Free Four Divergent Stories: The Transfer, The Initiate, The Son, and The Traitor (Divergent Series) by Veronica Roth

right here, in the jaw.” I touch the underside of my jaw. “A good uppercut should do it. Let’s practice those.”
    She squares off, and I notice with satisfaction that her knees are bent, and there’s a bounce in her stance that wasn’t there before. We shuffle around each other for a few seconds, and then she punches up. As she does, her left hand drops from her face. I block the first punch, then start to attack the hole she left in her guard. At the last second, I stop my fist in the air and raise my eyebrows at her.
    “You know, maybe I would learn my lesson if you actually hit me,” she says, straightening. Her skin is flushed from exertion, and sweat shines along her hairline. Her eyes are bright and critical. It occurs to me, for the first time, that she’s pretty. Not in the way I usually think of—she’s not soft, delicate—but in a way that’s strong, capable.
    I say, “I would really rather not.”
    “What you think is some kind of lingering Abnegation chivalry is really kind of insulting,” she says. “I can take care of myself. I can take a little pain.”
    “It’s not that,” I say. “It’s not because you’re a girl. I just . . . I’m not really into violence for no reason.”
    “Some kind of Stiff thing, huh?” she says.
    “Not really. Stiffs aren’t into violence, period. Put a Stiff in Dauntless and they just let themselves get punched a lot,” I say, letting myself smile a little. I’m not used to using Dauntless slang, but it feels good to claim it as my own, to let myself relax into their rhythms of speech. “It just doesn’t feel like a game to me, that’s all.”
    It’s the first time I’ve expressed that to anyone. I know why it doesn’t feel like a game—because for so long, it was my reality, it was my waking and my sleeping. Here, I’ve learned to defend myself, I’ve learned to be stronger, but one thing I haven’t learned, won’t let myself learn, is how to enjoy causing someone else pain. If I’m going to become Dauntless, I’m going to do it on my terms, even if that means that a part of me will always be a Stiff.
    “All right,” she says. “Let’s go again.”
    We spar until she’s mastered the uppercut and we’ve almost missed dinner. When we leave, she thanks me, and casually, she wraps an arm around me. It’s just a quick embrace, but she laughs at how tense it makes me.
    “How to Be Dauntless: An Introductory Course,” she says. “Lesson one: It’s okay to hug your friends here.”
    “We’re friends?” I say, only halfway joking.
    “Oh, shut up,” she says, and she jogs down the hallway toward the dormitory.
    The next morning, all the transfer initiates follow Amar past the training room to a grim hallway with a heavy door at the end of it. He tells us to sit against the wall, and then disappears behind the door without saying anything. I check my watch. Shauna will be fighting any minute now—it’s taking the Dauntless-borns longer to get through the first phase of initiation than us, since there are more of them.
    Eric sits as far away from me as he can, and I am glad for the distance. The night after I fought him, it occurred to me that he might tell everyone that I’m Marcus Eaton’s son just to spite me for beating him, but he hasn’t done it. I wonder if he’s just waiting for the right opportunity to strike, or if he’s holding back for another reason. No matter what, it’s probably better for me to stay away from him as much as possible.
    “What do you think is in there?” Mia, the Amity transfer, sounds nervous.
    No one answers. For some reason I don’t feel nervous. There’s nothing behind that door that can hurt me. So when Amar steps into the hallway again and calls my name first, I don’t cast desperate looks at my fellow initiates. I just follow him in.
    The room is dim and grungy, with just a chair and a computer in it. The chair is reclined, like the one I sat in for my aptitude test. The computer