“Yeah?” I feel his lips move against my ear as he speaks, and heat courses through me. “That easy, huh?”
“You know, most boys would enjoy being trapped in close quarters with a girl.” I roll my eyes.
“Not claustrophobic people, Tris!” He sounds desperate now.
“Okay, okay.” I set my hand on top of his and guide it to my chest, so it’s right over my heart. “Feel my heartbeat. Can you feel it?”
“Yes.”
“Feel how steady it is?”
“It’s fast.”
“Yes, well, that has nothing to do with the box.” I wince as soon as I’m done speaking. I just admitted to something. Hopefully he doesn’t realize that. “Every time you feel me breathe, you breathe. Focus on that.”
“Okay.”
I breathe deeply, and his chest rises and falls with mine. After a few seconds of this, I say calmly, “Why don’t you tell me where this fear comes from. Maybe talking about it will help us…somehow.”
I don’t know how, but it sounds right.
“Um…okay.” He breathes with me again. “This one is from my fantastic childhood. Childhood punishments. The tiny closet upstairs.”
I press my lips together. I remember being punished—sent to my room without dinner, deprived of this or that, firm scoldings. I was never shut in a closet. The cruelty smarts; my chest aches for him. I don’t know what to say, so I try to keep it casual.
“My mother kept our winter coats in our closet.”
“I don’t…” He gasps. “I don’t really want to talk about it anymore.”
“Okay. Then…I can talk. Ask me something.”
“Okay.” He laughs shakily in my ear. “Why is your heart racing, Tris?”
I cringe and say, “Well, I…” I search for an excuse that doesn’t involve his arms being around me. “I barely know you.” Not good enough. “I barely know you and I’m crammed up against you in a box, Four, what do you think?”
“If we were in your fear landscape,” he says, “would I be in it?”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“Of course you’re not. But that’s not what I meant.”
He laughs again, and when he does, the walls break apart with a crack and fall away, leaving us in a circle of light. Four sighs and lifts his arms from my body. I scramble to my feet and brush myself off, though I haven’t accumulated any dirt that I’m aware of. I wipe my palms on my jeans. My back feels cold from the sudden absence of him.
He stands in front of me. He’s grinning, and I’m not sure I like the look in his eyes.
“Maybe you were cut out for Candor,” he says, “because you’re a terrible liar.”
“I think my aptitude test ruled that one out pretty well.”
He shakes his head. “The aptitude test tells you nothing.”
I narrow my eyes. “What are you trying to tell me? Your test isn’t the reason you ended up Dauntless?”
Excitement runs through me like the blood in my veins, propelled by the hope that he might confirm that he is Divergent, that he is like me, that we can figure out what it means together.
“Not exactly, no,” he says. “I…”
He looks over his shoulder and his voice trails off. A woman stands a few yards away, pointing a gun at us. She is completely still, her features plain—if we walked away right now, I would not remember her. To my right, a table appears. On it is a gun and a single bullet. Why isn’t she shooting us?
Oh, I think. The fear is unrelated to the threat to his life. It has to do with the gun on the table.
“You have to kill her,” I say softly.
“Every single time.”
“She isn’t real.”
“She looks real.” He bites his lip. “It feels real.”
“If she was real, she would have killed you already.”
“It’s okay.” He nods. “I’ll just…do it. This one’s not…not so bad. Not as much panic involved.”
Not as much panic, but far more dread. I can see it in his eyes as he picks up the gun and opens the chamber like he’s done it a thousand times—and maybe he has. He clicks the bullet into the chamber and holds the gun out in front of him, both hands around it. He squeezes one eye shut and breathes slowly in.
As he exhales, he fires, and the woman’s head whips back. I see a flash of red and look away. I hear her crumple to the floor.
Four’s gun drops with a thump. We stare at her fallen body. What he said is true—it does feel real. Don’t be ridiculous. I grab his arm.
“C’mon,” I say. “Let’s go. Keep moving.”
After another tug, he comes out of his daze and follows me. As we pass the table, the woman’s body disappears, except in my memory and his. What would it be like to kill someone every time I went through my landscape? Maybe I’ll find out.
But something puzzles me: These are supposed to be Four’s worst fears. And though he panicked in the box and on the roof, he killed the woman without much difficulty. It seems like the simulation is grasping at any fears it can find within him, and it hasn’t found much.
“Here we go,” he whispers.
A dark figure moves ahead of us, creeping along the edge of the circle of light, waiting for us to take another step. Who is it? Who frequents Four’s nightmares?
The man who emerges is tall and slim, with hair cut close to his scalp. He holds his hands behind his back. And he wears the gray clothes of the Abnegation.
“Marcus,” I whisper.
“Here’s the part,” Four says, his voice shaking, “where you figure out my name.”
“Is he…” I look from Marcus, who walks slowly toward us, to Four, who inches slowly back, and everything comes together. Marcus had a son who joined Dauntless. His name was…“Tobias.”
Marcus shows us his hands. A belt is curled around one of his fists. Slowly he unwinds it from his fingers.
“This is for your own good,” he says, and his voice echoes a dozen times.
A dozen Marcuses press into the circle of light, all holding the same belt, with the same blank expression. When the Marcuses blink again, their eyes turn into empty, black pits. The belts slither along the floor, which is now white tile. A shiver crawls up my spine. The Erudite accused Marcus of cruelty. For once the Erudite were right.
I look at Four—Tobias—and he seems frozen. His posture sags. He looks years older; he looks years younger. The first Marcus yanks his arm back, the belt sailing over his shoulder as he prepares to strike. Tobias shrinks back, throwing his arms up to protect his face.
I dart in front of him and the belt cracks against my wrist, wrapping around it. A hot pain races up my arm to my elbow. I grit my teeth and pull as hard as I can. Marcus loses his grip, so I unwrap the belt and grab it by the buckle.
I swing my arm as fast as I can, my shoulder socket burning from the sudden motion, and the belt strikes Marcus’s shoulder. He yells and lunges at me with outstretched hands, with fingernails that look like claws. Tobias pushes me behind him so he stands between me and Marcus. He looks angry, not afraid.
All the Marcuses vanish. The lights come on, revealing a long, narrow room with busted brick walls and a cement floor.