Chapter Two
The sun beats down on my head like a load of hot bricks, and the dirt beneath my bare feet is rough and almost painful, the tiny pebbles leaving a pattern of red marks on my skin. I stand up and dust off my shorts. The miles of corn around me wave in the gentle breeze, which is enough to rattle the leaves but not enough to make a difference in the incessant heat. I can hear the murmur of conversation and trill of laughter from the other workers making their way down the long rows of corn and pulling out the weeds, but they are barely visible through the thick green stalks. Since yesterday, everyone I know has asked in some way or another if I knew that Mark was planning to change factions. So far I've made a mess of it every time, stammering something about how I didn't really know but I'm sure he didn't mean to leave me and he'll explain himself at the next visiting day, which I am well aware is two weeks away but I'm sure I'll be fine if everyone would stop asking me about it so please go away. I never actually say the last part out loud, but I want to. Of course everyone is just asking me out of kindness, but sometimes even the most well meant sympathy can be stifling enough to suffocate anyone.
"Emma!"
Olivia's voice yanks me out of my thoughts but I pretend not to hear, instead bending down to focus on a spiky leafed weed. I feel ashamed of my unkindness, but I need to be alone and I'm hoping she'll go away. When she calls again, I have to turn and smile.
"Hello, Olivia," I say.
She kneels down beside me and starts plucking weeds from between the rows of corn.
"Are you doing alright?" she asks.
I sigh and brush the damp strands of hair away from my face. If there's anyone I can be honest with, it's Olivia. Besides Mark, she is one of my closest friends.
"Not really. I had no idea he was going to decide to change factions like that. I mean, I guess he tried to warn me, but I wasn't paying attention."
She pats my shoulder.
"I'm sorry. Maybe he'll explain himself at next visiting day?"
I try to yank a weed out of the hard ground. The top snaps off, leaving the roots buried beneath the surface.
"I hope so."
For a moment, I wish I had been born into Candor. If I were one of them, I would find him and demand that he tell me why he would do something like this. But I've always been Amity and I always will be, and we aren't good with confrontation.
"Don't worry," Amy consoles, "visiting day will be here before you know it."
It's meant to be comforting, but the idea of leaving the safety of Amity to try to find the Dauntless compound- the location of which no one seems to know- to locate Mark in the chaos of Dauntless and demand an explanation is terrying.
"I don't even know where the Dauntless compound is," I counter, brushing my sticky hair out of my eyes.
Olivia shrugs as yanks on a tough weed.
"Neither do I, but I bet Kindra could tell you."
"The Transfer?" I ask, and she nods.
Kindra is the only Dauntless anyone has ever heard of to transfer to Amity. Even more surprising is how well she fits in- if I didn't know she was born in Dauntless, I would assume she had lived here all her life.
"She lives on the edge of the apple orchard, right?" I ask.
"Yeah. You should go find her after work hour is done."
We pull weeds for the rest of the day until the sunlight starts to fade and the bell that signals the end of the work day sounds. I stand up and readjust the cloth holding my hair back. Olivia gives me a quick hug goodbye and moves off to join another group of girls. I head for the apple orchard, which is on the other side of the cornfield. The rough leaves scratch my arms and bare legs as I move through the field. By the time I arrive at the edge of the apple orchard, my arms are red and irritated and the sounds of laughter and conversation waft over from where the rest of Amity are heading back to their homes for an hour with their families and neighbors before supper. Kindra's house is small for an Amity house since she isn't married and her family is back in Dauntless.
I knock on the door, which is painted a pretty white. Soft footsteps pad across the floor inside and a second later she opens the door. Despite her Dauntless roots, Kindra looks exactly like any other Amity, with her yellow skirt, loose red shirt, and bare feet.
"Hello there," she says with a warm smile. "How can I help you?"
"My name is Emma," I say. "I need your help."
Her eyebrows raise dubiously, but she moves aside, inviting me into her house. I step inside and look around. It's bright, simple and imaginative in the typical Amity way, with wooden furniture and lemon yellow walls adorned by watercolor paintings.
"Please," Kindra says, "sit. What can I help you with?"
I sink into a wooden chair at the table and lean forward.
"I need your help finding the Dauntless Compound."
She turns around to pick up a cup of tea off the counter and I notice a tattoo between her shoulders. The edges of a tree with flames consuming its branches are visible from behind the back of her tanktop, the only visible remnant of her life in Dauntless. She turns back to face me, her fingers wrapped around the ceramic cup.
"Why do you need to find Dauntless?"
"My… boyfriend transferred there," I start, already hating the way the words make me seem like a lovesick preteen. "He didn't explain himself or anything. I just need to find him, and figure out what changed."
I look up, expecting to see her smirking or at least suppressing a sympathetic but amused smile, but her eyes are serious and calculating.
"Tell me, Emma, was your boyfriend…"
"Mark."
"...Mark, acting strange after the aptitude test? Nervous maybe?"
I think back, twisting my hands in my lap.
"I suppose he kind of was."
"Did it seem to you like he could have fit in with Amity? Any indication that he could have been better suited for Dauntless?"
I shake my head, but then pause.
"I mean, once, when he was eight, he got in a fight with another boy."
"Why?"
I smile at the memory, although I know his actions broke every rule the Amity live by.
"The boy was teasing me about my hair and stole my doll. Mark fought him to get it back."
"A very Dauntless thing to do." Kindra stares off into the distance for a few seconds, lost in thought, before snapping back to the present. "Visiting day is in two weeks, correct?"
"Right."
"Meet me here in the morning, after breakfast. I'll take you there."
I stare at her. I had been prepared to get down on my knees and beg for her help, and definitely wasn't expecting her to consent without any convincing. Maybe it had something to do with the questions she was asking. Why would she care if Mark was nervous after his test, or if he had Dauntless tendencies? I want to ask, but if she wanted me to know her motives she would have told me, and it disturbs the peace to pry into other people's lives. So, instead of interrogating her, I thank her and leave her house to head back toward the cluster of houses where my family lives. Instead of going in, I sit on the porch and look up at the stars, lost in thought.
My plea to Kindra had sounded so pathetic, a fit of puppy love steeped in betrayal. But Mark is so much more than just a boyfriend. He's been my best friend since we grew up in neighboring houses, running through the fields and playing in the creek while our parents worked. Mark always stood up for me, even for little things like teasing about my constantly disheveled hair and dusty clothes that I never took the time to wash- I was always too busy on a new adventure with Mark to worry about how I looked, and that earned me a lot of jeers at school. But what did it matter? I had Mark. It wasn't until a year ago, when I was almost sixteen, that I realized that I was in love with him, and even better, he felt the same about me. After that, nothing really changed at all, except now we had a name for what we were. We had talked so many times about what we wanted for our lives, and we never really had the exact same opinion (living closer to the creek or to the dome was a popular argument) but the future we planned always had one thing in common: us, together. And then in one moment, it all fell apart, and I was left behind. Maybe I can't change that, but at least I can find out why.
When Kindra said she'd lead me to the Dauntless compound, the last thing I was expecting was find myself thirty minutes later on top of a ten story building, waiting for … something.
"What exactly are we waiting for again?" I ask Kindra, adjusting the beaded bracelet pressing into my skin.
Kindra juts her chin at a speck approaching us from far away.
"That," she says.
A train whistle blares in the distance.