The front airbags went off. My chest slammed into one of them, my shoulder into another, shoving me back against the seat. My head jerked, and all I could see was black, stars spinning, and silence. I wasn't sure how you could see silence.
When my vision cleared, I saw only the airbags, the shattered front window, and a wall. We'd crashed into a building, crumpling the entire front of the vehicle. Smoke was everywhere. I smelled blood, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from. Irene was bent over, her shoulders heaving. I looked across her and saw Ace, her eyes wide, cheeks scratched from shattered glass but otherwise fine. She was breathing heavily.
"That could've gone worse," she said.
"Easy…for you to say."
Irene sat up slowly, holding her cane. And that was when I realized that the smell of blood was her—the angular knob of the cane had pierced her shoulder, peeking through the other side.
"Oh god," I sobbed. "Irene—no no no no no—Ace, we have to pull it out—"
Irene grimaced. "Do not pull it. Lose…more blood… shit."
Then she passed out, slumping against me.
The truck shook. Someone was pounding on the outside again, yelling, and through the smoke and haze I could see about six Dauntless approaching with their guns raised. "This is the last thing we need," Ace muttered, reaching down for her gun. I knew I should have gotten mine too, but I was terrified. My hands fluttered around Irene's cane, dripping with her blood.
This was how it ended. Helpless, panicking, and watching my only family in Candor bleed out in my lap.
Ace locked eyes with me.
"Do you remember the song you sang for me?"
"When?"
"When I couldn't fall asleep, the night you took me through my fear landscape." Ace looked down. At my lips, at my pin, at my hands. "It was an old Abnegation hymn. You said your mother used to sing it."
I smiled sadly. I remembered. "I never knew you could sing harmony."
"I didn't do it right. I'd never heard the song."
"It was still beautiful."
"You'll sing it for me again. Someday, somewhere, I'll find you, and you'll sing for me, and I'll learn the words. I promise."
"Promise."
"I will."
Her breath hitched.
"Phoebe, I—"
A scream cut her off. A hail of gunfire. We ducked, covering our heads. More screams.
Silence.
We looked out the windows. All six Dauntless were on the ground. Their truck was still and unmoving.
And my mother ran up to my window.
"Mom!" I cried.
Her grey apron was spattered with blood, her hair was free of its bun, and she held a semi-automatic rifle, but it was her. I wanted to jump out to get to her faster, even though Irene was still leaning on me, unconscious. I opened the door and reached for my mother.
"Sunshine," she gasped. She hugged me fast and tight, then reached across to feel Irene's pulse. "Oh, Irene…you've really done it now. Hurry, hold the cane steady while I lift her."
Ace and I scrambled out of the truck to give Mom room to pick her up. I reached awkwardly over her shoulder to balance the cane without jerking it out of Irene's wound. With strength I didn't know she had, Mom lifted her twin sister and gave her to Ace, taking off her grey jacket to pad around the wound. She wore a sleeveless shirt. The corner of a tattoo peeked out from under her arm when she reached up, adjusting Irene to keep the wound above her heart and leaning the cane against Ace's neck. It didn't look very stable. But the distant sound of shouting told us that we didn't have time to waste.
"You know where to take her?" asked Mom.
Ace hesitated. "It's—it's been a long time, I don't know if—"
"Do you know where it is?" Mom demanded.
"Yes," said Ace hesitantly.
I looked wildly between the two. "Mom? Ace?" I had never been so confused. Did they know each other?
"Once she's stable, stay with them," said Mom to Ace.
"No. You'll need me—"
"To hide. I know you want to fight, but you're Abigail Eaton. If they get you, they have even more leverage over your father."
Ace looked at me. "I'll be okay," I told her. "Go."
She didn't look happy. But she nodded and took off down the street with Irene, disappearing into an alley.
Before I could ask what just happened, my mother grabbed my hand and pulled me in the other direction, towards a small office building. The lights were off and the doors locked, closed for the Full Unveiling and the subsequent lockdown. Someone had thrown a rock through the window. With the butt of her gun, Mom struck the glass next to the hole, shattering the rest of it. We clambered inside and ran to the back.
"Mom, where are we going?" I asked. Outside, I heard the screech of tires and stomping, even-file feet. The Dauntless found the crash. Mom grabbed a chair, pulled me into a stairwell, and shoved the chair under the door.
"Underground," she said. "Follow me, and quietly."
She led me down one flight to a basement door, unlocked. The basement was empty except for old filing cabinets, a poor hiding place, but Mom wasn't interested in anything there. She pulled a tarp down to reveal a door, and through the stained window, all I could see was overgrown moss and ivy.
Our guns at the ready, we opened the door. The hinges creaked from rust. We emerged into the canal, where we stood on a narrow, crumbling walkway built into the canal walls. Above our heads, Dauntless boots marched. I gripped my gun. Then they subsided. My mother looked at me, touched her finger to her lips, and pointed to another canal door three hundred feet away.
It was a treacherous, terrifying journey to the door. Once, I put my weight on a cinderblock, only for it to crumble and slip down the side of the canal. Mom caught me just in time, but the few seconds afterwards as we waited for gunshots or officers' voices were the longest in my life. But nothing happened. We made it, I picked the lock while Mom kept watch, and we descended into darkness.
A click. Old blue lights turned on down a narrow corridor. Mom locked the door behind us and sighed.
"There," she said. "Erudite doesn't know about these passages. We should be safe, as long as we avoid the rats."
I was quiet. Somewhere, I swore I could hear them, skittering around and squealing. Maybe on the floors. Maybe in the pipes above our heads. Fearlessly, my mother set off.
"What is this place?" I asked.
"A network that the factionless use. Old service tunnels, subway lines, and empty sewers."
"How do you know about it?"
"I heard about your wall of conspiracy theories; what do you think?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," I lied.
She smiled. We turned down a darker corridor, which seemed to have been hand-dug from the earth. It led into a cavernous black room with train tracks along one side. This must have been a subway.
"I've been working with the factionless since I was your age," said Mom. "They're very careful with which Abnegation to trust, but when they do, you become like family. I owe them my life. Now, it's time for me to repay the debt."
"Repay the debt? Did—"
The pieces fell into place. Where we were going. Where she had told Ace to go. Why she wasn't with the other Abnegation, sharing a meal at the Hub.
"Did you help plan all of this? The marches? Is that why you told Irene to help me with the testimony?"
She shook her head. "No. But I've known. As soon as I heard you on the radio...I knew it would begin, and I knew I had to find you."
My throat tightened. "But I betrayed you."
"Beatrice."
"I betrayed our home. I was selfish. Doesn't that matter?"
We reached the end of the subway corridor, where it intersected with a dry, rust-smelling tunnel. My mother stopped and turned to me, placing her hands on my shoulders.
"You told the truth, even if it meant losing everything," she said. "Your privilege, your family, your freedom, even your life. That's not selfish. That's courage."
"I ruined everything," I said. "What are we going to do?"
She touched my cheek. She tucked a curl of hair behind my ear. Her hand floated down to the silver pin and chain on my chest. I covered her hand and breathed a choked sob, a breath of something that defied description. And I looked at her deep brown eyes, the ones I had seen as I gave my testimony, the ones that flashed with every color. Love. Courage. Brilliance. Sacrifice. Justice. In response, she smiled mischievously.
"We're going to do what Divergents do best—make things worse."
By the time we reached the common district, the sun was going down.
The passageways cut through a few cellars and tornado shelters, and it was in one of these that Mom and I stopped to survey the scene. Our view was no larger than a mail slot, a basement window with dark glass that was level with the sidewalk. Around the city, lockdown sirens howled, signaling to all law-abiding faction civilians to stay inside and pull down their blinds.
Of course. They wouldn't want them to see the mass execution that was soon to come.
Flood lights surrounded the perimeter, drowning the plaza in harsh white light. The thousands of factionless. Every protestor had been forced to their knees, packed shoulder to shoulder with all those around them, even the injured ones. Hundreds of Dauntless circled them, guns at the ready. Occasionally, more Dauntless would shove a new protestor into the mass. Sometimes a Dauntless would enter the mass to drag someone out, but those lucky ones were already dead.
Sajida was there, next to her mother. On the other side was a skinny figure in a tattered white robe—Ravi. A small cluster of black and white, separate from the factionless, was being watched by a special team of Dauntless. All Candor. Brighton and Amalka. Judge Bandele and Judge Williams. Not all of the Divergent Candor who stood, but too many. My fists clenched when I remembered something that Jeanine had said—a judge had given the Erudite and Dauntless a list of Divergent. It had to be Morris. Betraying his fellow Candor seemed like something he would take pleasure in. Near our window, a Dauntless struggled to cuff a woman soaked in blood. Miriam. There was too much blood to all be hers, and the way she fought the Dauntless suggested that perhaps none of it was.
I was biting my thumbnail. When I looked over at my mother, so was she.
"Once they track down the last few witnesses, it'll begin," said Mom. "We don't have much time."
I nodded wordlessly. She put her hand on my shoulder. Then she reached for a sheet of wood against the wall, revealing a crawlspace in the brick.
It, like the rest of our journey, was a long, dusty, and arduous crawl. Finally my mother stopped at what looked like a vent and knocked in a pattern. Twice. Three times. Six times.
The vent creaked, and my mother crawled out into dim light. I tumbled out after her. Then I was looking up at a face I had not expected to see again—dark curls, amber eyes, blue jacket. Caleb.
"Beatrice," he gasped. As if he was the one who should have been surprised.
I shot to my feet, pulling my gun from my waistband. "Judas Iscariot."
"Phoebe," my mother scolded. I turned to her, then saw that she stood before the rest of Abnegation.
We were in the basement of the Hub. I was too familiar with this place. As a child, whenever there was a faction meeting that required silence and an attention span, I was made to run circles around the empty floors to "burn off excess energy". Now the floors were packed with thousands of people, just like the ground of the common plaza. Families and children in grey. Every face that I could ever remember and a handful of new ones, transfers and two newborn babies. A couple spots of blue—Abnegation transfers to Erudite, like my brother.
I whirled back to him. "What's he doing here?" I demanded. "What are any of you doing here?"
Half of the basement hushed me. The other half gave a look that I knew well—the oh, those Candor look. I frowned. It hurt being on the business end.
Mom placed her hand on my shoulder. "Keep it down," she said gently. "There are Dauntless at the door." She pointed to the stairwell. Right.
I gave Caleb one last withering stare before putting my gun away, swallowing my pride, and accepting a seat that someone offered me. A small group, mostly my mother's coworkers from the charity organizations, had begun to gather around us. Someone handed me a package of crackers and an apple. I hadn't eaten since before the Unveiling and scarfed it down immediately.
"This," sighed Mom, "is the other factor I told you about. Erudite moved quickly—they arrived here with the Dauntless just minutes after you finished your speech. We've been locked down here ever since."
"Where's Dad?" I asked.
"With the other council members," said a man named Jude, one of Mom's coworkers. "They're the only Abnegation who weren't put here. In exchange, Erudite gave us some of their members as… 'insurance'." Like all Abnegation, Jude spoke with measured restraint, though the inflection to the last word betrayed his disgust.
"Only the Abnegation transfers," muttered Caleb.
I knew that poking him wouldn't do anything constructive. But I wasn't in the mood for diplomacy.
"I thought Erudite would honor your loyalty with better treatment."
"You're one to talk, loudmouth," snapped another Erudite from nearby. Her name was Rachel, maybe; she was a couple years older than me. I looked at Rachel in confusion before grimacing.
"Sorry," I said. "This isn't about transferring factions. This is about Caleb getting me arrested."
Rachel's scowl dropped. "Oh. That's alright, then. Jeez, Caleb."
Caleb threw his hands into the air. I ignored him and turned back to Mom and the others.
"So, presumably, they took the council members to legalize the so-called 'riot control' in the plaza and locked the rest of you here as hostages. Tell me I'm wrong."
"Unfortunately, that's right." Mom sat on a crate and checked her gun, pushing the bullet chamber open. Then she reached into her apron and pulled out a new cartridge. I recognized her expression as the one she wore when she threaded a needle. "I already tried to get them to escape through the passages, but about half of them don't think they're hostages, and the other half are too frightened to argue. Most of them believe what they've been told—that this is lockdown protocol and that the Erudite and Dauntless are doing the right thing by defending the city from protestors."
"Rioters," said Caleb.
"Whose side are you on, anyway?" I sneered.
"Beatrice Phoebe and Caleb Theophilus, you WILL stop," Mom snapped. "Apart. Now."
Our response was immediate. I had managed to outgrow some of my old Abnegation habits, and I knew Caleb had been working to change some of his as well, but we couldn't resist this one. "Yes, Mother," we said in unison, moving to stand on either side of Mom. Me on her left, him on her right.
My cheeks were hot as the rest of the Abnegation watched the humiliating scene. But I didn't have the time to pity myself. My mother cleared her throat.
"The point is, we have to tread lightly," she said. "If Erudite gets suspicious, people will die. Factionless, Candor, and Abnegation."
"They already know that Ace, Irene, and I escaped," I said.
Mom nodded. "So they'll be expecting a direct attack."
"Perhaps not," said Jude. "From their point of view, it's unlikely that three women would be foolish enough to attack a Dauntless army."
"I was very clear about how foolish I am," I pointed out.
"Then assume that they're expecting you," said Caleb. "They've set up the systems in the server room—it wouldn't be hard to cut the power there and shut the whole thing down, but that's only assuming you reach it. Before that, there's twenty floors between you and Jeanine, all crawling with Dauntless. How are you going to get through them?"
Mom and I exchanged a look.
"We're not trying to reach Jeanine," I said. "We're trying to reach Oona."