Page 126 of The Sixth Fraction

The bottle reaches me, and I contemplate it. No one drinks in Abnegation. I’ve never thought about it before. I set the bottle down in the middle of the circle.

“I propose a game,” Colin says. “A game our ex-Candor friend knows well, I’m sure.”

Christina rolls her eye. “You don’t want to play confessions.”

“Don’t I?” Colin raises his eyebrows. “Why not?”

“Because it’s for children?”

“Not when there’s alcohol involved,” he says, tapping the bottle with his fingertips. “That makes it a game for grown-ups.”

“Ah yes, adulthood,” Rory says. “Well known to be defined by unwisely partaking in mind-altering substances while one hundred stories above the ground.”

“One round, that’s all I ask,” Colin says.

“How does it work?” Rory says.

“Each one of us says something we’ve done,” Christina says. “And if the others have also done it, they have to drink. When you play it as a kid, you have to make some kind of disgusting concoction beforehand for everyone to drink.” She pauses. “I’m just now realizing this game was actually made for adults and alcohol.”

“See?” Colin looks smug. “I’ll go first.”

He takes the bottle from Christina and pops the cork out of it. Then he sets it in the middle of our little circle and says, “I . . . failed out of faction initiation.”

Everyone groans. Colin drinks first, and then passes the bottle to Christina, who makes a face at him before tipping some of the liquor into her mouth. She offers it to Rory, who swallows some, too, and then passes it to me. I shake my head.

“You can’t fail Abnegation initiation,” I say. “I defected.”

“God, I forgot,” Colin says. “Fine! You escaped this time. Next?”

Rory takes the bottle and sets it in the middle. She contemplates it for a moment, and then says, “I . . . have punched someone in the face.”

“I’m going to be drunk by the end of this, aren’t I?” Christina grumbles, as she grabs the bottle from Rory.

“Who did you punch?” Colin says, laughing.

“And how many times?” I ask.

“A boy so horrible I don’t dare speak his name, lest it summon him from hell,” Rory says. “And I . . . don’t know how many times I punched him. I sort of lost track.”

“Consider that you might have an anger problem,” Colin says.

“What did they do to you?” Christina says, looking impressed. “The guy you punched, I mean.”

“Nice of you to assume he deserved it, thank you, Christina,” Rory says, glaring at Colin. “The bloated sack of crap in question was my sister’s boyfriend. He’d cheated on her, and that was bad enough, but then he started telling people at school about her. Things she liked to do, I mean.” Rory’s mouth twists into a sneer. “He made a comment the third day of initiation, and I just . . . lost it. On the plus side, though, I’m pretty sure he can’t do some of those things he was talking about anymore. On the minus side, my life was ruined.”

She drinks from the bottle.

“I shouldn’t have chosen Amity, anyway,” she says. “Definitely not cut out for it.”

“Why did you, then?” I ask.

“No offense, but the rest of your factions just sounded like a nightmare,” she says. “You’re telling me that the alternative to picking apples and playing music is getting the shit kicked out of me—” She points at Christina.

“A life of quiet embroidery—” She points at me.

“Or competing against other smug assholes in a game of who knows the most about some obscure thing?” She points at Colin. “And Candor? Don’t even get me started. Secrets are what keep us from hating each other.”

“Erudite is not that bad,” Colin says.