Page 120 of The Sixth Fraction

Distracted.

“Interesting technique,” I say, plucking it out of her hand. It’s one of Evelyn’s old messages. I should have destroyed it right when I got it, but . . . sometimes I like to see her handwriting. To remember that she’s really alive.

Not that I’d ever admit that to her.

“Most of the time you just run into someone and then apologize profusely,” she says, grinning. “Nobody suspects the plain-faced girl they collided with on the sidewalk.”

“Plain-faced, huh.” I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Not how I would describe you.”

“You’re alone in that, then.” She shrugs. “It’s why I’m good at this. Pretending to be in other factions. It’s okay, I don’t care anymore.”

“You’re good at pretending to be in other factions because you’re observant,” I say. “I should know, I’ve been on the receiving end of just how observant you are. It’s very unsettling.”

Her smile widens. “That’s what every girl wants to be called. Unsettling.”

“Let me put it a different way.” I lean in and touch my cheek to her temple so I can speak against her skin. “You’re a flame. I’m a moth.”

She grabs the lapels of my jacket and kisses me harder than before. Wind rushes through the car, wraps around both of us. It’s too loud for me to hear anything else, but I feel a sigh humming in her chest as she leans against me.

Wherever we’re going, I hope it’s far away.

But it can’t last. Not when I realize where we’re headed.

The train is picking up speed as we move through the factionless sector of the city, where it doesn’t stop as much. I haven’t been north of the city center in a long time. There’s only one possible destination: Abnegation.

“It’s council meeting day,” I say, my smile fading as I realize why we can go wherever we’re going only on a Monday.

She nods.

“Best day of the week,” I add, more to myself than to her. It was the day Marcus was gone. “My mom used to make pancakes on Mondays.”

“Really?” She looks surprised. “In Abnegation?”

“We lived alone, since he’s the council leader,” I say. “So yeah—on Monday nights, when he was gone, she made pancakes. With jam, if she could get her hands on it. And she’d play music, sometimes, out of an old radio she’d repaired. I never figured out where she hid it when we weren’t using it.”

Tris’s smile is a little sad. “Sounds nice.”

“One day he came home early,” I say, and my throat gets tight, so it’s all I say. I just shake my head, and she moves closer to me, tangling her fingers with mine.

“We’re going to meet with my mother,” she says.

I thought we might. Why else would Tris insist on going on Monday night, when her father will be occupied at the council meeting?

“I decided to defect on my own,” Tris goes on. “I wanted to know why the factionless attacked the Choosing Ceremony, and what they planned to do next. And the only person I knew was involved was Evelyn. So . . .”

She looks up at me, one eyebrow raised, and I swallow a laugh.

“So you tried to get close to her,” I say.

“My mom knew how to contact her, asked her to look out for me. But I don’t trust Evelyn any more than you do. I wanted to tell you that, but I couldn’t risk it. Not until I was more sure.”

We stand there for a while, both of us watching the city pass us by. The moon is shrouded in clouds tonight, and I hear a rumble that means rain might be coming. The buildings shrink and then grow again, and she nods to me. Time to get off.

It’s strange to walk the streets of the Abnegation sector, like a scene out of another person’s life. She knows them even better than I do, leading us in and out of alleyways, steering us around Abnegation headquarters so there’s no risk of running into anyone.

She takes us to Building A, first telling me to look through a high window to make sure there’s no one in the building lobby, and then slipping in and walking right to the stairwell.

“Tenth floor,” she says. “Sorry.”