at my back. My legs are burning by the time I reach Building B. I don’t go in the front—I lead us down the alley next to the building to reach the fire door. No one ever locks doors in Abnegation.

Sure enough, when I pull the handle, the door opens with a shudder. The rusted metal pricks at my fingers. We stand at the bottom of the back stairs; if I remember correctly, Marcus’s apartment is on the second floor. Evelyn surges ahead of me, and I follow her up, into the dark.

The smell of this place is familiar, fresh-baked bread and musty paper and the white vinegar used for cleaning. It’s just like the building where I grew up. My throat feels tight; I swallow hard. I round the corner and chase Evelyn down a long hallway. She’s holding her gun so tightly that her knuckles are turning white, and I wonder if, beneath that steel gaze and set jaw, she’s as afraid of Marcus Eaton as Tobias is.

She shoves his apartment door open with her shoulder. I follow her into the foyer.

But standing in the living room isn’t the menacing man I saw in Tobias’s fear landscape. Instead, Eric, youth leader of Dauntless, stands next to the bookcase, moonlight glinting off the piercings in his face. He’s aiming a gun at a shadowed figure.

The figure steps forward into a shaft of light.

“Beatrice,” my mother gasps.

Chapter 53

Tris

My mother looks familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Her hair is in its neat bun, smooth and pinned. Her clothes are the same, gray and shapeless. But it’s as if there’s someone else standing in her skin, sharp-eyed and unafraid. She doesn’t look surprised to see Evelyn and the other factionless, and she doesn’t seem concerned about the gun pointing at her head.

“You’re late,” Eric says to Evelyn, though he keeps his gun trained on my mother. There’s some kind of device made of black metal strapped to him like a backpack. It emits a faint orange glow, like the flames of the Dauntless computer.

“Why is my daughter here?” my mother demands. Her hand flexes at her side like she wants to grab something, but there’s nothing there.