Insurgent (Divergent #2)(42)
Author: Veronica Roth

She clears her throat. “It’s just that you have to be around her, and I want to make it easier for you. You don’t have to forgive her. Actually, I’m not sure why you were friends with her in the first place; she always seemed a bit erratic to me.”

I tense up as I wait for Christina to agree with her, but to my surprise—and relief—she doesn’t.

Cara continues. “Anyway. You don’t have to forgive her, but you should try to understand that what she did was not out of malice; it was out of panic. That way, you can look at her without wanting to punch her in her exceptionally long nose.”

My hand moves automatically to my nose. Christina laughs a little, which feels like a hard poke to the stomach. I back up through the door to the Gathering Place.

Even though Cara was rude—and the nose comment was a low blow—I am grateful for what she said.

Tobias emerges from a door hidden behind a length of white cloth. He flicks the cloth out of the way irritably before coming toward us and sitting beside me at the table in the Gathering Place.

“Kang is going to meet with a representative of Jeanine Matthews at seven in the morning,” he says.

“A representative?” Zeke says. “She’s not going herself?”

“Yeah, and stand out in the open where a bunch of angry people with guns can take aim?” Uriah smirks a little. “I’d like to see her try. No, really, I would.”

“Is Kang the Brilliant taking a Dauntless escort, at least?” Lynn says.

“Yes,” Tobias says. “Some of the older members volunteered. Bud said he would keep his ears open and report back.”

I frown at him. How does he know all this information? And why, after two years of avoiding becoming a Dauntless leader at all costs, is he suddenly acting like one?

“So I guess the real question is,” says Zeke, folding his hands on the table, “if you were Erudite, what would you say at this meeting?”

They all look at me. Expectantly.

“What?” I say.

“You’re Divergent,” Zeke replies.

“So is Tobias.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t have aptitude for Erudite.”

“And how do you know I do?”

Zeke lifts his shoulder. “Seems likely. Doesn’t it seem likely?”

Uriah and Lynn nod. Tobias’s mouth twitches, as if in a smile, but if that’s what it was, he suppresses it. I feel like a stone just dropped into my stomach.

“You all have functional brains, last time I checked,” I say. “You can think like the Erudite, too.”

“But we don’t have special Divergent brains!” says Marlene. She touches her fingertips to my scalp and squeezes lightly. “Come on, do your magic.”

“There’s no such thing as Divergent magic, Mar,” says Lynn.

“And if there is, we shouldn’t be consulting it,” says Shauna. It’s the first thing she’s said since we sat down. She doesn’t even look at me when she says it; she just scowls at her younger sister.

“Shauna—” Zeke starts.

“Don’t ‘Shauna’ me!” she says, focusing her scowl on him instead. “Don’t you think someone with the aptitude for multiple factions might have a loyalty problem? If she’s got aptitude for Erudite, how can we be sure she’s not working for Erudite?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Tobias, his voice low.

“I am not being ridiculous.” She smacks the table. “I know I belong in Dauntless because everything I did in that aptitude test told me so. I’m loyal to my faction for that reason—because there’s nowhere else I could possibly be. But her? And you?” She shakes her head. “I have no idea who you’re loyal to. And I’m not going to pretend like everything’s okay.”

She gets up, and when Zeke reaches for her, she throws his hand aside, marching toward one of the doors. I watch her until the door closes behind her and the black fabric that hangs in front of it settles.

I feel wound up, like I might scream, only Shauna isn’t here for me to scream at.

“It’s not magic,” I say hotly. “You just have to ask yourself what the most logical response to a particular situation is.”

I am greeted with blank stares.

“Seriously,” I say. “If I were in this situation, staring at a group of Dauntless guards and Jack Kang, I probably wouldn’t resort to violence, right?”

“Well, you might, if you had your own Dauntless guards. And then all it takes is one shot—bam, he’s dead, and Erudite’s better off,” says Zeke.

“Whoever they send to talk to Jack Kang isn’t going to be some random Erudite kid; it’s going to be someone important,” I say. “It would be a stupid move to fire on Jack Kang and risk losing whoever they send as Jeanine’s representative.”

“See? This is why we need you to analyze the situation,” Zeke says. “If it was me, I would kill him; it would be worth the risk.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. I already have a headache. “Fine.”

I try to put myself in Jeanine Matthews’s place. I already know she won’t negotiate with Jack Kang. Why would she need to? He has nothing to offer her. She will use the situation to her advantage.

“I think,” I say, “that Jeanine Matthews will manipulate him. And that he will do anything to protect his faction, even if it means sacrificing the Divergent.” I pause for a moment, remembering how he held his faction’s influence over our heads at the meeting. “Or sacrificing the Dauntless. So we need to hear what they say in that meeting.”

Uriah and Zeke exchange a look. Lynn smiles, but it isn’t her usual smile. It doesn’t spread to her eyes, which look more like gold than ever, with that coldness in them.

“So let’s listen in,” she says.

CHAPTER TWENTY

I CHECK MY watch. It is seven o’clock in the evening. Just twelve hours until we can hear what Jeanine has to say to Jack Kang. I have checked my watch at least a dozen times in the past hour, as if that will make the time go faster. I am itching to do something—anything except sit in the cafeteria with Lynn, Tobias, and Lauren, picking at my dinner and sneaking looks at Christina, who sits with her Candor family at one of the other tables.

“I wonder if we’ll be able to return to the old way after all this is over,” says Lauren. She and Tobias have been talking about Dauntless initiate training methods for at least five minutes already. It’s probably the only thing they have in common.