Page 116 of The Sixth Fraction

He picks up the gun. His hands are steady. He takes a stance I recognize, his feet staggered, both arms raised, elbows slightly bent. I tell myself that after I get out of here, I’m going to ask him to teach me; that’s how easy he makes it look.

He breathes in, a quaking breath. He breathes out, and fires.

It’s only when he lowers the gun that I see what it cost him, how he closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the woman fall, how his stance collapses like he just got the air punched out of him.

I reach for him, but the scene is already changing, the gun and the woman both disappearing.

Now we’re standing in a place I recognize. The floors are wood, stained dark, worn and uneven. The walls are white. We’re in a hallway—the hallway of an Abnegation apartment.

He’s walking already, his eyes fixed on the door at the end of it, and even though he’s Divergent, it looks like he’s caught up in this simulation, so familiar with its choreography that he can’t help but play the part.

He opens the door and steps into a bedroom. It’s as tidy as I expect it to be, the queen-sized bed made with sharp corners, a small stack of books on the bedside table. He goes to the hook next to the dresser, where a spare belt hangs, and grabs it by the buckle.

I don’t like this.

“Four?” I say. He doesn’t respond.

I follow him back down the hallway, past the bathroom with its gray-tile floor and no mirror, past the closet that now makes me feel sick to my stomach, to the bedroom closest to the stairs.

It’s in disarray. The bed is made, there’s a neat stack of school books on the desk—but there are objects scattered all over, bits of computer parts, broken glass, old coins, a single glittering earring, a wooden box with its lid hanging off the hinges.

Standing in the middle of it all, his chest heaving, is Marcus Eaton.

Only it’s not a Marcus Eaton I’ve ever known. He looks taller here than he is in real life, his shoulders broader and stronger. When he turns to look at us, his face is shadowed, his eyes like dark pits. His mouth is twisted into a snarl.

He holds out his hand. Four gives him the belt.

No, no, no, I think, but I’m stuck, watching in horror as Four—tall, strong, fierce Four—walks toward the desk chair and braces himself on the back of it. Presenting his father with a blank canvas.

Marcus raises the belt, and I lurch into action before I can even think about it, throwing my body across Four’s.

“No!”

I hold up an arm, and the belt wraps around it, pain scorching my skin.

The scene disappears. And then we’re standing in the simulation room.

I wait for a few seconds for a new horror to appear. But nothing changes. I’m standing back-to-back with Four, feeling his unsteady breaths against my shoulders, listening to him recover himself.

I relax against him. He relaxes against me.

“You only have four fears,” I say.

He huffs a laugh. I feel it against my spine.

“Yeah,” he says.

Christina didn’t know why “Four” was his nickname; I guess I just found out.

I laugh a little. “You’re remarkable.”

He reaches back and hooks his pinkie finger around mine.

We leave the simulation room after that, and Four touches the flames to erase the record, and by some unspoken agreement . . . we go for a walk.

The street here is cluttered with debris but empty. The moon is high and bright. My mind is crowded with all the things I want to say, but for once, I’m okay with staying silent. With letting him go first.

“When Evelyn was gone, he focused on me instead.” He’s looking down at his feet. “She knew what he was, and she left me there. I’m sure she didn’t think that it would get that bad, that he would fixate on me the way he used to fixate on her—but that’s kind of the point. She didn’t think of me at all.”