I keep finding myself stifled by the company of others and then crippled by loneliness when I leave them. I am terrified and I don't even know of what, because I have lost everything already.

I pause a second. He doesn't look at me the way Will, Christina, and Al sometimes do - like I am too small and too weak to be of any use, and they pity me for it.

You promised you wouldn't tell her," she says, pointing at me. "What happened to protecting her?" "I changed my mind," I say. Tris laughs, harshly,"That's what you told him, that he would be protecting me? That's a pretty skillful manipulation. Well done.

We both have war inside us. Sometimes it keeps us alive. Sometimes it threatens to destroy us.

Half of bravery is perspective.

Sometimes I still forget to look for the gentler parts of her. For so long all I saw was the strength, standing out like the wiry muscles in her arms or the black ink marking her collarbone with flight.

Which means that in order to defeat her, I have to think of a way to defeat myself. And how can I be a better fighter than myself, if she knows the same strategies I know, and is exactly as resourceful and clever as I am?