I guess I always knew there was something wrong with me, but I thought it was because of my father, or my mother, and the pain they bequeathed to me like a family heirloom, handed down from generation to generation. - Tobias Eaton

I close my eyes. I don't expect Four to reassure me, and he makes no effort to, but I feel better standing here than I did out there among the people who are my friends, my faction.

It's not often real that you encounter the real person behind a good-natured mask, the darkest part of someone. It's not comfortable what you do.

Every tattoo I got with them is a mark of their friendship, and almost every time I have laughed in this dark place was because of them. I don’t want to lose them. But I feel like I have already.

Just because they didn’t shoot you all in the head doesn’t mean their intentions were somehow honorable. Why do you think they came here? Just to run through your hallways, knock you conscious, and leave?

I tell myself, as sternly as possible, that is how things work here. We do dangerous things and people die. People die, and we move on to the next dangerous thing. The sooner that lesson sinks in, the better chance I have at surviving initiation.

I ignore my fear,” he says. “When I make decisions, I pretend it doesn’t exist.” I stare at him for a second. I can’t help it. To me there’s a difference between not being afraid and acting in spite of fear, as he does.