I cross my arms. "It was a two minute conversation." "I don't think a smaller time frame makes it less unwise." He furrows his eyebrows and touches the corner of my bruised eye with his fingertips. My head jerks back, but he doesn't take his hand away. Instead he sighs. "You know, if you could just learn to attack first, you might do better." "Attack first?" I say. "How will that help?" "You're fast. If you can get a few good hits in before they know what's going on, you could win." He shrugs, and his hand falls.

You know, most boys would enjoy being trapped in close quarters with a girl." I roll my eyes. "Not claustrophobic people, Tris.

It is amazing how pretending to be in a different faction changes everything -- even the way I walk. That must be why it's so strange that I could easily belong in three of them.

In our factions, we find meaning, we find purpose, we find life.

I am his, and he is mine, and it has been that way all along.

What's worse: to be idle while someone dies, or to be exiled and empty-handed?

THE SERUM WEARS off five hours later, when the sun is just beginning to set. Tobias shut me in my room for the rest of the day, checking on me every hour. This time when he comes in, I am sitting on the bed, glaring at the wall. “Thank God,” he says, pressing his forehead to the door. “I was beginning to think it would never wear off and I would have to leave you here to … smell flowers, or whatever you wanted to do while you were on that stuff.