I breathe in. The water will wash my wounds clean. I breathe out. My mother submerged me in water when I was a baby, to give me to God. It has been a long time since I thought about God, but I think about him now. It is only natural. I am glad, suddenly, that I shot Eric in the foot instead of the head.

I guess I always knew there was something wrong with me, but I thought it was because of my father, or my mother, and the pain they bequeathed to me like a family heirloom, handed down from generation to generation. - Tobias Eaton

But that wasn´t the first time I ever saw her. I saw her in the hallways at school, and at my mother’s false funeral, and walking the sidewalks in the Abnegation sector. I saw her, but I didn’t see her; no one saw her the way she truly was until she jumped. I suppose a fire that burns that bright is not meant to last.

feel Tobias brushing my hair back before the first simulation. I hear him telling me to be brave. I hear my mother telling me to be brave(...) I am brave.

At home I used to spend calm, pleasant nights with my family. My mother knit scarves for the neighborhood kids. My father helped Caleb with his homework. There was a fire in the fireplace and peace in my heart, as I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, and everything was quiet. I have never been carried around by a large boy, or laughed until my stomach hurt at the dinner table, or listened to the clamor of a hundred people all talking at once. Peace is restrained; this is free.

But I killed a man just like my mother did. David says it’s okay because I didn’t mean to, and because he was about to kill that little kid. But I’m pretty sure my mom didn’t mean to kill my dad, either, so what difference does that make, meaning or not meaning to do something? Accident or on purpose, the result is the same, and that’s one fewer life than there should be in the world.

I was angry with him before. I’m not really sure why. Maybe I was just angry that the world had become such a complicated place, that I have never known even a fraction of the truth about it. Or that I allowed myself to grieve for someone who was never really gone, the same way I grieved for my mother all the years I thought she was dead. Tricking someone into grief is one of the cruelest tricks a person can play, and it’s been played on me twice.

She has been to the compound before. She remembered this hallway. She knows about the initiation process. My mother was Dauntless.

I feel a thread tugging me again, but this time I know that it isn’t some sinister force dragging me toward death. This time I know it’s my mother's hand, drawing me into her arms. And I go gladly into her embrace.

Or maybe we'll make a home somewhere inside ourselves, to carry with us wherever we go- which is the way I carry my mother now.

Color fills her cheeks, and I think it again: that Johanna Reyes might still be beautiful. Except now I think that she isn't just beautiful in spite of the scar, she's somehow beautiful with it, like Lynn with her buzzed hair, like Tobias with the memories of his father's cruelty that he wears like armor, like my mother in her plain gray clothing.

When I look at him, I don't see the cowardly young man who sold me out to Jeanine Matthews, and i don't hear the excuses he gave afterward. When I look at him, I see the boy who held my hand in the hospital when our mother broke her wrist and told me it would be all right. I see the brother who told me to make my own choices, the night before the Choosing Ceremony. I think of all the remarkable things he is--smart and enthusiastic and observant, quiet and earnest and kind.

You are far less likely to soil your pants and cry for your mother if you’re prepared to defend yourself.

To live factionless Is not just to live in poverty and discomfort; it is to live divorced from society, separated from the most important thing in life: community. My mother once told me that we can’t survive alone,but even if we could, we wouldn’t want to. Without a faction, we have no purpose and no reason to live.

I feel like what I have become is halfway between my mother and my father, violent and impulsive and desperate and afraid. I feel like I have lost control of what I have become.

Hearing him talk about his mother, about his intact family, makes my chest hurt for a second, like someone pierced it with a needle.

My mother told me once that we can't survive alone, but even if we could, we wouldn't want to. Without a faction we have no purpose and no reason to live.

Four: Be brave Tris. The first time is always the hardest.

And is it selfish of me to crave victory, or is it brave?

I am selfish. I am brave.

Sometimes it isn't fighting that's brave, its facing the death you know is coming.

It's easy to be brave when they're not my fears.

I open the door to the fear landscape room and flip open the small black box that was in my back pocket to see the syringes inside. This is the box I have always used, padded around the needles; it is a sign of something sick inside me, or something brave.

Don't pretend", I say Breathily. "You know I'm not. I'm not ugly, but I am certainly not pretty." "Fine. You're not pretty. So?" He kisses my cheek. "I like how you look. You're deadly smart. You're brave.

Be brave, Beatrice. I love you.

And he’s right to say that every faction loses something when it gains a virtue: the Dauntless, brave but cruel; the Erudite, intelligent but vain; the Amity, peaceful but passive; the Candor, honest but inconsiderate; the Abnegation, selfless but stifling.

Being selfless is not that different from being brave. It is when you are selfless that you are the bravest.

I am proud. It will get me into trouble someday, but today it makes me brave

I am no longer Tris, the selfless, or Tris, the brave. I suppose that now, I must become more than either.

Dauntless: being brave in the midst of fear.

I want to be brave, and selfless, and smart, and kind, and honest.

I'll say it one last time: Be brave.

Courageous? Courageous would have been admitting weakness and leaving Dauntless, no matter what shame accompanied it. Pride is what killed Al, and it is the flaw in every Dauntless heart. It is in mine.

My heart beats so hard it hurts, and I can't scream and I can't breathe, but I also feel everything, every vein and every fiber, every bone and every nerve, all awake and buzzing in my body as if charged with electricity. I am pure adrenaline.

I hear my heartbeat. I have been looking at him too long, but then, he has been looking back, and I feel like we are both trying to say something the other can't hear, though I could be imagining it. Too long - and now even longer, my heart even louder, his tranquil eyes swallowing me whole.

Arrogance is one of the flaws in the Erudite heart -- I know. It is often in mine.

Peter leans forward and looks into my eyes. "The serum will go into effect in one minute," he says. "Be brave, Tris." My heart begins to race. Why would Peter tell me to be brave? Why would he offer any kind words at all?

But I understand now what Tori said about her tattoo representing a fear she overcame-a reminder of where she was, as well as a reminder of who she is now. Maybe there is a way to honor my old life as I embrace my new one. "yes," I say. "Three of these flying birds." I touch my collarbone, marking the path of their flight-toward my heart. One for each member of the family I left behind.

For God's sake, Stiff," he says. "You don't have to follow me," I say staring at the maze of bars above me. I shove my foot onto the place where two bars cross and push myself up, grabbing another bar in the process. I sway for a second, my heart beating so hard I can't feel anything else. Every thought I have condenses into that heartbeat, moving at the same rhythm. "Yes, I do," he says.

Why is your heart racing Tris?

Okay, okay.” I set my hand on top of his and guide it to my chest, so it’s right over my heart. “Feel my heartbeat. Can you feel it?” “Yes.” “Feel how steady it is?” “It’s fast.” “Yes, well, that has nothing to do with the box.” I wince as soon as I’m done speaking. I just admitted to something. Hopefully he doesn’t realize that.

Yes," I say. "Three of these flying birds." I touch my collarbone, marking the path of their flight - toward my heart. One for each member of the family I left behind.

Maybe Dauntless was formed with good intentions, with the right ideals and the right goals. But it has strayed far from them. And the same is true of Erudite, I realize. A long time ago, Erudite pursued knowledge and ingenuity for the sake of doing good. Now they pursue knowledge and ingenuity with greedy hearts. I wonder if the other factions suffer from the same problem. I have not thought about it before.

I forget that he is another person; instead it feels like he is another part of me, just as essential as a heart or an eye or an arm.

Okay. Then...I can talk. Ask me something." "Okay." He laughs shakily in my ear. "Why is your heart racing Tris?" I cringe and say, "Well, I...I barely know you. I barely know you and I'm crammed up against you in a box, Four, what do you think?"... "Maybe you were cut out for Candor," he says, "because you're a terrible liar.

I feel the monster of grief again, writhing in the empty space where my heart and stomach used to be. I gasp, pressing both palms to my chest. Now the monstrous thing has its claws around my throat, squeezing my airway. I twist and put my head between my knees, breathing until the strangled feeling leaves me.

Pride is what killed Al, and it is the flaw in every Dauntless heart. It is in mine.

In my own relationships, I know that I should break up with someone who doesn't encourage me to be strong and make my own choices and do what's best in my life, so if you're dating someone who doesn't want you to be the best person you can be, you shouldn't be dating them.

I wonder how I seem to them. They must see someone I don't see. Someone capable and strong. Someone I can't be; someone I can be.

He seems designed specifically for speed and deadly accuracy. But not strength, not particularly-he is smart, but not strong. Only strong enough to carry me.