Caleb catches on, jabbing Susan in the ribs so she shrieks with laughter. I try to relax, injecting a bounce into my step as Tobias suggested, letting my arms swing as I turn corners. It is amazing how pretending to be in a different faction changes everything — even the way I walk. That must be why it’s so strange that I could easily belong in three of them.

We catch up to the Amity in front of us as we cross the courtyard to the dining hall and disperse among them. I keep Tobias in my peripheral vision, not wanting to stray too far from him. The Amity don’t ask questions; they just let us dissolve into their faction.

A pair of Dauntless traitors stand by the door to the dining hall, their guns in hand, and I stiffen. It feels real to me, suddenly, that I am unarmed and being herded into a building surrounded by Erudite and Dauntless, and if they discover me, there will be nowhere to run. They will shoot me on the spot.

I consider making a break for it. But where would I go that they could not catch me? I try to breathe normally. I am almost past them— don ’ t look, don ’ t look. A few steps away— eyes away, away.

Susan loops her arm through mine.

“I’m telling you a joke,” she says, “that you find very funny.”

I cover my hand with my mouth and force a giggle that sounds high-pitched and foreign, but judging by the smile she gives me, it was believable. We hang on each other the way Amity girls do, glancing at the Dauntless and then giggling again. I am amazed by how I manage to do it, with the leaden feeling inside me.

“Thank you,” I mutter once we’re inside.

“You’re welcome,” she replies.

Tobias sits across from me at one of the long tables, and Susan sits next to me. The rest of the Abnegation spread throughout the room, and Caleb and Peter are a few seats down from me.

I tap my fingers on my knees as we wait for something to happen. For a long time we just sit there, and I pretend to be listening to an Amity girl telling a story on my left. But every so often I look at Tobias, and he looks back at me, like we’re passing fear back and forth between us.

Finally Johanna walks in with an Erudite woman. Her bright blue shirt seems to glow against her skin, which is dark brown. She searches the room as she speaks to Johanna. I hold my breath as her eyes find me — and then let it out when she moves on without a moment’s hesitation. She did not recognize me.

At least, not yet.

Someone bangs on a tabletop, and the room goes quiet. This is it. This is the moment she either hands us over, or doesn’t.

“Our Erudite and Dauntless friends are looking for some people,” Johanna says. “Several members of Abnegation, three members of Dauntless, and a former Erudite initiate.” She smiles. “In the interest of full cooperation, I told them that the people they were looking for were, in fact, here, but have since moved on. They would like permission to search the premises, which means we have to vote. Does anyone object to a search?”

The tension in her voice suggests that if anyone does object, they should keep their mouth shut. I don’t know if the Amity pick up on that kind of thing, but no one says anything. Johanna nods to the Erudite woman.

“Three of you stick around,” the woman says to the Dauntless guards clustered by the entrance. “The rest of you, search all the buildings and report back if you find anything. Go.”

There is so much they could find. The pieces of the hard drive. Clothes I forgot to throw out. A suspicious lack of trinkets and decorations in our living spaces. I feel my pulse behind my eyes as the three Dauntless soldiers who stayed behind pace up and down the rows of tables.

The back of my neck tingles as one of them walks behind me, his footsteps loud and heavy. Not for the first time in my life, I’m glad that I’m small and plain. I don’t draw people’s eyes to me.

But Tobias does. He wears his pride in his posture, in the way his eyes claim everything they land on. That is not an Amity trait. It can only be a Dauntless one.

The Dauntless woman walking toward him looks at him right away. Her eyes narrow as she walks closer, and then stops directly behind him.

I wish the collar of his shirt were higher. I wish he didn’t have so many tattoos. I wish …

“Your hair is pretty short for an Amity,” she says.

… he did not cut his hair like the Abnegation.

“It’s hot,” he says.

The excuse might work if he knew how to deliver it, but he says it with a snap.

She stretches out her hand and, with her index finger, pulls back the collar of his shirt to see his tattoo.

And Tobias moves.

He grabs the woman’s wrist, yanking her forward so she loses her balance. She hits her head against the edge of the table and falls. Across the room, a gun goes off, someone screams, and everyone dives under the tables or crouches next to the benches.

Everyone except me. I sit where I was before the gunshot sounded, clutching the edge of the table. I know that’s where I am, but I don’t see the cafeteria anymore. I see the alley I escaped down after my mother died. I stare at the gun in my hands, at the smooth skin between Will’s eyebrows.

A small sound gurgles in my throat. It would have been a scream if my teeth had not been clamped shut. The flash of memory fades, but I still can’t move.

Tobias grabs the Dauntless woman by the back of her neck and wrenches her to her feet. He has her gun in his hand. He uses her to shield him as he fires over her right shoulder at the Dauntless soldier across the room.

“Tris!” he shouts. “A little help here?”

I pull my shirt up just far enough to reach the handle of the gun, and my fingers meet metal. It feels so cold that it hurts my fingertips, but that can’t be; it’s so hot in here. A Dauntless man at the end of the aisle aims his own revolver at me. The black spot at the end of the barrel grows around me, and I can hear my heart but nothing else.

Caleb lunges forward and grabs my gun. He holds it in both hands and fires at the knees of the Dauntless man who stands just feet away from him.

The Dauntless man screams and collapses, his hands clutching his leg, which gives Tobias the opportunity to shoot him in the head. His pain is momentary.

My entire body is trembling and I can’t stop it. Tobias still has the Dauntless woman by the throat, but this time, he aims his gun at the Erudite woman.

“Say another word,” says Tobias, “and I’ll shoot.”

The Erudite woman’s mouth is open, but she doesn’t speak.

“Whoever’s with us should start running,” Tobias says, his voice filling the room.

All at once, the Abnegation rise from their places under tables and benches, and start toward the door. Caleb pulls me up from the bench. I start toward the door.

Then I see something. A twitch, a flicker of movement. The Erudite woman lifts a small gun, points it at a man in a yellow shirt in front of me. Instinct, not presence of mind, pushes me into a dive. My hands collide with the man, and the bullet hits the wall instead of him, instead of me.

“Put the gun down,” says Tobias, pointing his revolver at the Erudite woman. “I have verygood aim, and I’m betting that you don’t.”

I blink a few times to get the blurriness out of my eyes. Peter stares back at me. I just saved his life. He does not thank me, and I don’t acknowledge him.

The Erudite woman drops her gun. Together Peter and I walk toward the door. Tobias follows us, walking backward so he can keep his gun on the Erudite woman. At the last second before he passes through the threshold, he slams the door between him and her.

And we all run.

We sprint down the center aisle of the orchard in a breathless pack. The night air is heavy as a blanket and smells like rain. Shouts follow us. Car doors slam. I run faster than I can possibly run, like I’m breathing adrenaline instead of air. The purr of engines chases me into the trees. Tobias’s hand closes around mine.