Al walks in, and I don't even have to ask him to help me, he just walks over and strips bedding with me. i will have to scrub the frame later. Al carries the stack of sheets to the trash and together we walk toward the training room. "Ignore him," Al says. "He's an idiot, and if you don't get angry, he'll stop eventually.

His fingers leave streaks of cold on my skin, invisible to the eye, and I think about wrapping his shirt around my fist and pulling him in to kiss me; I think about pressing myself against him, but I can't, because all our secrets would keep a space between us.

As a teenager, I put a lot of pressure on myself, and a lot of that, for me, was about finding a moral high ground. As I've grown up, I've decided to abandon that because it made me judgmental and also stressed me out.

I point at a window to my left, and it explodes. Particles of glass rain over us. ‘You’ll have to do better than that,' I say.

That's the first time I've ever said those words out loud, and now I hear how strange they are. How many young men fear that there is a monster instead them? People are supposed to fear others, not themselves.

Today you will choose your factions. Until this point you have followed your parents’ paths, your parents’ rules. Today you will find your own path, make your own rules.

I think I speak for everyone," he says, "when I say you have earned the title of Dauntless".