What is wrong with you?' I shake my head. 'Pull it together.' And that's what it feels like: pulling the different parts of me up and in like a shoelace. I feel suffocated, but at least I feel strong.

But when I do feel all the strength go out of me, and I fall to my knees beside the table and I think I cry, then, or at least I want to, and everything inside me screams for just one more kiss, one more word, one more glance, one more.

He stares at me, and I don't look away. He isn't a dog, but the same rules apply. Looking away is submissive. Looking him in the eye is a challenge. It's my choice.

Well, half of half our faction.' 'In some circles they call that a quarter, Mar,' Lynn says.

I want to cry because something terrible happened, and I saw it, and I could not see a way to mend it.

Whoa there, Tobias," says the man to my left. "Weren't you raised a Stiff? I thought the most you people did was... graze hands or something." "Then how do you explain all the Abnegation children?" Tobias raises his eyebrows. "They are brought into being by sheer force of will," the woman on the arm of the chair interjects. "Didn't you know that, Tobias?" "No, I wasn't aware." He grins. "My apologies.

I kiss him as the train slides into unlit, uncertain land. I kiss him for as long as I want, for longer than I should, given that my brother sits three feet away from me.