First Look At The Excerpt Of The ‘Allegiant Collector’s Edition’

Initiates, EW has an exclusive first look at an excerpt from one of those scenes in the Allegiant Collector’s Edition, called “Strike First, Strike Hard,” as well as Veronica Roth’s take on it. The Allegiant Collector’s Edition will hit shelves tomorrow, Oct. 6, and features 48 pages of bonus content, including deleted scenes and excerpts from Natalie Prior’s journal.

“It was really difficult to cut this scene from ALLEGIANT,” Roth said in an email. “I originally had an entire section where Tris, Tobias, and the others reunite with the rest of Dauntless—a kind of quiet rebellion in which they assert their choice to stay a faction no matter what the factionless say. And this moment that Tris has with Peter was a part of it. It showed some of Peter’s vulnerability as well as how much Tris has changed since he first tormented her in this dormitory. She is stronger, now, but harder too; not all of the lessons she has learned are good ones. But I cut the Dauntless section because it slowed down the plot when I needed it to speed up, and with it went Tris and Peter.”

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Read the excerpt from “Strike First, Strike Hard” below:

Tris

The trains aren’t running, so I walk to Dauntless headquarters. Alone. That seems about right—the first time I went to Dauntless headquarters I was also alone, but in a crowd, standing on the edge of the roof in just my Abnegation shirt, about to throw myself into a life I knew nothing about.

The streets are cracked and worn, and all the buildings look the same to me except the Pire, piercing the sky in the distance, much smaller than the Hub but still the largest building around here. But I am not looking for the Pire; I am looking for the hole I jumped into, once to become Dauntless, and once to save my family.
I know it is south of the Pire, and close to the train tracks—close enough to leap from the tracks to a rooftop— so I follow them, higher here than anywhere else in the city, suspended above me by a complex system of latticed wood and metal. I see the place where they curve around a rooftop, and then I spot the hole in the space between two brick-and-glass buildings.

It seems much smaller here than it did from the roof. Maybe it’s just that I feel larger now, because so much has happened since I last saw it—I feel like more of a person, more of myself, now that I have made difficult decisions and lost people and then almost lost myself, but not quite. I walk right up to the edge, just to make sure there is still a net at the bottom. Then I back up, run a few steps, and launch into emptiness.

My stomach drops and the darkness engulfs me, like the Dauntless compound is a creature and this is its mouth. I hit the net and it doesn’t sting like it did when I jumped from the roof; it just cradles me, and I hook my fingers in the spaces to pull myself to the edge.

You can pick up your copy of the Allegiant Collector’s Edition will hit shelves tomorrow, Oct. 6.