Divergent Series (Books 1-3) Plus Free Four, The Transfer and World of Divergent. Veronica Roth
I look over my shoulder at him. “That’s why they call you—”
The words leave me when I see his expression. His eyes are wide and seem almost vulnerable under the room’s lights. His lips are parted. If we were not here, I would describe the look as awe. But I don’t understand why he would be looking at me in awe.
He wraps his hand around my elbow, his thumb pressing to the soft skin above my forearm, and tugs me toward him. The skin around my wrist still stings, like the belt was real, but it is as pale as the rest of me. His lips slowly move against my cheek, then his arms tighten around my shoulders, and he buries his face in my neck, breathing against my collarbone.
I stand stiffly for a second and then loop my arms around him and sigh.
“Hey,” I say softly. “We got through it.”
He lifts his head and slips his fingers through my hair, tucking it behind my ear. We stare at each other in silence. His fingers move absently over a lock of my hair.
“You got me through it,” he says finally.
“Well.” My throat is dry. I try to ignore the nervous electricity that pulses through me every second he touches me. “It’s easy to be brave when they’re not my fears.”
I let my hands drop and casually wipe them on my jeans, hoping he doesn’t notice.
If he does, he doesn’t say so. He laces his fingers with mine.
“Come on,” he says. “I have something else to show you.”
HAND IN HAND, we walk toward the Pit. I monitor the pressure of my hand carefully. One minute, I feel like I’m not gripping hard enough, and the next, I’m squeezing too hard. I never used to understand why people bothered to hold hands as they walked, but then he runs one of his fingertips down my palm, and I shiver and understand it completely.
“So…” I latch on to the last logical thought I remember. “Four fears.”
“Four fears then; four fears now,” he says, nodding. “They haven’t changed, so I keep going in there, but…I still haven’t made any progress.”
“You can’t be fearless, remember?” I say. “Because you still care about things. About your life.”
“I know.”
We walk along the edge of the Pit on a narrow path that leads to the rocks at the bottom of the chasm. I’ve never noticed it before—it blended in with the rock wall. But Tobias seems to know it well.
I don’t want to ruin the moment, but I have to know about his aptitude test. I have to know if he’s Divergent.
“You were going to tell me about your aptitude test results,” I say.
“Ah.” He scratches the back of his neck with his free hand. “Does it matter?”
“Yes. I want to know.”
“How demanding you are.” He smiles.
We reach the end of the path and stand at the bottom of the chasm, where the rocks form unsteady ground, rising up at harsh angles from the rushing water. He leads me up and down, across small gaps and over angular ridges. My shoes cling to the rough rock. The soles of my shoes mark each rock with a wet footprint.
He finds a relatively flat rock near the side, where the current isn’t strong, and sits down, his feet dangling over the edge. I sit beside him. He seems comfortable here, inches above the hazardous water.
He releases my hand. I look at the jagged edge of the rock.
“These are things I don’t tell people, you know. Not even my friends,” he says.
I lace my fingers together and clench. This is the perfect place for him to tell me that he is Divergent, if indeed that’s what he is. The roar of the chasm ensures that we won’t be overheard. I don’t know why the thought makes me so nervous.
“My result was as expected,” he says. “Abnegation.”
“Oh.” Something inside me deflates. I am wrong about him.
But—I had assumed that if he was not Divergent, he must have gotten a Dauntless result. And technically, I also got an Abnegation result—according to the system. Did the same thing happen to him? And if that’s true, why isn’t he telling me the truth?
“But you chose Dauntless anyway?” I say.
“Out of necessity.”
“Why did you have to leave?”
His eyes dart away from mine, across the space in front of him, as if searching the air for an answer. He doesn’t need to give one. I still feel the ghost of a stinging belt on my wrist.
“You had to get away from your dad,” I say. “Is that why you don’t want to be a Dauntless leader? Because if you were, you might have to see him again?”
He lifts a shoulder. “That, and I’ve always felt that I don’t quite belong among the Dauntless. Not the way they are now, anyway.”
“But you’re…incredible,” I say. I pause and clear my throat. “I mean, by Dauntless standards. Four fears is unheard of. How could you not belong here?”
He shrugs. He doesn’t seem to care about his talent, or his status among the Dauntless, and that is what I would expect from the Abnegation. I am not sure what to make of that.
He says, “I have a theory that selflessness and bravery aren’t all that different. All your life you’ve been training to forget yourself, so when you’re in danger, it becomes your first instinct. I could belong in Abnegation just as easily.”
Suddenly I feel heavy. A lifetime of training wasn’t enough for me. My first instinct is still self-preservation.
“Yeah, well,” I say, “I left Abnegation because I wasn’t selfless enough, no matter how hard I tried to be.”
“That’s not entirely true.” He smiles at me. “That girl who let someone throw knives at her to spare a friend, who hit my dad with a belt to protect me—that selfless girl, that’s not you?”
He’s figured out more about me than I have. And even though it seems impossible that he could feel something for me, given all that I’m not…maybe it isn’t. I frown at him. “You’ve been paying close attention, haven’t you?”
“I like to observe people.”
“Maybe you were cut out for Candor, Four, because you’re a terrible liar.”
He puts his hand on the rock next to him, his fingers lining up with mine. I look down at our hands. He has long, narrow fingers. Hands made for fine, deft movements. Not Dauntless hands, which should be thick and tough and ready to break things.
“Fine.” He leans his face closer to mine, his eyes focusing on my chin, and my lips, and my nose. “I watched you because I like you.” He says it plainly, boldly, and his eyes flick up to mine. “And don’t call me ‘Four,’ okay? It’s nice to hear my name again.”
Just like that, he has finally declared himself, and I don’t know how to respond. My cheeks warm, and all I can think to say is, “But you’re older than I am…Tobias.”
He smiles at me. “Yes, that whopping two-year gap really is insurmountable, isn’t it?”
“I’m not trying to be self-deprecating,” I say, “I just don’t get it. I’m younger. I’m not pretty. I—”
He laughs, a deep laugh that sounds like it came from deep inside him, and touches his lips to my temple.
“Don’t pretend,” I say breathily.