Page 11 of The Sixth Fraction

And I blame cowardice, too. I do.

Marcus goes on:

“Our five factions have coexisted peacefully for as long as this city has existed, each contributing in different ways to our society. Candor is a faction of forthright administrators, teachers, investigators, and judges. Erudite has supplied us with new technologies, improvements, and a deeper understanding of our world. Dauntless protects us from threats, both without and within, and aids us in moments of crisis. Amity counsels us, feeds us, and eases our burdens. And Abnegation stands ready to serve in whatever capacity they can. But each faction is more than those qualities; each faction offers its members something more valuable than its mere function in society. It offers community. Purpose. Meaning.”

He pauses as he picks up the clipboard where all of the initiates’ names are written.

And then all the skylights above us shatter at once.

Shrieks ring out through the Hall of Factions. Shards of glass pelt us like hailstones. I duck automatically, covering my head with my arms. Beside me, Caleb is staring, wide-eyed, at a piece of glass sticking out of his forearm. Red stains his gray sleeve.

All the lights—which were low already—go out, but by moonlight I can see dark figures above us, walking along the now-empty window frames like tightropes.

“Death to factions!” a voice shouts, and it’s so loud I can’t tell where it’s coming from. Other voices join in, echoing: “Death to factions! Death to factions!”

All around me people are moving, pushing toward the exits. But I feel frozen. I’m watching, unmoving, as the faction banners come down.

Amity’s is first, rippling as it drops to the floor, and then Candor’s, Erudite’s, Dauntless’s, and Abnegation’s. I see the symbols before the fabric crumples: the tree, the scales, the eye, the flames, and the outstretched hands. Then a new banner unfurls above me, dangling from the rafters like a leaf clinging to a branch.

It’s a symbol that mimics the size and circle-bounded shape of the faction symbols. It’s stitched in white to the green fabric of the banner. It depicts a spray of small white flowers.

The doors at the far end of the hall are wide open, and people are rushing toward them as Dauntless sentries rush in, all in black with their needle guns held high.

“Beatrice!” Caleb yells, but I’m too small to see him.

Then, the bang of a needle gun, firing. A scream. And a dark shape toppling from the rafters above us.

A body slams into the floor just a few feet away from me. I’m close enough to see the needle sticking out of the fallen woman’s neck. She’s dressed all in green, her face covered, but from what I can tell by her empty eyes, she’s not much older than I am. Shot by a Dauntless needle—a nonlethal round that causes pain and paralysis—and knocked off-balance; and now, broken on the ground, probably dead.

If there was chaos around me a moment ago, it’s nothing compared to what erupts now, as everyone in the Hall of Factions stampedes toward the doors. Frantic, I search for my father, my mother, my brother, anyone I recognize as the crowd presses me from all angles. An elbow hits me in the side of the head, and I cry out, stumbling away. Everyone is shouting, but to me their voices are muffled, and I keep thinking of the needle in that woman’s neck.

My head pounds. Someone shoves me hard from the left, and I lose my balance and fall. Someone steps on my hand, and I scream into my teeth as the hard sole of their shoe crushes my fingertips. Then someone grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet.

My body aches. I look up to see a Dauntless boy standing in front of me in a shaft of moonlight, his brow furrowed.

In my daze all I can think is that his eyes are a strange color—dark blue.

“That way!” the boy shouts over the noise, pointing at the side of the room. I see an emergency door there, still closed. In everyone’s rush to get to the main exit they’ve forgotten about all the other ways to get out of here.

When I don’t move right away, the boy grabs my shoulder and shoves me toward the door. It startles me into motion—I run to the side of the room and push through the door, setting off an alarm that I barely hear. I stumble into a quiet courtyard, and I think again of my parents and Caleb, still trapped inside, or maybe they made it out—

I run to the end of the courtyard’s white awning and around the side of the building. It’s quiet here, a contrast to the chaos behind me, but ahead of me is an Amity woman. She’s running along the side of the building. And there’s a gun in her hand.

I stop. An Amity woman with a gun?

She turns and raises her weapon in one fluid motion, like some kind of lethal dancer. She looks like no Amity I’ve ever seen, her hair pulled back in a sleek knot, her expression hard, her face bisected with shadow. She shifts so the moonlight glows on her cheekbones, and that’s when I recognize her:

Evelyn Eaton. Marcus Eaton’s dead wife.

I couldn’t forget her face if I tried. It was on all the news feeds after she died, that picture of the Eaton family: Marcus, his wife, their son, then ten or eleven years old. I remember it because it seemed like such a strange portrait for them to choose: a picture-perfect Abnegation family, but Evelyn’s expression was all wrong for that, with her jaw set and her eyes bright and critical. She looked angry.

That was the picture on their mantel, the day of the funeral. Her funeral. I saw the urn that held her ashes. I watched Marcus Eaton pour the ashes into the wet clay for our funeral ritual.

And now here she is. Alive.

She doesn’t acknowledge me. She just puts her gun down and keeps moving, around the edge of the building and into the dark street beyond it. I stand there for a few seconds, my ears ringing, before I remember that I need to look for my family, I need to make sure they’re all right.

I run, the pain in my head and hand forgotten as I reach the street we walked down to get to the Hall of Factions. It’s full of people. I search for gray clothes, for my flock of Abnegation pigeons. I find them by the doors, ushering people out of the building. I see them through the glass, still inside the Hall, because of course they are. Of course the Abnegation refuse to save themselves.