Veronica Roth

Abnegation, Candor, Erudite, Amity, or Dauntless?

They should perplex me. I should wonder what courage—which is the virtue they most value—has to do with a metal ring through your nostril. Instead my eyes cling to them wherever they go.

“Have a seat and get comfortable,” she says. “My name is Tori.”

I press air from my lungs and tip the contents of the vial into my mouth. My eyes close.

“Yes and no. My conclusion,” she explains, “is that you display equal aptitude for Abnegation, Dauntless, and Erudite. People who get this kind of result are…” She looks over her shoulder like she expects someone to appear behind her. “…are called… Divergent.”

Abnegation. Dauntless. Erudite.

Divergent.

I open my eyes and thrust my arm out. My blood drips onto the carpet between the two bowls. Then, with a gasp I can’t contain, I shift my hand forward, and my blood sizzles on the coals.

I am selfish. I am brave.

I don’t think. I just bend my knees and jump.

“He” is the young man attached to the hand I grabbed. He has a spare upper lip and a full lower lip.

His eyes are so deep-set that his eyelashes touch the skin under his eyebrows, and they are dark blue, a dreaming, sleeping, waiting color.

His hands grip my arms, but he releases me a moment after I stand upright again.

The boy—Four—looks over his shoulder and shouts, “First jumper—Tris!”