[Choosing age is 16. OC transferred year after Eric. Tris and Co. came in the next year. This begins a year after Tris comes to Dauntless. Tori Wu is younger than the books but six years older than OC]

Inspired by the song; Stand Alone by Generdyn ft. Zayde Wolfe

Chapter 1

An ordinary start of the weekend in Dauntless was pretty much the same as any other night of the week. For one leader it was the one time he allowed himself to 'unwind' and have a few drinks. That was exactly what he had been doing before he followed his other normal pattern of pissing off when the horny side of Dauntless began to emerge. It never took long for that to happen.

While not unattractive or unavailable, Eric was never seen taking part in these activities. Rumors still spread though. Ranging from he was a man slut of epic proportions to he had a select taste that only few dared meet. There were rumors that just as he was brutal and ruthless, sometimes violent when the need called for it, he was even more sadistic in the bedroom.

Whatever the case may be, the result was he never had any hangers on trying to make a play for the leader. Not that he wanted any. He was fine on his own. It was far less complicated for him that way and better for the tasks he had that weren't exactly faction or even city approved.

'Besides' he mused internally as he made his way out of the bar 'even the so called casual set up most of the other leaders or officers had going on encountered their share of drama and bullshit.'

He snorted and smirked as he passed one such example of it. Blaze, one of the guys in his security team had two angry looking women glaring daggers at each other and him as he tried to smooth things over with his legendary charm.

Tomorrow would see the player regaling the other guys with some kind of tale of how he weaseled his way out of this one.

He had just stepped into the part of the bar he was at that had a few storerooms and one VIP room that was little more than somewhere for people to go and take what they weren't willing to do on the dancefloor. He didn't think anything about the door to this room being open when he passed it.

He was a little less alert than he normally would be, being a couple drinks in to his night. He wasn't drunk but he wasn't sober either. That was the only thing he could blame his total lack of response on when he was pulled into that VIP room and the door slammed behind them.

It also had to be the drinks that saw him returning this blazing kiss that was pressed to his lips. Something he only broke when he felt the cold press of familiar metal and the sound of a round being chambered.

"What the…" He hissed and pulled back to look into ice blue eyes that he knew and had come to think he hated for the last two years.

"Shut it Coulter and make it look good. Your life depends on it." She growled back at him before pulling his head down back to hers.

A second only did he register that the gun was actually pointing towards the door and was being masked between their bodies from view. Once again, as soon as their lips meet he was completely disarmed and making it look good became all too easy.

'He would make it look good. Fuck….it already felt too good.' He thought as he dragged his lips away from hers only to move down her neck. Biting and sucking as his hands took on a life of their own.

It left her panting and a small moan escaped her before she growled. "No dammit."

Eric smirked against her skin but didn't stop. "You said make it look good, Elle."

Another pant from the black haired beauty, who seemed to make it a point to make his life hell on a daily basis, before she tried to bring her knee up and interrupt things. A move he had been expecting from her. It wouldn't be the first time she had pulled it on him.

After he stopped her from emasculating him, he pulled back and lifted an eyebrow at her. She had lowered the gun, apparently satisfied when the door had cracked open during their entanglement but then closed again.

"Are you going to tell me what is going on or should I take this as your very poor way of making a pass at me?" Eric snarked out in a whisper to her.

His breath fanned against her and for a second she had to steady herself before she answered. "They're coming for you. Both sides, Coulter and neither are in the play fair kind of mood."

Any alcohol induced haze dissipated and his back snapped up while his face moved to that smooth emotionless facade. The one he used to hide whatever he was feeling inside.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Brielle." Eric replied a dead voice.

At first Bree just stood there with the same blank look Eric had in his own eyes. Then she closed them and sighed before she shook her head and opened them again.

"I don't have time for this shit. I have to move before they decide to say fuck it and come back. Look Coulter, we both know you have been playing a very dangerous game and the house of cards has started to tumble down. The 'good guys' have scented the blood in the water and are going after the ones she has cut loose. We both know what she does when she thinks someone has failed her one too many times. They are wanting to get to you before her men do. So unless you want to risk ending up in the chasm or in a jail cell, you will do what I say and stay put."

It shouldn't take Eric by surprise that someone else in Dauntless is in the know. Jeanine had always seemed to know way too damn much about what went on in the compound. Information he knew wasn't being passed on by his security team and for sure not by himself.

What Eric couldn't figure out was what side Elle fell on and what her motivations are. "Why do you care what happens to me? You hate me." He sneered out the last part.

"The feeling is mutual right?" She shot right back at him with as much rancor as he had spoken to her.

There was way to much hidden in the layers of the question from both of them but neither could or would acknowledge that.

"You are a dick and made my life hell from the moment I landed on the roof but I have my reasons why I need to make sure you make it out of here alive. No, I won't tell you them other than they are personal."

"What are you going to do? Obviously they know I am in here. I doubt seriously they sent just one person after me."

Eric had stepped back because being in contact with her was clouding his ability to think. He crossed his arms over his chest and flexed them when he felt a twitch and need to reach out again. A scowl formed over his face as he let his look demand an answer from her.

"I'll do what I need to do. In order for me to pull this off though, you need to stay put. I had already arranged for this room to be booked under your name. No one is going to dare come in here unless they are after you. I have the code to let myself back in but until then there is a small bag with a sidearm and some ammo."

She motioned to a bag tucked out of the way and started to move towards it but Eric caught her arm and yanked her back. Scowl still in place. Leaving his fate up to someone else and just sitting on his ass was already grating. The thought of her going out there alone, no matter how much he might find her annoying as hell; left him very unsettled.

"If you think I am just going to let you go…"

In a quick move that left him on the ground and pinned, face first to the stone floor and wind knocked out of him, she spoke in a soft deadly tone.

"Does that answer any argument as to my capabilities? I don't think you are going to let me walk out of that door alone, Eric. I know. Because if you don't you are as good as dead. Not to mention you take me with you and I have way to much left to do to allow that to happen. So be a good boy, Coulter and stay."

She put a knee to his back when she raised up as a parting gift before she moved swiftly to the door. One last look was all she gave him as he rose from the ground. His expression held a look of worry that he quickly masked with a smirk.

"Then I guess it won't be a problem for you to make it back without a scratch, Collins. You know, to show me just how capable you are." He taunted her.

She threw him a glare with a growled huff and then opened the door to slip out. Missing the smirk falling from his face as his forehead wrinkled once again with the worry he could no longer mask.