Page 37 of The Sixth Fraction

“You can’t start him off with spice,” Shauna says seriously. “You have to start with something like vinegar and then move on to garlic and then you can try spice. Maybe. Possibly.”

I sigh. “Weren’t we talking about Eric? I’d like to go back to talking about Eric.”

“We were coming up with his backstory. Oh, I know!” Shauna sits up. “Eric was born a slimy little worm that burrowed under the skin of a real boy, and now he’s still wearing its body like a costume.”

Zeke, who’s just bitten into an apple, makes a face. “That’s so gross.”

“No, no,” I say, laughing. “Eric is a vampire, but instead of drinking human blood, he feasts on our joy.”

“You’re both wrong,” Zeke says. “He’s obviously a powerful wizard whose ability to cause misery increases with each piercing he gets, and the only way to defeat him is to melt them all down into a dagger and stab him through the heart.”

“No one’s stabbing Eric,” I say.

“Why not?” Shauna asks, with a pout.

“It would be way too messy.”

“Good point.”

I lean back in my chair, grinning. My apartment is in one of the Dauntless outbuildings, too far from the bustle of headquarters for most people. I chose it for its light, which is now burnt gold, slanting through the multipaned windows.

Shauna’s still in her paramedic uniform, a black jumpsuit with electric green trim—for spotting her in the dark. Zeke’s not in his wall guard uniform, since it’s his off day. His jeans are torn in places and way too loose for him.

“I,” Shauna declares, “am thirsty.”

She hops off my bed and walks into the kitchen. As she passes Zeke, her fingers tangle with his, and she keeps them there as she reaches into the cabinet over my kitchen sink.

A piece of paper falls out.

“What’s this?” she asks, picking it up off the floor.

I cross the room as slowly as I can manage. I don’t want her to think I’m as alarmed as I suddenly feel, like everything inside me is lurching, leaping.

“ ‘Last train, where and when we last met,’ ” she reads. “ ‘On the safest day.’ ”

She frowns, and holds it out to me.

I don’t need to look at it to know whose handwriting it is. Thin and slanted. Gentle cursive.

“Ever wake up from a dream and write it down right away so you don’t forget it?” I say. “Well, sometimes when you reread it later, it doesn’t make any sense.”

I crumple the note and shove it in my pocket.

“And then you . . . put it in your kitchen cabinet?” she says.

I make myself laugh. “Must have been half asleep.”

She’s not quite convinced, but I’m sure as hell not going to tell her the truth: That note is from the factionless.

And they’re trying to recruit me.

Chapter 15

Tris

After we get off the train, Evelyn takes us to an abandoned church. It’s dark, so dark I can hardly see where I’m walking. The floors are buckling in the center, so Evelyn tells me to keep to the edges. I jump when I see movement in front of me—what I thought was just a pile of rags is a man sleeping on a pew, using a bundle of clothes as a pillow.

“Here.” Evelyn rummages in the bag my mother gave me and takes out a can of soup. She uses the knife at her hip to carve the lid open, then sips it, cold, her lips right up against the jagged metal.