"I'm her friend too," I say to the factionless pointing guns at me. "Can you at least point guns at me from over there?"
They let me pass, and I run to Lynn's side, holding her free hand, which is sticky with blood. I ignore the gun barrels pointed at my head and focus on Lynn's face, which is now yellowish instead of white.
She doesn't seem to notice me. She focuses on Uriah.
"I'm just glad I didn't die while under the simulation," she says weakly.
"You're not gonna die now," he says.
"Don't be stupid," she says. "Uri, listen. I loved her too. I did."
"You loved who?" he says, his voice breaking.
"Marlene," says Lynn.
"Yeah, we all loved Marlene," he says.
"No, that's not what I mean." She shakes her head. She closes her eyes.
Still, it takes a few minutes before her hand goes limp in mine. I guide it across her stomach, and then take her other hand from Uriah and do the same to it. He wipes his eyes before his tears can fall. Our eyes meet across her body.
"You should tell Shauna," I say. "And Hector."
"Right." He sniffs and presses his palm to Lynn's face. I wonder if her cheek is still warm. I don't want to touch her and find that it's not.
I rise and walk back to Christina.
MY MIND KEEPS tugging me toward my memories of Lynn, in an attempt to persuade me that she is actually gone, but I push away the short flashes as they come. Someday I will stop doing that, if I'm not executed as a traitor, or whatever our new leaders have planned. But right now I fight to keep my mind blank, to pretend that this room is all that has ever existed and all that will ever exist. It should not be easy, but it is. I have learned how to fend off grief.
Tori and Harrison come to the lobby after a while, Tori limping toward a chair-I almost forgot about her bullet wound again; she was so nimble when she killed Jeanine-and Harrison following her.
Behind both of them is one of the Dauntless with Jeanine's body slung over his shoulder. He heaves it like a stone on a table in front of the rows of Erudite and Dauntless traitors.
Behind me I hear gasps and mutters, but no sobs. Jeanine was not the kind of leader people cry for.
I stare up at her body, which seems so much smaller in death than it did in life. She is only a few inches taller than I am, her hair only a few shades darker. She looks calm now, almost peaceful. I have trouble connecting this body with the woman I knew, the woman without a conscience.
And even she was more complicated than I thought, keeping a secret that she thought was too terrible to reveal, out of a heinously twisted protective instinct.
Johanna Reyes steps into the lobby, soaked to the bone from all the rain, her red clothes smeared with a darker red. The factionless flank her, but she doesn't appear to notice them or the guns they carry.
"Hello," she says to Harrison and Tori. "What is it that you want?"
"I didn't know the leader of Amity would be so curt," says Tori with a wry smile. "Isn't that against your manifesto?"
"If you were actually familiar with Amity's customs, you would know that they don't have a formal leader," says Johanna, her voice simultaneously gentle and firm. "But I'm not the representative of Amity anymore. I stepped down in order to come here."
"Yeah, I saw you and your little band of peacekeepers, getting in everyone's way," says Tori.
"Yes, that was intentional," Johanna replies. "Since getting in the way meant standing between guns and innocents, and saved a great number of lives."
Color fills her cheeks, and I think it again: that Johanna Reyes might still be beautiful. Except now I think that she isn't just beautiful in spite of the scar, she's somehow beautiful with it, like Lynn with her buzzed hair, like Tobias with the memories of his father's cruelty that he wears like armor, like my mother in her plain gray clothing.
"Since you are still so very generous," says Tori, "I wonder if you might carry a message back to the Amity."
"I don't feel comfortable leaving you and your army to dole out justice as you see fit," says Johanna, "but I will certainly send someone else to Amity with a message."
"Fine," says Tori. "Tell them that a new political system will soon be formed that will exclude them from representation. This, we believe, is their just punishment for failing to choose a side in this conflict. They will, of course, be obligated to continue to produce and deliver food to the city, but they will be under supervision by one of the leading factions."
For a second, I think that Johanna might launch herself at Tori and strangle her. But she draws herself up taller and says, "Is that all?"