“Tris,” he says, “please be quiet.”
“The peace serum,” Johanna says. “In small doses, it has a mild, calming effect and improves the mood. The only side effect is some slight dizziness. We administer it to members of our community who have trouble keeping the peace.”
Tobias snorts. “I’m not an idiot. Every member of your community has trouble keeping the peace, because they’re all human. You probably dump it into the water supply.”
Johanna does not respond for a few seconds. She folds her hands in front of her.
“Clearly you know that is not the case, or this conflict would not have occurred,” she says. “But whatever we agree to do here, we do together, as a faction. If I could give the serum to everyone in this city, I would. You would certainly not be in the situation you are in now if I had.”
“Oh, definitely,” he says. “Drugging the entire population is the best solution to our problem. Great plan.”
“Sarcasm is not kind, Four,” she says gently. “Now, I am sorry about the mistake in giving too much to Tris, I really am. But she violated the terms of our agreement, and I’m afraid that you might not be able to stay here much longer as a result. The conflict between her and the boy—Peter—is not something we can forget.”
“Don’t worry,” says Tobias. “We intend to leave as soon as humanly possible.”
“Good,” she says with a small smile. “Peace between Amity and Dauntless can only happen when we maintain our distance from each other.”
“That explains a lot.”
“Excuse me?” she says. “What are you insinuating?”
“It explains,” he says, gritting his teeth, “why, under a pretense of neutrality—as if such a thing is possible!—you have left us to die at the hands of the Erudite.”
Johanna sighs quietly and looks out the window. Beyond it is a small courtyard with vines growing in it. The vines creep onto the window’s corners, like they are trying to come in and join the conversation.
“The Amity wouldn’t do something like that,” I say. “That’s mean.”
“It is for the sake of peace that we remain uninvolved—” Johanna begins.
“Peace.” Tobias almost spits the word. “Yes, I’m sure it will be very peaceful when we are all either dead or cowering in submission under the threat of mind control or stuck in an endless simulation.”
Johanna’s face contorts, and I mimic her, to see what it feels like to have my face that way. It doesn’t feel very good. I’m not sure why she did it to begin with.
She says slowly, “The decision was not mine to make. If it was, perhaps we would be having a different conversation right now.”
“Are you saying you disagree with them?”
“I am saying,” she says, “that it isn’t my place to disagree with my faction publicly, but I might, in the privacy of my own heart.”
“Tris and I will be gone in two days,” says Tobias. “I hope your faction doesn’t change their decision to make this compound a safe house.”
“Our decisions are not easily unmade. What about Peter?”
“You’ll have to deal with him separately,” he says. “Because he won’t be coming with us.”
Tobias takes my hand, and his skin feels nice against mine, though it’s not smooth or soft. I smile apologetically at Johanna, and her expression remains unchanged.
“Four,” she says. “If you and your friends would like to remain . . . untouched by our serum, you may want to avoid the bread.”
Tobias says thank you over his shoulder as we make our way down the hallway together, me skipping every other step.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE SERUM WEARS off five hours later, when the sun is just beginning to set. Tobias shut me in my room for the rest of the day, checking on me every hour. This time when he comes in, I am sitting on the bed, glaring at the wall.
“Thank God,” he says, pressing his forehead to the door. “I was beginning to think it would never wear off and I would have to leave you here to . . . smell flowers, or whatever you wanted to do while you were on that stuff.”
“I’ll kill them,” I say. “I will kill them.”
“Don’t bother. We’re leaving soon anyway,” he says, closing the door behind him. He takes the hard drive from his back pocket. “I thought we could hide this behind your dresser.”
“That’s where it was before.”
“Yeah, and that’s why Peter won’t look for it here again.” Tobias pulls the dresser away from the wall with one hand and wedges the hard drive behind it with the other.
“Why couldn’t I fight the peace serum?” I say. “If my brain is weird enough to resist the simulation serum, why not this one?”
“I don’t know, really,” he says. He drops down next to me on the bed, jostling the mattress. “Maybe in order to fight off a serum, you have to want to.”
“Well, obviously I wanted to,” I say, frustrated, but without conviction. Did I want to? Or was it nice to forget about anger, forget about pain, forget about everything for a few hours?
“Sometimes,” he says, sliding his arm across my shoulders, “people just want to be happy, even if it’s not real.”
He’s right. Even now, this peace between us comes from not talking about things—about Will, or my parents, or me almost shooting him in the head, or Marcus. But I do not dare to disturb it with the truth, because I am too busy clinging to it for support.
“You might be right,” I say quietly.
“Are you conceding?” he says, his mouth falling open with mock surprise. “Seems like that serum did you some good after all. . . .”
I shove him as hard as I can. “Take that back. Take it back now.”
“Okay, okay!” He puts up his hands. “It’s just . . . I’m not very nice either, you know. That’s why I like you so—”
“Out!” I shout, pointing at the door.
Laughing to himself, Tobias kisses my cheek and leaves the room.
That evening, I am too embarrassed by what happened to go to dinner, so I spend the time in the branches of an apple tree at the far end of the orchard, picking ripe apples. I climb as high as I dare to get them, muscles burning. I have discovered that sitting still leaves little spaces for the grief to get in, so I stay busy.