The boy, with cold cobalt grey eyes gazed at me, his expression dark and enigmatic. His hands were never still, always tapping out a rhythm. Always.
Perhaps, it was why most people steered clear of him. His obvious disregard for the rules always seemed to make him stick out like a sore thumb. He barely cared for the fact that society was divided into five factions.
He was a stranger here, and everyone knew it.
"Sienna James, are you listening to what I'm saying?" snapped a snide voice, a hint of something otherworldly in his voice. I glanced at Strange, my history tutor, whose complexion immediately darkened.
"Um...yes?" I suggested tentatively.
He laughed loudly. There was a note of harshness there, that I hadn't noticed before.
Maybe that was because I concentrated aimlessly on staring out of the window or at the clock most days.
"For one born of Candor, you defy your own rules," he announced. "Do you know what the motto for Dauntless is?"
I swallowed anxiously. Even though I should know it by heart, I had abandoned that fruitless task in pursuit of more exciting things. Such as...I don't know. All I did was follow the rules, or at least try to, and my life consisted of...nothingness.
I racked my brain.
"Something above bravery, isn't it?" I answered timidly.
Strange merely smirked.
"Pay more attention next time, Sienna, instead of looking at our newest member of society, Oliver Eston from Erudite."
The boy in the corner smiled softly, a look of sadness embedded in his grey eyes.
My head spun. Today was the day of the aptitude tests and tomorrow my choice would define my life forever, and yet I had already begun to like a boy, who belonged in a different faction, in the faction that my family utterly despised.
All because of my older brother's choice. You see, four years ago, my brother Jonas James, or nicknamed JJ by me, underwent the aptitude tests and his result was logged as Erudite. He chose that faction, and all seemed well.
Until about a year later. He committed suicide.
But he was happy. It didn't take a genius to figure out what happened.
Erudite killed him.
"Hey," an unfamiliar voice whispered. I wearily opened my eyes and sat up straight, dazed by the harsh light streaming in through the cafe window.
It was Oliver. His grey eyes radiated a warmth that I missed from Jonas. His hair was a light muddy brown, and it gleaned from where the sunlight hit it. "I'm Oliver."
"Yes, I know who you are," I muttered, my tone venomous. "Why are you here? It's lunchtime. Go bother someone else and tell them how many years they have left to live if they carry on eating fries or whatever."
He chuckled gently, and ran his hands through his hair. Someone yelled his name and he looked at them briefly.
"I'm busy, Jacob," he said.
I caught a glimpse of a scar running from the top of his forehead to the back of his left ear and I wondered what accident would've been enough to cause that. I knew, with dead certainty, that it was no falling book.
"I'm pretty sure that Jonas would have wanted you to have this," he whispered sternly, pressing a battered book into my hands. "Hide it."
I glared at him. It had been three years since my brother had been mentioned, and what right did Oliver have, stealing Jonas' stuff and giving it to me, like the food parcels the Abnegation gave to the factionless every month?
"Oliv-" I hissed but he cut me off as the lunch bell shrieked.
"Trust me," he muttered in my ear. "Please." His voice cracked with the emotion that he was to suppress.
I hurried away discreetly, to another corner of the cafe, clutching the book that Oliver presumably stole from Jonas.
"Sienna James," a stern voice announced. "And Troy Jackson."
My heart pounded, as I slowly walked through the cafe to where the altitude tests were being held. Troy stumbled as we stepped over the threshold of the special rooms they were being conducted in.
There was no going back now.
I swallowed, terrified. I reached out my hand, ignoring the mirrors around me and swung open the door.
There was a man dressed in pale blue robes inside the room. His weathered face was crumpled with concentration as he prepared the instruments. As I neared, his ears twitched noticeably and he glanced at me.
His eyes were the same shade of grey as Oliver's. "I'm Peter Eston," he declared. "Sit yourself down, Miss...?"
My name eluded me for a few precious seconds. "Sienna...James."
"Unusual name," he remarked, attaching some flickering electrodes to my forehead. "This won't hurt a bit," Peter said, fiddling with a few wires.
He's lying. As all the Erudite do, I thought. Get him away from me-
I suddenly felt a piercing pain in my arm and gasped.
"That's the the serum. It'll be taking effect on you in approximately thirty seconds."
My fingers reached for the needle and as my arms grew heavier, I felt an overwhelming urge to thrust it into his face. I only managed to prick his eyebrows before the blackness overcame me.