Page 65 of The Sixth Fraction

“What about you?” Christina asks.

“Oh, it’s really nothing,” I say. “The self-defense teacher just told me she’s not going to bother teaching me because I’m too small.”

“What?” Christina sits up straight. “Are you kidding?”

I shake my head.

“We had a couple girls around your size in initiation,” Christina says. “You know what Four did with them?”

Four, I think. I still wonder what that nickname means. “No, what?”

“He taught them how to defend themselves,” she says. “And gave them some pointers on fighting people who are bigger than them.”

I feel something like hope flicker in my chest. “Really?”

“Duh,” she says.

“And they were . . . okay at it?”

“I’m not going to pretend it’s not a huge disadvantage, because it is,” Christina says. “But listen, if someone tries to hurt you, they’re not going to be expecting someone like you to fight back. You have surprise on your side. And surprise can mean the difference between getting away from someone and not quite managing to.”

She gestures toward her eye again, listlessly.

“I’m not an expert,” she says. “But I can teach you what I know, if you want.”

“Yeah,” I say, and that little flicker of hope turns into a steady flame. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Chapter 22

Tris

I’m not sure when, exactly, my mission to become a Fox becomes Christina’s mission, too. She doesn’t join me for runs—she’s not supposed to, with her eye still healing—but she starts memorizing maps, challenging Colin to push-up contests, and studying the few texts on faction behavior that are stored at the Rookery.

Somewhere between me helping her change the bandage on her eye and her showing me how to put my weight behind a punch, she says, “Do you think they’d take a one-eyed girl?”

It’s after dinner, and we’re in the training space, at one of the lonely, splitting punching bags in the corner. Everyone else is still downstairs at the dinner tables, talking and laughing.

“I know they don’t want people who look conspicuous,” she says. “Not to mention people who can’t see very well—”

I punch the bag, focusing on shifting my weight. My shoulder aches, but I can tell when I do it right by the way my fist sounds against the fabric.

“There’s no reason you can’t do everything they can do.” I punch again, and sweat trickles down the back of my neck. “You just might have to put in a little extra effort. Like me.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Christina nudges my front foot with her toe. “You keep getting stuck. Move those feet.”

I step back, and then forward, this time throwing a cross.

“Eye or no eye, the Foxes will have to consider us if we show up with their banners,” I say. “So we’ll just have to find two of them. Rory says they’re usually in each faction’s headquarters, which is good news for both of us.”

Christina steadies the bag for me. “How is that good news?”

“Because between the two of us, we know the headquarters of three factions,” I say. “Candor, Dauntless, and Abnegation. And we know how to blend in there, too.”

“I’m not going back to Dauntless.” Her expression is stony.

“Candor, then.”

“And what about Colin and Rory?” she says. “Do we want to include them?”