“Somewhere inside me is a merciful, forgiving person. Somewhere there is a girl who tries to understand what people are going through, who accepts that people do evil things and that desperation leads them to darker places than they ever imagined. I swear she exists, and she hurts for the repentant boy I see in front of me. But if I saw her, I wouldn't recognize her.”

“Should i even bother scanning the crowd for my parents? I could turn around and go back to the dormitory. Then I see her. My mother stands alone near the railing with her hands clasped in front of her. she has never looked more out of place, with her gray slacks and gray jacket buttoned at the throat, her hair in its simple twist and her face placid. I start toward her, tears jumping into my eyes. She came. She came for me. I walk faster. She sees me, and for a second her expression is blank, like she doesn't know who I am. Then her eyes light up, and she opens her arms. She smells like soap and laundry detergent.”

“I think they know we're talking about them," I say."So? They already know I hate them.""They do? How?"Christina fakes a smile at them and waves. I look down, my cheeks warm. I shouldn't be gossiping anyway. Gossiping is self-indulgent.Will hooks a foot around one of Al's legs and yanks back,knocking Al to the ground. Al scrambles to his feet."Because I've told them," she says, through the gritted teeth of her smile. Her teeth are straight on top and crooked on the bottom.She looks at me. "We try to be pretty honest about our feelings in Candor. Plenty of people have told me that they don't like me.And plenty of people haven't. Who cares?""We just...weren't supposed to hurt people," I say."I like to think I'm helping them by hating them," she says. "I'm reminding them that they aren't God's gift to humankind.”

“I wake with tears in my eyes. I wake to Jeanine’s scream of frustration.“What is it?” She grabs Peter’s gun out of his hand and stalks across the room, pressing the barrel to my forehead. My body stiffens, goes cold. She won’t shoot me. I am a problem she can’t solve. She won’t shoot me.“What is it that clues you in? Tell me. Tell me or I will kill you.”I slowly push myself up from the chair, coming to my feet, pushing my skin harder into the cold barrel.“You think I’m going to tell you?” I say. “You think I believe that you would kill me without figuring out the answer to this question?”“You stupid girl,” she says. “You think this is about you, and your abnormal brain? This is not about you. It is not about me. It is about keeping this city safe from the people who intend to plunge it into hell!”I summon the last of my strength and launch myself at her, clawing at whatever skin my fingernails find, digging in as hard as I can. She screams at the top of her lungs, a sound that turns my blood into fire. I punch her hard in the face.A pair of arms wrap around me, pulling me off her, and a fist meets my side. I groan, and lunge toward her, held at bay by Peter.“Pain can’t make me tell you. Truth serum can’t make me tell you. Simulations can’t make me tell you. I’m immune to all three.”Her nose is bleeding, and I see lines of fingernail scrapes in her cheeks, on the side of her throat, turning red with blossoming blood. She glares at me, pinching her nose closed, her hair disheveled, her free hand trembling.“You have failed. You can’t control me!” I scream, so loud it hurts my throat. I stop struggling and sag against Peter’s chest. “You will never be able to control me.”I laugh, mirthless, a mad laugh. I savor the scowl on her face, the hate in her eyes. She was like a machine; she was cold and emotionless, bound by logic alone. And I broke her.I broke her.”

“I see a kind of thirst in her expression, the same one I saw when she told me about her brother in the back room of the tattoo parlor. Before the attack simulation I might have called it a thirst for justice, or even revenge, but now I am able to identify it as a thirst for blood. And even as it frightens me, I understand it.Which should probably frighten me even more.”

“Really? I thought the transfers will go through Four’s landscape,” says Uriah. “Like he would let anyone do that,” she says, snorting.Something inside me gets warm and soft. He let me go through it.”

“Yeah, well," I say, "I left Abnegation because I wasn't selfless enough, no matter how hard I tried to be.""That's not entirely true." He smiles at me. "That girl who let someone throw knives at her to spare a friend, who hit my dad with a belt to protect me-that selfless girl, that's not you?"..."You've been paying close attention, haven't you?""I like to observe people/""Maybe you were cut out for Candor, Four, because you're a terrible liar.”