quietly.
I nod, still staring at the board. I should be pleased that I am ranked first, but I know what that means. If Peter and his friends hated me before, they will despise me now. Now I am Edward. It could be my eye next. Or worse.
I search for Al’s name and find it in the last slot. The crowd of initiates breaks up slowly, leaving just me, Peter, Will, and Al standing there. I want to console Al. To tell him that the only reason that I’m doing well is that there’s something different about my brain.
Peter turns slowly, every limb infused with tension. A glare would have been less threatening than the look he gives me—a look of pure hatred. He walks toward his bunk, but at the last second, he whips around and shoves me against a wall, a hand on each of my shoulders.
“I will not be outranked by a Stiff,” he hisses, his face so close to mine I can smell his stale breath. “How did you do it, huh? How the hell did you do it?”
He pulls me forward a few inches and then slams me against the wall again. I clench my teeth to keep from crying out, though pain from the impact went all the way down my spine. Will grabs Peter by his shirt collar and drags him away from me.
“Leave her alone,” he says. “Only a coward bullies a little girl.”
“A little girl?” scoffs Peter, throwing off Will’s hand. “Are you blind, or just stupid? She’s going to edge you out of the rankings and out of Dauntless, and you’re going to get nothing, all because she knows how to manipulate people and you don’t. So when you realize that she’s out to ruin us all, you let me know.”
Peter storms out of the dormitory. Molly and Drew follow him, looks of disgust on their faces.
“Thanks,” I say, nodding to Will.
“Is he right?” Will asks quietly. “Are you trying to manipulate us?”
“How on earth would I do that?” I scowl at him. “I’m just doing the best I can, like anyone else.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs a little. “By acting weak so we pity you? And then acting tough to psyche us out?”
“Psyche you out?” I repeat. “I’m your friend. I wouldn’t do that.”
He doesn’t say anything. I can tell he doesn’t believe me—not quite.
“Don’t be an idiot, Will,” says Christina, hopping down from her bunk. She looks at me without sympathy and adds, “She’s not acting.”
Christina turns and leaves, without banging the door shut. Will follows. I am alone in the room with Al. The first and the last.
Al has never looked small before, but he does now, with his shoulders slumped and his body collapsing on itself like crumpled paper. He sits down on the edge of his bed.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says.
His face is bright red. I look away. Asking him was just a formality. Anyone with eyes could see that Al is not all right.
“It’s not over,” I say. “You can improve your rank if you…”
My voice trails off when he looks up at me. I don’t even know what I would say to him if I finished my sentence. There is no strategy for stage two. It reaches deep into the heart of who we are and tests whatever courage is there.
“See?” he says. “It’s not that simple.”
“I know it’s not.”
“I don’t think you do,” he says, shaking his head. His chin wobbles. “For you it’s easy. All of this is easy.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yeah, it is.” He closes his eyes. “You aren’t helping me by pretending it isn’t. I don’t—I’m not sure you can help me at all.”
I feel like I just walked into a downpour, and all my clothes are heavy with water; like I am heavy and awkward and useless. I don’t know if he means that no one can help him, or if I, specifically, can’t help him, but I would not be okay with either interpretation. I want to help him. I am powerless to do so.
“I…,” I start to say, meaning to apologize, but for what? For being more Dauntless than he is? For not knowing what to say?
“I just…” The tears that have been gathering in his eyes spill over, wetting his cheeks. “…want to be alone.”
I nod and turn away from him. Leaving him is not a good idea, but I can’t stop myself. The door clicks into place behind me, and I keep walking.
I walk past the drinking fountain and through the tunnels that seemed endless the day I got here but now barely register in my mind. This is not the first time I have failed my family since I got here, but for some reason, it feels that way. Every other time I failed, I knew what to do but chose not to do it. This time, I did not know what to do. Have I lost the ability to see what people need? Have I lost part of myself?
I keep walking.
I somehow find the hallway I sat in the day Edward left. I don’t want to be alone, but I don’t feel like I have much of a choice. I close my eyes and pay attention to the cold stone beneath me and breathe the musty underground air.
“Tris!” someone calls from the end of the hallway. Uriah jogs toward me. Behind him are Lynn and Marlene. Lynn is holding a muffin.
“Thought I would find you here.” He crouches near my feet. “I heard you got ranked first.”
“So you just wanted to congratulate me?” I smirk. “Well, thanks.”
“Someone should,” he says. “And I figured your friends might not be so congratulatory, since their ranks aren’t as high. So quit moping and come with us. I’m going to shoot a muffin off Marlene’s head.”
The idea is so ridiculous I can’t stop myself from laughing. I get up and follow Uriah to the end of the hallway, where Marlene and Lynn are waiting. Lynn narrows her eyes at me, but Marlene grins.
“Why aren’t you out celebrating?” she asks. “You’re practically guaranteed a top ten spot if you keep it up.”
“She’s too Dauntless for the other transfers,” Uriah says.
“And too Abnegation to ‘celebrate,’” remarks Lynn.
I ignore her. “Why are you shooting a muffin off Marlene’s head?”
“She bet me I couldn’t aim well enough to hit a small object from one hundred feet,” Uriah explains. “I bet her she didn’t have the guts to stand there as I tried. It works out well, really.”
The training room where I first fired a gun is not far from my hidden hallway. We get there in under a minute, and Uriah flips on a light switch. It looks the same as the last time I was there: targets on one end of the room, a table with guns on the other.
“They just keep these lying around?” I ask.
“Yeah, but they aren’t loaded.” Uriah pulls up his shirt. There is a gun stuck under the waistband of his pants, right under a tattoo. I stare at the tattoo, trying to figure out what it is, but then he lets his shirt fall. “Okay,” he says. “Go stand in front of a target.”
Marlene walks away, a skip in her step.
“You aren’t seriously going to shoot at her, are you?” I ask Uriah.
“It’s not a real gun,” says Lynn quietly. “It’s got plastic pellets in it. The worst it’ll do is sting her face, maybe give her a welt. What do you think we are, stupid?”
Marlene stands in front of one of the targets and sets the muffin on her head. Uriah squints one eye as he aims the gun.
“Wait!” calls out Marlene. She breaks off a piece of the