Divergent Series

“Hey,” I say. “It’s okay. Here—”

I guide his arms around my body so he has more space. He clutches at my back and puts his face next to mine, still hunched over. His body is warm, but I feel only his bones and the muscle that wraps around them; nothing yields beneath me. My cheeks get hot. Can he tell that I’m still built like a child?

“This is the first time I’m happy I’m so small.” I laugh. If I joke, maybe I can calm him down. And distract myself.

“Mmhmm,” he says. His voice sounds strained.

“We can’t break out of here,” I say. “It’s easier to face the fear head on, right?” I don’t wait for a response. “So what you need to do is make the space smaller. Make it worse so it gets better. Right?”

“Yes.” It is a tight, tense little word.

“Okay. We’ll have to crouch, then. Ready?”

I squeeze his waist to pull him down with me. I feel the hard line of his rib against my hand and hear the screech of one wood plank against another as the ceiling inches down with us. I realize that we won’t fit with all this space between us, so I turn and curl into a ball, my spine against his chest. One of his knees is bent next to my head and the other is curled beneath me so I’m sitting on his ankle. We are a jumble of limbs. I feel a harsh breath against my ear.

“Ah,” he says, his voice raspy. “This is worse. This is definitely…”

“Shh,” I say. “Arms around me.”

Obediently, he slips both arms around my waist. I smile at the wall. I am not enjoying this. I am not, not even a little bit, no.

“The simulation measures your fear response,” I say softly. I’m just repeating what he told us, but reminding him might help him. “So if you can calm your heartbeat down, it will move on to the next one. Remember? So try to forget that we’re here.”

“Yeah?” I feel his lips move against my ear as he speaks, and heat courses through me. “That easy, huh?”

“You know, most boys would enjoy being trapped in close quarters with a girl.” I roll my eyes.

“Not claustrophobic people, Tris!” He sounds desperate now.

“Okay, okay.” I set my hand on top of his and guide it to my chest, so it’s right over my heart. “Feel my heartbeat. Can you feel it?”

“Yes.”

“Feel how steady it is?”

“It’s fast.”

“Yes, well, that has nothing to do with the box.” I wince as soon as I’m done speaking. I just admitted to something. Hopefully he doesn’t realize that. “Every time you feel me breathe, you breathe. Focus on that.”

“Okay.”

I breathe deeply, and his chest rises and falls with mine. After a few seconds of this, I say calmly, “Why don’t you tell me where this fear comes from. Maybe talking about it will help us…somehow.”

I don’t know how, but it sounds right.

“Um…okay.” He breathes with me again. “This one is from my fantastic childhood. Childhood punishments. The tiny closet upstairs.”

I press my lips together. I remember being punished—sent to my room without dinner, deprived of this or that, firm scoldings. I was never shut in a closet. The cruelty smarts; my chest aches for him. I don’t know what to say, so I try to keep it casual.

“My mother kept our winter coats in our closet.”

“I don’t…” He gasps. “I don’t really want to talk about it anymore.”

“Okay. Then…I can talk. Ask me something.”

“Okay.” He laughs shakily in my ear. “Why is your heart racing, Tris?”

I cringe and say, “Well, I…” I search for an excuse that doesn’t involve his arms being around me. “I barely know you.” Not good enough. “I barely know you and I’m crammed up against you in a box, Four, what do you think?”

“If we were in your fear landscape,” he says, “would I be in it?”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Of course you’re not. But that’s not what I meant.”

He laughs again, and when he does, the walls break apart with a crack and fall away, leaving us in a circle of light. Four sighs and lifts his arms from my body. I scramble to my feet and brush myself off, though I haven’t accumulated any dirt that I’m aware of. I wipe my palms on my jeans. My back feels cold from the sudden absence of him.

He stands in front of me. He’s grinning, and I’m not sure I like the look in his eyes.

“Maybe you were cut out for Candor,” he says, “because you’re a terrible liar.”

“I think my aptitude test ruled that one out pretty well.”

He shakes his head. “The aptitude test tells you nothing.”

I narrow my eyes. “What are you trying to tell me? Your test isn’t the reason you ended up Dauntless?”

Excitement runs through me like the blood in my veins, propelled by the hope that he might confirm that he is Divergent, that he is like me, that we can figure out what it means together.

“Not exactly, no,” he says. “I…”

He looks over his shoulder and his voice trails off. A woman stands a few yards away, pointing a gun at us. She is completely still, her features plain—if we walked away right now, I would not remember her. To my right, a table appears. On it is a gun and a single bullet. Why isn’t she shooting us?

Oh, I think. The fear is unrelated to the threat to his life. It has to do with the gun on the table.

“You have to kill her,” I say softly.

“Every single time.”

“She isn’t real.”

“She looks real.” He bites his lip. “It feels real.”

“If she was real, she would have killed you already.”

“It’s okay.” He nods. “I’ll just…do it. This one’s not…not so bad. Not as much panic involved.”

Not as much panic, but far more dread. I can see it in his eyes as he picks up the gun and opens the chamber like he’s done it a thousand times—and maybe he has. He clicks the bullet into the chamber and holds the gun out in front of him, both hands around it. He squeezes one eye shut and breathes slowly in.