Chapter of Insurgent (the actual book): 9

Disclaimer: I don't own the Divergent trilogy or any of the characters.

We sit around a fire eating food out of a large metal can. I can feel the eyes of Edward prodding us.

"So you were all Abnegation, huh?" he asks.

"We were," Tris says. "But obviously Tobias and I transferred and…" she trails off. "Caleb and Susan are still Abnegation."

I frown. Isn't Caleb Erudite? Then I feel a small smile grow on my face. Oh, good thinking, Tris!

"And he's your brother. Caleb," Edward says. "You ditched your family to become Dauntless?"

"You sound like the Candor," Tris spits. "Mind keeping your judgments to yourself?"

Therese leans over. "He was Erudite first, actually. Not Candor."

"Yeah, I know," Tris starts, "I—"

Therese interrupts her. "So was I. Had to leave, though," she mumbles.

"What happened?"

"I wasn't smart enough," she says with a shrug. "I didn't get a high enough score on my initiation intelligence test. So they said, 'Spend your entire life cleaning up the research labs, or leave.' So I left."

She looks down at her spoon and licks it clean. Then she passes the beans to Tris, who passes them to me.

"Are many of you from Erudite?" Tris asks. I feel a burden lie on my shoulders. No, most of them are Dauntless…

"Most are from Dauntless, actually," she says, jerking her head at Edward, who scowls. "Then Erudite, then Candor, then a handful from Amity. No one fails the Abnegation initiation, though, so we have very few of those, except a bunch who survived the simulation attack and came to us for refuge."

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised about Dauntless," Tris mumbles.

"Well yeah," Therese responds. "You've got one of the worst initiations, and then there's that whole old-age thing," she says, spiking a nerve in my back.

"Old-age thing?" Tris asks, looking at me.

"Once the Dauntless reach a certain level of physical deterioration, they are asked to leave. In one way or another," I say quietly.

"What's the other way?" Tris asks, and I can hear her heartbeat next to me.

"Let's just say," I whisper, "that for some, death is preferable to factionlessness."

"Those people are idiots," Edward snorts. "I'd rather be factionless than Dauntless."

"How fortunate that you ended up where you did, then," I say coldly.

"Fortunate?" he snorts again. "Yeah. I'm so fortunate, with my one eye and all."

I roll my eyes. "I seem to recall hearing rumors that you provoked that attack."

"What are you talking about?" Tris exclaims. Shut up, Tris. "He was winning, that's all, and Peter was jealous, so he just…"

Obviously Tris notices the smirk on Edward's face, because she shuts up.

"There was an inciting incident," says Edward. "In which Peter did not come out the victor. But it certainly didn't warrant a butter knife to the eye."

"No arguments here," I agree. "If it makes you feel any better, he got shot in the arm from a foot away during the simulation attack," I mumble.

Edward smiles. "Who did that?" he asks. "You?"

I shake my head. "Tris did."

"Well done," Edward says.

Tris nods wearily.

"Do you know much about how things are right now?" I ask. "Did all the Dauntless side with Erudite? Has Candor done anything?"

"Dauntless is split in half," Edward says. "Half at Erudite headquarters, half at Candor headquarters. What's left of Abnegation is with us. Nothing much has happened yet. Except for whatever happened to you, I guess."

I nod softly, finishing the beans. Tris and I stand up together, and I finding blankets for us. After I take off my shoes, Tris stands up and wraps her arms around me. I smile and hug her tight.

I can feel her hands brushing across the tattoos on my back, sending sparks of electricity up my spine. She stops over the Erudite tattoo, and her hands move quickly away from it after the moment.

"I wish we were alone," I whisper in her ear.

"I almost always wish that," she whispers back.

She falls asleep on me, and I find myself falling asleep to her breath too.

But then I see the shining face of Evelyn beckoning me over to her office.

"You'll have to tell me what's going on here if you expect me to consider helping you," I say quietly. "Though I'm still not sure why you need me at all."

"What would you like to know, exactly?" she asks.

"Tell me about the chart. And the map," I say coldly.

"Your friend was correct in thinking that the map and the chart listed all of our safe houses," Evelyn says. "He was wrong about the population counts… sort of. The numbers don't document all the factionless—only certain ones. And I'll bet you can guess which ones those are."

"I'm not in the mood for guessing," I say coldly.

She sighs. "The Divergent. We're documenting the Divergent."

"How do you know who they are?" I ask.

"Before the simulation attack, part of the Abnegation aid effort involved testing the factionless for a certain genetic anomaly. Sometimes that testing involved re-administering the aptitude test. Sometimes it was more complicated than that. But they explained to us that they suspected that we might have the highest Divergent population of any group in the city."

"I don't understand," I ask. "Why—"

"Why would the factionless have a high Divergent population?" she says with a smirk. "Obviously those who can't confine themselves to a particular way of thinking would be most likely to leave a faction or fail it's initiation, right?"

"That's not what I was going to ask," I say. "I want to know why you care how many Divergent there are."

"The Erudite are looking for man power. They found it temporarily in Dauntless. Now they'll be looking for more, and we're the obvious place, unless they figure out that we've got more Divergent than any other group. Just in case they don't, I want to know how many people we've got who are resistant to the simulations."

"Fair enough," I snap, "but why were the Abnegation so concerned with finding the Divergent? It wasn't to help Jeanine, was it?"

"Of course not," she snaps back. "But I'm afraid I don't know. The Abnegation were reluctant to provide information that only serves to relieve curiosity. They told us as much as they believed we should know."

"Strange," I mumble.

"Perhaps you should ask your father about it," she says. "He was the one who told me about you."

"About me," I say coldly. "What about me?"

"That he suspected you were Divergent. He was always watching you. Noting your behaviour. He was very attentive to you. That's why… that's why I thought you would be safe with him. Safer with him than with me."

Her apology makes me sick to my stomach.

"I see now that I must have been wrong."

I still don't respond. I only glare.

"I wish—"

"Don't you dare try to apologize," I whisper, feeling tears creep into my shaking voice. "This is not something you can bandage with a word or to and some hugging, or something."

"Okay," she says glumly. "Okay. I won't."

"For what purpose are the factionless uniting? What do you intend to do?" I ask.

"We want to usurp Erudite. Once we get rid of them, there's not much stopping us from controlling the government ourselves," she says calmly.

"That's what you expect me to help you with. Overthrowing one corrupt government and instating some kind of factionless tyranny," I snort. "Not a chance."

"We don't want to be tyrants. We want to establish a new society. One without factions."

I feel a sick laugh bubble in my throat. What a hypocrite. "Right. So how are you going to usurp Erudite?"

"Sometimes drastic change requires drastic measures. I imagine it will involve a high level of destruction. As for why we need you," she says. "In order to do this, we will need Dauntless's help. They have the weapons and the combat experience. You could bridge the gap between us and them."

"Do you think I'm important to the Dauntless? Because I'm not. I'm just someone who isn't afraid of much," I say coldly.

"What I am suggesting is that you become important. I am sure you can find a way, if you want to. Think about it. The door is always open."

I roll my eyes and leave. I slip back into bed and fall asleep.