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"THE FIVE-YEAR REUNION is co up"

Christina leans against the railing of the train platfor, pressing her hips to the railing for stability instead Her hair is longer now than it's ever been, densely curled and standing straight out from her head Sometimes she wears it wrapped up in a scarf, a colorful defiance of her Dauntless history, but today it's loose

The words settle on ht, familiar but still more than I'd like to bear

"So I've heard," I say Every year the foro reunite to celebrate--or one to some of these events and not to others, but this year's is important

Five years

"You going?"

Christina tilts her head as she looks at s

"I was thinking about it," she says "It's in Dauntless headquarters The former Dauntless headquarters, I should say"

I nod, looking out at the city lights that dot the buildings around us So her hair and laughing, a ht under blankets as a child stealslate cos near the marsh Behindas they catch the ht

"I know you go to headquarters every so often," she says, looking down at her hands "Zeke told me"

Zeke That traitor

"Yeah, I go there So what?"

She exa to be casual But she's never been very good at pretending "What do you do there?"

"I don't rehtly as I can I don't want to awaken her prickly side too soon

"You don't want to answer questions, just say so," she says "But I think you should have figured out by now that if there's so you need to talk about"

I groan, teasing, but she's right I know she's right

Since she stoppedthe memory serum, I've trusted her in a way I don't trust anyone else Soainst you is worth that trust, I think But it's still hard to admit another vulnerability to her, to even speak the words out loud

"Fine," I say, drawing h my fear landscape there"

She stares at me "What is with you and the fear landscape, Eaton? At first it was just a quirk but now it's downright pathological"

"It's not that big a deal," I say "It'stherapeutic"

"Four," she says She pauses "Tobias It's not therapeutic if nothing ever changes, you know?"

"Who says ed?"

"Is she still there?" Her voice softens And not in the way other people's voices soften when they talk to me about Tris--the way that makes me want to snap that I'o cloudy with loss, and grief, and I know that she understands

"Yeah" My hand coation short "Yeah, she's still there, of course she is"

"So you go back to see her," she says

"No," I say "No, that's not why"

"But that's part of it"

"It'sI--" I sigh "It's not that I want to see her there--you think I like watching her die over and over again?" I bringto see if she'll still be there I' for the day when I'mpast it When I've moved on"

She laughs a little "You're not just going to spontaneously be past it"

"What about 'time heals'?"

"Tihs, and for aout over the railing like a Dauntless on a dare But then she sinks back to her heels and looks aton is, you have to move"

Christina is right I do go back to Dauntless headquarters a lot, but never to the Pit below, only to the first-floor fear landscape roo out I only have a handful left--just a handful of chances to get overwhat I'm afraid of forever I don't knohy I find that, in itself, so frightening

Maybe it's that I used to feel like I didn't know ain I spent all ation grays, and I don't want to go back I don't want to rely on sparks of revelation to drive me forward I want to know

I have four fears, still They are different than they hen Tris died, five years ago

In the first, I fly high above the city in an airplane that has run out of fuel I turound, with no chance of rescue

In the second, I am immobile as a dark force--usually with David's face, or Marcus's--attacks the ones I care about

In the third, I am in pain, and there is no relief All I can do is endure

In the fourth, she dies

It makes no sense, to fear the worst when the worst has already happened Death can't happen twice, after all

It was me who told her that what she saw in the si out in front of her--Well, are you really afraid of crows?--but so deeper, more symbolic Still, it's difficult not to take my fourth fear exactly as it is, with her wide blue eyes staring up at one out

I could wait for the train with the others, standing cal in one of the freshly installed seats like a norht to ain

Instead, I take the long walk through the restored streets of Chicago, the city that refuses to die It burned, once, and they rebuilt it with brick Then it was pelted with explosives and bullets, evacuated, and populated with five factions Then it caain, and we are responsible for its fourth life We are equal parts fringe-dwellers, ex-faction rants from other cities

We no longer care about genetic purity, we say Of all the places that clai, this is perhaps the place where it coes of enetic code that made me realize I was broken in some deep, fundamental way I didn't, as some of the others did, tattoo it on s I want to be reminded of

I leave the clean path, taking side streets instead They are still as busted and broken as they used to be Sagging concrete giving way to the pipes and vents that for in the cracks in the road, waist high The sun is setting, and there are no lights here to flicker on and guide the way I putlight and et me there

I hear laughing up ahead A fah--Zeke's

He spotsway off His teeth are a flash of white in the dark

"Four! Come over here!"

"Hey" I sidle up to hi upright with the help of the spinal ialia, her hair wrapped up in a black cloth; and, standing tentatively at the edge of the group, Caleb Prior

I no longer look at him and ask myself why he's alive when she isn't There's really no poin

t to that kind of question anyway For the most part, he seems determined to avoid me, and that suits us both He nods to me, and I nod back, and if we are both lucky, that will be the end of it

"I was just co force," Christina says

"Again?" I ask

"Same as every year," Shauna supplies "Apparently they're uncoordinated and rowdy"

"Rowdy recruits" I grin "Yeah, because you don't know anything about that, Chris"

"I may have been rowdy, but I was nowhere near this stupid," Christina says, jabbing er and turn it around, trying to ht it would be

"Plus," she says, freeing her hand frorip with a smile, "this isn't nearly as difficult as Dauntless initiation; they don't kno good they have it"

"That's a good thing," Shauna rerow up in a faction You can't fault the we don't want them to know"

"I can fault them for whatever I want," Christina says with a sly smile

We walk toward the Pire, which is lit up warht all the way to its top floor

"Who else are weMatthew, Nita can't come--"

"Cara?" I say "I thought she was still in Phila--delsburg"

"Philadelphia," Caleb corrects ive him a look

I haven't seen Cara in over a year She's been traveling, speaking to important people about the developments she and Matthew have made in their laboratory I didn't know she had returned