Page 72 of The Sixth Fraction

Blood spills out of the wound, and I press the gauze against it. Colin digs around in the first aid kit for a painkiller. He finds an automatic injector at the bottom of the box, uncaps it, and stabs Rory in the chest, right next to the wound.

“Sedative,” he says.

Needles are designed to provoke debilitating pain; knocking her out is the only way to spare her from it.

It takes a few seconds for Rory to relax against the table, but she does. Colin sits on the edge of it, breathing hard. His hands are still bloody. The room is silent, and it’s a different kind of silence than I’ve heard in here before. Heavier, somehow.

“Everyone pack up your things,” Jove says, her voice low. “We’re moving tomorrow.”

“We’re not going to the factionless sector, right?” T says. The area that’s designated for the factionless, right next to the Abnegation sector, is where the other factionless go—the ones who don’t want to live in a community like ours. No one in the Rookery wants to go there, where we’ll be closely monitored.

“No.” Jove scowls. “We’ll go to the Museum. They have room for us until we find a new safe house.”

Everyone disperses after that. Some of them go to pack their own possessions; others, to pack the kitchen; others, to gather up all the solar-charging lamps. I leave Colin to watch over Rory and go upstairs to the Mender’s workshop.

It smells different here than in the rest of the Rookery. Like detergent, and wet cotton, and the ginger root the Mender sometimes chews as he works. For a moment I’m overwhelmed by how much fabric there is to pack away. But for once, my experience in the factionless donation center serves me well: I know how to fold clothes.

One rack at a time, I tell myself, and I start with the one closest to the table, so I’ll have a surface to work on.

After a few minutes Christina joins me. We stand across from each other, the table between us, and fold in silence. I expect my mind to be too full, but instead, it’s empty.

Some part of me hoped that Dauntless, the faction I should have chosen, the faction I wanted to choose, would be better than the rest. Instead it’s the faction that exiled Christina while her attacker goes free. It’s the faction that wants to take Mae away from the Mender, and the faction that exiled us from this safe haven just because.

I fold, and fold, and fold.

I came here to find out what Evelyn and the factionless radicals are planning. I didn’t expect to sympathize with them.

It’s late by the time the Mender comes back, Evelyn behind him. He looks destroyed. His eyes swollen and red. His face slack with grief. His shoulders slumped. He walks to the corner of the workshop, where his cot is set up between two clothing racks, and lays down with his back to the room.

Evelyn beckons to me, and I join her at the top of the stairs. Everyone else seems to have gone to bed by now, and most of the lights are off. Evelyn’s face is in shadow except for her stern brow and her nose. I see the resemblance between her and her son again like it’s brand-new.

“Custody hearings are always conducted with a council member present,” Evelyn says. “If I asked you to speak to your mother about this, would you do it?”

I don’t hesitate. “Of course I will.”

4

Factionless

Chapter 24

Caleb

The final initiation test is another labyrinth.

No surprises there. Caleb assumed it would be. He’s been practicing, not the trance of calm fostered by his Abnegation techniques, but a distinct form of meditation taught by Erudite practitioners that centers around observation. He read about it in one of the dozen books he’s devoured over the past few days, and then he sought out instructional videos in the library database while his fellow initiates were playing chess or memory games or designing things with the three-dimensional printers in one of the laboratories.

The beginning of the maze is straightforward. Each split in the path offers a simple question, with two possible answers. Choose the right answer, and you choose the right path. The questions increase in difficulty as he draws closer to the center of the maze.

There he finds the real challenge. The end of the maze is in sight, at the end of a long hallway. All the other initiates are gathered at one end of it, everyone having made it through the labyrinth in roughly the same amount of time. Caleb is glad to see he wasn’t the last one to arrive, for once.

In a heap in front of them, as high as Caleb’s shoulder, are scraps of wood and metal, wires and batteries, wheels and gears, along with tools. It’s not clear to Caleb what they’re for until Anna—who but for her need to know everything probably would have chosen Dauntless—takes a step toward the end of the hallway.

Two huge metal doors slam in front of her, fast and heavy enough to have taken off her nose, if she didn’t jump back in time. She seems to have triggered some kind of defense mechanism from the labyrinth, because several other sets of doors farther down the hallway also close, at irregular intervals. They’re all visible from this vantage point, through the glass walls on either side of the hallway.

The doors keep opening and slamming, sometimes several at once, sometimes only one set. There’s no obvious rhythm to their movement.

The others start grabbing things from the scrap heap and carrying them away from the group to work on them. But Caleb knows better than to let his mind get frantic again. It’s never served him well in the past. Instead he sits on the ground in front of the scrap heap and stares at the doors, taking deep breaths. In through his nose. Out through his mouth. A clear, calm mind is what he needs before he gets started.