Page 57 of The Sixth Fraction

She was talking about herself, I think. She had the singular wisdom of someone who’d already lost everything they were most afraid to lose.

But she was talking about me, too. And her words haunt me.

Caring about them doesn’t mean I owe them a version of myself that isn’t real.

I focus on Hana. Hana, who’s just trying to tell me not to hurt myself, in one way or another. I clear my throat. “Yes, ma’am.”

She smiles. “If you call me that again, I’ll feel so old that I’ll shrivel into a raisin.”

Then she grabs a garlic clove from the counter and raises her eyebrows at me.

I take it from her and return to the cutting board.

Chapter 19

Four

I don’t leave Zeke’s house until late that night, because Zeke insisted on teaching me how to play poker, and he and Uriah won every last bean I was using as currency. I decide to take a shortcut through the Pit on my way home, since it’s likely to be emptier than the streets around the Dauntless compound on Visiting Day.

I’m creeping along the Pit path, sticking to the shadows, when I hear a scream.

I’m running toward it before I even really register it. There’s only one place it could be coming from in this part of the Pit: the initiate barracks.

We posted the rankings earlier, with the first cut coming in a few days. I should have known something bad would happen. I should have stayed close, kept my eye on them—

I shove the door to the barracks open with my shoulder. The light from the emergency lamp at my back spills into the room. At the edge of it is someone writhing on the ground, their screams now more like sobs. Bright red blood is splattered on the ground beneath them.

They take shape. Long legs, bare brown arms, hair in braids. Christina. She’s on her back, her hands clutching at her face. And sticking out of her eye, silver-bright, is the handle of a butter knife.

My heart racing, I rush toward her, then slide to my knees beside her, and touch her shoulder. She screeches and flinches away from me.

“It’s me; it’s Four,” I say.

“Get it out,” she moans. “Get it out!”

“I can’t do that.” I grab her wrists when her hands creep closer to her eye. I keep my grip as gentle as I can and pull her fingers away from her head. “Listen.” I’m the one who needs to calm down; I need to breathe. “Please listen to me.”

Her uninjured eye fixes on mine, tear-filled. There are other initiates all around us; I can feel them, but I don’t look away. There’s blood spilling down the left side of her head, but the knife is holding some of it back. It turns my stomach. I keep my face as neutral as possible.

“You have to leave it,” I say.

“No, no,” she says, through a sob. “I can’t, I need it out—”

“I know, I know.” I squeeze her wrists again. “And we’ll get it out, but we have to get you to the hospital first. I’m gonna go with you. Okay?”

If I had any doubts about Christina’s Dauntless aptitude before now, they’re disappearing by the second, because she only sobs for a few more seconds before she sucks in a breath and says, “Okay.”

“Lynn!” I call out.

“Here,” she replies, from somewhere on my right. She steps out of the darkness. She’s wearing an oversized black T-shirt, and her legs are bare. She looks pale but steady enough.

“Go get Shauna,” I say. “Put on some shoes first. Al—”

I look around and spot him on the far wall, his hands curled into his chest like a rat’s, his face wet with tears.

“Never mind,” I say. “Will?”

Will is standing near the door, his hair piled on one side of his head, looking dazed. “Want me to tell Eric?”