Born to be Dauntless

Chapter 47

Christina steps back into the room. We are all still.

"I don't mean to be insensitive," says Marcus, "but we have to go before the Dauntless and factionless enter this building. If they haven't already."

I hear tapping against the window. I close my eyes and a tear slips. It's just the rain.

Fernando,another friend, is ... I can't say the word.

He'd want me to stay logical.

I know he would.

We follow Cara out of the room. She has been here the most. I may have lived here before, but logically Cara should know here best.

We leave the bathroom, and we are in an Erudite hallway like every other Erudite hallway: pale, bright, sterile.

I miss here. I miss being here ,not like this,not as a prisoner,but as a child who wanders and is not lost. A kid who is just curious.

But this hallway is more active than I have ever seen it. People in Erudite blue sprint back and forth, in groups and alone, shouting things at each other like, "They're at the front doors! Go as high as you can!" and "They've disabled the elevators! Run for the stairs!"

I chew on my bottom lip. My old faction is falling apart .

Dauntless traitors also run past us, though they are less frantic than the Erudite.

Cara leads us to a back staircase, and we join a group of terrified Erudite as we run up one, two, three flights of stairs. Then Cara shoves her shoulder into a door next to the landing, holding her gun close to her chest.

I recognize this floor. But not from when I lived here.

This is my prisoner floor.

We walk towards Control-A.

I sit at one computer and Cara at another.

We will send all the data from the Erudite computers to the other faction computers.

Behind me, I hear the door open.

And I hear Caleb say, "What are you doing here?"

"Caleb," Tris says. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm here to stop whatever you're doing!" His voice trembles.

I can't look,but listening is good. I've always had trouble focusing on one task. Especially Erudite tasks. Such as studying or even watching movies.

"We're here to save the Erudite data that the factionless want to destroy," Tris says.

"I don't think you want to stop us."

"That's not true" he says

"Why would you bring him if you weren't trying to find something else? Something more important to him than all the Erudite data combined?"

"She told you about it?" Marcus says. "You, a child?"

"She didn't tell me at first," Caleb says. "But she didn't want me to choose a side without knowing the facts!"