aside. Though the light of sunset is orange, creeping across the floor and illuminating my face from below, I have never looked paler; the circles under my eyes have never been more pronounced. I have spent the past few days somewhere between sleeping and waking, not quite able to manage either extreme.
I plug the hair clippers into the outlet near the mirror. The right guard is already in place, so all I have to do is run it through my hair, bending my ears down to protect them from the blade, turning my head to check the back of my neck for places I might have missed. The shorn hair falls on my feet and shoulders, itching whatever bare skin it finds. I run my hand over my head to make sure it's even, but I don't need to check, not really. I learned to do this myself when I was young.
I spend a lot of time brushing it from my shoulders and feet, then sweeping it into a dustpan. When I finish, I stand in front of the mirror again, and I can see the edges of my tattoo, the Dauntless flame.
I take the vial of memory serum from my pocket. I know that one vial will erase most of my life, but it will target memories, not facts. I will still know how to write, how to speak, how to put together a computer, because that data was stored in different parts of my brain. But I won't remember anything else.
The experiment is over. Johanna
successfully negotiated with the government—David's superiors—to allow the former faction members to stay in the city, provided they are selfsufficient, submit to the government's authority, and allow outsiders to come in and join them, making Chicago just another metropolitan area, like Milwaukee. The Bureau, once in charge of the experiment, will now keep order in Chicago's city limits.
It will be the only metropolitan area in the country governed by people who don't believe in genetic damage. A kind of paradise. Matthew told me he hopes people from the fringe will trickle in to fill all the empty spaces, and find there a life more prosperous than the one they left.
All that I want is to become someone new. In this case, Tobias Johnson, son of Evelyn Johnson. Tobias Johnson may have lived a dull and empty life, but he is at least a whole person, not this fragment of a person that I am, too damaged by pain to become anything useful.
"Matthew told me you stole some of the memory serum and a truck," says a voice at the end of the hallway. Christina's. "I have to say, I didn't really believe him."
I must not have heard her enter the house through the muffle. Even her voice sounds like it is traveling through water to reach my ears, and it takes me a few seconds to make sense of what she says. When I do, I look at her and say, "Then why did you come, if you didn't believe him?"
"Just in case," she says, starting toward me. "Plus, I wanted to see the city one more time before it all changes. Give me that vial, Tobias."
"No." I fold my fingers over it to protect it from her. "This is my decision, not yours."
Her dark eyes widen, and her face is radiant with sunlight. It makes every strand of her thick, dark hair gleam orange like it's on fire.
"This is not your decision," she says. "This is the decision of a coward, and you're a lot of things, Four, but not a coward. Never."
"Maybe I am now," I answer passively. "Things have changed. I'm all right with it."
"No, you're not."
I feel so exhausted all I can do is roll my eyes.
"You can't become a person she would hate," Christina says, quietly this time. "And she would have hated this."
Anger stampedes through me, hot and lively, and the muffled feeling around my ears falls away, making even this quiet Abnegation street sound loud. I shudder with the force of it.
"Shut up!" I yell. "Shut up! You don't know what she would hate; you didn't know her, you—"
"I know enough!" she snaps. "I know she wouldn't want you to erase her from your memory like she didn't even matter to you!"
I lunge toward her, pinning her shoulder to the wall, and lean closer to her face.
"If you dare suggest that again," I say, "I'll—"
"You'll what?" Christina shoves me back, hard. "Hurt me? You know, there's a