“Their invasion wasn’t peaceful,” I say. I can see the corner of Tobias’s mouth from where I stand, and he is smiling. I take a deep breath and begin again. “Just because they didn’t shoot you all in the head doesn’t mean their intentions were somehow honorable. Why do you think they came here? Just to run through your hallways, knock you unconscious, and leave?”
“I assume they came here for people like you,” says Jack. “And while I am concerned for your safety, I don’t think we can attack them just because they wanted to kill a fraction of our population.”
“Killing you is not the worst thing they can do to you,” I say. “Controlling you is.”
Jack’s lips curl with amusement. Amusement. “Oh? And how will they manage that?”
“They shot you with needles,” Tobias says. “Needles full of simulation transmitters. Simulations control you. That’s how.”
“We know how simulations work,” says Jack. “The transmitter is not a permanent implant. If they intended to control us, they would have done it right away.”
“But—” I begin.
He interrupts me. “I know you have been under a lot of stress, Tris,” he says quietly, “and that you have done a great service to your faction and to Abnegation. But I think your traumatic experience may have compromised your ability to be completely objective. I can’t launch an attack based on a little girl’s speculations.”
I stand statue-still, unable to believe that he could be so stupid. My face burning. Little girl, he called me. A little girl who is stressed out to the point of paranoia. That is not me, but now, it’s who the Candor think I am.
“You don’t make our decisions for us, Kang,” says Tobias.
All around me, the Dauntless shout their assent. Someone else yells, “You are not the leader of our faction!”
Jack waits for their shouts to die down and then says, “That is true. If you want to, you can feel free to storm the Erudite compound by yourselves. But you will do so without our support, and may I remind you, you are greatly outnumbered and unprepared.”
He’s right. We can’t attack Dauntless traitors and Erudite without Candor’s numbers. It would be a bloodbath if we tried. Jack Kang has all the power. And now we all know it.
“I thought so,” he says smugly. “Very well. I will contact Jeanine Matthews, and see if we can negotiate a peace. Any objections?”
We can’t attack without Candor, I think, unless we have the factionless.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THAT AFTERNOON I join a group of Candor and Dauntless cleaning up the broken windows in the lobby. I focus on the path of the broom, keeping my eyes on the dust that collects between glass fragments. My muscles remember the movement before the rest of me does, but when I look down, instead of dark marble I see plain white tile and the bottom of a light gray wall; I see strands of blond hair that my mother trimmed, and the mirror safely tucked behind its wall panel.
My body goes weak, and I lean into the broom handle for support.
A hand touches my shoulder, and I twitch away from it. But it’s just a Candor girl—a child. She looks up at me, wide-eyed.
“Are you all right?” she says, her voice high and indistinct.
“I’m fine,” I say. Too sharply. I hurry to amend it. “Just tired. Thank you.”
“I think you’re lying,” she says.
I notice a bandage peeking out from the end of her sleeve, probably covering the needle puncture. The idea of this little girl under a simulation nauseates me. I can’t even look at her. I turn away.
And I see them: outside, a traitor Dauntless man, propping up a woman with a bleeding leg. I see the gray streaks in the woman’s hair and the end of the man’s hooked nose and the blue armband of a Dauntless traitor just beneath their shoulders, and recognize them both. Tori and Zeke.
Tori is trying to walk, but one of her legs drags behind her, useless. A wet, dark patch covers most of her thigh.
The Candor stop sweeping and stare at them. The Dauntless guards standing near the elevators rush toward the entrance with their guns lifted. My fellow sweepers back up to get out of the way, but I stay where I am, heat rushing through me as Zeke and Tori approach.
“Are they even armed?” someone says.
Tori and Zeke reach what used to be the doors, and he puts up one of his hands when he sees the row of Dauntless with guns. The other he keeps wrapped around Tori’s waist.
“She needs medical attention,” says Zeke. “Right now.”
“Why should we give a traitor medical attention?” a Dauntless man with wispy blond hair and a double-pierced lip asks over his gun. A patch of blue dye marks his forearm.
Tori moans, and I slip between two Dauntless to reach for her. She puts her hand, which is sticky with blood, in mine. Zeke lowers her to the ground with a grunt.
“Tris,” she says, sounding dazed.
“Better step back, girl,” the blond Dauntless man says.
“No,” I say. “Put your gun down.”
“Told you the Divergent were crazy,” one of the other armed Dauntless mutters to the woman next to him.
“I don’t care if you bring her upstairs and tie her to a bed to keep her from going on a shooting spree!” says Zeke, scowling. “Don’t let her bleed to death in the lobby of Candor headquarters!”
Finally, a few Dauntless come forward and lift Tori up.
“Where should we . . . take her?” one of them asks.
“Find Helena,” Zeke says. “Dauntless nurse.”
The men nod and carry her toward the elevators. Zeke and I meet eyes.
“What happened?” I ask him.
“The traitor Dauntless found out we were collecting information from them,” he says. “Tori tried to get away, but they shot her as she was running. I helped her get here.”
“That’s a nice story,” says the blond Dauntless man. “Want to tell it again under truth serum?”
Zeke shrugs. “All right.” He puts his wrists together in front of him dramatically. “Haul me away, if you’re so desperate to.”
Then his eyes focus on something over my shoulder, and he starts walking. I turn to see Uriah jogging from the elevator bank. He is grinning.
“Heard a rumor you were a dirty traitor,” Uriah says.
“Yeah, whatever,” says Zeke.
They collide in an embrace that looks almost painful to me, slapping each other’s backs and laughing with their fists clasped between them.