Page 97 of The Sixth Fraction

He grabs my elbow and pulls me toward the door. I don’t resist; I want to get out of here as badly as he wants me to get out of here.

He steers us out of the dining hall, through the lobby, and into the hallway beyond it. It’s an elevator bank. There, towering above us, is a portrait of Jeanine Matthews, her blond hair in its perfectly spaced waves, staring off into middle distance.

“What are you doing here?” Caleb demands.

I throw my arms around him.

We didn’t do much hugging in our family, but it wasn’t unheard of. Still, I’ve never hugged him like this before—with a rush of feeling. I thought that when I saw him, I would be angry at him for choosing Erudite without telling me first, for not trusting me with that most significant part of him, but I’m not. I’m just glad to see him, to talk to him again.

He seems stunned, at first, but then he puts his arms around my shoulders and squeezes. My newly healed skin is still tender, but I ignore the twinge of pain.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, more gently this time.

I can’t tell him I’m a factionless thief-in-training, so I say, “I came to see you.”

“Won’t you get into trouble?” he says. “I don’t know much about Abnegation initiation, but—”

“I’m not in Abnegation.” I feel a lump in my throat. I didn’t think about this part—about having to admit to Caleb that I failed. I look down at my hands, clasped over my stomach. “I left.”

“You . . . left?” Caleb lowers his voice. “You’re factionless?”

I nod.

His face falls. “Why did you leave? Did something bad happen?”

“No! Of course not.” I open my mouth to tell him it was all just a mistake. At the Choosing Ceremony, my hand over the bowls, suddenly unable to destroy my parents by choosing another faction when their first child already abandoned them. And then I realize I am angry at him. That some part of me blames him for taking my own choice away. If he’d chosen Abnegation like he was supposed to—

But he was never supposed to, I remind myself. The way I saw him, that wasn’t the way he really was.

“No,” I say again. “I just made the wrong choice, and I couldn’t live with it. I had to go.”

“You couldn’t live with it,” he says, frowning down at me. “Why? There has to be a reason—something they did, some unreasonable demand—”

I think of the month of silence. I think of our father pushing me into the Memory Vault to erase my memories.

“It was just more of the same,” I say. “More of what you already know.”

He furrows his brow. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean maybe what we knew is worse than we realized. It was just normal to us, you know? But the people here . . . they’ve pointed out to me how horrible it was.” He touches my arm, right above the elbow. “It’s okay to admit that it was horrible, Beatrice.”

I chafe a little at his tone. It reminds me of the way he was when I was under the Penalty of Silence—he’d always make some comment to rub it in, like You should learn to control your outbursts, or You know Dad hates to be interrupted. He acted like my older brother even though he’s just a few minutes older than me. Caleb the know-it-all.

“What are they telling you here, exactly?” I say. “Because I don’t remember anything horrible happening to you. I remember how much our parents loved you, and how you always had everything you needed.”

“Did I?” He looks up, over my shoulder, at the portrait of Jeanine Matthews. “A child needs more than food and a place to sleep, Beatrice. They need freedom—to make mistakes, to discover themselves, to think—”

“Oh, I see. You get to think freely here,” I say. “Which is why you’re thinking exactly what they’ve told you to think.”

“That’s not fair, Beatrice.”

“I’m pretty well-acquainted with what’s fair and unfair at this point,” I snap. “Did you even check on our parents to make sure they didn’t get hurt in that fire?”

“Fire? What fire?”

Behind me, the elevator doors open, releasing a group of laughing people in white lab coats. One of them waves to Caleb, and he gives them a stiff nod, in response. We both wait for them to walk away before saying anything more.