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With a sad smile, she leaves the room, and doesn’t close the door behind her I stay inof her words I wanted to believe they were all wrong about enes, that I was no ed than any other person But how can that be true, when my actions landed Uriah in the hospital, when Tris can’t even look me in the eye, when so ritthe wave of despair like it is a fist, striking et up to leave, the cuffs of my sleeves, used to wipe my cheeks, are damp, and my jaw aches

CHAPTER THIRTY

TRIS

"HAVE YOU BEEN in yet?"

Cara stands beside me, her arms folded Yesterday Uriah was transferred fro , I suspect to keep us fro to see hi his li doll with a pulled thread, but he doesn’t look that different, except for soes and scrapes I feel like he could wake up at anyat hiht," I say "It just didn’t seeest that, depending on the extent of his brain dae, he can on soh I was told his prognosis is not good"

Sometimes I still want to smack her As if I need to be reminded that Uriah is unlikely to recover "Yeah"

After I left Uriah’s side last night, I wandered the compound without any sense of direction I should have been thinking ofbetween this world and whatever coht of what I said to Tobias And how I felt when I looked at hi

I didn’t tell him it was the end of our relationship Iat hi up again, as they have every hour or so since yesterday, and I push them away, s the to et involved in a lot of conflict I suppose we should all be grateful that you are steady in a crisis"

"I didn’t save the Bureau I have no interest in saving the Bureau," I retort "I kept a weapon out of soerous hands, that’s all" I wait a beat "Did you just co another person’s strengths," Cara replies, and she smiles "Additionally, I think our issues are now resolved, both on a logical and an emotional level" She clears her throat a little, and I wonder if it’s finally acknowledging that she has e else "It sounds like you know sory I wonder if you could tell e of Uriah’ssideways I say wryly, "I wonder We may never know"

"Hmm" The crease between Cara’s eyebrows appears when she frowns,her look so much like Will that I have to look away "Maybe I should say please"

"Fine You know Jeanine’s sih "Come on I’ll show you It’ll be easier that way"

It would be just as easy to tell her what I saw in that old storage room, nestled deep in the Bureau laboratories But the truth is, I just want to keep myself busy, so I don’t think about Uriah Or Tobias

"It seems like we’ll never reach the end of all these deceptions," Cara says as alk toward the storage room "The factions, the video Edith Prior left usall lies, designed to make us behave a particular way"

"Is that what you really think about the factions?" I say "I thought you loved being an Erudite"

"I did" She scratches the back of her neck, leaving little red lines on her skin froernails "But the Bureaufor any of it, and for what the Allegiant stood for And I don’t like to feel foolish"

"So you don’t think any of it hile," I say "Any of the Allegiant stuff"

"You do?"

"It got us out," I say, "and it got us to the truth, and it was better than the factionless co at all"

"I suppose," she says "I just pride s, the faction systeation used to say about pride?"

"Soh "Obviously They said it blinds people to the truth of what they are"

We reach the door to the labs, and I knock a few times so Mattheill hear ives s said the saht the Erudite would say anything about pride--that they would even concern the I want to ask her more, but then the door opens, and Matthew stands in the hallway, chewing on an apple core

"Can you let e roo"

He bites off the end of the apple core and nods "Of course"

I cringe, i the bitter taste of apple seeds, and follow him

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

TOBIAS

I CAN’T GO back to the staring eyes and unspoken questions of the dorreat crih it’s not one of the secure areas I’, but I feel like I need to see what’s happening inside the city Like I need to remember that there is a world outside this one, where I am not hated

I walk to the control roorid above me shows a different part of the city: the Merciless Mart, the lobby of Erudite headquarters, Millenniu

For a long ti around inside Erudite headquarters, their arms covered in factionless ar quick conversation or handing off cans of food for dinner, an old factionless habit

Then I hear someone at the control room desks say, "There he is," to one of her coworkers, and I scan the screens to see what she’s talking about Then I see hi: Marcus, near the front doors, checking his watch

I get up and tap the screen with er to turn on the sound For a h the speakers just below the screen, but then, footsteps Johanna Reyes approaches my father He stretches his hand out for her to shake, but she doesn’t, andin the air, a piece of bait she did not take