"The first thing you will learn to do is shoot a gun, and the second is how to win a fight." My initiates are bleary-eyed and dazed looking. I thought Tris would sleep in this morning, but we were both up nearly an hour ago. Early rising is an Abnegation habit neither of us has left behind. She went to check on Christina and her hangover when I left for training. The transfers are mostly Eurdite and Candor again with an Amity and no Abnegation. Tris' favorite, the Eurdite girl has already acquired a piercing in both ears, but she can barely open her eyes.
"Wake up!" I shout. They jump, but slump right back into their semi-comatose state. Irritation rises up in me. I grab a gun off the table, load it quickly and whip around. I fire five rounds into a target without pausing, and I finally have their attention.
It takes hours, but eventually they all at least hit the target.
"Go to lunch," I tell them. "We'll start on fighting after."
Tris slips into the room as the initiates file out. She hands me a container full of fries and a hamburger, and holds up one of her own. "I thought we could have lunch together," she announces.
"Sounds like a plan," Before I can take a bite, she leans in and kisses me. Her hands find my waist and in a few moments, lunch is the farthest thing from my mind.
"We need to talk," she murmurs. "Max and Eric are on the hunt for Divergents again."
"Of course they are," I sigh. Last year, they told me to be on the lookout for suspicious activity in stage two. They left it at that though, I guess because they think I don't know about Divergence.
Tris is biting her lip, "You need to make sure no one ends up dead this year, and I'm going to see what I can do to find out why they want to kill us." She is nearly whispering, but she looks more determined than scared.
I can feel myself frowning, "Tris don't going drawing attention to yourself. They'll try to hurt you too, if they find out." She gives me a glare.
"Four, I'm not okay with letting them hunt down innocent initiates. We need to find out what's happening." I wrap her in my arms as worry takes hold of me.
"Okay," I'm whispering too, "We will."
After we eat, Tris stays to watch the transfers learn to fight. Dave the Candor is huge and so muscled that when he hits the sandbag it swings likes it may as well be made out of paper. The kid from Amity looks as if he feels sorry for the bag, but Tris helps him and soon enough he seems to get it. I make a mental note not to pair them against each other until the Amity improves. Kylie, who I expected to defy faction stereotypes, is practically as vicious as Eric. She hits her bag fast and hard, landing two or sometimes three punches in the time it takes Dave to land one.
xxxxx
I collapse on our sofa at the end of the day and Tris straddles my legs. "What do you think of them?" I have eleven transfers to train this year: five from Eurdite, six from Candor, and the one Amity. By the end of the day I managed to get all of their names memorized.
"They have no idea what they've gotten themselves into, but they're brave so I guess we'll have to wait and see." She nods, and we talk for a while. Tris helps me plan out the fights for tomorrow.
"Are you staying here tonight?" I ask hours later even though the answer is almost always yes. When her class picked apartments she and Christina got one together, but Tris stays at my place nearly every night. At first Christina pouted that I was keeping Tris all to myself, but she seemed to get over when she started to use Tris' room as an extra closet. Plus, Will is a pretty big fan of the arrangement.
"Yeah," she replies. "Are you so eager to go to bed?" Her eyebrows wiggle and I laugh. I pick her up and her legs wrap around my waist. We nearly fall into the bed and I feel so light and happy that it blocks out everything else.
xxxxx
For the first fight, I put Teo, the Amity, against Parker a tiny girl from Eurdite. She's not a strong fighter, but yesterday she was the first to hit the bullseye, so her rank is slightly higher than his. This is a new strategy for stage one, Tris suggested it. Instead of starting with the best fighters, I'm starting with the lower ranked ones. Parker beats Teo quickly; yesterday he seemed unwilling to throw a punch, but today he was totally unable.
The rest of the day passes quickly, and by six o' clock the first round of first round of fight is over. Eric and Tris are splitting the responsibility of overseeing training this year, so he stopped in to watch one of the fights, Dave vs. Kylie. Dave has six inches and nearly fifty pounds on her, but Kylie won. I don't think Dave even landed a punch on her, she was so quick to dodge his fists and so intense in her attacks.
I am about to head to the control room, when Kylie grabs my arm.
"I am looking for someone," she says. Despite her tall stature and short hair, she reminds me of Tris with her fierce determination. "Her name is Beatrice Prior." I feel my jaw go slack. It takes a lot to catch me off my guard, but this girl certainly has.
"Um," I hear myself say. "I guess I'll take you to her." Kylie nods and we set out for the cafeteria. Tris is sitting at a table with some of our friends, laughing at something Uriah just said. If I wasn't consumed with wondering why this strange initiate was looking for her, I might feel some jealousy.
I lean down and kiss Tris on the cheek. Marlene has her arm around Uriah's shoulders and she laughs, "Hey now, what's with all the public displays of affection?" I ignore her while Christina and Lynn giggle.
"I have some one here who wants to meet you," I murmur to Tris. "This is Kylie."
"I know," Tris replies. She stands up and extends a hand. It still doesn't look natural, but in the last year she's gotten less tense about the greeting.
"I thought your name was Six?" Kylie seems confused. She stares at the tattoos on Tris' collarbone, and finally collects herself. "I know your brother. I really need to speak to you. Privately."