Insurgent (Divergent, #2)

by Veronica Roth

“How old are you, anyway?” “Eighteen.” “And you don’t think you’re too old to be with my little sister?” Tobias lets out a short laugh. “She isn’t your little anything.” “Stop it. Both of you,” I say.

We stop. Susan collapses to the ground, crying, and Caleb crouches next to her. Tobias and I look toward the city, which is still illuminated, because it’s not midnight yet. I want to feel something. Fear, anger, grief. But I don’t. All I feel is the need to keep moving.

Tobias, however, winds a loose thread from his shirt around his finger, backward and forward, over and over. He knows who we’re meeting, but I still have no idea. How is it I know this little about the boy who says he loves me—the boy whose real name is powerful enough to keep us alive in a train car full of enemies?

“Christina,” I say, but the only words I can think of—I’m sorry—sound more like an insult than an apology. Sorry is what you are when you bump someone with your elbow, what you are when you interrupt someone. I am more than sorry.

There is a part of me that wants to be lost, that struggles to join my parents and Will so that I don’t have to ache for them anymore. A part of me that wants to see whatever comes next.

I have to watch you die. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.” His hands shake. I try to think of something helpful to say. I’m not going to die—but I don’t know that. We live in a dangerous world, and I am not so attached to life that I will do anything to survive. I can’t reassure him.

I summon the last of my strength and launch myself at her, clawing at whatever skin my fingernails find, digging in as hard as I can. She screams at the top of her lungs, a sound that turns my blood into fire. I punch her hard in the face.

“You have failed. You can’t control me!” I scream, so loud it hurts my throat. I stop struggling and sag against Peter’s chest. “You will never be able to control me.” I laugh, mirthless, a mad laugh. I savor the scowl on her face, the hate in her eyes.

I don’t believe that what comes after depends on anything I do at all.

The table is cold. Frigid, seeping into my skin, into my bones. Appropriate, perhaps, because that is what will happen to my body when all the life leaves it; it will become cold and heavy, heavier than I have ever been. As for the rest of me, I am not sure. Some people believe that I will go nowhere, and maybe they’re right, but maybe they’re not. Such speculations are no longer useful to me anyway.

All the muscles in my body relax at once. A heavy, liquid feeling fills my limbs. If this is death, it isn’t so bad. My eyes stay open, but my head drops to the side. I try to close my eyes, but I can’t—I can’t move.

“Got that gun?” Peter says to Tobias. “No,” says Tobias, “I figured I would shoot the bullets out of my nostrils, so I left it upstairs.”

“There’s food downstairs,” says Christina. “Tobias made scrambled eggs, which, as it turns out, is a disgusting food.” “Hey,” I say. “I like scrambled eggs.”

He touches my cheek and, even though we’re in a room full of people, crowded by laughter and conversation, slowly kisses me. “Whoa there, Tobias,” says the man to my left. “Weren’t you raised a Stiff? I thought the most you people did was . . . graze hands or something.” “Then how do you explain all the Abnegation children?” Tobias raises his eyebrows. “They’re brought into being by sheer force of will,” the woman on the arm of the chair interjects. “Didn’t you know that, Tobias?” “No, I wasn’t aware.” He grins. “My apologies.” They all laugh. We all laugh. And it occurs to me that I might be meeting Tobias’s true faction. They are not characterized by a particular virtue. They claim all colors, all activities, all virtues, and all flaws as their own.

“Let me get this straight. So you left the Dauntless compound to get ready for war . . . and took your makeup bag with you?” “Yep. Figured it would be harder for anyone to shoot me if they saw how devastatingly attractive I was,” she says, arching an eyebrow. “Hold still.”

“You do realize that if you come with us, you might get shot,” says Christina. She smiles. “And no hiding behind us because you don’t want to break your glasses, or whatever.” Cara removes her glasses and snaps them in half at the bridge. “We risked our lives by defecting from our faction,” says Cara, “and we will risk them again to save our faction from itself.”

“We have useful gadgets.” Christina and I exchange a look. I say, “What kinds of gadgets?” “They’re just prototypes,” Fernando says, “so there’s no need to scrutinize them.” “Scrutiny’s not really our thing,” says Christina. “Then how do you make things better?” the little girl asks. “We don’t, really,” Christina says, sighing. “They kind of just keep getting worse.”

“You don’t want to sit up front?” says Christina. “And you call yourself a Dauntless. . . .” “I went for the part of the truck in which I was least likely to vomit,” I say. “Puking is a part of life.” I am about to ask her exactly how often she intends to throw up in the future when the truck surges forward.

People, I have discovered, are layers and layers of secrets. You believe you know them, that you understand them, but their motives are always hidden from you, buried in their own hearts. You will never know them, but sometimes you decide to trust them.