Agents of the Forgotten Faction

|Chapter 16|

"The mass exodus of the children of Abnegation leaders cannot be ignored or attributed to coincidence," he reads. "The recent transfer of Beatrice and Caleb Prior, the children of Andrew Prior, calls into question the soundness of Abnegation's values and teachings."

Cold creeps up my spine. Christina, standing on the edge of the crowd, looks over her shoulder and spots me. She gives me a worried look. I can't move. My father.

Now the Erudite are attacking my father. My father who isn't even part of this system.

"Why else would the children of such an important man decide that the lifestyle he has set out for them is not an admirable one?" Peter continues. "Molly Atwood, a fellow Dauntless transfer, suggests a disturbed and abusive upbringing might be to blame. 'I heard her talking in her sleep once,' Molly says. 'She was telling her father to stop doing something. I don't know what it was, but it gave her nightmares.'"

"Crap!" I hear Hill say.

"Tris depending on how this plays out you might have to abort mission," she says to me.

So this is Molly's revenge. She must have talked to the Erudite reporter that Christina yelled at. She smiles. Her teeth are crooked. If I knocked them out, I might be doing her a favor.

"What?" I demand.

Or I try to demand, but my voice comes out strangled and scratchy, and I have to clear my throat and say it again.

"What?"

Peter stops reading, and a few people turn around. Some, like Christina, look at me in a pitying way, their eyebrows drawn in, their mouths turned down at the corners. But most give me little smirks and eye one another suggestively. Peter turns last, with a wide smile.

"Give me that," I say, holding out my hand. My face burns.

"But I'm not done reading," he replies, laughter in his voice.

His eyes scan the paper again.

"However, perhaps the answer lies not in a morally bereft man, but in the corrupted ideals of an entire faction. Perhaps the answer is that we have entrusted our city to a group of proselytizing tyrants who do not know how to lead us out of poverty and into prosperity."

I storm up to him and try to snatch the paper from his hands, but he holds it up, high above my head so I can't reach it unless I jump, and I won't jump. Instead, I lift my heel and stomp as hard as I can where the bones in his foot connect to his toes. He grits his teeth to stifle a groan.

Then I throw myself at Molly, hoping the force of the impact will surprise her and knock her down, but before I can do any damage, cold hands close around my waist.

"That's my father!" I scream. "My father, you coward!"

Will pulls me away from her, lifting me off the ground. My breaths come fast, and I struggle to grab the paper before anyone can read another word of it. I have to burn it; I have to destroy it; I have to. Will drags me out of the room and into the hallway, his fingernails digging into my skin. Once the door shuts behind him, he lets go, and I shove him as hard as I can.

"What? Did you think I couldn't defend myself against that piece of Candor trash?"

"No," says Will. He stands in front of the door. "I figured I'd stop you from starting a brawl in the dormitory. Calm down."

I laugh a little.

"Calm down? Calm down? That's my family they're talking about, that's my faction!" I yell. After it comes out of my mouth what I said settles into my brain. I said it was my faction. But it's not...