Insurgent (Divergent #2)(22)
Author: Veronica Roth

Candor headquarters is large enough to contain an entire world. Or so it seems to me.

It is a wide cement building that overlooks what was once the river. The sign says MERC IS MART—it used to read “Merchandise Mart,” but most people refer to it as the Merciless Mart, because the Candor are merciless, but honest. They seem to have embraced the nickname.

I don’t know what to expect, because I have never been inside. Tobias and I pause outside the doors and look at each other.

“Here we go,” he says.

I can’t see anything beyond my reflection in the glass doors. I look tired and dirty. For the first time, it occurs to me that we don’t have to do anything. We could hole up with the factionless and let the rest of them sort through this mess. We could be nobodies, safe, together.

He still hasn’t told me about the conversation he had with his mother last night, and I don’t think he’s going to. He seemed so determined to get to Candor headquarters that I wonder if he’s planning something without me.

I don’t know why I walk through the doors. Maybe I decide that we’ve come this far, we might as well see what’s going on. But I suspect it’s more that I know what’s true and what’s not. I am Divergent, so I am not nobody, there’s no such thing as “safe,” and I have other things on my mind than playing house with Tobias. And so, apparently, does he.

The lobby is large and well-lit, with black marble floors that stretch back to an elevator bank. A ring of white marble tiles in the center of the room form the symbol of Candor: a set of unbalanced scales, meant to symbolize the weighing of truth against lies. The room is crawling with armed Dauntless.

A Dauntless soldier with an arm in a sling approaches us, gun held ready, barrel fixed on Tobias.

“Identify yourselves,” she says. She is young, but not young enough to know Tobias.

The others gather behind her. Some of them eye us with suspicion, the rest with curiosity, but far stranger than both is the light I see in some of their eyes. Recognition. They might know Tobias, but how could they possibly recognize me?

“Four,” he says. He nods toward me. “And this is Tris. Both Dauntless.”

The Dauntless soldier’s eyes widen, but she does not lower her gun.

“Some help here?” she asks. Some of the Dauntless step forward, but they do it cautiously, like we’re dangerous.

“Is there a problem?” Tobias says.

“Are you armed?”

“Of course I’m armed. I’m Dauntless, aren’t I?”

“Stand with your hands behind your head.” She says it wildly, like she expects us to refuse. I glance at Tobias. Why is everyone acting like we’re about to attack them?

“We walked through the front door,” I say slowly. “You think we would have done that if we were here to hurt you?”

Tobias doesn’t look back at me. He just touches his fingertips to the back of his head. After a moment, I do the same. Dauntless soldiers crowd around us. One of them pats down Tobias’s legs while the other takes the gun tucked under his waistband. Another one, a round-faced boy with pink cheeks, looks at me apologetically.

“I have a knife in my back pocket,” I say. “Put your hands on me, and I will make you regret it.”

He mumbles some kind of apology. His fingers pinch the knife handle, careful not to touch me.

“What’s going on?” asks Tobias.

The first soldier exchanges looks with some of the others.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “But we were instructed to arrest you upon your arrival.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THEY SURROUND US, but don’t handcuff us, and walk us to the elevator bank. No matter how many times I ask why we are under arrest, no one says anything or even looks in my direction. Eventually I give up and stay silent, like Tobias.

We go to the third level, where they take us to a small room with a white marble floor instead of a black one. There’s no furniture except for a bench along the back wall. Every faction is supposed to have holding rooms for those who make trouble, but I’ve never been in one before.

The door closes behind us, and locks, and we’re alone again.

Tobias sits down on the bench, his brow furrowed. I pace back and forth in front of him. If he had any idea why we were in here, he would tell me, so I don’t ask. I walk five steps forward and five steps back, five steps forward and five steps back, at the same rhythm, hoping it will help me figure something out.

If Erudite didn’t take over Candor—and Edward told us they didn’t—why would the Candor arrest us? What could we have done to them?

If Erudite didn’t take over, the only real crime left is siding with them. Did I do anything that could have been interpreted as siding with Erudite? My teeth dig into my lower lip so hard I wince. Yes, I did. I shot Will. I shot a number of other Dauntless. They were under the simulation, but maybe Candor doesn’t know that or doesn’t think it’s a good enough reason.

“Can you please calm down?” Tobias says. “You’re making me nervous.”

“This is me calming down.”

He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and stares between his sneakers. “The wound in your lip begs to differ.”

I sit next to him and hug my knees to my chest with one arm, my right arm hanging at my side. For a long time, he says nothing, and my arm wraps tighter and tighter around my legs. I feel like, the smaller I become, the safer I am.

“Sometimes,” he says, “I worry that you don’t trust me.”

“I trust you,” I say. “Of course I trust you. Why would you think otherwise?”

“Just seems like there’s something you’re not telling me. I told you things. . . .” He shakes his head. “I would never have told anyone else. Something’s been going on with you, though, and you haven’t told me yet.”

“There’s been a lot going on. You know that,” I say. “And anyway, what about you? I could say the same thing to you.”

He touches my cheek, his fingers pushing into my hair. Ignoring my question just like I ignored his.

“If it’s just about your parents,” he says softly, “tell me and I’ll believe you.”

His eyes should be wild with apprehension, given where we are, but they are still and dark. They transport me to familiar places. Safe places, where confessing that I shot one of my best friends would be easy, where I would not be afraid of the way that Tobias will look at me when he finds out what I did.