Author's Note: Hello again guys. Sorry this one took quiet so long. I have finals and my birthday and family obligations because of the holidays and it just wasn't a good writing environment. Finals are still looming but hey, maybe this will relax me? God I can' believe I've aged another year. Welp. Onwards with the story,
For about three days I tried to hunt down Eric, doing little else other than keeping my eyes peeled for him. Is it hard to guess that for three days he eluded me? He was around but it either wasn't for long or he was so focused in on our initiate group that I couldn't have walked over and talked to him without drawing the stares of everyone.
It was pretty much understood that Four was a little tough on us but that he genuinely wanted the best for us. Every single one of the initiates would denounce Eric as the Devil if asked under truth serum ad I didn't want people asking me why I was talking to him. Even if they really should mind their own damn business and really needed to be told that.
"Fuck!" I screamed as I pounded my fist into the punching bag that Tris was on the other side of, clutching for dear life. She raised an eyebrow at me and I just unloaded on the punching bag in a series of quick strikes filled with pure malice. Eric had just walked into the room for all of five minutes, glanced at all of us, and walked back out.
"Christina?" Four swung around and headed in my direction and I resisted the urge to scream again. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Nothing. I just split my knuckle." I had done that way earlier this morning when we'd first started training but I was happy to have it as an excuse now. I unwrapped my hand from its bindings and held it up to him, wiggling my fingers for extra effect.
"Well better that your skin gets used to it now instead of having it happen in the middle of a fight. Maybe you and Tris should change places? Or go practice with the guns some more, tomorrow we start knives so it's another thing you'll have to divide your time between."
I just raised my shoulders at Tris and waited for her to decide, rewrapping my hand as I weighed the odds of getting a real answer if I was brave enough to ask Four where Eric slept. I needed to talk to him before those first rankings were calculated because chances were that he'd be throwing me out when they went up.
"Fo-."
"Let's go work on guns. I need to work on my stance and you still need to get used to firing in quick succession with accuracy. That recoil is kicking your ass." Tris said even as she stepped around the punching bag and walked toward the station we'd need to be in for that practice.
I waited for her to be just far enough away that she was out of ear shot and then took a step closer to Four, crossing my hands behind my back and lowering my voice to a whisper.
"Hey Four….how are the rankings calculated? Like Eric…I mean…he and a couple of the other leaders have been popping in and out like crazy. How much does what they say influence our ranking?" It wasn't what I had thought I'd be asking but it suddenly seemed more important.
He deliberated for a moment and then crossed his arms in front of him. "As I've said you should really focus more on the here and now than your ranking but if you must know…I suppose it's hard to put a number on it really. The leaders are looking to make sure that you're going to fit into Dauntless. Sure you might win all your fights but that makes you ruthless. And how did you win those fights? Were you using brute strength or were you the little guy using his wits to fight against the brute strength guy?"
I could tell that he was really getting into it now and I had to admit that as he spoke it was easing my nerves a bit. "How quickly did you adapt in training? Did it take you days or hours to pick up gun training? Weeks or minutes to be trained in a new technique? It could mean the difference between being a leader and a solider, a technician or a pit worker. And of course all the jobs are important and…I'm ranting. To answer our question just…just block the leaders out. They'll know if you're being fake so it's best to just try your hardest. Win what you can and if you can't do that then pray that someone sucks more than you do."
I nodded. "Thanks Four. That uh…it makes me feel a bit better."
Eric wasn't the only leader who'd been in training, surly if he tried to find a reason to give me a bad ranking based off of more than my fights one of them would point out that someone else deserved a worse ranking than I. I rolled my shoulders and walked over to Tris, picking up a gun.
Another two days passed and still a chance to talk to Eric failed to present its self but as the time passed I let Four's words sink in, blocking out Eric's eyes as they swept over me in training and forcing myself not to shiver every time he corrected someone. He had this way about him, quietly observing someone with a brain that was clearly not Dauntless and then sneaking up behind them in a way that clearly was.
"But you shouldn't be thinking about that." I chastised myself as I let a knife fly towards the board, pegging it firmly in the center. I hadn't quite hit the bull's eye but I was miles ahead of Al who could barely hit the edge of the target when he could force himself to pick up the knife.
I gritted my teeth as Peter let fly another jab at Al, resisting the urge to step in for him. If I stood up for him it would make him look weak but at the same time Peter needed to be taken down a peg. I wonder what kind of a hissy he'll throw when the rankings go up if he isn't first. I snorted.
I walked straight toward my board and ripped the knives out of it, holding them between my fingers as I pulled one after the other after the other from the board. Half of my mind was focused on my task and the other half was focused on keeping an eye out for any stray knives coming at my head. I really had no mental space to focus on Eric and yet I took a brief moment to let my eyes dart over to him, skulking around the back wall by the east entrance to the training room. He was pacing back and forth, occasionally letting his eyes dart towards another initiate but I knew, I knew from the way he was looking at Al that he was waiting to strike him.
I bit my lip and walked back to my mark on the floor, twirling a knife back and forth between my fingers. "Christina don't do that. Respect your knives and they'll respect you. Dismiss them like they're toys and you'll feel the bite of their blades."
"Yes Fo-."
"I think that you should be correcting more than just Christina's treatment of her blades. This one over here can't even look at his blades when they fly at the silhouette." As Eric spoke Al threw another blade that didn't even stick in the board, it bounced off the edge and slid between two other targets a little ways down, making a quiet screeching noise each time the blade touched stone. It was almost like it wanted to draw out what would be Al's last moment of peace.
"Yea, yea I know. I'm not hard enough on them." Something had been eating at Eric all day and the same thing had been eating at Four but Four really should have known better than to sass Eric. It wasn't going to end well for Al.
"No, not yea, yea. Correct them. Starting with the one who looks like he wants to piss himself every time he pulls his knives out of the board." His head inclined toward Al and I crossed my fingers for him even as I let one of my recently collected knives fly.
"I am correcting them but I can't force comfort on him. He has to find it on his own and then I will critique his way. But let him find it Eric." Four was nearly biting his words out from behind a barricade of teeth.
"Really? Really Four?" He swept his hand around the room. "Every one of your other students had comfort by the end of the first day. Improvement with accuracy by the end of the third. You. Are. Coddling. Him."
"Eric…" Joselin, another of the Dauntless leaders, perked up.
"So what if I am?"
"Four!" She no longer had a clear cut wrong and right here. She just wanted to mediate.
The entire room was gradually slowing down with their knife throws, losing the focus that they had built up with each heated word. "Did I say you could stop? If you can't focus when two people are talking I can only imagine how you'll focus when battle is swirling around your heads."
The sound of blades hitting foam picked back up, faster than before less anyone draw Eric's attention.
He pointed at the knife. "Pick it up Al."
"Eric I don't quite think that singling one of them out is going to be helpful right now."
"Joselin he singled himself out when he failed to keep up with the pack. You know this is just another train run. He can jump on or he can get cut."
She rolled her eyes and shook her head but threw her arms up in defeat, pressing against the wall and indicating that he should proceed.
"Pick up the knife."
I cringed. Al was waiting for a break in the knives to go retrieve his but I knew what Eric meant, he wanted Al to be bold enough to walk through the knives.
"Now."
"There are knives flying around."
"And your point is?"
"I'd rather not be cut to ribbons."
"Al…"I hissed under my breath, arm poised at the beginning of my throw. He was being more cocky than he could honestly afford to be even if it didn't show in his voice.
"Everyone stop. Go get your knife." Al walked over to his knife and bent down to pick it up, collapsing less than half a second later as a knife whizzed past his head and embedded it's self in the wall as he stood back up.
"Stand up."
Al failed to get up and I turned to stare at Eric fully, sure that he could see my disapproval in his peripheral vision but not quite caring.
"Stand. Up." Al still couldn't get up and Eric shrugged, shifting his stance to throw another knife. Four shifted with him seeming as if he was going to interrupt but Tris beat him to it and I silently blessed her.
"Quit being a bully."
"Excuse me."
"You're being a bully. You've made your point that Al is on the bottom but throwing knives at him when he's down is just plain picking at an open wound."
"Oh really? And what would you suggest since you know more than me?"
"I never said that." Her voice wavered a bit and Eric pounced on her like an animal after its prey. I suddenly began to regret my choice to make friends during initiation. I was obviously going to lose them if they kept this behavior up.
Please be smart enough to stay out of this Will. I silently prayed.
"Well obviously you must know more than me since you have seen fit to interrupt my critique."
"All I know is that pointing at him and scaring him isn't going to do anything to teach him."
Eric let out a laugh that sent my skin crawling from its bones.
"Oh you don't know fear yet. Soon. But not yet. In the meantime why don't you take Al's place hmm? Let me throw knives at you since you're a big girl and can take it. But when you flinch, Al returns."
I dropped my knives and walked to the back of the room, not wanting to be so close to Eric when he was in this state of malicious intent. How could I have been so easily swain by looks? God you're an idiot Christina.
I bit back a laugh of my own. This is the chasm all over again. What would you expect of a Dauntless man? A dauntless leader no less? Why are you surprised you stupid girl?
The rest of the hour played out in a blur. Four stepped in before Eric could even throw the first knife and only four blades flew at Tris before Joselin declared the whole thing pointless, chewing Tris out for interrupting but also giving her accolades for her bravery and then chewing her out again.
Eric dismissed all of us and then did something akin to storming out of the room.
"Al it's going to be ok." I said as he and I stood in a vacant hallway. He was still trembling from the encounter with Eric and I wasn't quite sure that I could blame him. At the same time though, I'd had Eric's knee in my back and his mouth up close and personal with my ear and I had managed to regain my composure faster than this.
"I'm going to be Factionless Christina."
"You're going to try your hardest and you're going to get into Dauntless."
He gave a bitter laugh and shook his head. "You know you're doing it again. That thing where you lie because you don't know you're doing it."
"I wasn't aware you had a magic mirror that showed you the future. Tell me are you going to be Factionless for sure or are you going to straight to the Morgue?"
"There's no need to be mean."
"I'll be mean to anyone who accuses me of lying twice in less than two weeks." I leaned forward and grabbed Al by his bicep, forcing him to look me in the eyes.
We had grown up in Candor together. I would never lie and say that we had been anything near friends but the fact was that we were both transfers and we were the only thing that each other had that even remotely seemed like home. The fact that the eyes that stared back at me were nearly dead and lifeless made me begin to give up the hope that I had for him. What would be the point in believing in someone who had already decided to give up?
"Al. Get harder. Run steel through your veins if you have to but you need to toughen up. You want in this faction? Pull yourself together and force your way in. You need to make it seem like you can actually stick it out here. Otherwise…why did you come? Why are you here Al?" My voice softened at the end. I truly wanted to know. I knew that I wasn't honest enough for Candor but Al…Al didn't stick out like a sore thumb like I did.
He shook his arm out of my grip, an action that wasn't that hard considering his size. "That's none of your business."
"Fine then. But here's the way things go. You can toughen up or you can get out before you're taken out. And honestly Al? I'd rather have a Factionless friend than a dead one." I turned my back on him and started to walk away.
"Easy to say when you've got your trainer in your back pocket."
"What?"
"You and Tris…both of you." He was talking under his breath now, more to himself than me but I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"What are you implying Al?" He's stressed and he doesn't know what he's saying. He's just lashing out. This is what competition and dishonesty breeds. This is what they're trying to breed in us. I chanted at my self.
When I looked back at him he seemed to be drawing on his courage to say something truly brutal but all that came out was, "what did Eric want from you Christina? What happened the other day?"
"It was nothing. Maybe you should go to Lunch Al. Food will clear you mind a bit, make things better."
I turned and walked away before another word could be spoken, attempting to contain the anger that was rising within my chest.
