Four: A Divergent Collection (Divergent Series Story)

by Veronica Roth

“Rule number one for not being creepy,” she says. “Announce your presence in a room if another person doesn’t see you come in.”

I’m not used to using Dauntless slang, but it feels good to claim it as my own, to let myself relax into their rhythms of speech.

I know why it doesn’t feel like a game—because for so long, it was my reality, it was my waking and my sleeping.

one thing I haven’t learned, won’t let myself learn, is how to enjoy causing someone else pain. If I’m going to become Dauntless, I’m going to do it on my terms, even if that means that a part of me will always be a Stiff.

“How to Be Dauntless: An Introductory Course,” she says. “Lesson one: It’s okay to hug your friends here.” “We’re friends?” I say, only halfway joking.

“You know, I’m getting kind of bored of them, you might try to show me something new.” “I’ll work on it,” I say.

“You were in there for five minutes,” Amar says.

the image of my warped father trying to claw my eyes out keeps flashing in my mind, causing my heart rate to spike again and again.

“It wasn’t a request,”

I think I see something—movement—on my left, and I flinch away from it, pulling back against the wall. Amar stops me, putting his hands on my shoulders so I have to look at his face. “Hey,” he says. “Get it together, Four.”

At the time, I thought that he would never speak that way unless he was worried about me. Worried for my safety.

“Well, next time, try not to do anything impossible, all right? Just face your fear in a logical way, a way that would always make sense to you whether you were aware or not.”

It feels strange, to know that he must have been trying to protect me. Like he’s not quite the monster I imagine, the one I see in my worst nightmares.

Dude, even if he cared a little bit, that doesn't compensate for the years of torture

“I won!” she says. “I did what you said—got her right in the jaw within the first sixty seconds, and it totally threw her off her game. She still hit me in the eye because I let my guard down, but after that I pummeled her. She has a bloody nose. It was awesome.”

I’m surprised by how satisfying it is, to teach someone how to do something and then to hear that it actually worked.

I feel my father’s fingers clamped around my arm, hear his hissing voice, warning me not to do anything strange in my aptitude test simulation. I feel tingling in my palms, the sign that I’m about to panic. I can’t speak,

The Erudite woman who taught me how to take apart a computer when I was volunteering in the computer labs at school wasn’t greedy or vain; maybe Jeanine Matthews isn’t, either.

Sure...

She knows my name, she knows my father, and if she’s seen one of my fear simulations, she knows some of the darkest parts of me, too.

She sounds almost . . . gentle.

Little do you know

“An initiate came forward to express his concerns for your and Tobias’s well-being,”

FUCKING ERIC. Evrything could have been okay, but he had to ruin it AGAIN

I grind my teeth, I jump at small noises, my hands go numb without warning. I worry that I will go insane before initiation is done.

“Amar,” he says, a little breathless. “Amar is . . .” He shakes his head. “Amar is dead.”

I don’t carry Amar’s loss like that. I find myself feeling it every now and then, when I remember how he gave me my name, how he protected me when he didn’t even know me. But most of the time I just feel angry.

I went into the examination thinking I didn’t care anymore, not about passing, not about doing well, not about being Dauntless. But Tori’s thumbs-up makes me swell with pride, and I let myself smile a little when I walk out.

“What do you want me to say? Yes, you were awesome. Yes, you’re the best Dauntless ever. Happy?”

I may not understand Dauntless affection, but apparently I know flirtation when I see it. I smirk.

6. Zeke 7. Ash 8. Shauna

panic stabs me for just a second when I can’t find my own name. But then, there it is, right at the top. 1. Four

I am not Tobias Eaton, not anymore, never again. I am Dauntless.

She looks almost like my mother. And then she’s gone, gone with the train.

I think I just don’t like when I’m not given a choice.

if I become a Dauntless leader, a representative of my faction, I’ll have to come face-to-face with my father again. And not just once but constantly, until he finally retires into Abnegation obscurity.

“Not anymore,” he says. “You’re coming with me on a date.” I choke on my next bite of potatoes. “What?”

DUDE, WHAT THE HELLLL. What about Shauna!?!?!?

“Oh, nothing,” Uriah says cheerfully. “You were just sounding Stiffer than usual, so I thought I would check—”

“You’ll go, you’ll talk to her like she’s a normal human being—which she is—maybe she’ll let you—gasp—hold her hand—”

I’m not sure bravery is something you acquire more of with age, like wisdom—but maybe here, in Dauntless, bravery is the highest form of wisdom, the acknowledgment that life can and should be lived without fear.

“The first thing you’ll do is fill out this info sheet,”

Dont know why but that was just so funny, like of everything they could have chosen, an info sheet. Like bruh, lmao

“Um, yeah,” I say. “I wasn’t sure if you were my type, but I thought maybe—”

Way to go dude

“What’d you last, ten minutes?” “Five,” I say, and I find myself laughing, too. “Apparently I’m insensitive.” “No,” she says with mock surprise. “You? But you’re so sentimental and sweet!”

Godddd, I love this friendship sooooo much

Looking for code errors is strangely soothing, just a way of making sure that the world is still in the same order it’s supposed to be, and as long as it is, everything will run smoothly.

Its amazing how much I empathize with Tobias, like we have so many thing in common!!!!!

“Wait,” I say. “Weren’t you about to explain what a screen was? Obviously I have no computer skills at all, so I really need your help.”

On the day you hated most At the time when she died In the place where you first jumped on.

I never knew that Marcus even noticed me, noticed the things I liked or hated. He just seemed to view me as an inconvenience, an irritant.

Maybe, despite all the horrible things he’s done and said to me, there’s a part of him that is actually my father. Maybe that’s the part of him that’s inviting me to this meeting, and he’s trying to show me by telling me he knows me, he knows what I hate, what I love, what I fear.

How I wish that's what it is

“You thought that Marcus Eaton would admit that his wife left him. To me.”

“I would be angry, too. But Tobias, I had to leave, I know you understand why. . . .”

Yeah, and the why you left is the reason u shouldn't have left him bitch

“What I understand is that you left me alone in a house with a sadistic maniac,” I say.

maybe that’s why I chose Dauntless as a haven. Not out of spite, not to hurt Marcus, but because I knew this life would teach me a stronger way to be.

“You know which one I’d rather be on. Really,” I say. “I’m not a faction traitor. I chose Dauntless; that’s where I belong.”