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Hana and Zeke e, dark world we o, looking back at them instead of the road far too often for es of panic as he alhts or road barriers, and focus instead on the snow
I have always hated the es, the blank landscape and the stark difference between sky and ground, the way it transforms trees into skeletons and the city into a wasteland Maybe this winter I can be persuaded otherwise
We drive past the fences and stop by the front doors, which are no longer et out, and Zeke seizes his h the snow As alk into the compound, I know for a fact that Caleb succeeded, because there is no one in sight That can only mean that they have been reset, their memories forever altered
"Where is everyone?" Ah the abandoned security checkpoint without stopping On the other side, I see Cara The side of her face is badly bruised, and there’s a bandage on her head, but that’s not what concerns me What concerns me is the troubled look on her face
"What is it?" I say
Cara shakes her head
"Where’s Tris?" I say
"I’m sorry, Tobias"
"Sorry about what?" Christina says roughly "Tell us what happened!"
"Tris went into the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb," Cara says "She survived the death serum, and set off the memory serum, but sheshe was shot And she didn’t survive I’m so sorry"
Most of the ti, and this ht and her cheeks flushed and her s in a shaft of light in the atrium Tris is still alive, she wouldn’t leave o to the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb
"No," Christina says, shaking her head "No way There has to be some mistake"
Cara’s eyes well up with tears
It’s then that I realize: Of course Tris would go into the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb
Of course she would
Christina yells so, but to ed my head underwater The details of Cara’s face have also becoether into dull colors
All I can do is stand still--I feel like if I just stand still, I can stop it froht Christina hunches over, unable to support her own grief, and Cara e still
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
TOBIAS
WHEN HER BODY first hit the net, all I registered was a gray blur I pulled her across it and her hand was small, but warm, and then she stood before me, short and thin and plain and in all ways unremarkable--except that she had jumped first The Stiff had jumped first
Even I didn’t jump first
Her eyes were so stern, so insistent
Beautiful
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
TOBIAS
BUT THAT WASN’T the first time I ever saw her I saw her in the hallways at school, and atthe sidewalks in the Abnegation sector I saw her, but I didn’t see her; no one saw her the way she truly was until she juht is not meant to last
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
TOBIAS
I GO TO see her bodyso it is after Cara tells me what happened Christina and I walk shoulder to shoulder; alk in Cara’s footsteps I don’t reue, really, just a few sh the barrier that has gone up inside my head
She lies on a table, and for a , and when I touch her, she ake up and smile at me and press a kiss to my mouth But when I touch her she is cold, her body stiff and unyielding
Christina sniffles and sobs I squeeze Tris’s hand, praying that if I do it hard enough, I will send life back into her body and she will flush with color and wake up
I don’t kno long it takes for one But when I do I feel all the strength go out of me, and I fall to my knees beside the table and I think I cry, then, or at least I want to, and everything inside lance, one more
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
IN THE DAYS that follow, it’s rief at bay, so I walk the co I watch everyone else recover from the reat distance
Those lost in the iven the truth: that huenes are different, but neither daiven the lie: that their memories were erased because of a freak accident, and that they were on the verge of lobbying the govern myself stifled by the company of others and then crippled by loneliness when I leave them I am terrified and I don’t even knohat, because I have lost everything already My hands shake as I stop by the control roo transportation for those ant to leave the city They will come here to learn the truth I don’t knoill happen to those who reo, and I’m not sure I care
I shove my hands into ain, trying to match my footsteps to my heartbeat, or to avoid the cracks between the tiles When I walk past the entrance, I see a sathered by the stone sculpture, one of them in a wheelchair--Nita
I walk past the useless security barrier and stand at a distance, watching theie steps on the stone slab and opens a valve in the bottom of the water tank The drops turn into a strea all over the slab, soaking the bottoie’s pants
"Tobias?"
I shudder a little It’s Caleb I turn away fro for an escape route
"Wait Please," he says
I don’t want to look at hirieves for her And I don’t want to think about how she died for such a miserable coward, about hoasn’t worth her life