My heart beats so hard it hurts, and I can't scream and I can't breathe, but I also feel everything, every vein and every fiber, every bone and every nerve, all awake and buzzing in my body as if charged with electricity. I am pure adrenaline.

It will be difficult to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me, like tugging a single thread from a complex work of embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else.

I brought you the truth about our city and the reason we are in it. If you aren't thanking me for it, you should at least do something about it instead of sitting here on this mess you made, pretending it's a throne!

Instead I just let the silence stretch out between us. It's the only adequate response to what he just told me, the only that does the tragedy any justice instead of patching it hastily and moving on.

Hearing him talk about his mother, about his intact family, makes my chest hurt for a second, like someone pierced it with a needle.

But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else.

Human reason can excuse any evil; that is why it's so important that we don't rely on it.