Four: A Divergent Collection

“The imaginative action and glimpses of a sprawling conspiracy are serious attention-grabbers, and the portrait of a shattered, derelict, overgrown, and abandoned Chicago is evocative as ever.”

—HOLLYWOODCRUSH.MTV.COM

“Author Roth tells the riveting and complex story of a teenage girl forced to choose between her routinized, selfless family and the adventurous, unrestrained future she longs for. A memorable, unpredictable journey from which it is nearly impossible to turn away.”

—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW)

“With brisk pacing and lavish flights of imagination, DIVERGENT clearly has thrills, but it also movingly explores a more common adolescent anxiety—the painful realization that coming into one’s own sometimes means leaving family behind, both ideologically and physically.”

—NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

“Nonstop, adrenaline-heavy action. Packed with stunning twists and devastating betrayals.”

—BCCB

“DIVERGENT is really an extended metaphor about the trials of modern adolescence: constantly having to take tests that sort and rank you among your peers, facing separation from your family, agonizing about where you fit in, and deciding when (or whether) to reveal the ways you may diverge from the group.”

—WALL STREET JOURNAL

“This gritty, paranoid world is built with careful details and intriguing scope. The plot clips along at an addictive pace, with steady jolts of brutal violence and swoony romance. Fans snared by the ratcheting suspense will be unable to resist speculating on their own factional allegiance.”

—KIRKUS REVIEWS

“Roth knows how to write. The novel’s love story, intricate plot, and unforgettable setting work in concert to deliver a novel that will rivet fans of the first book.”

—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“In this addictive sequel to the acclaimed DIVERGENT, a bleak postapocalyptic Chicago collapses into all-out civil war. Another spectacular cliff-hanger.”

—KIRKUS REVIEWS

“INSURGENT explores several critical themes, including the importance of family and the crippling power of grief at its loss.”

—SLJ

“Roth’s plotting is intelligent and complex. Dangers, suspicion, and tension lurk around every corner, and the chemistry between Tris and Tobias remains heart-poundingly real … This final installment will capture and hold attention until the divisive final battle has been waged.”

—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“The tragic conclusion, although shocking, is thematically consistent; the bittersweet epilogue offers a poignant hope.”

—KIRKUS REVIEWS

To my readers, who are wise and brave.

CONTENTS

Cover (#uaa01f944-15ab-538f-9f36-f146b33b979e)

Title Page (#uaf08c8f0-32bd-5120-a5ec-e04848ca4ce1)

Copyright (#u15e6882f-79f1-50b1-92e5-3ba1264a15ba)

Praise (#u0d84fe9a-ee54-5cd7-8e22-40a1f94ed28e)

Dedication (#ua1627438-6233-572e-a84d-bb365694ec94)

INTRODUCTION (#uba235923-7681-5af2-b24d-829797f8c7b2)

THE TRANSFER (#u975dd13f-5dff-56d0-b774-1a4487aec03d)

THE INITIATE (#u2dbac7c7-a1fd-5276-8ade-fd692fb91df4)

THE SON (#litres_trial_promo)

THE TRAITOR (#litres_trial_promo)

“FIRST JUMPER—TRIS!” (#litres_trial_promo)

“CAREFUL, TRIS.” (#litres_trial_promo)

“YOU LOOK GOOD, TRIS.” (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

Back Ads (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Veronica Roth (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

INTRODUCTION (#ulink_d05b2384-d225-5579-9de1-487f60b28151)

I FIRST STARTED writing Divergent from the perspective of Tobias Eaton, a boy from Abnegation with peculiar tension with his father who longed for freedom from his faction. I reached a standstill at thirty pages because the narrator wasn’t quite right for the story I wanted to tell; four years later, when I picked up the story again, I found the right character to drive it, this time a girl from Abnegation who wanted to find out what she was made of. But Tobias never disappeared—he entered the story as Four, Tris’s instructor, friend, boyfriend, and equal. He has always been a character I was interested in exploring further because of the way he came alive for me every time he was on the page. He is powerful for me largely because of the way he continues to overcome adversity, even managing, on several occasions, to flourish in it.

The first three stories, “The Transfer,” “The Initiate,” and “The Son,” take place before he ever meets Tris, following his path from Abnegation to Dauntless as he earns his own strength. In the last, “The Traitor,” which overlaps chronologically with the middle of Divergent, he meets Tris. I wanted very much to include the moment when they meet, but unfortunately, it didn’t fit into the story’s timeline—you can find it instead at the back of this book.

The series follows Tris from the moment she seized control of her own life and identity; and with these stories, we can follow Four as he does the same. And the rest, as they say, is history.

—Veronica Roth

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I EMERGE FROM the simulation with a yell. My lip stings, and when I take my hand away from it, there is blood on my fingertips. I must have bitten it during the test.

The Dauntless woman administering my aptitude test—Tori, she said her name was—gives me a strange look as she pulls her black hair back and ties it in a knot. Her arms are marked up and down with ink, flames and rays of light and hawk wings.

“When you were in the simulation … were you aware that it wasn’t real?” Tori says to me as she turns off the machine. She sounds and looks casual, but it’s a studied casualness, learned from years of practice. I know it when I see it. I always do.