Page 90 of The Sixth Fraction

Her hand tightens around my shirt, and I realize I’ve never seen her this worried—or this angry. There’s a dark look in her eyes when she pulls away. I wonder for the first time if my parents are happy together. If they love each other. Or if the departure of both me and Caleb has revealed a fissure in their relationship that will never be bridged.

“I’m so proud of you,” she says fiercely. “My Dauntless girl.”

I smile, but that word, “Dauntless,” doesn’t feel like the same badge of honor that it would have a month ago. Now, Dauntless isn’t just the faction I should have chosen—it’s the faction that raided my new home and took Mae from the Mender. It’s the faction that kicked Christina out because she was attacked. It’s the faction I run away from when I see them in the street, hoping they won’t detain me just for being factionless.

Still, I know what she means by it.

It’s getting dark, but I can see the fatigue in my mother’s eyes, the worry lines around her mouth.

“What is it?” I ask her.

“I need your help.”

I feel the same strangeness I felt the last time I spoke to her, like she was suddenly talking to me as an adult instead of her daughter. I remember thinking then that I might owe her a favor for helping me with the hearing. And right now, it feels almost like she’s collecting.

Suddenly I’m not quite sure who I’m talking to, my mother or Natalie Prior, a woman I’ve only gotten glimpses of before now. “With what?”

“I’d like you to get a message to your brother. I tried to tell him myself, on Visiting Day, but I was refused entry to Erudite headquarters. One of Jeanine Matthews’s new mandates.”

I scowl. At this point, I’m not surprised by Erudite’s cruelty toward Abnegation, but I hate it all the same.

“What message?” I say.

“I want to ask him to look for a pattern—to compare aptitude test results to faction transfers,” she says. “Aptitude test results are only accessible from within Erudite, so I can’t get that information for myself. And I need to confirm a theory.”

“A theory.”

“I don’t want to bias you before I have data to support it,” she says.

I stare at her. My mother—no, Natalie Prior—has theories. And a research agenda. She’s even talking a little differently. Louder, like she wants to make sure she’s heard. Sharper, like it’s no longer important to be gentle.

“I’ll need to give him a reason,” I say slowly.

“No, I would have had to give him a reason. You won’t. All you need to do is ask for his help.” She touches my cheek, and just like that, my mother is back. Soft and kind. “Trust me.”

I think of what Four accused me of, before. Being his mother’s “errand girl.” A good factionless soldier who worships Evelyn, like all the rest. I couldn’t explain to him how wrong he was, at the time, without revealing too much about what I’m really doing.

But for the first time since I left Abnegation, I do feel like an errand girl. Just not Evelyn’s.

The thought makes something twist inside me. I don’t like thinking of my mother that way. But then I think of Robert, and Susan, and the dead factionless woman on the floor of the Hall of Factions. My mother wants answers for them the same way I do.

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll do my best. But I have to go—I have something to do before it gets too dark.”

She nods. Gives me another careful hug. I start to walk away, and she calls out, “You seem older.”

I look back. She’s smiling again, but this time, her smile is a little sad.

An hour later I’m standing beneath the Ferris wheel, staring up at the still-intact Fox banner.

It happens sometimes, Rory told me, when she visited me in the Conservatory. Not all the Fox banners are found, and they stay where they are for a week or so before the Foxes take them down. So there’s still time.

The problem is, I can’t climb in this condition. I only have one arm, for one thing, and I doubt my lungs would cooperate, for another.

The banner dangles overhead, green and tempting. I was so close to it the other night. I chose Christina and my father instead.

My father, who I couldn’t even stand to speak to, when it came down to it.

Why didn’t you choose Dauntless? Four asked me, that night, and I was surprised—surprised that he actually saw me for what I am, instead of the small Abnegation girl everyone else seems to see.