is in the dormitory, so I change quickly. As long as they aren’t here, I don’t care who sees me in my underwear, not anymore.
Everyone else dresses in silence. Not even Christina smiles. We all know that we might go to the Pit floor and search every face and never find one that belongs to us.
I make my bed with the tight corners like my father taught me. As I pinch a stray hair from my pillow, Eric walks in.
“Attention!” he announces, flicking a lock of dark hair from his eyes. “I want to give you some advice about today. If by some miracle your families do come to visit you…” He scans our faces and smirks. “…which I doubt, it is best not to seem too attached. That will make it easier for you, and easier for them. We also take the phrase ‘faction before blood’ very seriously here. Attachment to your family suggests you aren’t entirely pleased with your faction, which would be shameful. Understand?”
I understand. I hear the threat in Eric’s sharp voice. The only part of that speech that Eric meant was the last part: We are Dauntless, and we need to act accordingly.
On my way out of the dormitory, Eric stops me.
“I may have underestimated you, Stiff,” he says. “You did well yesterday.”
I stare up at him. For the first time since I beat Molly, guilt pinches my gut.
If Eric thinks I did something right, I must have done it wrong.
“Thank you,” I say. I slip out of the dormitory.
Once my eyes adjust to the dim hallway light, I see Christina and Will ahead of me, Will laughing, probably at a joke Christina made. I don’t try to catch up. For some reason, I feel like it would be a mistake to interrupt them.
Al is missing. I didn’t see him in the dormitory, and he’s not walking toward the Pit now. Maybe he’s already there.
I run my fingers through my hair and smooth it into a bun. I check my clothes—am I covered up? My pants are tight and my collarbone is showing. They won’t approve.
Who cares if they approve? I set my jaw. This is my faction now. These are the clothes my faction wears. I stop just before the hallway ends.
Clusters of families stand on the Pit floor, most of them Dauntless families with Dauntless initiates. They still look strange to me—a mother with a pierced eyebrow, a father with a tattooed arm, an initiate with purple hair, a wholesome family unit. I spot Drew and Molly standing alone at one end of the room and suppress a smile. At least their families didn’t come.
But Peter’s did. He stands next to a tall man with bushy eyebrows and a short, meek-looking woman with red hair. Neither of his parents looks like him. They both wear black pants and white shirts, typical Candor outfits, and his father speaks so loudly I can almost hear him from where I stand. Do they know what kind of person their son is?
Then again…what kind of person am I?
Across the room, Will stands with a woman in a blue dress. She doesn’t look old enough to be his mother, but she has the same crease between her eyebrows as he does, and the same golden hair. He talked about having a sister once; maybe that’s her.
Next to him, Christina hugs a dark-skinned woman in Candor black and white. Standing behind Christina is a young girl, also a Candor. Her younger sister.
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.
“Beatrice,” she whispers. She runs her hand over my hair.
Don’t cry, I tell myself. I hold her until I can blink the moisture from my eyes, and then pull back to look at her again. I smile with closed lips, just like she does. She touches my cheek.