Page 152 of The Sixth Fraction

The gun feels so heavy.

She gives me a soft smile. “I’ll be right behind you, Beatrice.”

“I don’t understand why—”

The door opens with a loud crash.

“Because I’m the parent, and you’re the child,” she says. “Go. Now.”

She pushes me, firmly enough that I have to step back. And once I step back, I see the boy charging through the door with his gun raised. He fires, and the sound echoes in the warehouse, in my head, in my chest—pain shrieks down my arm, and heat, so fierce I feel like I’ve been stuck with a hot poker—

I just barely keep my hold on my own gun, but I don’t even think of firing it. I see my mother step out from behind the water tank with her weapon held up, but it’s full of needles, not bullets—

She fires.

He fires.

I see her fall, staggering back like she’s been punched. Her words echo in my mind, “Go. Now.” The boy is staring at my mother, lying on the ground with her arms at a strange angle. His eyes are so wide I can see the whites around the irises, his body is shaking so hard—

I wait for my mother to stand.

I wait.

Go. Now.

She doesn’t move.

Go! Now!

I run. I push through the back door and I’m on the street, I’m running. I’m doing what she told me to do. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. I run so hard my lungs burn, my legs burn.

I hear myself making sounds—horrible, heaving sounds, like I’m about to throw up. I can’t see, and that’s how I realize I’m crying. Sobbing. But it’s like some of the threads between my mind and my body have been cut. I can feel myself shuddering with the force of it all, but I’m detached from it; it means nothing.

It means nothing.

I keep running.

Chapter 54

Four

Will has only been Dauntless for a couple months, so his physical stamina isn’t quite what it could be, and I’m the faster runner anyway. I put an entire block between us in no time, then take a winding path through the alleys of the Abnegation sector, the same one Tris and I took the other day when we visited her mother.

I get to Building A, and walk through the lobby to the elevators. I jab the button for the tenth floor, and as the elevator doors close, I see Peter marching toward the entrance.

I close my eyes as the elevator rises. I’m going to beat him to the apartment, but only by a few seconds. I’ll need to be ready.

When the elevator stops, I run down the hallway and around the corner to the Prior apartment. I don’t knock; I just open the door and step into the entryway.

“Natalie?” I call out. I see movement in the hallway.

Andrew Prior looks like most Abnegation men his age. Short brown hair, graying a little, cropped close to his head. Clean-shaven. Dressed in the usual drab uniform. He’s taller than average, but not as tall as me.

What startles me is that he looks like Tris. Not his eyes, which are brown, but the stubborn set of his mouth, and his long, thin face. And more than that, the way he looks at me, analyzing me with one glance.

“You’re not under the simulation,” he says to me.

I shake my head. “Someone’s coming who is.”