Hey guys, I changed my pen name, in case any of you noticed (probably not, it's okay, I don't care).
Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Divergent, the amazing Veronica Roth does.
Chapter Two
Lauren and I start leading the new initiates down the narrow tunnels of the compound. I have no idea where Zeke is, but I'm not surprised that Eric isn't here.
The path is dimly lit, so it's hard to see anything in front of you, but I have become so accustomed to it the past two years that I barely even take notice of the darkness. The strange and different ways the Dauntless do things doesn't even surprise me anymore.
Lauren and I stop in front of one of the dim lights and we both turn to face the crowd of about twenty initiates.
"This is where we divide." Lauren says. "The Dauntless-born initiates are with me. I assume you don't need a tour of the place."
Lauren smiles and turns around, beckoning for her group of initiates to follow her. They slip into the darkness and are quickly out of sight. I turn to my group and quickly scan my eyes over them, observing what I will have to deal with for the next few weeks.
There are no Amity transfers this year, which isn't really surprising, we rarely get people from that faction. The rest are a mix of Erudite and Candor, except for Tris from Abnegation. My eyes almost missed her because she's standing behind a tall Erudite boy, and she's so short in the first place. Her appearance doesn't really strike me as Abnegation. Most people from that faction keep their head down with their hands held behind their back; it's supposed to show a sign of respect and politeness. Instead she holds her head high, with her arms crossed in front of her. I avert my gaze from her and skim over the rest of the crowd.
"Most of the time I work in the control room, but for the next few weeks I am your instructor," I say, my voice coming out hard and steely. "My name is Four."
The Candor girl who jumped after Tris asks, "Four? Like the number?"
I feel my annoyance build up a little; I didn't really like being asked pointless questions, especially one as obvious as that.
"Yes. Is there a problem?" I respond, my agitation is clear on my voice.
"No," The Candor girl replies.
"Good. We're about to go into the Pit, which you will someday learn to love. It-"
I'm interrupted by a loud snicker coming from the same Candor girl that just asked me about my name.
"The Pit? Clever name," she says sarcastically.
My annoyance bubbles over and I walk over to her, leaning my face in close to hers. This is the one problem I have with Candor; they have respect for honesty but no respect for other people. I stare at the girl for a few seconds.
"What's your name?" I ask, practically hissing into her face.
"Christina," she responds, her voice coming out an octave higher than usual.
"Well, Christina, if I wanted to put up with Candor smart mouths, I would have joined their faction. The first thing you will learn from me is to keep your mouth shut. Got that?" I ask her harshly.
She nods vigorously and I turn my back to her and start walking towards the end of the tunnel. We walk on in silence, but I hear Christina mumble something. I almost consider turning around to tell her to be quiet, but I quickly dismiss the idea when I hear Tris say something in response. I can't quite catch the words, so I decide to ignore them for now.
I push a set of doors open and lead the initiates into the cavern that Christina had made fun of just moments ago.
"Oh, I get it," I hear her whisper behind me and I roll my eyes in response. I turn towards the group and look at all their reactions to the Pit, which are almost all covered in awe.
It is quite an impressive sight. The shop buildings are all built into the high, uneven stone walls. Small, narrow paths connect all of them, with no railing to keep you from falling. The glass ceiling can be quite intimidating too, but the building above it lets in some nice light into the dark underground base. When the sun isn't out though, we have blue lights hanging from the ceiling, casting an almost eerie glow on the stone paths beneath them.
I can also see the initiates taking in the people crowding up the Pit. Every single one of us wears at least one black article of clothing at all times, and it is extremely rare to see one of us without some type of tattoo or piercing, or crazily dyed hair. After they've all had enough time to soak it all in I address them once again.
"If you follow me I'll show you the chasm," I tell them as I wave them forward to the right side of the Pit.
It gets much darker as we walk forward and the sound of roaring water quickly fills everybody's ears as we approach the iron barrier blocking people from the dangerous water running hundreds of feet below us. Even though the water on the left side is dangerously fast, it looks calm compared to the water on the right as it battles with sharp rocks and rips down the river's path. I turn to face the initiates.
"The chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy!" My voice carries out as I try to shout above the roaring water. "A daredevil jump off this edge will end your life. It has happened before and it will happen again. You've been warned."
For a second I think of the person who committed suicide in my year, a girl from Erudite named Hillary. I quickly turn my thoughts elsewhere.
"This is incredible," I hear Christina say from behind me.
" Incredible is the word," I hear Tris respond in reply to her comment.
I lead them across the Pit and towards a gaping hole in the wall. As we walk in, all of the Dauntless members begin cheering and stomp their feet in response to the new initiates this year. I see all of them smile out of the corner of my eye and go to grab a seat somewhere in the crowded room. I am somehow placed at the same table as Tris and Christina. Tris I don't mind, but I don't really know if I can put up with the Candor girl the whole meal.
As I'm loading my plate up with the food around us I see Tris curiously inspecting a hamburger as everybody else eats. I almost laugh; I had become so accustomed to Dauntless food that I had almost forgotten about the Abnegation's lack of it.
"It's beef, put this on it," I say as I pass her a small bowl of ketchup. She looks at it with a look of confusion too. I'm about to laugh for real this time when Christina interrupts with another question, although this one is less annoying then her last ones.
"You've never had a hamburger before?" She asks with a strong presence of disbelief in her voice.
"Stiffs eat plain food," I say in answer to her question. I've decided to give up on trying to get her to stop asking things, it was pointless with a Candor.
"Why?" She asks. I'm about to answer myself, but think twice about it when I realize it would probably give away too much about what faction I used to belong to. It doesn't matter much anyway, Tris answers it instead.
Extravagance is considered self-indulgent and unnecessary," she responds with a shrug.
"No wonder you left," Christina replies.
"Yeah, it was just because of the food," Tris shoots back with a roll of her eyes. I give a small smile, but quickly suppress it when the cafeteria doors open and the room suddenly gets very quiet. I don't need to guess who it is.
Eric struts in and scans his cold eyes over the café as his heavy footsteps thud against the hard floor. His cruel face is covered in so many pierces you can see more metal then face.
"Who's that?" I hear Christina whisper as Eric keeps walking across the room. I know he'll come to stop at our table eventually, and I quickly answer the Candor girl's question.
"His name is Eric, he's a Dauntless leader here," I say.
"Seriously? But he's so young?" I hear her say in reply.
"Age doesn't matter here," I respond to her with a grave look.
She looks like she's about to ask yet another question, when I hear the footsteps start getting louder and the look quickly dies in her eyes. I don't even react when Eric plops down into the seat next to me. We all sit in silence for a few seconds, and I know what he wants me to do, but I refuse for as long as possible, silently hoping that he'll just get up and go away. I know that will never happen though.
"Well aren't you going to introduce me?" He asks me, as if he is unable to do it himself. I suppress a groan.
"This is Tris and Christina," is all I say as an introduction.
"Ooh, a Stiff. We'll see how long you last." Eric says with a sick smirk on his face.
I feel myself clench my hands into fists beneath the table and resist the urge to punch the guy. I don't enjoy the way his eyes scan over Tris, as if she we're an animal that he might be interested in buying, or a thing he would enjoy watching suffer.
"What have you been doing lately, Four?" He asks while tapping his split knuckles onto the table. I briefly wonder who he beat up that made them that way, but I try to act casual instead in answer to his question.
"Nothing really," I say with a shrug of my shoulder, trying to use my best nonchalant voice. I can feel Tris's eyes scanning over both me and Eric, probably trying to evaluate the weird situation. For some reason, that only makes me more nervous.
"Max tells me he keeps trying to meet with you, and you don't show up. He requested that I find out what's going on with you," Eric says with an air of suspicion in his voice. I stare at him for a few seconds, trying to calm my anger and figure out how to respond at the same time.
"Tell him I am satisfied with the position I currently hold," I say finally.
"So he wants to give you a job," he says, not one for letting the subject drop. I can hear the jealously that he tries to conceal in his voice.
"So it would seem," is all I say in response.
"And you aren't interested," Eric presses on.
"I haven't been interested for two years," I say, my anger quickly building up to my breaking point. I just wanted this guy to leave.
"Well, let's hope he gets the point then," Eric says as he stands up and clasps me on the shoulder. He uses a bit more force than necessary, but it doesn't really surprise me that he does.
"Are you two…friends?" I hear Tris ask. I turn to face her and see that she seems repulsed by the thought of it.
"We were in the same initiate class, he transferred from Erudite," I say.
"Were you a transfer too?" She asks.
I freeze up at the mention of my past, and my thoughts flash to an image of Marcus standing before me with a belt in his hands. I can feel my face harden and try to erase the picture from my mind.
"I thought I would only have trouble with the Candor asking too many questions. Now I've got Stiffs too?" I say coldly.
I don't know what I expected her to do, really. She is from Abnegation, so maybe a hurried apology or something I guess. Instead, an almost annoyed expression spreads itself across her face.
"It must be because you're so approachable. You know. Like a bed of nails," She says in a flat voice.
I stare at her and she stares right back. I was right about my observation about her earlier; she definitely wasn't what she appeared to be. Her blue eyes stare straight into mine. After a few seconds I see heat rush to her cheeks, but she doesn't look away. There's tension building between us, but I ignore it. I kind of wish I could study her a bit longer, but I realize that that would probably come off as a bit creepy, so I finally break my stare.
"Careful, Tris," is all I can think to say, but I'm not really quite sure what I mean by it.
I hear Zeke call my name from across the room and quickly get up to go and join his table, knowing that I couldn't sit where I was any longer.
As I get to the table where Zeke, Lauren, and Shauna are sitting at, Zeke starts to wiggle his eyebrows at me. "Already getting cozy with your initiates, I see," he says in a suggestive voice.
I don't say anything back, knowing it was pointless to argue with him about it, but I can't stop my mind from flashing to Tris for just a second. "Where's your brother?" Is what I decide to ask instead.
"He's over there, flirting it up with all the female Dauntless-born initiates," he says, pointing over to a table that contains Uriah, Marlene, Lynn, and a few others that I recognize. As I'm looking over at their table, I see Eric leading the transfers out of the door and down some hallway. For a second I think about getting up and going after them, but decide against it. Eric would be suspicious if I just started following them; he's suspicious of a lot of things I do now a days.
Plus, I'm still kind of ticked at Tris for her comment earlier. I feel angry about it, but there's another emotion there to, it almost feels like…hurt. Almost like what she said caused me to feel a little bit of pain, but I shake the feeling off and return to the conversation my friends are now having.
"Anyway, Four, are you coming or not?" Lauren asks me as she rolls her eyes at something Shauna said.
"Coming to what?" I ask in confusion; I had missed the beginning of their conversation.
"Zip lining, we're going tonight. Are you coming or not?" Shauna says. I shake my head.
"No, I'm not really in the mood," I try to say in my most casual voice. Thankfully, none of them ask any questions this time and just shrug. I sigh in relief; I only pretend my fear doesn't exist when it's absolutely necessary, that doesn't mean I have to willingly start jumping of buildings.
The rest of the day passes by without any major events. I work in the control room for a few hours, and think about going down to how Eric is doing with the initiates, but I stop myself every time.
As the day ends I sluggishly make my way back to my apartment. I flop into my bed without bothering to get ready. Just a few more weeks, I remind myself. But for some reason, I don't feel as strong as an urge of leaving as I have been before. I'm less eager to leave, as if something, or someone, was holding me back, making me want to stay.
Just as I'm about to figure out this weird feeling inside of me, my eyes start to droop. The thought escapes from my mind, as everything around me starts to fade away into darkness.
Okay guys, this chapter is way longer than the last one, pretty much one thousand words longer. I'm so proud of myself. Okay, thanks for reading, and don't forget to review! I'll update as soon as I can!