I feel like what I have become is halfway between my mother and my father, violent and impulsive and desperate and afraid. I feel like I have lost control of what I have become.

Without thinking, I grab Al's arm and squeeze it as tightly as I can. I just need something to hold on to. Blood runs down the side of Christina's face and splatters on the ground next to her cheek. This is the first time I have ever prayed for someone to fall unconscious.... Al frees his hand and pulls me tight to his side. I clench my teeth to keep from crying out.

So small as to be negligible. It's strange, but there's something in that thought that makes me feel almost...free.

I am a naturally curious person. -Tris

But now, I am also learning this: we can be mended. We mend each other.

She tries to turn too soon, and the ladder smacks into Fernando's shoulder. "Oh! Sorry, Nando." The jolt knocks his glasses askew. He smiles at Christina and takes the glasses off, shoving them into his pocket. "Nando?" I say to him. "I thought the Erudite didn't like nicknames?" "When a pretty girl calls you by a nickname," he says, "it is only logical to respond to it.

I shield my eyes from the sun to see her cold look—the expression I saw in my mind even before I looked at her. She looks older to me than she ever has, stern and tough and worn by time. I feel that way, too. “These people have no regard for human life,” she says. “They’re about to wipe the memories of all our friends and neighbors. They’re responsible for the deaths of a large majority of our old faction.” She sidesteps me and marches toward the door. “I think they’re lucky I’m not going to kill them.