Page 103 of The Sixth Fraction

“I’m just finishing up anyway,” Tori says. “And I’m not even going to ask why an Abnegation girl is in Dauntless headquarters wearing a T-shirt as a dress. Whatever the answer is, I don’t want to know.”

“Good call,” Four says, his eyes on mine.

Still wary of me, I think, or maybe that’s just how he looks at everyone. But I suddenly have the urge to tell him something. About what I know, about what I want to know. About what I really think about his mother.

Tori takes a can of something I don’t recognize from a drawer behind her, uncaps it, and sprays it on Four’s back, right where she was drawing on him a moment ago. “All good. Wrap this up quickly, Four.”

“Of course.”

Tori gives me a curious look and then brushes past me to go to the front of the tattoo shop. Four and I are alone.

His gaze drops to the T-shirt I’m wearing, then my bare legs. His expression is unreadable. He reaches for his own T-shirt, which is draped over the back of the chair where his arms just were.

“Can I see?” I ask, not sure where I get the nerve. But I’ve been curious about his tattoo since the first second I spotted it peeking out from beneath his collar.

He hesitates, considering me for a moment, and then drops the shirt. “All right.”

I feel unsteady on my feet. I walk around him, and with each step I take, his muscles tighten, like he feels more uneasy being observed than I do observing him.

The tattoo is a shock of black ink on pale skin. It crawls all the way up his spine, one continuous image that I recognize a beat later as the faction symbols woven into each other. At the bottom, the roots of the Amity tree; the branches grow upward to tangle in the scales of Candor, the pans unevenly weighed. Hovering above the higher Candor weight pan is the Erudite eye. Its gaze is fixed above, at the cradle of the Abnegation offering palms. And glowing in those palms, the Dauntless flames, which lick the top of his spine.

I reach out and touch the flames with just my fingertips. His skin is hot, like the tattoo has come alive.

He twitches at my touch, and I pull back. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” But he sounds . . . tense. He fumbles with his shirt, then pulls it over his head, covering the tattoo except for the last curls of the Dauntless flames. He stands up, his eyes skirting mine. “I just . . . don’t invite many people to look at me.”

Before I can think better of it, I say, “I can’t imagine why.”

I think in one small part of my mind, I meant it as a joke. But it comes out deadly serious instead. His eyebrows pop up in surprise. That—not all the staring—is what finally embarrasses me.

“Uh—all the faction symbols?” I ask him.

“Yeah. That’s why we have to do the touch-ups back here. It would be a controversial image out there.”

I puzzle over that for a moment. The factionless are out there chanting “Death to factions” from the rafters, attacking detention facilities, and lighting Candor on fire. Their symbol, with its white flowers, seems like the only one that should be controversial. Not his tattoo’s proclamation of faction unity.

“I’m supposed to honor my own faction,” he says. “Supposed to have absolute loyalty to this place, supposed to value bravery above every other virtue. Only . . .” He shrugs. “I guess I don’t.”

I think of what Tori said to me after the aptitude test. Being the way you are, it destabilizes things. She was talking about being Divergent, about the way I interacted with the simulation, but what she said applies here, too. A Dauntless is supposed to think like a Dauntless, act like a Dauntless, believe in Dauntless. That’s what participating in the system means. And if he’s not doing it, he’s as much a source of instability as I am.

“Good,” I say to him.

His mouth twitches a little, like he wanted to smile but thought better of it. “What are you doing here, Tris?”

I consider him for a second, and then say, “I followed Eric here from Erudite headquarters.”

He frowns. “Why were you at Erudite headquarters?”

“I’m not going to tell you that,” I say. “Why was Eric there?”

“He came from Erudite,” Four says. “I wouldn’t put it past him to break his own rules and go see his family, or his friends.” He waits a beat. “His family, anyway. Pretty sure Eric’s never had friends.”

“He was meeting with Jeanine Matthews,” I say.

That seems to catch Four’s attention. “Why?”

“That was my question,” I say. “I’m given to understand faction representatives don’t usually meet outside of regular council meetings. And when they do, it’s Max Young who represents Dauntless, not him.”