the appliances are out of date, the faucet rusted, and the refrigerator door held closed by a large clamp. The back door is open and leads into a short, dank hallway that opens up to the tattoo parlor.
I’ve walked past it before but never cared to go inside, sure I wasn’t going to find a reason to attack my own body with needles. I guess I have one now—those needles are a way for me to separate myself from my past, not just in the eyes of my fellow Dauntless, but in my own eyes, every time I look at my own reflection.
The room’s walls are covered in pictures. The wall by the door is entirely dedicated to Dauntless symbols, some black and simple, some colorful and barely recognizable. Tori turns on the light over one of the chairs and arranges her tattoo needles on a tray next to it. The other Dauntless gather on benches and chairs around us, like they’re getting ready to see a performance of some kind. My face gets hot.
“Basic principles of tattooing,” Tori says. “The less cushion under the skin, or the bonier you are in a particular area, the more painful the tattoo. For your first one it’s probably best to get it done on, I don’t know, your arm, or—”
“Your butt cheek,” Zeke suggests, with a snort of laughter.
Tori shrugs. “It wouldn’t be the first time. Or the last.”
I look at the boy who dared me. He raises his eyebrows at me. I know what he expects, what they all expect—that I’ll get something small, on an arm or a leg, something that’s easily hidden. I glance at the wall with all the symbols. One of the drawings in particular catches my eye, an artistic rendering of the flames themselves.
“That one,” I say, pointing to it.
“Got it,” Tori says. “Got a location in mind?”
I have a scar—a faint gouge in my knee from when I fell down on the sidewalk as a child. It’s always seemed stupid to me that none of the pain I’ve experienced has left a visible mark; sometimes, without a way to prove it to myself, I began to doubt that I had lived through it at all, with the memories becoming hazy over time. I want to have some kind of reminder that while wounds heal, they don’t disappear forever—I carry them everywhere, always, and that is the way of things, the way of scars.
That is what this tattoo will be, for me: a scar. And it seems fitting that it should document the worst memory of pain that I have.
I rest my hand on my rib cage, remembering the bruises that were, and the fear I felt for my own life. My father had a series of bad nights right after my mother died.
“You sure?” Tori says. “That’s maybe the most painful place possible.”
“Good,” I say, and I sit down in the chair.
The crowd of Dauntless cheer and start passing around another flask, this one bigger than the last, and bronze instead of silver.
“So we have a masochist in the chair tonight. Lovely.” Tori sits on the stool next to me and puts on a pair of rubber gloves. I sit forward, lifting up the hem of my shirt, and she soaks a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol, covering my ribs with it. She’s about to move away when she frowns and pulls at my skin with her fingertip. Rubbing alcohol bites into the still-healing skin of my back, and I wince.
“How did this happen, Four?” she asks.
I look up and notice that Amar is staring at me, frowning.
“He’s an initiate,” Amar says. “They’re all cut and bruised at this point. You should see them all limping around together. It’s sad.”
“I have a giant one on my knee,” volunteers Zeke. “It’s the sickest blue color—”
Zeke rolls up his pant leg to display his bruise to the others, and they all start sharing their own bruises, their own scars: “Got this when they dropped me after the zip line.” “Well, I’ve got a stab wound from your grip slipping during knife-throwing, so I think we’re even.” Tori eyes me for a few seconds, and I’m sure she doesn’t accept Amar’s explanation for the marks on my back, but she doesn’t ask again. Instead, she turns on the needle, filling the air with the sound of buzzing, and Amar tosses me the flask.
The alcohol is still burning my throat when the tattoo needle touches my ribs, and I