divergent-excerpt

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I walk in the middle of the road. The buses tend to hug the curb, so it’s safer here. Sometimes, on the streets near my house, I can see places where the yellow lines used to be. We have no use for them now that there are so few cars. We don’t need stoplights, either, but in some places they dangle precariously over the road like they might crash down any minute. Renovation moves slowly through the city, which is a patchwork of new, clean buildings and old, crumbling ones. Most of the new buildings are next to the marsh, which used to be a lake a long time ago. The Abnegation volunteer agency my mother works for is responsible for most of those renovations. When I look at the Abnegation lifestyle as an outsider, I think it’s beautiful. When I watch my family move in harmony; when we go to dinner parties and everyone cleans together afterward without having to be asked; when I see Caleb help strangers carry their groceries, I fall in love with this life all over again. It’s only when I try to live it myself that I have trouble. It never feels genuine. But choosing a different faction means I forsake my family. Permanently. Just past the Abnegation sector of the city is the stretch of building skeletons and broken sidewalks that I now walk through. There are places where the road has completely collapsed, revealing sewer systems and empty 24
subways, that I have to be careful to avoid, and places that stink so powerfully of sewage and trash that I have to plug my nose. This is where the factionless live. Because they failed to complete initiation into whatever faction they chose, they live in poverty, doing the work no one else wants to do. They are janitors and construction workers and garbage collectors; they make fabric and operate trains and drive buses. In return for their work they get food and clothing, but, as my mother says, not enough of either. I see a factionless man standing on the corner up ahead. He wears ragged brown clothing and skin sags from his jaw. He stares at me, and I stare back at him, unable to look away. “Excuse me,” he says. His voice is raspy. “Do you have something I can eat” I feel a lump in my throat. A stern voice in my head says, Duck your head and keep walking. No. I shake my head. I should not be afraid of this man. He needs help and I am supposed to help him. “Um . . . yes,” I say. I reach into my bag. My father tells me to keep food in my bag at all times for exactly this reason. I offer the man a small bag of dried apple slices. He reaches for them, but instead of taking the bag, his hand closes around my wrist. He smiles at me. He has a gap between his front teeth. 25
Page 1 and 2: VERONICA ROTH
Page 3 and 4: chapter one There is one mirror in
Page 5 and 6: shoulders. But she must hide that b
Page 7 and 8: glass and steel. In front of it is
Page 9 and 10: I pause by a window in the E Wing a
Page 11 and 12: we can’t prepare for the test in
Page 13 and 14: Susan to the exit. The people I pas
Page 15 and 16: an electrode to my other temple, an
Page 17 and 18: of the dog’s foul breath and try
Page 19 and 20: word “murderer.” It has been a
Page 21 and 22: chapter three I wake to sweaty palm
Page 23 and 24: or more of the factions, but in you
Page 25: I mean you should never share them
Page 29 and 30: chapter four I reach my street five
Page 31 and 32: way he does when he suspects someon
Page 33 and 34: natural goodness, his inborn selfle
Page 35 and 36: surprise me, but now they chide me.
Page 37 and 38: child. The infant died minutes late
Page 39 and 40: of books on his desk. He closes the
Page 41 and 42: as I walk up the front steps. The e
Page 43 and 44: Caleb on the shoulder, grinning.
Page 45 and 46: I have never liked Candor. “Those
Page 47 and 48: higher each moment, and the glass r
Page 49 and 50: I look at Caleb, who now stands beh
Page 51 and 52: Beside him, my mother is smiling. T
Page 53 and 54: sideways. I’m not as tall or as s
Page 55 and 56: What a good actor he was. The thoug
Page 57 and 58: On three we launch off the train ca
Page 59 and 60: dark skin and gray hair at his temp
Page 61 and 62: I hit something hard. It gives way
Page 63 and 64: chapter seven When all the initiate
Page 65 and 66: your mouth shut. Got that” She no
Page 67 and 68: strikes the wall beneath me and spr
Page 69 and 70: and drops into the seat next to Fou
Page 71 and 72: “You know. Like a bed of nails.
Page 73 and 74: “But we started with twelve,” p
Page 75 and 76: now. If you are really one of us, i
Page 77 and 78:
the wall. No one has to know that I
Page 79 and 80:
difficult, to drastically improve y
Page 81 and 82:
hit the target at least once by now
Page 83 and 84:
“Sorry, am I being rude” she as
Page 85 and 86:
+++ After lunch, Four leads us to a
Page 87 and 88:
of his palm even after he’s gone.
Page 89 and 90:
know.” I close my eyes and hold s
Page 91 and 92:
Christina dark and lean, Will pale
Page 93 and 94:
chapter nine “Since there are an
Page 95 and 96:
oth Peter and Molly, but he’s bui
Page 97 and 98:
think this is a leisure activity Sh
Page 99:
Four turns to the chalkboard and ci
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