LITMIR.BIZ

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a Stiff,” says Eric, smirking at me. His smile pulls at the piercings in his lips, making the holes they occupy wider, and I wince. “We’ll see how long you last.”

      I mean to say something—to assure him that I will last, maybe—but words fail me. I don’t understand why, but I don’t want Eric to look at me any longer than he already has. I don’t want him to look at me ever again.

      He taps his fingers against the table. His knuckles are scabbed over, right where they would split if he punched something too hard.

      “What have you been doing lately, Four?” he asks.

      Four lifts a shoulder. “Nothing, really,” he says.

      Are they friends? My eyes flick between Eric and Four. Everything Eric did—sitting here, asking about Four—suggests that they are, but the way Four sits, tense as pulled wire, suggests they are something else. Rivals, maybe, but how could that be, if Eric is a leader and Four is not?

      “Max tells me he keeps trying to meet with you, and you don’t show up,” Eric says. “He requested that I find out what’s going on with you.”

      Four looks at Eric for a few seconds before saying, “Tell him that I am satisfied with the position I currently hold.”

      “So he wants to give you a job.”

      The rings in Eric’s eyebrow catch the light. Maybe Eric perceives Four as a potential threat to his position. My father says that those who want power and get it live in terror of losing it. That’s why we have to give power to those who do not want it.

      “So it would seem,” Four says.

      “And you aren’t interested.”

      “I haven’t been interested for two years.”

      “Well,” says Eric. “Let’s hope he gets the point, then.”

      He claps Four on the shoulder, a little too hard, and gets up. When he walks away, I slouch immediately. I had not realized that I was so tense.

      “Are you two…friends?” I say, unable to contain my curiosity.

      “We were in the same initiate class,” he says. “He transferred from Erudite.”

      All thoughts of being careful around Four leave me. “Were you a transfer too?”

      “I thought I would only have trouble with the Candor asking too many questions,” he says coldly. “Now I’ve got Stiffs, too?”

      “It must be because you’re so approachable,” I say flatly. “You know. Like a bed of nails.”

      He stares at me, and I don’t look away. He isn’t a dog, but the same rules apply. Looking away is submissive. Looking him in the eye is a challenge. It’s my choice.

      Heat rushes into my cheeks. What will happen when this tension breaks?

      But he just says, “Careful, Tris.”

      My stomach drops like I just swallowed a stone. A Dauntless member at another table calls out Four’s name, and I turn to Christina. She raises both eyebrows.

      “What?” I ask.

      “I’m developing a theory.”

      “And it is?”

      She picks up her hamburger, grins, and says, “That you have a death wish.”

      After dinner, Four disappears without a word. Eric leads us down a series of hallways without telling us where we’re going. I don’t know why a Dauntless leader would be responsible for a group of initiates, but maybe it is just for tonight.

      At the end of each hallway is a blue lamp, but between them it’s dark, and I have to be careful not to stumble over uneven ground. Christina walks beside me in silence. No one told us to be quiet, but none of us speak.

      Eric stops in front of a wooden door and folds his arms. We gather around him.

      “For those of you who don’t know, my name is Eric,” he says. “I am one of five leaders of the Dauntless. We take the initiation process very seriously here, so I volunteered to oversee most of your training.”

      The thought makes me nauseous. The idea that a Dauntless leader will oversee our initiation is bad enough, but the fact that it’s Eric makes it seem even worse.

      “Some ground rules,” he says. “You have to be in the training room by eight o’clock every day. Training takes place every day from eight to six, with a break for lunch. You are free to do whatever you like after six. You will also get some time off between each stage of initiation.”

      The phrase “do whatever you like” sticks in my mind. At home, I could never do what I wanted, not even for an evening. I had to think of other people’s needs first. I don’t even know what I like to do.

      “You are only permitted to leave the compound when accompanied by a Dauntless,” Eric adds. “Behind this door is the room where you will be sleeping for the next few weeks. You will notice that there are ten beds and only nine of you. We anticipated that a higher proportion of you would make it this far.”

      “But we started with twelve,” protests Christina. I close my eyes and wait for the reprimand. She needs to learn to stay quiet.

      “There is always at least one transfer who doesn’t make it to the compound,” says Eric, picking at his cuticles. He shrugs. “Anyway, in the first stage of initiation, we keep transfers and Dauntless-born initiates separate, but that doesn’t mean you are evaluated separately. At the end of initiation, your rankings will be determined in comparison with the Dauntless-born initiates. And they are better than you are already. So I expect—”

      “Rankings?” asks the mousy-haired Erudite girl to my right. “Why are we ranked?”

      Eric smiles, and in the blue light, his smile looks wicked, like it was cut into his face with a knife.

      “Your ranking serves two purposes,” he says. “The first is that it determines the order in which you will select a job after initiation. There are only a few desirable positions available.”

      My stomach tightens. I know by looking at his smile, like I knew the second I entered the aptitude test room, that something bad is about to happen.

      “The second purpose,” he says, “is that only the top ten initiates are made members.”

      Pain stabs my stomach. We all stand still as statues. And then Christina says, “What?”

      “There are eleven Dauntless-borns, and nine of you,” Eric continues. “Four initiates will be cut at the end of stage one. The remainder will be cut after the final test.”

      That means that even if we make it through each stage of initiation, six initiates will not be members. I see Christina look at me from the corner of my eye, but I can’t look back at her. My eyes are fixed on Eric and will not move.

      My odds, as the smallest initiate, as the only Abnegation transfer, are not good.

      “What do we do if we’re cut?” Peter says.

      “You leave the Dauntless compound,” says Eric indifferently, “and live factionless.”

      The mousy-haired girl clamps her hand over her mouth and stifles a sob. I remember the factionless man with the gray teeth, snatching the bag of apples from my hands. His dull, staring eyes. But instead of crying, like the Erudite girl, I feel colder. Harder.

      I will be a member. I will.

      “But that’s…not fair!” the broad-shouldered Candor girl, Molly, says. Even though she sounds angry, she looks terrified. “If we had known—”

      “Are you saying that if you had known this before the Choosing Ceremony, you wouldn’t have chosen Dauntless?” Eric snaps. “Because if that’s the case, you should get out now. If you

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