"Are you sure you aren't Dauntless-born, Liz?" Rose says.

"What happened?" asks Hector.

"You see," Maddy explains. "Liz here held a gun for the first time in her life, but she ended up shooting dead centre of the target every time except for one! You could only see two holes there."

I blush and look down, fiddling with the peas on my plate. I don't really like compliments.

"Geez, Liz," Xavier grins. "You'd better absorb all our comments into you or else you'd become a Stiff."

"A WHAT?!" I smack his head with my empty plate. "You're as bad as the Candor, you know."

"Hey!" says Rose, clearly offended. "Forgot I exist?"

"Yeah," I say. "Maybe it's because you're too stiff and silent."

"Anything wrong with being Stiff?" It's Ryan.

"Who said that you could join our table?" Rose says coldly.

"No one, dumby," Ryan sneers. "But why should I care whether you want me at your table or not? Your worthless opinions don't matter to anyone."

It suddenly strikes me that he sounds a bit familiar. But from where, I don't remember.

"If you want to keep your face, you might want to consider leaving now," Xavier says in a low, dangerous voice, one that reminds me of Four's.

"Or what?" Ryan raises one of his eyebrows.

"Or you and I are going to have a big problem."

"Yeah? I'd like to see you try," Ryan sneers. I look around, hoping Four and Six are seeing this, so they'd stop doting on their 'little Abnegation boy' and see who he really is. Problem is, Ryan sucks up to them. Déjà vu. It's what happened with Erudite in school. They were always the teacher's pets, but really they were bullies.

Xavier looks like he's about to start a fight with Ryan, but luckily at that moment Four and Six stand up and yell, "Initiates! Back to the training room, training starts in five minutes!"

We chuck the remainder of our food into the bin. What a waste of food, I think as I stare into the huge pile of food scraps. The factionless would kill to get even a scoop of this.

Shaking the thought off, I jog back into the training room, where I see punching bags hung up.

Four teaches us different fighting techniques, including kicks and punches. Then he demonstrates on a punching bag, beating it up so hard that the bags almost break off from the chains suspending it. Wow.

Everyone then turns to their punching bags and starts punching. I've never punched something before. Amity never approved of using physical ways of expressing your anger. They suggested peace serum instead. Urgh. I shake my head, thinking of the times I had sunken my teeth into the innocent-looking bread, which, as I found out when I was nine, were drugged with peace serum. I never ate bread since, making up that I was allergic to yeast.

I look at Ryan again, and my suspicions are confirmed: Four and Six are helping him more than other people, again. Ryan seems to be like an obedient puppy dog, listening to them and acting weak. I know otherwise.

I turn back to my bag and throw the first punch. The impact hit my hand as hard as I hit the bag, and I wince. I punched it again, and this time it hurt my whole body. Shaking off the pain, I kicked the bag instead but it just yanked my foot in an odd direction. I clench my teeth. I can't keep failing like this.

"You're doing it wrong," says a voice behind me. Six. Since when did she arrive? "Keep your tension in your stomach, and keep your posture firm as you move. Otherwise, your punches will have the opposite effect."

I nod and do as she says, then try punching the bag again. It sways the tiniest bit. I keep punching and kicking, but the bag still stays firm where it is.

"One thing out of many things you are lacking is the desire to injure," Six says. "I don't blame you – you were Amity after all, never being angry at anything, always happy, right?"

"No," I say heatedly. "That's just what everyone thought."

"Well, that's good then," Six says. "Think of a time when you were very angry. Picture every detail of it. Then try again."

I rack my brains hard, then come to a memory of when Blake destroyed my one and only picture of my grandma. I loved her dearly, but cancer had took over and not even Erudite's elite quality medicine could save her. I was eight at the time, clinging on to the photo of the two of us together and sobbing. Blake found me, kicked me and ripped the photo into smithereens, then dropped it in the fireplace. I was so angry that I punched him, but then he faked cried and told some adults that I had beat him up. They wouldn't listen to my side of the story, and made me drink peace serum that didn't wear off for a week. Even though I was only eight, I can still remember the events clearly up to this day.

Sweat rolls off me and I find myself shaking and clenching my teeth.

"Got it?"

I nod, even angrier that Six was saying it so casually.

"Good. Now keep thinking about that and punch the bag again."

Imagining that the bag is Blake, sneering down at me, I punch the bag harder than I have ever thought possible. The bag swings back, and I look at it surprised. But then anger takes over me again and I find myself beating the bag up, and soon I'm kicking the bag as well. Everything is a blur: all there is in the world is myself, the bag, and Blake, and all I care about is killing Blake. I have no idea how much time has gone by, and suddenly there is a huge, gaping hole in my bag. My mouth falls open.

"Wow," Six breathes. "You must be really angry."

I nod, but suddenly all my anger disappears. I realise that I had lost control. Anger had taken over my body, making me do things I never would do in real life. What if the bag was really a person? How can I live with the guilt of injuring another person?

I stare down at my hands, which are now bright red, and my knuckles are bleeding slightly. I didn't even notice the pain.

"I don't get it," I whisper.

"Don't get what?"

"Why is it always anger?" I ask, talking more to myself than Six. "Why is it that anger controls everything we do? We kill people out of anger. We kill ourselves out of anger. Why do we use it as a weapon? Is it the only thing we use it for?"

"I don't know," Six says. "But I think it's your choice whether or not to use your anger correctly. But remember: don't use anger against yourself or on other people if you can avoid it. For the next few days, though, I'm afraid that cannot apply to you."

"Why?"

"You will be fighting against your fellow initiates," Six says with regret.

"What?! You mean I will possibly be beating up my best friends?" Images of me beating the daylights out of Maddy, Rose, and Xavier comes to my mind. No. I cannot possibly do that.

"Yeah," Six says. "You do, I'm afraid."

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…