Revelation | ✓

Chapter 28

Names are strange things. I like to think of them as a way to give a piece of yourself to someone. 

Which you technically are, but I mean on a deeper level. You can give them the power to elevate you, to help you.

But like with everything, they can use them to break you. Your name alone can be used to destroy you.

And this is exactly what happens to me.

Two days ago a bomb went off on one side of the building. A GD named Nita is in a cell right now- along with several others- but rumors are just a part of human nature. Of course they are. We need something to talk about, something to create conspiracies about.

It was yesterday that I started hearing the whispers about me. At first I thought that it was just random- my Divergence might not be confidential, but the fact that no one is sure if I actually am Divergent is. I figured maybe it got out, or just the fact that my mom is a GP and my dad is a GD could be spreading.

But no. At lunch, Jack and Ryde both prove me wrong. "So I heard some people talking," Jack had said.

"About me." I guessed.

He and Ryde had exchanged a look. They'd been doing that a lot lately. "Yeah. Apparently you were involved in the bombing thing." They both had given me slightly confused looks.

"Was it you, Vae?"

Of course I'd said no. I wasn't involved. I was hit by a flying peice of wall, for God's sake!

But today, I'm sitting in a conference-looking room in a black chair, in front of a long mahoghany table. David, both of my parents, Jack, Ryde, and Matthew all watch me quietly. Matthew tugs at a black string tied around his neck.

David drops a file onto the table in front of me, and I resist the urge to flinch. Ryde's dad is in the hospital. He was hit in the head with a chunk of flying wall. He's awake and okay, but he has a pretty nasty concussion.

David places his hands on the table and leans forward. "I know that you keep saying you're innocent. But the evidence here says otherwise."

I try hard not to roll my eyes at him- I really do- but it doesn't work out. I cross my arms over my chest and sink down in my chair a little farther. "Get on with it. I don't have time for bull."

If that pisses off David, he does a really good job of covering it up. "We have your fingerprints on the explosive and a few people can place you at the scene of the crime at the time it happened." He leans in even closer. "Juanita and the others have insisted that you weren't involved. But you easily could've made an agreement with them."

I open my mouth to yell at him, to yell and scream until they finally understand that I didn't do it. 

Ryde beats me to it. "Jack and I can both place her away from the scene in the time that would be needed for her to set up the bomb."

David turns to him with narrowed eyes. "I'm not saying that she set it up. I'm saying that she set it off."

"She didn't." Jack says. He still has a bandage around his arm from where he got hit by a flying peice of glass. He looks slightly irritated. "I was right next to her when it happened. So was Ryde. She didn't reach into a pocket, didn't say anything at all."

"She didn't." Ryde agrees. "We were right there."

David turns back to me. "Is this true?"

My mom looks on the verge of tears. My father looks about ready to throttle David.

I'm sure that my eyes are swollen and bloodshot when I look up at Ryde and Jack. They're up to something, and whatever it is, I'm in. "Yes," I say. "It's true."