A/N: As always I would appreciate any feedback you might have. Thanks for everyone who has supported me.
A special thanks to two people. sleepy1177, love you sis, your support has meant the world. DYK...there are no words to express what your friendship and support mean. This story is for you...all those brainstorming sessions, you talking me off the ledge and silliness have helped to shape these characters and the story. Thanks for coming along for the ride with me, I did promise you a crazy story so hopefully this fits the bill.
Chapter 2- Reflections Of Time
Eric-Choosing Day: Roughly one year ago
Whispers of silk moving against silk. Muffled gasps and moans. Flashes of delectable skin, so close and charged with a heat that called to me. These sensory images haunted me through my nights, leaving me in a tangled mess of my own making in bed. The space beside me remained cold but in those dreams it burned with the heat of passion. A passion I could never imagine existed and if ever asked would deny I would even want. Because what those images, those nightmares I was coming to call them, brought forth in me was a terrible burning in my soul and heart. A feeling of being so complete and of such rapture that the cold light of day left me a broken husk of a man.
Very few, two to be exact, had ever seen me any other way than the face I presented to all others at all times. Lately though, even they don't get to see any semblance of the man behind the mask because that mask is slowly seeping into every part of me.
At twenty four years old I felt a man of eighty. The weight of a faction, no an entire fucking city, seems to be pressing down on me. Now I know why Max was reluctant to make me leader even with pressure from Jeanine. He had needed to know I wasn't in it just for Jeanine because if I was then this pressure would make me snap. It would break me. It is trying to break me and it scares the shit out of me everyday how close it is coming to doing just that.
The screeching of the digital alarm clock on my bedside table alerts me that I need to get my butt in gear and get ready to face another day. One of the worst days of my year was about to start and I needed the coffee to be able to deal with this. So I began my day with a cup of coffee in my apartment, then went to the meetings that would take up most of the morning before the new initiates arrived. It messed up my normal routine so that was another reason to add to my foul mood.
Chase slid a breakfast sandwich across to me when he took his place at the conference table. "Zach put a couple of these together for us this morning since we couldn't do the normal thing." He mumbled around a large bite he had just taken of his own.
"Thanks." I nodded and took a bite while looking over notes and waiting for the meeting to start. Lauren breezed in, late as usual, causing all of us to scowl but Chase even more since he was the one stuck with her for training the Dauntless born.
It was the same shit from every year although there were some new rules that were being implemented. Cuts were being made, steep cuts. I rubbed the bridge of my nose as Four spoke up about his displeasure in regards to the cuts and fighting changes. He kept shooting glares at me, as always pinning all this shit on me. Never mind there were four other leaders sitting around this table that were just as responsible for passing the new rules and Max the senior leader that had final say.
Chase shot me a look telling me to keep it cool as I looked away and clenched my fists on the table. You would think after over seven years of having to deal with each other we could move past old shit but that wasn't going to happen with me and Four. At times I wish with all my being that I had been able to prove my suspicions about him. Get him out of the picture all together.
With a sigh I crack my neck and focus back on the meeting. It was going to be a long hour until the meeting broke and we could all finally head to greet the new blood.
*****Page Break*****
The four or five Dauntless members that stood on the roof waiting for the train took bets on what kind of mix we would see in the initiates this year. We tossed around predictions on what faction the first jumper would be from and what faction would likely be the last jumper.
The Choosing Ceremony had been over for a while now but it took a good hour for the train to make it's way to the jumping point. Max had called that it should be appearing within the next five minutes or so.
Max was handling greeting initiates this year. He decided this because two years ago, before the choosing age changed once more from eighteen to twenty, I had lost patience after no one had volunteered. I had just decided to toss the first person near me over the ledge. While it had been amusing and we were looking to inspire a little fear in the initiates, that apparently wasn't exactly the fear the other leaders had been looking for. It had felt fantastic for all of three minutes and then it felt just as hollow as everything else felt to me lately.
I was glad to hand that particular duty over to him. I had enough on my plate to deal with between being in charge of overseeing training as well as the multitude of meetings I have to attend normally. Not to mention that I am expected to just drop everything and go running to Matthews when she quirks her finger for us to. It was exhausting, annoying and my mood that wasn't great in the best of times was anything but mellow these days.
"Train is approaching!" Someone called out and Chase nudged me.
"Remember the bet. The first jumper is going to be a Candor this year." Chase said firmly as he was pulling for his former faction.
I scoffed and rolled my eyes. It still surprised the shit out of me that I had become best friends with two former Mouth's. Chase is the only friend besides Zach that could claim to know anything about me or see any other side of me besides what the rest of the faction and city saw.
"Dauntless born. It is always Dauntless born lately." I said with a slight proud smirk. I had been the last non Dauntless-born first jumper and that was close to eight years ago when I transferred in at a time when the choosing age was still sixteen.
Chase chuckles and shakes his head at my look. Then we hear it, the train as it makes its way towards us. It slows slightly as it comes around the corner that is just before the row of roofs that are all part of the compound. It is the only concession we made here. We slowed the train enough that it gave time for all the jumpers to take their turn.
The first car is usually only the Dauntless members that have gone to the ceremony in either an official capacity or because they had family choosing. Some stay on the roof after they make their jump. Some of them go to the area where the net is to wait and see the initiates jump. Most of the others go on about their day or duties or start partying.
Dauntless-born came next, interspersed with transfers. At first I saw the normal mix of Erudite and Candor in among the Dauntless-born. Then my eye was caught by two that seemed to be in some kind of stand off.
What had my eyebrows in my hairline was the fact that the two involved were a Candor boy and a Abnegation girl. From the look on the Candor guys face I was fully expecting to see a grey splatter on the ground in seconds. So I was more than taken by surprise by what happened next.
The Abnegation girl got a brief flash of a snarl before it turned into a wicked smile and she shoved the Candor from the train and to the roof. There were calls of surprise and laughter as he fell straight to the roof with surprising force and accuracy, a girly shriek tearing from him as he fell.
"Are you seeing this?" Chase said in gasped laughter and disbelief. Because directly after she had shoved the Mouth, she had laughed, smirked and then leaped out herself.
She went into a tuck and roll then popped up brushing herself off as if she had just gotten a little dust on her jacket and she hadn't just jumped from a moving locomotive onto a seven story roof. I might have been amazed by that alone but that isn't what held me practically spellbound at the moment. It was her face, her smile and this glow she had about her. She was stunning and I felt as if the wind was being taken from me but at the same time, life was being breathed into me.
She looked like no damn Abnegation I had ever seen. She might have her hair up and the grey on but it all faded away. I also couldn't help but look at each of her features and I swear to gods she was wearing some kind of makeup, but that couldn't be possible.
Chase elbows me but when I look to him, I see his own eyes are locked onto her just as much as mine had just been. That gets broken when we see a Candor girl built like an Amazon storm up to her with a scowl on her face.
"You could have killed him!" The Amazonian screeches out and goes to put her hands on the not so stiff, stiff. She just rolls her eyes and side steps the attack, causing the girl to stumble and trip to the ground.
"I could only hope to be so damn lucky." She mutters but it isn't quiet and wouldn't matter if she had been because all attention seems to be on her anyways. I know all of my attention is on her. I can't even help the smirk that tilts my lips up as Chase snorts. "And if you were observing closely, I aimed him precisely where I wanted him to hit with the perfect amount of force. Enough to make him scream like the little bitch he is but not enough to kill him."
She pauses and sighs dejectedly. "I am still up in the air on whether I did him a favor or all the rest of us a disservice. Time will tell though." With that she shrugs as if she really was torn about her decision and moves off.
Another Abnegation girl had just careened to the roof, holding the hand of a Candor girl and she approached her.
"Are we just being fucking invaded here?" I mutter out but still can't take my eyes off of the first girl.
"Mary Katherine! Did you have to push him? He wasn't going to hurt me." The other girl admonishes my stiff….Mary Katherine? Gods, I hate that fucking name! I smirk a little when she winces and grimaces as soon as it is uttered.
She brushes off the gravel of the other girls jacket, frowning at a tear and cut on her arm. "First of all, I was helping him get over his obvious feelings of inadequacy. Shown by his need to fuck with you." She gave the other girl a pointed look before she continued. "Second of all, yes he would have. If you think different Beatrice, then you are in for a world of hurt during initiation. Ask your friend here. I am sure she could tell you about the new resident dick of Dauntless."
She isn't wrong there. One look at the glare the Candor and his two friends are throwing to the girls shows they are going to be going for the weakest to make themselves look better.
"Last of all," she continues in a frustrated voice that still sounds musical "please do not call me by that travesty of a name. I am and have only ever responded to Kat for years now. If you are smart you will change yours too, Bea. I mean unless you just want to live with an instant chastity belt tethered to you."
The Candor girls mouth drops open while the other abnegation turns red and gasps. "Mary Katherine!"
There are sputters of laughter all over and I look over to Chase who is holding in a laugh.
Kat rolls her eyes and sighs. "Lighten up Bea. It was a joke...sort of." She sighs and shakes her head. "I really do think, dear sister, our parents chose our names as an instant abstinence tactic though. Do they teach that in Abnegation initiation you think?" She assumes the normal Abnegation 'stick up their ass' posture and her face takes on a mask as she takes a breath. "By the way fellow Stiffs; someday you will lay with a man or a woman and produce a new little stiff. We expect you to keep the tradition of leg locking names alive."
She says this all in an almost perfect imitation of the condescending tone of Marcus Eaton. Ripples of laughter make the way along the roof and while I don't laugh, I crack the first smile I have let loose in a very, very long time it seems. I shake my head in wonder at this strange and refreshing girl while Chase is holding his stomach he is laughing so hard.
All laughter or chatter is cut short when there is a strangled scream followed by a more pronounced one. I know before I even look over to the Dauntless born pulling the girl from the edge what it means. I also know I am going to be the one to have to deal with it as well.
Max looks to both Chase and I, causing me to sigh and nod. I elbow Chase and I can't help but notice that his eyes and head crane to get one more last look at the girl I think we both want to stay and watch. I have a duty to take care of so I can only watch as Kat had walked away from her sister to join a group of Dauntless-born who seem to know her and had been waving her over.
My very last look just before I went into the stairwell was of her being pulled into a hug by the three of them, one being a Pedrad. My scowl at having to leave deepened at the look of affection on Uriah Pedrad's face before I lost sight of her completely.