BEATRICE DECIDED NOT to take the bus. If we get home early, our father will notice when he checks the house log at the end of the day, and we'll have to explain what happened. Instead we walk. Unfortunately. I'll have to intercept Caleb before he mentions anything to our parents, but Caleb can keep a secret.
I walk in the middle of the road, while Beatrice is near the end. The buses tend to hug the curb, so it's safer here. Sometimes, on the streets near my house, I can see places where the yellow lines used to be. We have no use for them now that there are so few cars. We don't need stoplights, either, but in some places they dangle precariously over the road like they might crash down any minute.
Renovation moves slowly through the city, which is a patchwork of new, clean buildings and old, crumbling ones. Most of the new buildings are next to the marsh, which used to be a lake a long time ago. The Abnegation volunteer agency my mother works for is responsible for most of those renovations.
When I look at the Abnegation lifestyle as an outsider, I think it's beautiful. When I watch my family move in harmony; when we go to dinner parties and everyone cleans together afterward without having to be asked; when I see Beatrice give food to the factionless, I find this so lovely, when I see Caleb help strangers carry their groceries, I fall in love with this life all over again. It's only when I try to live it myself that I have trouble. It never feels genuine.
But choosing a different faction means I forsake my family. Permanently.
Just past the Abnegation sector of the city is the stretch of building skeletons and broken sidewalks that I now walk through. There are places where the road has completely collapsed, revealing sewer systems and empty subways that I have to be careful to avoid, and places that stink so powerfully of sewage and trash that I have to plug my nose.
This is where the factionless live. Because they failed to complete initiation into whatever faction they chose, they live in poverty, doing the work no one else wants to do. They are janitors and construction workers and garbage collectors; they make fabric and operate trains and drive buses. In return for their work they get food and clothing, but, as my mother says, not enough of either.
I see a factionless man standing on the corner up ahead. He wears ragged brown clothing and skin sags from his jaw. He stares at us, and I stare back at him, unable to look away.
"Excuse me," he says. His voice is raspy. "Do you have something I can eat?"
I feel a lump in my throat. A stern voice in my head says, You know you do. But at the same time, the smaller voice, tells me go, run away.
"Um...yes," I say. I reach into my bag. While I see Beatrice do the same thing. My father tells us to keep food in my bag at all times for exactly this reason. I see Beatrice offering the man a small bag of dried apple slices. While I give him my pear slices.
He reaches for them, but instead of taking the bag, his hands closes around Beatrice and my wrists. He smiles at Beatrice. He has a gap between his front teeth.
"My, don't you have pretty eyes," he says. "It's a shame the rest of you is so plain."
My heart pounds. I tug my hand back, but his grip tightens. I can't let him act like this towards my sister. I smell something acrid and unpleasant on his breath.
"You look a little young to be walking around by yourself, dear," he says.
" She isn't walking by herself." I find my voice again.
"Oh, I didn't even notice you kid. How old are you?" he askes, looking me up and down, " are you thirteen?"
I stop tugging, and stand up straighter. I know I look young - but that's just because my height; I don't need to be reminded. "I'm older than I look," I retort. "I'm sixteen, and so is she."
His lips spread wide, revealing a gray molar with a dark pit in the side. I can't tell if he's smiling or grimacing. "Then isn't today a special day for you two? The day before you choose?"
"Let go of me," I hear Beatrice say. I hear ringing in my ears. Her voice sounds clear and stern—not what I expected to hear. I feel like it doesn't belong to her. It isn't as soft as it usually is.
But then he releases our wrists, takes the apples and pears, and says, "Choose wisely, little girl and you too, short kid." He then turned around to probably go away. "I didn't and now look at me."
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Cold Hearts | Tobias Eaton
Fanfiction"I'll break your heart." "I'll break your nose." That's how true love starts - with few threats and two Cold Hearts ----------------------- When we walk in, the Dauntless inside stand. They applaud. They stamp their feet. They shout. The noise surr...
