The Traitor (Divergent, #0.4)

by Veronica Roth

another thing I’ve discovered is that the Dauntless are always up for a prank, and rarely looking for a lie.

For some reason, my first thought is her, her wide eyes staring at me from the recesses of my memory.

I have to suppress a sigh of relief. It’s not her. Nothing happened to her.

at this moment, I am terrified that Max knows about them. Knows what they mean, which is that I am not a perfect Dauntless member; I am someone who believes that more than one virtue should be prized; I am Divergent.

The setting Tris Prior invents is eerie and almost beautiful, the sky yellow-green, yellow grass stretching for miles in every direction.

I don’t feel right about forcing other people to be vulnerable, even if I don’t like them.

The sound of her scream is the worst sound in the world, desperate—she’s desperate for help and I am desperate to help her, though I know what I’m seeing isn’t real, I know it.

She screams for help and I can’t help her and I don’t want to watch this, I don’t want to watch another second.

I reach out to touch her shoulder, to reassure her, and she hits my arm, hard. “Don’t touch me!”

How is it possible to live the same story twice, from different vantage points?

But Tris earned my respect when she jumped first, into the net; when she challenged me at her first meal; when she wasn’t deterred by my unpleasant responses to questions; when she spoke up for Al and stared me right in the eye as I threw knives at her. She’s not my subordinate, couldn’t possibly be.

“That isn’t overcoming cowardice! Cowardice is how you decide to be in real life, and in real life, I am not getting pecked to death by crows, Four!”

She’s not learning the lessons Eric wants her to learn. She’s learning different things, wiser ones.

I’m hard on her because I know she can handle it. And also because I don’t know any other way to be.

Whatever you are, you’re not a failure.”

When I’m around her I can’t control what I say the way I do around other people. I say vague things because that’s as close as I can get to stopping myself from saying anything, my mind addled by the feeling of her body through her shirt.

But becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it, that’s the point.”

Abnegation would have stifled the spark in her until it died out. Dauntless, for all its faults, has kindled the spark into a flame.

She’s stronger than I was.

I can imagine only one thing that would require the Dauntless to have so many weapons: an attack. But on who?

I surface from the simulation with a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

She cracked the glass. She’s Divergent. She’s in danger.

adopting an almost-convincing aura of casualness.

“I’m just not used to you caring. It’s a little disarming.”

“You knew they were planning something like this, and have been for a while. You’re waiting for it. Counting on it.” “I have no lingering affection for my former faction. I don’t want them, or any faction, to continue to control this city and the people in it,” Evelyn says. “If someone wants to take out my enemies for me, I’m going to let them.”

I shouldn’t be so surprised to find that a faction is full of liars, but I guess there are parts of me that are still naive, still like a child.

This girl would never want to be tucked safely in the middle of the pack, never.

“You belong here, you know that?” I say. “You belong with us. It’ll be over soon, so . . . just hold on, okay?”

Then she slips her fingers between mine, and I stare at her, startled. I squeeze her hand, lightly, and it registers through my turmoil and my exhaustion that though I’ve touched her half a dozen times—each one a lapse in judgment—this is the first time she’s ever done it back.

As I walk across the lobby, I hear a scream coming from below, coming from the Pit. It’s not a good-natured Dauntless shout, or the shriek of someone who is scared but delighted, or anything but the particular tone, the particular pitch of terror.

“My hands,” I say irritably, “are none of your concern.”

I shouldn’t let her see this side of me, the side that derives savage pleasure from Drew’s pain. I shouldn’t have this side.

I look down at her. She has that side, too, she must have it.

Maybe she and I are the same.

I need to talk to someone. I need to trust someone. And for whatever reason, I know, I know it’s her. I’ll have to start by telling her my name.

“An eye for an eye. A bruise for a bruise.”

You see, in Dauntless, reputations tend to stick.”

I know one thing: after this year’s initiation is done, Eric won’t need to try so hard to oust me from this position. I’m already gone.

Dead people can be our heroes because they can’t disappoint us later; they only improve over time, as we forget more and more about them.

“Can’t pay respect when you don’t have any.”

“Careful, Tris,”

“I’m not going to say this again, so listen carefully.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “They are watching you. You, in particular.”

“And . . . it’s when you’re acting selflessly that you are at your bravest. And if I were you, I would do a better job of pretending that selfless impulse is going away, because if the wrong people discover it . . . well, it won’t be good for you.”

“You think my first instinct is to protect you.” I shift so I’m a little closer to her. “Because you’re small, or a girl, or a Stiff. But you’re wrong.” Even closer. I touch her chin, and for a moment I think about closing this gap completely. “My first instinct is to push you until you break, just to see how hard I have to press,” I

“Fear doesn’t shut you down,” I say. “It wakes you up. I’ve seen it. It’s fascinating.”

“But we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time.”

I don’t want to be close to her anymore; it’s all I want to do. I want to kiss her; now is not the time.

If I warn them, if I don’t, I’m a traitor either way, to one thing or another. So if loyalty is impossible, what do I strive for instead?

“You would let me see that?” I can’t quite look at her. “Why else do you think I’m going in?” My stomach hurts even worse. “There are some things I want to show you.”

“See if you can figure out why they call me Four.”