I can already feel the death serum getting to me, but I resist as hard as I can. I am a divergent after all, and I know that I can do this. When I hear the key click into the lock and the door start to slide open, I slowly slide my hand down my jeans until I grope with my gun which I hide behind my back. And it is David who enters, and he holds out a gun. Instead of fighting, however, I talk to him. "Did you love her?" I say. "All those years she was sending you correspondence . . . the reason you never wanted her to stay there . . . the reason you told her you couldn't read her updates anymore, after she married my father . . ." David sits still, like a statue, like a man of stone. "I did," he says. "But that time is past."
That must be why he welcomed me into his circle of trust, why he gave me so many opportunities. Because I am a piece of her, wearing her hair and speaking with her voice. Because he has spent his life grasping at her and coming up with nothing. "My mother wasn't a fool," I say. "She just understood something you didn't. That it's not sacrifice if it's someone else's life you're giving away, it's just evil." I back up another step and say, "She taught me all about real sacrifice. That it should be done from love, not misplaced disgust for another person's genetics. That it should be done from necessity, not without exhausting all other options. That it should be done for people who need your strength because they don't have enough of their own. That's why I need to stop you from 'sacrificing' all those people and their memories. Why I need to rid the world of you once and for all."
I take out my gun and fire it three times, while looking away. Moving on, I punch in the numbers and hit the button to activate the memory serum. The death serum made it hard to focus but I see people celebrating my victory. I see Caleb, Matthew and many other faces that I can't quite identify. That's because the next second I faint from the serum and the grief.