Free Insurgent by Veronica Roth

bend down and press my palms to the rail, closing my eyes to focus on the feeling of the metal beneath my hands. The vibration feels like a sigh going through my body. I stare between Susan’s knees down the tracks and see no train light, but that doesn’t mean anything. The train could be running with no horns and no lamps to announce its arrival.
    I see the gleam of a small train car, far away now but approaching fast.
    “It’s coming,” I say. It is an effort to get to my feet when all I want to do is sit down, but I do, brushing my hands on my jeans. “I think we should get on.”
    “Even if it’s run by the Erudite?” says Caleb.
    “If the Erudite were running the train, they would have taken it to the Amity compound to look for us,” Tobias says. “I think it’s worth the risk. We’ll be able to hide in the city. Here we’re just waiting for them to find us.”
    We all get off the tracks. Caleb gives Susan step-by-step instructions for getting on a moving train, the way only a former Erudite can. I watch the first car approach; listen to the rhythmic bump of the car over the ties, the whisper of metal wheel against metal rail.
    As the first car passes me, I start to run. I ignore the burning in my legs. Caleb helps Susan into a middle car first, then jumps in himself. I take a quick breath and throw my body to the right, slamming into the floor of the car with my legs dangling over the edge. Caleb grabs my left arm and pulls me in the rest of the way. Tobias uses the handle to swing himself in after me.
    I look up, and stop breathing.
    Eyes glitter in the darkness. Dark shapes sit in the car, more numerous than we are.
    The factionless.
     
     
    The wind whistles through the car. Everyone is on their feet and armed—except Susan and me, who have no weapons. A factionless man with an eye patch has a gun pointed at Tobias. I wonder how he got it.
    Next to him, an older factionless woman holds a knife—the kind I used to cut bread with. Behind him, someone else holds a large plank of wood with a nail sticking out of it.
    “I’ve never seen the Amity armed before,” the factionless woman with the knife says.
    The factionless man with the gun looks familiar. He wears tattered clothes in different colors—a black T-shirt with a torn Abnegation jacket over it, blue jeans mended with red thread, brown boots. All faction clothing is represented in the group before me: black Candor pants paired with black Dauntless shirts, yellow dresses with blue sweatshirts over them. Most items are torn or smudged in some way, but some are not. Freshly stolen, I imagine.
    “They aren’t Amity,” the man with the gun says. “They’re Dauntless.”
    Then I recognize him: he is Edward, a fellow initiate who left Dauntless after Peter attacked him with a butter knife. That is why he wears an eye patch.
    I remember steadying his head as he lay screaming on the floor, and cleaning the blood he left behind.
    “Hello, Edward,” I say.
    He inclines his head to me, but doesn’t lower his gun. “Tris.”
    “Whatever you are,” the woman says, “you’ll have to get off this train if you want to stay alive.”
    “Please,” says Susan, her lip wobbling. Her eyes fill with tears. “We’ve been running … and the rest of them are dead and I don’t …” She starts to sob again. “I don’t think I can keep going, I …”
    I get the strange urge to hit my head against the wall. Other people’s sobs make me uncomfortable. It’s selfish of me, maybe.
    “We’re running from the Erudite,” says Caleb. “If we get off, it will be easier for them to find us. So we would appreciate it if you let us ride into the city with you.”
    “Yeah?” Edward tilts his head. “What have you ever done for us?”
    “I helped you when no one else would,” I say. “Remember?”
    “You, maybe. But the others?” says Edward. “Not so much.”
    Tobias steps forward, so Edward’s gun is almost against his throat.
    “My name is