Page 127 of The Sixth Fraction

I grab the bottle by the neck. “I . . . learned how babies were made from a book.”

“God, really?” Rory says. “What book?”

I tip a small sip of the liquor into my mouth. It tastes like heat, like glue, and a little like apples. My throat burns as I swallow, but it’s not as bad as I was expecting.

“My brother stole it from the school library, and we read it together,” I say. “Believe me, we didn’t know how bad an idea that was until it was too late to go back. I’m not sure when Abnegation members learn about it, but it’s not at age ten, from a textbook.”

Colin takes the bottle from me, and drinks. I raise my eyebrows at him.

“My father is the health instructor,” he says. “He had all kinds of materials lying around our house, and I was a curious child.”

“By both definitions of the word ‘curious,’ ” Rory says.

Christina seizes the bottle by the neck and declares, “I . . . made out with a Dauntless boy.”

She drinks. Heat rushes into my cheeks. Before the rest of them can see it and tease me for blushing, I sigh, and reach for the bottle.

Everyone stares.

“Um,” Rory says. “What?”

“Who?” Christina says. Then she pauses. “Wait. No way.”

I take the bottle from her and sip again. This time I’m ready for the burn.

“No way,” Christina says again. “Four?”

“Four? You mean your ex-instructor Four?” Colin says. “The guy who took that gun right out of Jove’s hands, that Four?”

“You don’t have to sound quite this shocked,” I say.

Christina says, “I mean, he’s terrifying.”

“And beautiful,” Colin says. “But the beauty sort of increases the terrifyingness.”

I think of Tobias taking the gun, capable and confident. And Tobias in the tattoo parlor, the black ink stark against his skin. And Tobias lifting me up with one arm so he could kiss me harder.

I feel warm, suddenly, despite the cooling air.

If he’s terrifying, it’s in the best way possible.

“That good, huh?” Rory says.

I don’t respond. Instead I think of what my mother whispered in my ear, right before I left her apartment. I like him. He knows you.

Colin laughs and declares the game complete. Christina, though, gives me a soft smile.

After dinner we climb up the ladder to the roof.

We stand at the very edge of it, and I think of him again, facing his fears over and over by standing on this same building. Try as I might, I can’t summon the terror it makes him feel. All I feel, with the sun setting at my back, the whole city stretched out before me, is wonder.

All of it belongs to me now. That’s what Rory said about the Foxes once: that they were free, that the city was theirs. But it’s true of all factionless. If the city is a buffet table of beautiful places, the factionless keep going back for second helpings. The factions stay in their sectors, in their headquarters, wrapped up in their own little worlds. But we go where we please. We know how everything works.

We, I think. I wanted to belong to Dauntless, before I really knew what that meant. And then I wanted to belong to Abnegation, wanted it so badly I convinced myself I could be something I’m not. But now, with the wind dancing over my skin, I realize I haven’t given any part of myself away. I’m the whole me, and I’m free, and I belong because I’ve carved out a place for myself instead of waiting for someone else to let me into one.

And maybe I came to the Rookery with ulterior motives. But since then, I’ve learned that not all the factionless are extreme. Not all of them want to burn everything down. Some of them just want to live their own lives, apart from the people who told them they had failed.

And I’m one of them. No matter what brought me to them, or what I do next, I belong with them now.