My name is Odette Claire Eaton. My mother divorced my father, Marcus Eaton, when I was a baby and ever since then he abuses both my brother and I. My relationship with any of them hasn't been quite good recently. My mother hasn't contacted me since the day that my father forced us to leave the great state of Illinois to go to Connecticut. I'm scared out of my mind about my father and whether todays beatings will be as bad as the previous one (they usually are). And my brother. Oh, my brother. He ran away from home for a week when I was 10 and he was 12. His excuse once he got back was that he couldn't take it anymore and that he needed to get out. But did he ever think to take me. NO! That week was the worst week that I have ever had. My brother was missing and Marcus was pissed (yes I call him Marcus). He gave me double the beatings that week. I am still mad at Tobias to this day. I turn 16 in a month and a half and I'm starting my sophomore year in high school. The one good thing is that we are moving back to my home town, the lovely Chicago.
I wake up to sharp pain in my back where the freshest lashes are located. I realize that I must have turned over at some time during the middle of the night. I look at the clock and it reads 6:27AM. Three minutes till my alarm goes off. I decide I might as well get up now and pick out my outfit. We are moving today. All of my clothes that I will need for the next weekish are in my small suitcase. I never know how long it's going to take me to unpack so I learned last time we moved to pack a small suitcase with the essentials that you will need for a while. I decide on black high waist shorts and an olive green tank to tuck into it. I decide that my combat boots will look nice with this arrangement.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
"SHIT!" I jump at least a foot in the air. I should have been expecting that. I quickly turn my alarm off before it disturbs Marcus. I go take a shower and put on my clothes for the day. All my boxes are packed and only need to be loaded into the moving truck. My brother and Marcus take about 3 hours to load everything into the truck along with the help of the movers. I hate that I am not 16 yet so I cannot drive a separate car all the way to Chicago. I have to choose between Marcus who beats me at least 4 times a week or Tobias who left me during my worst week EVER! I guess I take the less physically demanding of the two, but I'm not going to like it.
"ODETTE! ARE YOU READY TO GO!" That was Tobias. I'm riding with him. I won't talk to him and I won't even acknowledge that he is in the same car as me, per usual. I get in the car and Tobias turns on the radio and Radioactive by Imagine Dragons is on. Now that is one of my favorite songs to sing to and Tobias knows that. It's like he payed the radio station to play that so I would have a good time or something. Whatever. I'm gonna sing because I love to sing, not because of some magic my brother may or may not have pulled off.
I'm waking up to ash and dust
I wipe my brow and sweat my rust
I'm breathing in the Chemicals
I'm breaking in, shaping up, then checking out on the prison bus
This is it, The Apocalypse
Whoa
This is when Tobias starts singing with me.
I'm waking up, I feel it in my bones
Enough to make my systems blow
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, Whoa, oh, oh, oh I'm radioactive, radioactive
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, Whoa, oh, oh, oh I'm radioactive, radioactive
Of course Tobias would interrupt the song to talk. "You know you have a really pretty singing voice. I don't think I've ever told you that before." That was nice and all but it definitely wasn't going to fix anything between us.
"Thanks, bro." I said those words with every ounce of venom that I could muster. It looked like it really hurt him too. Oh well. Serves him right. I fall asleep to the sound of Imagine Dragons in the background.
"WAKE UP ODETTE!" I reach out and punch. First instinct. I connect with Tobias's jaw and see that we are nowhere like we were when I fell asleep. "OWW… Well, we're here. I'm gonna go get some ice from the cooler."
I see a charming house and think that Tobias must be playing a joke on me because this cannot be our home. It's nowhere near Marcus's normal style. It's big and stone on the outside with a huge porch and in what seems to be a neighborhood. Marcus is the plain jane of houses. I see that our moving truck and Marcus are here though so I guess this is our house. I get out of the car and see that both sets of neighbors are out just looking at the commotion. To the left of our house is a family of four. I see what looks like a mother and father with two children. They look nice. I wish my family was nice. The mother and father are wearing grey and matching smiles. Their son wears blue and appears to have a lot of curiosity. It looks like I would get along with the daughter. We at least have the same sense of style. All four of them have varying shades of blond hair. To the right side of our house a single boy stands. He's hot. DAMN that boy is fine. He has hair as black as night and sparkling green eyes. He wears a confidence about him that just attracts me to him more.
"Odette. Please call me Four whenever we're in public from now on." Oh this is something that I can sure use to my advantage later.
"Sure, Four." I say with a sickeningly sweet smile. "I call the best room!"
I go upstairs and into the first room I can find. It's my favorite color, green. I know instantly that this room is meant for me. I plop my suitcase down on the floor and go back outside to make sure that none of my stuff gets broken.
Once outside I see that Marcus is talking to the family of neighbors. I go over to the girl and complement her on her outfit. It is black leggings and a dark purple off the shoulder sweater dress that comes up to mid-thigh. She has a thick black belt around her hips. She also wears combat boots like me. She graciously receives the complement and tells me that her friend Christina helped her pick it out. She complements me back on my outfit.
"What school are you going to be going to?" It was bound to come up sooner or later.
"Ummm… I think it's called Faction High." I personally think it's a cool name and would be cool to go there if that didn't happen to be where both my mom and dad went to high school. The whole jest of the school was that there were 5 categories or "Factions." The first is Amity, the peaceful. I know I won't fit in there. There is Abnegation, the selfless. That is where both my parents were when they graduated. After the week long incident with Tobias being gone, there is no way I was going to be selfless. Then there was Erudite, the intelligent. I get ok grades but I'm nowhere near smart enough for those know-it-alls. There was also candor, the honest. PAH-LEASE! I've been hiding the fact that I've been getting beaten up by Marcus for years now. I would not call myself honest. That leaves the last faction. Dauntless, the brave. I'm not the bravest but I'd like to think that I can stand up to anyone (other than Marcus) and do what's right. Once you've been sorted, you are expected to have classes with your faction, eat with your faction, socialize with your faction. Basically, ignore everyone else. I could live with that.
"Cool. I go there too. I'm in Dauntless." We talk for a while longer and she invites me into her house. We goof off and she shows me her closet which is stocked (thanks to Christina) full of the most gorgeously rebellious clothes that I have ever seen. I think I need to meet this Christina. Somehow we got onto the subject of boys.
"Who was that guy on the other side of my house?" I really want to know. He was amazingly attractive.
"Oh. Peter. Don't bother with him. He's rude to all the girls and nobody knows for sure but we all think he's dating this girl named Molly. Other than that he's the typical jock. Plays football mostly. No one really knows much about him." I was really disappointed to hear this. Not the jock/football playing part, but the fact that he has a girlfriend.
"So is there anyone that you like that I should stay away from." I try to lighten the mood but she just bites her lip and shakes her head really fast.
"I don't think we'll have that problem." I wonder what she means by that.
We walk downstairs for her to introduce me to her parents and to my surprise by brother and Marcus are there.
"Oh, Beatrice, honey. We invited the Eatons over for dinner tonight. It's a good thing you came down. We were just about to call you two." Are we really having dinner over here? Marcus has never let us eat at someone's house before. It's kind of a shock.
"Ok, mom. By the way. This is Odette. She's Mr. Eaton's daughter and will be attending Faction high with me." I just grin. I'm happy that Tris (that's what she told me to call her) is my friend.
"That's wonderful dear. Odette what grade are you in?"
"I'm a sophomore Mrs. Prior. My brother is a senior."
"Well it's good to know that you will have my class. I teach British Literature to all sophomores." She's my TEACHER? This could be fun.
"I love British Literature. Shakespeare is so classic and I've always had a flair for the dramatic."
"Good to know one of my students won't be groaning or falling asleep during the whole Shakespeare semester I have planned." YES! Shakespeare semester! How can it get any better. "And we're going to be acting out famous scenes from Shakespeare plays." OH MY GOODNESS!
"I think I just found my new favorite teacher." She laughs. We sit down to dinner and us children are very quiet as the adults talk.
Once dinner is over I say goodbye to Tris and head home. I make sure to run to my room (which now has all my furniture in it) and lock myself in before Marcus can get to me. I fall asleep wondering what tomorrow will bring as my first day begins at Faction High.
Disclaimer(s): 1) I do not own the Divergent Characters. I only own Odette. 2) I do not own the song Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. 3) The title "Best Friend's Brother" comes from a song from a tv show named Victorious. I do not own this song.