Unfading

by awalkerlifeforme

Amarantha Freesia is a typical Amity girl. Only, she isn't quite so typical. Behind her facade of friendly smiles and chipper laughter she is everything that Amity isn't. With a bad attitude and a sharp tongue to match, Amarantha knows she doesn't belong in Amity. The only place she might fit in is Dauntless. But is she brave enough? One thing is for sure, he's positive she isn't.

3. Chapter 3

As I gathered my breath once more, I let out a deep breath and took a long look around the Dauntless compound. In some ways it was everything that I had been expecting. And in other ways it was nothing like I had been expecting. The net that I had just been pulled off of was hanging high in the middle of the room, the opening between the buildings directly above it. The net was hovering around ten feet off of the ground and I nodded, glad that the man had pulled me off of it. I would have gone sprawling off of it if I had tried to jump off. That would have ruined the credit that I had gotten from being the first jumper. It would just label me as the pathetic Amity transfer.

The net was hanging over everyone else in the large area. Shaking the thoughts of my failure away from my mind, I glanced around at the rest of the compound. Well, this side of the compound. It looked like we were standing in the loading bay at the back of the compound. There was no way that everyone could fit back here. I knew that this was only a tiny part of the entire compound. This place probably wasn't very frequently used. Especially considering there weren't that many people around.

Off to the side of the platform that I was standing on - with the man that had pulled me from the net - was a connecting platform that looked like it would take us to the rest of the Dauntless compound. I could hear the chatter coming from that side. Above us were a few platforms that I could tell were designed for people to keep watch over those of us that were standing on the main level. Off to my right side was a set of train tracks as well, but I could tell that they were only designed for shipments of goods considering that the track ended not far past where I was standing.

Glancing around me to check on who was standing around me, I saw that they weren't the craziest looking Dauntless that I had ever seen. I'd seen some insane-looking people before. Most of the members here actually looked rather normal. They were wearing black jackets with black shirts and dark gray pants. Maybe they were trying to look a little normal for all of the new transfers? That would have been something nice. Make us feel a little more like we were at home. Although that didn't sound like something that Dauntless would do.

Shaking my head, I took a mental count of how many people were standing around. There were six men that were around the net, including the man that had pulled me down. Up on the platforms that were above us, there were another two men, both armed. My eyes trained onto the guns and I wondered if we would be learning to shoot. Of course we will, you idiot. This was Dauntless. We were going to learn every way to defend ourselves. That included shooting. Off to the side of the net was a woman, the only one beside me in the room. She had dark hair and a bright smile. She actually looked extremely friendly.

Most people here seemed to be reasonably friendly. Save Eric, that is. Above me I heard a sharp scream and I glanced up towards the net. Whoever it was, it was a female that had taken the plunge. The scream was high-pitched. I hoped that it wasn't Jade. Or, if it was, I hoped that the net would tear. That might have been a little cruel but I could tell that she would be a royal pain in my ass. On a longer look though, I saw that it was a Candor transfer with big, brown hair. It was Heather.

Smiling, I watched as the man pulled her off of the net. "Name?" he asked her.

"Heather."

"Second jumper, Heather!"

Everyone in the crowded area began screaming for her, cheering her on for taking the plunge from the rooftop. The man let her move away from the net and I watched. Heather came bounding over to me and I smiled at her, bringing her into a tight hug. It was nice that the two of us were going to be together in Dauntless. I had been a little afraid of not making friends, as much as I hadn't wanted to admit it.

Even from here I could tell that her hands were still shaking. "That was incredible! I can't believe that you jumped first," she told me, smiling brightly.

"Trust me, I couldn't believe that I did it either," I joked.

The two of us stood together and chatted as a few Dauntless born began to jump. "You should have seen the look on Eric's face. I don't think he believed that you would really do it," she told me.

The grin on my face widened at her words. Eric was exactly the type of Dauntless that I had been expecting. Someone that thought that there was no way that anyone from Amity would ever make it in Dauntless. I had already been expecting someone like him. I just wished that he wasn't the leader. Whatever. He was dead wrong about me. I would fight for my place here. I hadn't come all this way to turn around now.

"Honestly for a minute there I didn't think that I was going to do it," I told her and she laughed.

"I don't think that I would have blamed you. Even after you jumped I almost didn't go through with it," she admitted.

"Just think of it this way; there is no way that I was going to let Eric win. He seems like the type that would visit the Factionless district just to laugh at me," I told her.

We both grinned at the thought. "He does seem the type, doesn't he?" she quipped.

Honestly, if I were to not make it in Dauntless, I would expect Eric to come throw rotten fruit at me and laugh. It bothered me how well I could imagine it. "Plus I left Amity for a reason. It was to become Dauntless," I said loudly.

The man that had caught me on the net turned to me with a smirk and I nodded back at him. He looked almost impressed with me. Okay, maybe he wasn't as bad as I had originally thought that he was. He seemed to have more faith in me than Eric did. Not that I was expecting Eric to ever have any faith in me. Heather cleared her throat and I turned back to look at her. Some of the other initiates were behind her now. It seemed like after Heather and I had jumped, people were now beginning to come down faster.

It must have pleased Eric. "Well girl, I think you have what it takes. I mean, it takes real guts to be the first jumper," she told me. I guessed that was true. "Anyways, did you change your name?"

Nodding at her, I noticed that the man that had helped me down looked over to me with a cocked eyebrow. He was probably curious what my name was before I had changed it. "Yeah. It's Alex now," I told her and she grinned wickedly.

So it seemed that Alex was a good fit. At least it looked like Heather liked it. "I like it, it fits you better than Amarantha," she told me.

Smiling softly, I nodded at her. I heard the man that had caught me snort behind me and I rolled my eyes. "Go ahead and laugh. Everyone does," I mumbled to him.

"I see why you changed it," he told me.

No offense to my parents. It was an adorable name, but it screamed that I was from Amity. But still, did everyone have to laugh when they heard it? It was still my name after all. "Alex sounds so much more Dauntless. So far you have a good start to making a life here," Heather said.

Behind me I heard a heavy thump on the net and I snorted. That must have been a big ass initiate to make that kind of jolt on the net. Maybe it was one of the larger Dauntless born boys. I jumped slightly as the owner of the large body landed next to me heavily, leaving no room for the man that had been helping initiates off of the net to help him. I turned back to give the initiate a piece of my mind but scoffed loudly when I realized who it was.

No wonder they were standing so close to me. "That jump is pretty sweet, huh, Softie?" Eric asked me.

"Sure," I snapped.

The last thing that I wanted was to stand and have a conversation with him. "I wouldn't get used to it," he told me. My head snapped over to him. "Plenty of people jump that don't make it into Dauntless. The easy part is over."

"Thank you for letting me know," I gritted through my teeth.

"You're welcome," Eric sneered, waiting for me to say something. Don't rise to the bait. "Do you have something to say to me?" Forcing myself to swallow my pride, I shook my head and sighed. "Move it initiate," he growled at me, shoving me to the side, closer towards where the man that had caught me was standing.

My feet tripped over themselves as I nearly went sprawling onto the ground. Eric moved behind me and I watched him walk over towards the man that had helped us off of the net. I would definitely have to learn his name sometime soon. It was sure to get old quickly, calling him Net Guy.

Heather helped me steady myself. "God he's such an asshole," I groaned to her.

She was watching me with a smile. Apparently she found my banter with Eric amusing. "You had to be expecting someone like him in Dauntless," she said.

"Oh, I expected lots of people like him. Just not right off the bat."

"Maybe he won't be around that often," Heather suggested.

And just like she had predicted, Eric was gone from sight. Everyone seemed much more relaxed now that he was gone. "No wonder everyone avoids him like the plague," I muttered, watching as Heather's eyes widened.

I was about to ask her what was wrong when I realized what it was. She would have either laughed or agreed with me under any circumstances, except for one. Turning slowly, I saw that Eric was now standing behind me with his arms crossed over his chest. I watched as his muscles contracted and expanded with every breath. If I'd been a little less concerned with what he was going to do to me, I would have smacked myself for wondering what his arms looked like without the jacket.

"You know there are punishments in Dauntless, Softie?" he asked me.

"I'm sure there are," I said.

They couldn't have been worse than the Calming Serum. That shit was awful. "You can get them for plenty of things. Uncontrolled fights, ignoring duties, and speaking poorly of fellow Dauntless members," he told me with a little smirk.

Obviously he wanted me to get in trouble for what I had said. There went trying to make friends with Eric. The two of us had not gotten off on the right foot and I was sure that we never would. But I had to try. I was pretty sure that he wasn't going to let me go on this one, but it wouldn't hurt to give it a shot.

So I stepped towards him and smiled. He was watching me with a raised eyebrow. "Oh, come on, Eric. Have a heart. It's my first day here and it was just a joke," I told him.

"I didn't laugh," Eric said, grinning at me.

It was obvious enough that he was a leader. He liked the authority that came with it. He continued to watch me with a condescending smirk. So I tried my luck another way. "You aren't going to punish me already, are you?" He smirked even wider at my desperation.

"I think I will."

I merely sighed. It was worth a shot. "Okay. Fine. I guess I deserved that. So what is my punishment?" I asked.

Eric smirked at me, probably glad that I didn't have the resolve to fight him. Well it wasn't that I didn't have the resolve, it was that I didn't want to be Factionless an hour after the Choosing Ceremony. Once I was gone from Amity, I was gone. They wouldn't have taken me back. Not even Abnegation would take me now. It was either Dauntless or Factionless. And no one, not even Eric, would ruin Dauntless for me.

He walked towards me and narrowed his eyes. "Tonight, once dinner is over, I expect you back in the offices," he told me.

My eyebrow quirked. "Where are those?" I asked.

"You can meet me outside your dorms and I'll take you up there." We must have been heading to the dorms sometime soon. "There are files up there on everyone in Dauntless, including the new transfers. Those files haven't been made yet. Normally myself and one other leader would do them. Tonight you'll do them by yourself," Eric told me.

My smile spread a little bit. I'd been punished with paperwork and filing plenty of times in Amity. I forced a frown onto my face. "Sounds like fun," I said.

His gaze narrowed on me. "I'll come up to check on you every few minutes," he said.

Scoffing loudly, I shook my head, much to Heather's displeasure. She was watching the exchange over Eric's abnormally large shoulder and shaking her head rapidly. She was probably hoping that I wasn't going to make things worse. But I had spent sixteen years laying down and taking beatings. Not any more.

"I don't need a damn babysitter," I snapped at Eric.

Of course, that was the wrong thing to say. Eric leaned even closer into me, so close that I could smell his breath. I had thought that he might smell like rancid octopus or a pile of garbage, but I was wrong. He actually smelled like peppermint and... alcohol? I guess that wasn't very shocking. Not when he was a Dauntless man.

"I am not yours, or anyone else's, babysitter. I'll be checking on you to make sure that you aren't looking at anything you shouldn't be and to make sure that you aren't slacking off. Then we can just add on another night," he said.

My jaws ground together. "Wouldn't you like that?" I mumbled, a little bit louder than I'd meant to.

His jaw set as he stepped to practically press himself against me. This was not something that I wanted. No matter what my lower regions were telling me. One night with Eric - at least as a punishment - was already one too many for me. My stomach was twisting in knots as Eric smirked down at me. I wasn't sure if he was going to punch me or do something else. All I knew was that I wanted him away from me.

"Watch your mouth, initiate. I've already let you get away with more than I should have. I can assign physical punishments, too," he told me, and I felt my skin crawl. I didn't think that Eric would hesitate to hit me. "Would you like that?"

"No," I said, barely above a whisper.

He nodded at me, his hand laying itself on my shoulder. "And you listen to me. Because I'll say it loud and clear. I. Will. Not. Hesitate. Are we clear?" he asked.

Gulping deeply, I realized that a small part of me was worried that he might hit me. His fists were curled at his sides and a vein in the side of his neck was bulging out. So I had definitely made him extremely mad. Here I was, breaking my first rule again within only a matter of minutes.

"Yes," I said softly.

Eric leaned in closer to me and I took in a deep breath. He was close enough to kiss me but I was sure that he would have sooner taken me back up to the roof and throw me off of the edge. In fact, he might. Tonight we would be alone together and I wasn't sure that I trusted him not to kill me.

"Yes, what?" he asked me lowly.

For a moment I was going to ask him what he meant but there was a good chance that he would look at that like I was defying him or something. So instead I went out on a limb and hoped that I was right. "Yes sir," I said, more as a question than a statement.

"Don't be late," he snapped.

Obviously I was right that he wanted me to call him by a term of respect. Knowing that he wasn't joking, I nodded at him. Eric walked by me, roughly bumping into my shoulder. I stumbled backwards at the impact. He was a lot heavier than he looked. And he looked extremely heavy. Jax was standing behind me and he caught me, helping me stand back upright. I thanked him and went to turn and glare at Eric, but he was already gone.

"What the hell happened?" Jax asked.

"Eric is a dick," I snarled.

Heather came up to me and helped straighten my clothes out. I hadn't even realized that they had become disheveled in my fall. "Tough break. I wish I could come up there and help you. There's a lot of us to make files for," Heather told me.

She was right about that. Even without me, there were twelve transfers. That was a lot of people to make files for. And they were probably extremely detailed. "Leave it to Eric to give me the most irritating job," I whined.

"Don't worry. You'll get it done. And maybe you can trick Eric into helping you?" Heather asked me with a smile.

Scoffing at her, I shook my head. There was no way that I was going to be saying anything more to Eric than I had to. "I don't think I ever want to speak to Eric again," I growled under my breath.

"Doubtful," Heather said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked her.

She smiled and motioned off towards where he had stalked away. "I saw the way that you two looked at each other. They say that when you're angry, it's always the best kind of -"

"No!" I cried out. We both laughed for a moment as I gave her a gentle nudge. We definitely had the same kind of sense of humor. "I mean, damn. He's hot but that personality is a major turn-off," I told her.

We both giggled at my wording. "He is kind of hot, isn't he?" she asked.

Once more I laughed at her. At least I wasn't alone in thinking that he was attractive. But that didn't change the fact that no asshole like him was worth it. "It's whatever though. I'll take care of it and then come back for bed. I'm sure that we won't be doing anything that serious tomorrow," I told her.

They would take it easier on us since we were transfers, right? Maybe that was wishful thinking. Heather nodded at me and we both stood in silence before glancing up at the sound of a deep yell. I stared up at the opening in the roof and saw that Colt had hit the net roughly. He was now being clumsily pulled off. He looked nervous, but the moment that the two of us locked eyes, his cool demeanor returned.

"Coward," I muttered. Heather nodded her agreement.

We were motioned towards the man that had pulled all of us off of the net and I took my place in front of him, crammed between Buck and Heather, with Cole behind me. Colt was standing opposite me with Jade and the still-silent Erudite transfer. The two of them both looked proud. But why were they? I had jumped first and Heather had come behind me. They were some of the last ones down.

"Dauntless-born, I assume you guys don't need a tour of the place," he said, earning some laughs from the Dauntless. "Go with Lauren, transfers stay with me. Go," he ordered.

There was only one female full-fledged member. I watched as the Dauntless born walked over to where Lauren was standing, laughing with some of the Dauntless members. She smiled at the initiates, most of whom I assumed that she knew. She only looked to be about three or four years older than the initiates. If she was also Dauntless born, they had probably all grown up together.

"This way," Lauren called.

We all watched as she motioned for the Dauntless born to follow her. Net Man waited for Lauren to disappear behind the corner with the Dauntless born before turning back to us. By this time, nearly everyone else had left the room and we were now alone with Net Man. I really had to come up with a better name than that.

He began pacing in front of us. "Most of the time I work in Intelligence, but during your training, I'll be your instructor," he told us. I nodded at him. That made sense then why he was the second person that we met coming into Dauntless. We met a leader first and then our trainer. "My name's Four."

At least I knew his name now. My eyebrows shot up at his name. It was definitely Dauntless. I wasn't sure what about it sounded so badass, but it definitely was. It was also much better than Net Man. I assumed that Four was a transfer, seeing as Four was a strange name, even for Dauntless parents. Or maybe he had just changed his name when he'd become an initiate. Colt snorted loudly and I saw that Four whipped around to him, eyes completely narrowed.

Rule number two: Don't make Four mad.

"Four like the number?" Colt asked.

He was wearing a wide smirk that I knew was going to get him in trouble. Attitudes like that might have gone over well in Erudite but not here in Dauntless. Eric had already taught me that lesson. While Colt was still busy laughing about the joke that he must have thought was very cute, he was unaware that Four found it anything but funny.

"Exactly like the number," Four growled, walking up to Colt. The transfer shrank back and I smiled. Even I hadn't done that when Eric had gotten in my face. Colt definitely wasn't as tough as he liked to pretend that he was. "Is that a problem?"

Colt almost immediately shook his head. The color had drained from Colt's face at the sight of Four towering over him, considering that he was six feet tall, definitely taller than most of us. Heather snorted next to me as she leaned towards my ear. I was about to warn her to be quiet and tell her that Four was watching us, but she spoke before I could get the chance. A little louder than I had thought that she would speak.

"What happened, one through three were taken?" she asked me.

It was definitely obvious that she was waiting for a response, but I said nothing, staring at Four with what I assumed was a light blush on my cheeks. He had overheard her comment. Eventually it seemed that she got the hint that something was wrong and looked up. Four was standing in front of her and I immediately saw the color drain from her face. Unlike how Eric just merely annoyed me, I could tell that Four genuinely scared Heather.

"What's your name?" he asked her.

For a moment I didn't think that she was going to be able to say anything, the fear very evident in her eyes, so I thought about answering for her. But eventually she managed to get her act together and look Four in the eyes. Well maybe in the chin, but it was something. Four was much taller than us but Heather was tall too, probably only a few inches shorter than Four.

"Heather," she answered, trying - and failing - to sound confident.

Four seemed to know that she was trying hard to look tough. But it clearly didn't amuse him as he merely smirked at her. As far as I could tell, Four was a hard ass like Eric, but he at least had a little more of a sense of humor. He also used more psychological intimidation and less physical.

Although right now he was towering over her. "Well, Heather. Seems like you and your little friend need to learn a lesson," he said, his eyes shooting over towards me briefly. I narrowed my eyes but kept my mouth shut. I was so sick of them treating me like the out of place Amity. "So here it is. The first lesson you learn from me if you wanna survive here, is keep your mouth shut. Do you understand me?" Four asked Heather.

Heather nodded her head, now not trying to look tough at all. Instead she looked like she was trying not to cry. Not that I really blamed her. Softly she responded to him, "Yes."

Taking a moment to stare Heather down, Four slowly nodded and turned away from her. "Good. Follow me," Four said.

Without saying anything else, he went stalking off, apparently not interested in bothering to say anything more. We all began to walk with Four, myself struggling to keep up. He had long legs, ones that took long strides that I couldn't even begin to match. But still, I pumped my legs quickly to make sure that I didn't fall behind as we walked. The air was warm in Dauntless and I almost wished that I was wearing something a little longer. Like maybe jeans.

Rather than the shorts that I was wearing, which were a little shorter than I'd initially thought. I should have been wearing something a little bit longer. As we walked, I found myself right next to Heather with Cole on my other side. The three of us were right behind Four as he pulled us into a huge open space. It was full of noise that must have been what I was hearing out in the loading bay. It was ten times louder in here than I had ever heard Amity.

In fact, it made Amity sound like Abnegation. "This is The Pit," Four spoke loudly over the noise. I nearly laughed. Of course it was. "The center of life here at Dauntless. You can come here to buy anything you need or want. We have taken the liberty of giving you a certain amount of credits to use. Just to get started with." Everyone smiled. That was nice of them. "Once you become full-fledged members you will be given credits based on what your job is."

Everything was rather nice that they were doing for us so far. Maybe we would have a good time here, after all. As long as we could manage to avoid Eric for the most part. Being a leader, hopefully he would be a little bit too busy to spend time around a bunch of initiates. I couldn't imagine that we were that thrilling to watch.

Before Four could lead us out of the Pit, I looked around to see what it had to offer. The damn place was huge, making me feel like a shrimp standing in it. The Pit was exactly what it sounded like. It was a gigantic pit in the ground where Dauntless members milled together, talking, laughing, and dancing. It opened all the way up to the roof, back up above ground level.

Loud rock music was blaring in the background and I watched as people rocked their bodies together. It was the middle of the day but they were already in the middle of what looked to be a very fun party. Towering stories above the Pit was a large glass dome, sending in a blast of natural light. Adding to the effect of the underground cave system were blue lanterns that were hung at various points along the rock walls that surrounded the Pit.

Glancing up towards the upper levels of the Pit, I saw the shops that Four had been talking about. Ledges were carved into the rocks where people could walk back and forth. I noticed that there were no railings protecting anyone from falling off of them. It was so in the Dauntless style. It was almost shocking to see the way that no one had a care in the world of the dangers that were there. In the event that someone fell, they would die from the impact. At least, it seemed like someone would die. It was a long fall to the ground.

Kids were running back and forth and I smiled at how confident they were. They knew they weren't going to fall. Instead of reprimanding them, their parents merely watched with smiles, probably reminded of how they acted as children. Looking at the parents only reminded me of my own and how crushed they had looked when they'd realized that I was not going to stay in Amity.

Fighting back tears from the heart wrenching decision that I'd made, I glanced away from the families that were still running around and shifted my focus to the shops. The one thing that I had carried over from Amity was that I really loved to shop. But Amity had never had shops. We made our clothing most of the time and the few shops that we did have were second-hand, for the parents that were either working too much or were first-time parents that couldn't sew.

These shops here in Dauntless were badass looking. It was what I had imagined Dauntless clothing looking like. Most of the stores had neon signs that were made with jagged lettering. The first one that I saw looked like a clothing store, everything in the window completely black. Next to it were a few more clothing stores, one looking completely dedicated to more formal clothing. Still black of course. Next to that was a makeup store, the only store that looked like it had anything of color. Next to it was a hair salon and I grinned. I would probably cut my hair a little bit. Eventually. Being in Amity I rarely cut it. The last shop that was visible to me was a tattoo and piercing shop, one that I knew I would be visiting soon.

Heather grabbed my arm and I glanced up at her. We were moving once more and I hadn't even noticed. I had been so caught up in looking around the Pit that I hadn't bothered to watch if we were moving on or not. I could have stayed in the Pit forever and never wanted to leave. Four led us on without saying anything and we all mindlessly followed.

As we walked through the Pit I saw that there was a dining room to the right, almost completely empty right now. Of course, it was still around five or so and no one was ready for dinner yet. Although I could smell the food cooking as the chefs prepared for the dinner rush. As we were led past the dining room I wondered if I would ever find my way around this place. There were so many twisting pathways.

We walked out of The Pit and into the next room, and we immediately heard the rushing of water. Water? I wasn't the only person that glanced up. Just past where we were standing was a magnificent waterfall. It fell in plumes down past a bridge that connected one side of the rock to the other. It was beautiful. It also looked extremely dangerous. It had to be, considering it was the only walkway in Dauntless that I had seen with bars along the path.

"This is The Chasm," Four told us, shouting over the roar of the water. Dauntless were definitely not the most creative people. "The Chasm reminds us that there's a fine line between bravery and idiocy. A daredevil jump off this ledge will end your life." I believed that. It was a long fall to the bottom and I assumed that the water wasn't that deep. "It's happened before and it will happen again. You have been warned."

Without another word we left the area and I scoffed. I figured that the Chasm had been there long before Dauntless, but did they really have to build the compound right around it? There were probably plenty of other good places. Although it definitely reminded us that there was a point where being brave became foolish. Just past the Chasm, Four brought us down two hallways to a set of metal doors that were closed. I had initially figured that they were our bedrooms, but apparently I was wrong as Four kept the doors closed.

"This is the training room. Training is every day from eight to six," Four announced. Everyone let out a sigh. That was a long day. And an early one too. "Dinner is served at six. You will have an hour at noon to take a lunch break. After that you're free to do as you please. Lateness to training will not be tolerated. You come on time or you do not show up."

Four walked past us once more, everyone stepping out of his way to let us through. So I guessed that we wouldn't be seeing the training room until tomorrow morning. It kept at least one thing a surprise. Although I was sure that they would be sending us a number of surprises.

"Great," I moaned to Heather, as we walked out of one hallway and down a new one.

She smiled at me. I could tell that she wasn't fond of the hours, being from Candor. "That's really early," she mumbled.

We turned another corner as I tried to add it to my mental map. How did anyone find their way around this place? Everything looked the same. "Just what I wanted. Working late tonight and then having to be up early tomorrow, where they're probably going to try and kill us," I groaned, making her laugh. "I think Eric is really out to get me."

Hopefully he wasn't hiding anywhere to overhear my comment. At the end of the long hallway was another set of doors and I looked up. It looked almost exactly like the training room but instead of double doors, it was one sliding door. Four slid the door open and I glanced inside. It was a bedroom. Well, the bedroom by the looks of it. There were twelve single person beds, not very comfortable looking. Each bed had a set of clothes on it and I grinned. Thank God, I was sick of looking so out of place. The bedroom was nothing spectacular and it was a little cold, but it was fine for the short time that we would be going through initiation.

"And this is where you're gonna be sleeping for the next eight months," Four informed us.

Okay, so maybe not that short of an initiation.

As far as I knew, Amity initiation only lasted two months. Some years I had heard of it being as short as three weeks. There wasn't much that they could teach you about farming and friendliness. I guess in Dauntless, there was a lot more that we all had to learn. But what could possibly take eight months?

"Initiation lasts eight months?" I asked Four.

"Yes. Problem?" he asked me.

Smiling at him, I shook my head and brushed past his shoulder. "Not at all. I look forward to the next eight months with you, Four," I teased.

He rolled his eyes at me as he stood by the door. The initiation seemed like a long time to me, but whatever they said, I would go with. I would much rather take eight months of training for Dauntless over three weeks of training for Amity. At least we'd be learning practical things in Dauntless, not how to properly smile for certain occasions.

"Girls or boys?" I heard a Candor transfer named Raven ask.

It was my own theory that she had changed her name to fit her image. She had black hair and dark brown eyes. I didn't blame her for the name. It suited her well. I glanced back at Four and saw that he had a bright glint in his eyes. I knew what a look like that meant. It meant that he was about to enjoy whatever it was that he was going to say, but we weren't.

"Both," he said, making every eye shoot back towards him.

What the hell did he just say? Boys and girls were sleeping together? Oh no, if that was the truth then I was picking the bed farthest away from Colt. I didn't trust him in the slightest. Not even to sleep next to me. I didn't trust that he wouldn't put a knife through my eye or something of the likes.

"There aren't even enough beds," I pointed out.

Four glanced over at me and smiled. "There will be." I raised a brow at him, wondering what that meant. Were they really going to kill us? "We've never separated the genders and it's worked well for nearly one hundred years. There aren't any problems, are there?" he asked us.

Everyone in the room shook their heads, although almost everyone seemed to have some sort of problem with the room. We all went about looking through the room, choosing to gripe silently to ourselves. I picked the bed closest to the door, right up against the wall, and smiled as Heather took the bed behind mine. Cole took the bed across from mine and Buck took the bed behind his, across from Heather. I sighed happily as I realized that Colt had picked a bed all the way across the room.

"Nice. I could get used to this," Jade said, a devious smile on her face. I rolled my eyes at her as Colt gave her a sideways grin.

Colt dropped down onto his bed and spread out for a moment, effectively dumping the clothes that were sitting on the bed onto the floor. Idiot. "That works for me," he said with a sleazy smile.

That was the last thing that any of us needed. I didn't care if anyone wanted to hook up with each other, I just didn't want them doing it in front of me. That wasn't what I had come here for. Colt's eyes met mine and he grinned as he saw that I was clearly uncomfortable with the whole arrangement. He swaggered towards me and I noticed that Four stiffened at his post by the door. He obviously wasn't a fan of Colt.

"Come on Softie, lighten up. Aren't you guys out there all about being out in the open?" he asked me. I rolled my eyes. Amity were all about keeping things in the open to avoid confrontation, but that was not about bodies. "I'm sure that you've seen plenty of things before. Maybe had a few yourself -"

Before Colt could finish and I could cut him off - with words or fists I wasn't sure - Four cut him off for me. "Drop it," he hissed at Colt, who immediately stopped talking.

If he was afraid of Four I would hate to see how afraid he was of Eric. He had only met him briefly on the rooftop. But that was only if the rest of them were ever going to meet him. I figured that a leader wouldn't have much time for initiates. If I was a leader I certainly wouldn't want to spend my time with the initiates.

"I will not hesitate to kick any of you out of Dauntless for acting like children," Four said to us. Somehow I didn't doubt him. "You're adults now, act like it." He turning back towards Jade. The previous glint was back in his eyes. "If you like this, you're gonna love the bathroom."

That's disgusting. Turning back to where Four was looking, I groaned. "Great," Heather moaned.

"Well our day just keeps getting better and better," I told Heather.

I glanced over to Raven to see that she looked like she might faint. The bathroom was like something you would expect to get murdered in. It was all gray stone with showers that lined the front wall. They had little plastic curtains on the front side but it looked like nothing separated the inside stalls from each other. At least there was some privacy. I guess we could work it out so that girls could take a shower at one time and boys at another.

Next to the showers were the toilets. Thankfully those had doors, but there were urinals that were out in the opening. The dorms were only getting better by the second. Here's hoping that the apartments that the actual members were in were much nicer than the dorms. In some ways, Colt was right. I had seen that part before, a few times, but that didn't mean that I wanted to see everyone's.

Dante turned to Four and I was shocked to see that he actually looked a little angry. I cocked my head at him and waited for him to say something to our trainer. "You're kidding aren't you? I mean, not that I mind this or anything but isn't this a little perverted?" he asked Four, mostly motioning to the girls.

Four merely shrugged, clearly not the slightest bit concerned about whether or not we were comfortable in our new home. "Of course it is, but do you really think that they care?" I asked him, realizing that Four wasn't going to say anything. "This has to be something about training. They're trying to push us as far as they can. This is part of what they're going to do to us. We just can't let it bother us."

Obviously Four was listening to me closely. His head was turned towards me as a strange look flitted across his face. I wanted him to know that I wasn't just some pathetic Amity. Cole popped up from his spot on his bed, looking like he felt extremely bad for Raven. She was still staring at the bathroom in horror. Part of me wondered if she was getting ready to leave Dauntless right this second.

"Is there no other area?" Cole asked Four.

A snort came from behind all of us and I turned back to see that Jade was laughing. She was perched on Colt's bed and I groaned. I really hoped that we weren't going to have to deal with the two of them getting a little friendly during training. I could deal with some people being together, I'd walked in on people plenty of times, but I did not want them together. Please let them be able to wait until we are all members.

"Are you kidding?" Jade asked us. So apparently she didn't think that this was any big deal.

For a moment everything was silent before I realized that Four was walking up beside me. I had been listening to Jade so intently that I had almost forgotten that our leader was still in here with us. He probably thought that we were all the biggest babies in the world. But maybe this was something that happened relatively frequently. I couldn't help but to wonder what Eric would think of us right now.

Probably that we were a pathetic bunch of kids. "You should feel right at home, Candor," Four smirked to Heather. "Everything out in the open. You too Amity." I rolled my eyes at him. "They never seemed to have a problem with bearing it all."

Scoffing loudly, I stood from my bed and dropped my arms to my sides pathetically. There wasn't much argument left in me. I was tired and starving. All I wanted to do was take a long nap and forget about today. The weight of leaving my parents was still heavy on my shoulders. Oh yeah, dealing with Eric tonight was going to be a blast.

"I did. Why the hell do you think that I left?" I snapped at him before sitting back on my bed.

Draven shook his head at Four and scoffed. He looked as offended with this as the rest of us did. I mean, I could see why we were sharing a bedroom, but an open bathroom? Even I thought that was a little over the line. "This has to be a joke? Right?" Draven asked Four.

Obviously fed up with the way that we were all acting over the news of the shared bedroom and bathroom, Four rolled his eyes at us and headed to the door. "Get changed," he snapped before rolling the door shut and leaving us alone.

I glanced up at the clock mounted on the wall and nodded. It was only five minutes to six. Four wanted us to get changed so that we would be ready for dinner. Which was fine with me, considering that I was starving. The room was plunged into a sudden awkward silence without Four around to keep the questions rolling. Cole smirked at me and stood up, letting his shirt fall to the floor. Damn that was fast. At least someone was getting the weird part out of the way.

"Right. Shower, anyone?" Cole asked with an awkward laugh.

The dorm remained silent and I rolled my eyes as the tenseness in the air merely intensified. That hadn't made things any better. Shaking my head clear of my thoughts, I took in a few deep breaths before kicking my shoes off and unbuttoning my pants. None of the girls, not even Jade, had bothered to get undressed yet, and I knew that someone had to be the first. I noticed that almost all of the boys were at least half dressed and I sighed. They had nothing to hide.

Unfolding the new Dauntless clothes, I opened them up and looked them over. It was a black tank top, a dark gray jacket, and a pair of black pants. Everyone seemed to have the same outfit and I nodded. Boys and girls would wear them, although ours were a little lower cut than the boys' version. These must have just been starter outfit to carry us over for a day or two. Until we could go buy something for ourselves.

Leaving the clothes over the edge of my bed, I unzipped my shorts and said goodbye to the bright colors. I had a lingering feeling that I would never see them again. My shirt came off next and I dropped it into the pile. They stood out so much against the dark colors of the bedroom. It didn't help that no one else had red or yellow clothes. I began to pull the tank top on when I heard a whistle come from my right.

My head snapped up to see Colt giving me an appreciative stare. "Damn I changed my mind. I think that I'm glad that you decided to leave Amity," he told me.

My jaws set as I yanked the clothing on. "Really? Because every time that I look at you I wonder why I left," I sneered at him.

All of the other girls were beginning to get changed now, looking grateful that I had been the first one to get undressed. Not to mention the first one to get a comment like that thrown at them. I scoffed at Colt and pulled on my pants , quickly gathering my jacket into my arms and sliding it onto my shoulders. It was too big but it was fine for now. Colt looked like he wanted to say something else, but Jade grabbed him and pulled him out of the room.

The moment that we were gone it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. "We should probably head down to get something to eat now. I have to serve my prison sentence soon," I told Heather, grabbing her.

"At least he's letting you have dinner," Heather said, trying to find the bright side.

She was right about that. Eric could have always made me come do the files without giving me anything to eat. We walked to the side of the room, searching through the large selection of combat boots. They were the exact same, we just had to find our size. I finally settled on my size, grabbing them and lacing them up. Waiting for Heather to get her size as well, she finally found them and nodded at me to leave.

We exited out the door that Jade and Colt were leaving out of at the same time but we were all stopped by Four. "Bring your old clothes with you," he ordered us.

We all nodded, grabbing our old clothes and packing them under our arms as we made the short walk back to the dining room. Before we were allowed to walk in though, we were stopped in front of a large fire pit. The flames were gently burning against the coals and I glanced up at Four, wondering what we were doing.

"Burning these clothes from your old Faction severs the last ties that you had with your home Factions. You're Dauntless now and we take 'Faction before blood' very seriously here," Four informed us.

They seemed to be the most familial-like out of all of the Factions, so it wasn't surprising that they thought that way. I nodded along with his words, and without hesitation, threw my clothes in. Watching them burn to a crisp, I realized that the yellow and red mixed well with the flames.

"Go eat and get to bed. It's going to be a long day for you tomorrow," Four told us.

As we walked away from the fire pit I let Heather pull me to the food line. Unsurprisingly, I had no idea what most of the food was. So I merely let Heather have my tray and stack it with whatever she felt like was a good fit for me. I trusted her not to poison me. Everything looked so strange and most things had a funny smell to them. That was what happened when I'd only ever eaten fruits and vegetables for my entire lift.

"They might want us to act like adults, but they treat us like children," I told Heather after we had gotten our food together.

The two of us went searching for a seat together. "Can you blame them? We've kind of been acting like children," she said.

"You're right about that. It's just that this place is so weird. We've never been here before. Some of them - Eric - seem to think that we should already know everything," I muttered.

"He doesn't seem like the type to forgive weakness," Heather said.

It was almost impossible to find a place to sit. The only seats that were open in the area were next to Four, so we decided to go with it. He looked less than thrilled to have us next to him. Not that I was thrilled to be there next to him. Not when he seemed to think that I was just some dumb Amity girl that had gotten in way over her head. Maybe I was.

Not even a moment later Cole came over to us, sitting on our opposite side. Buck was with him and planted himself on the other side of the table, directly in front of me. Dante found us just a second after and sat in front of Heather, next to Buck. Jet and Skylar, the only Abnegation transfer, were on the other side of Buck and somehow Draven had found room next to Cole. Rock music was carrying over loudly from the Pit and I smiled. Dauntless may have been a little strange but it was so full of life. I loved it. And it seemed that I was already making friends.

"Hey Heather. Amarantha," Cole said and I smiled. I was pretty sure that he didn't remember anyone else's names.

We would learn them in time. My smile faded though when I realized that he had called me by my Amity name. A few odd looks were passed around the table and I sighed. Damn it Cole, I was hoping that only Heather and Four would know my real name. There were a few snickers coming from Jade and Colt's side of the table.

"It's actually Alex now. I thought that Amarantha was a little too Amity for my liking," I said softly.

Buck smiled at me and I nodded back at him. He was lucky. His name had already suited Dauntless. "It was. Alex suits you well. And it sounds pretty Dauntless," he told me.

I thought so too. "Thanks," I chirped happily.

"So what were you saying earlier about serving a prison sentence?" he asked.

Had no one else realized that I had already been punished by Eric? I had almost forgotten that the only person that had been there to watch the exchange between Eric and I, was Heather. She was the only one that knew where I had to go after dinner.

"Oh it was nothing, I just mouthed off stupidly to Eric and he got pissed at me," I said, waving my hand flippantly at him. Four looked sideways at me and I shrugged. For some reason I would have thought that he would have known.

Jet's jaw dropped. "You mouthed off to Eric?" he asked.

My face colored slightly. "In my defense, I didn't know that he was standing right behind me," I said.

"I was trying to warn you!" Heather shouted.

Turning towards her, I smiled and shoved a piece of bread in her mouth. "I know. That's why I've been saying that it was my own fault. He's making me put together files on all of us tonight after dinner. It was so stupid. I can't believe he just gave me a punishment. Couldn't he have let one comment go?" I asked with a little huff, stabbing at my potatoes.

Heather snorted at me and I looked up to her. She had already finished half of her meal and I had only picked at my potatoes. Maybe I wasn't as hungry as I had thought that I was. "You made three comments," she told me.

There hadn't been three comments. Were there? Of course not. I wasn't that stupid. Or, if I was, I wasn't going to admit it. I huffed softly and shoved her slightly. Three comments or one, it was my first day in Dauntless. Eric should have let me off with a warning. A fork dropped on the other end of the table and I looked around to see that Cole was gaping at me around Heather.

"You really mouthed off to Eric?" he asked me.

It set me on edge slightly that apparently no one ever mouthed off to Eric. Maybe he really was going to kill me tonight. Or maybe I would get that physical punishment. God I hoped not. I didn't even want to know what that was. "It wasn't like I said anything that bad," I defended.

Heather huffed softly, letting everyone know that it had actually been that bad. "Girl, you have a death wish after you mouthed off to Four too," Cole said.

Once more I noticed Four glance up a bit at our conversation. I shrugged my shoulders and looked back down to my burger. I was sick of talking about my upcoming punishment. I would rather stare at my less than fascinating food. Heather had grabbed the burger for me and now I was just staring at it stupidly. Being an Amity, I had never had meat before. I guess now was as good a time to start eating meat as any.

It took me a long while to realize that the others were watching me watch the hamburger. "Have you never seen a hamburger before?" Dante asked me, looking completely confused.

I shook my head at him and picked it up. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to eat it but I needed to eat something. And protein was probably vital in Dauntless. "No, I've seen one. I just have never eaten one. It's like the Abnegation's. We don't really eat meat," I said. A loud scoff came from Buck and I rolled my eyes. The other Factions would never understand Amity and Abnegation. "We eat mostly plants and fruits. Amity believe that killing animals is almost as bad as killing humans. They keep cows out in the fields but mostly for milk and cheese. Some are pets too. But no one ever cultivates them for food."

Jet laughed loudly and I turned to look at him. He shrugged his shoulders and devoured the little piece of his steak that was left over. I grimaced at the blood that was running down his chin and looked away. I'd rather see human blood than animal. I guessed that not all of my Amity traits would leave me.

"I see why you left," Jet told me without swallowing.

Poking him in the shoulder, I smiled as Skylar shook her head at Jet. The two seemed to have become fast friends, like Heather and me. I supposed that everyone would need new friends. Especially considering that we were all in a new Faction. At least somewhere in Candor, Iris had Florian with her. Maybe they would finally learn to get along without having me there to mediate between them.

"She's right though. Abnegation and Amity are actually pretty similar," Skylar said. "I've fed Factionless people hamburgers before but I've never had one. I've always been curious to eat one though. People always said that they were so good."

Giving her a huge smile, I picked up the burger and motioned to Skylar. "I'll eat it if you do," I told her.

"Together," Skylar agreed.

"On three?"

"On three," she said.

"One, two, three," I counted down, before taking a huge bite of the meat.

At first the texture made me want to throw it back up. But as I chewed I realized that it was better than I had thought. Most of the foods that I had ever eaten were either sweet or bitter, but this was salty. Wonderfully so. I finished my bite and smiled, turning to my friends that were eagerly awaiting on our verdicts.

"Hey, that's actually pretty good!" I chirped.

Skylar didn't seem as fond of the new food as I was. "Well it's better than tofu," she said, earning some laughs.

"Man, I can't believe that I spent all of my life having never had one of these things before!" I yelled, Skylar nodded her agreement.

"Glad we got that settled," Draven said, making both Skylar and I laugh. As he patted both of us on the backs, I continued to eat the plain meat. "God I'm glad that I never had to eat anything like that. Plants I mean. Erudite eat a lot of fish. Fish have lots of Omega Three vitamins that help brain development. Erudite's think that fish are good to help with intelligence."

I was reasonably certain that I'd heard that in school one day when we'd been talking about the other Factions and their ways of living. There was a snort from the other side of Heather and I rolled my eyes. It seemed that Cole was quickly becoming our comedian. But that was a good thing. We could all end up way too serious here in Dauntless. A little humor could go a long way. Maybe Four needed to learn that lesson.

"You know, it's people like you that are why I left Erudite," Cole said. We all laughed at the comment, teasing Draven. "I couldn't stand always feeling like the least intelligent one in the room."

I knew how it felt to always be the odd one out. Iris and Florian were always great at pretending like they could fit in. I was good at it, but I knew that most people could see through me. Mom and Dad were the only ones that had never been able to tell that I wasn't an Amity.

"That was the good thing about Candor," Heather said. I looked over at her. "You never had to be the most intelligent person in the room. All you had to do was say something that would start an argument," she said.

Maybe Candor wasn't as bad as I liked to think sometimes. I smiled at her. It sounded like something that was rather fun. Getting to start arguments for no reason other than because you could. Throughout the years I had always heard Candor's engaging in polite debates. Florian and Iris would love that, they were always arguing with each other.

"Candor's love to argue. Then you felt like the smartest person because you were the reason for the debate," she continued.

Buck laughed loudly at Heather and dove back into his food. Before he could pop a tomato into his mouth though, he looked over at Heather with a big grin. "You know, you might have wanted to stay in Candor. I mean I don't think even a Dauntless could be that cruel. Poor Amity over there. All peace and love. How could we say such things in her presence? Cover your ears, Alex!" Buck yelled at me.

Everyone was laughing at his comment with calling me such a little kid. I leaned forward and smacked the tomato off of Buck's fork, laughing as it went flying across the table and hit Jade. She turned back to me with a nasty glare but I merely laughed even harder. That was what she deserved for being a bitch.

"Fuck you guys. Maybe I should have stayed in Amity," I said.

Everyone knew that I was joking though, as laughter was racking through my words. "If you're going to be talking like that you should have stayed where you were," Four said.

The laughter was broken as everyone glanced over at him. He sounded much less excited than any of us did. Of course, this was just a normal day with the added irritation of new kids. He had been so silent throughout the whole meal that I almost had forgotten that he was there. All of us were looking at him, even Jade and Colt were looking across the table to listen to our trainer.

"We don't want people that sob over their old Factions. I don't want to hear about your old Factions. You're Dauntless now," he said with a little sneer.

Suddenly a stupid urge came over me. Four had changed his name. I was absolutely positive he hadn't been born with that name. He could have been a Dauntless born, but that didn't make any sense about why he didn't like people talking about their old Factions. I was just pretty sure that he was a hard ass Dauntless born, but maybe he wasn't. Maybe there was a chance that he had been just like us a few years ago.

"Were you a transfer, too? Or Dauntless-born?" I asked.

While I had been thinking, Four had looked away from us. But his head had shot back up to me when I had spoken. So far I had seen Four angry, amused, bored, and pissed. Now I was pretty sure that I was getting my first look at disbelief and maybe a little hint of hatred.

"Are you kidding?" he asked me.

I merely shrugged at him. "No," I answered.

Honestly I had really wanted to know. I didn't think that it was that big of a deal. "What makes you think you can talk to me?" Four asked me darkly.

Scoffing loudly, I shook my head at Four. He was a little scary and kid of mean, but that didn't mean that he was above me. Just because he was a member and I was an initiate did not mean that he could speak to me that way. The people sitting around me had silenced themselves to stare at the two of us, wondering what was going to happen next.

"I think it's the same reason that makes Eric so easy to talk to," I said, noticing that Four did not look happy at that comment. "Maybe all of you here in Dauntless have it. Something in the water maybe? Four, it's because you're so approachable."

There was a sickly-sweet smile on my face. The same one that I had used so often on the people back in Amity. Four leaned into me the same way that Eric had, but for some reason it worked much better when Eric did it. He actually put a little fear in me. Four made me a little nervous, but he made me angrier than anything else.

"You better watch yourself, Amity. You might think that you're making yourself look more Dauntless, but you're only putting a target on your back. I can make your life hell and Eric will make you wish that you were dead. Do you want that?" he asked me.

What could I even say to that? There was nothing that I could think to say to him. I said nothing back to him and instead just stared stupidly at Four. Eventually he just scoffed at me and stood up, leaving the table and storming off. Okay, note to self, don't ask Eric that question. If that was the way that Four had responded, I would hate to see how Eric would. I really was on a roll today. Eric and Four both seemed about ready to pull my head free of my shoulders. Or maybe send me away from Dauntless. I wasn't sure what was worse.

For a while, everyone at the table was silent until Heather leaned over to me and patted me on the shoulder. "You, my friend, have a death wish," she said with a little laugh.

Apparently I did have a death wish after everything that I had done in the past twenty-four hours. I nodded at Heather and looked over as Colt began to speak. I really did hate him, but I was somewhat curious about what he was going to say. Although I couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes at him. Although I quickly realized that he wasn't saying anything stupid or sexist. He was whispering so I had to lean in closer to hear him.

It wasn't just me. Everyone was listening now. "You know, he was first in his class. They tried to recruit him for leadership twice, but he said no." I raised my eyebrows. Four had said no to a leadership position? Twice? Why would he deny something like that? "Yeah Softie, that's right. I know things."

Did he really have to say things like that? I couldn't stand the fact that he thought that he was so much better than me. I rolled my eyes and was about to rebut what Colt had said when a loud alarm began to blare. Everyone at the transfer table had jumped about a foot into the air, making the Dauntless born laugh. They were all banging their cups against the table as a black man stood on the catwalk that went around the top of the dining hall. As I looked at him closer I realized that he was probably the oldest person that I had seen in Dauntless.

"Initiates, stand," he ordered. Without thinking, we all did. I blushed as I saw all eyes on me and wanted nothing more than to run. "My name is Max. I am one of your leaders here in Dauntless. You have chosen to join the warrior faction tasked with the defense of this city and all its inhabitants. We believe in ordinary acts of bravery and the courage that drives one person to stand up for another. Respect that. Do us proud."

All of the Dauntless born and members began to cheer loudly and laugh along with us. It wasn't long before they were all standing with us. Not even a moment later I felt arms grab my legs and I screamed as a few Dauntless men lifted Heather and I into the air. A few nonsensical terms shot out of my mouth as they picked us up and began to pass us around the dining hall. It seemed that all of the initiates were up in the air, laughing loudly.

"None of you had better drop me!" I yelled, making the couple that were currently holding me laugh.

The cheers continued as I was passed around the dining hall, back towards the doors that led to the bunks. This is awesome. This is what a real family is like. Just then I felt someone grab a little high on my leg. One of their hands was underneath my thigh and the other was wrapped around my hip. I leaned down to give them a piece of my mind. Before I could though, they pulled me down back into the crowd and I slipped a little, grabbing the persons arm to help steady myself. They held onto me just long enough to catch my balance before letting go.

I looked up to ask them why they had taken me down when I realized who it was. "Keep your hands off of me," I snapped at Eric.

"Aren't Amity's all about touching each other?" he asked.

"In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not an Amity," I barked.

Eric moved towards me and smiled, towering over me. "Is that so? Because that's all that I see in front of me. An Amity pretending to be something she's not."

Even I had to admit that his comment hurt a little bit. And so did my hip. He had grabbed me harder than I'd been expecting. "How hard did you have to grab me?" I muttered.

"Don't whine. That's nothing," he snapped at me. I rolled my eyes at him as he placed a hand behind my shoulder and shoved me forward. "There are girls that would love me to touch them like that."

"So it's true. Dauntless really are brainless."

The moment that I'd said it, I wished that I could have taken it back. Eric walked over to me and pressed a hand on my shoulder, squeezing it to the point that I was sure it would pop out of place. He only let go when I cringed and practically dropped onto one knee. He smiled at me and let up on the pressure. Well there goes my dignity.

"Come on Softie, enough celebrating. Time to own up," he said.

Without bothering to argue with him, I nodded and began following him out of the dining hall. Everyone was still cheering and I watched as Heather and Jax passed each other up in the air, exchanging high fives. Max was smiling down on the initiates and I rolled my eyes. All of the initiates were having fun, except for me.

"Buzzkill," I muttered as we walked.

Eric turned slowly back to me and I jumped back slightly at his short stop, nearly running into him. He didn't whip around to me as hard as Four did and for some reason it unnerved me. Eric was like the scary calm kind of angry. But I was sure that it wasn't always like that. He seemed like he could have an extremely nasty temper.

"What was that, initiate?" he asked me.

Don't get another punishment. I shook my head and bit back a rude comment. "Nothing. Sir," I added bitterly.

Eric smirked at me and I rolled my eyes as we walked through the Dauntless compound. "I thought so," he hissed at me.

As we walked I realized that he was taking me a completely different way than we had gone before, when Four had been taking us around. Dauntless was a hell of a lot bigger than I had thought that it was. It was probably about the size of Amity. Which was a little strange considering Amity was outside. As we walked I found it slightly odd that no one was walking around, although this looked like mostly records and bookkeeping. I supposed that most people were either back in their rooms or partying in the Pit. Lucky assholes. I'd much rather be doing that.

We walked for about five minutes before Eric finally stopped in front of a metal door with a little window in it. Eric shoved a key into the door and pushed it open. I had expected papers to be everywhere, especially if this were Eric's room, but it was surprisingly neat. Nothing was out of place. In fact, nothing was anywhere. There was a desk with nothing other than blank and empty files on it, a file cabinet, and two grey chairs. It looked more like Abnegation than Dauntless.

"This is the Dauntless office? It looks so... dull," I muttered.

Turning towards me with a little groan, I noticed that Eric looked exhausted. What the hell had happened with him in the few hours since I had last seen him? "Are you done?" he asked me.

"Yes."

I said nothing else, not wanting to make things worse. I preferred to stay alive my first night in Dauntless. "Alright, you are going to make the files for each new initiate this year, yourself included. Each of you have a small folder filled with files of academic and disciplinary records from your old factions. You will not read them. Just place them where instructed," he told me. I nodded at him. It sounded easy enough. And maybe I could be done early. Although he was a fool if he thought that I wasn't going to read them. "You will put together every file except for your own."

Raising my brow, I watched as Eric grabbed the lone stack of papers that looked completely disheveled. I watched out of the corner of my eyes as he dropped them next to me. He began to pull out the blank folders. Twelve, I noticed. That was my folder that he had left out.

"Who's gonna put that one together?" I asked him.

Eric pulled a few papers out and I watched as he took them in his arms and sat in the chair on the far side of the room with them. It looked far more comfortable than the one that I had. "Me," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

So those were my papers. It bothered me probably more than it should have that Eric was reading everything about me. What was even in that folder? Had I really done that much that Dauntless cared about? I got average grades and had never had anything that serious, disciplinary wise. There was nothing that I could imagine that would be of importance. Maybe the Aptitude Test results, but they would only say Amity. Maybe they'd be interested in why I'd transferred.

Shaking my head at him, I took a seat behind the desk and grabbed the first folder. I grabbed a pen out of the desk and stared at the folder for a moment. "I should have figured that. So what?" I asked, wanting to push off the irritating task for as long as possible. "Are you going to read through it and find out all of my dirty little secrets?"

It was only teasing, but there was something in his eyes that told me that I should have been quiet. He glanced up at me with an irritated stare. Okay, maybe he wasn't as easily amused as I had assumed that he would be. But was there something in his eyes that looked almost amused.

"Are you sure that you aren't from Candor? Or maybe Erudite?" he asked me, making me smile. For once it hadn't been something cruel. It had actually been something close to a joke. Not quite, but close.

"Not the last time that I checked," I said.

"You ask way too many questions and always speak what's on your mind. Those are not traits that we want here in Dauntless," he told me.

For a moment I merely stared at him. Weren't those things that everyone should say? The things that were on their minds? "It's better than lying all the time," I said.

Eric scoffed at me, continuing to flip through my paperwork. "Come on. No Amity would have any dirty little secrets," he scoffed.

And there he went. Back to annoying little Eric. I could see why people kept their distance from him. He was a bit of a downer. And he never seemed to be in a good mood. Of course I had only known him for a day. But still, I was good at reading people. It was an Amity trait.

"Well I never was Amity now, was I?" I asked him.

Eric scoffed at me and looked up. Suddenly I wished that I hadn't said anything as he sent me a stare that could have pierced me through to my soul. Suddenly I felt like he knew everything about me. I felt like he was laughing at me for feeling terrible for leaving my parents. I thought that he was judging me for everything that I had ever done with Florian. I felt like he could hear all of my silent doubts about being able to make it in Dauntless.

"So you have secrets?" Eric asked.

"Doesn't everyone?" I shot back.

He smirked at me. "Care to share any of them?" he asked me, a cold glint to his eyes.

That was something about his eyes that I had noticed. They were such a pretty color. They were somewhere between grey and blue. They were cold but I could tell that somewhere deep down, there was a brightness to them that no one could see. Eric raised one eyebrow, snapping me from my thoughts and I shook my head, my eyes following his piercings.

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," I said.

The corner of his lips turned upwards in something akin to a smile. He almost looked friendly. Almost. I wasn't sure that Eric knew how to be friendly. "You don't have any worth my time," he said.

"You might be wrong," I quipped.

"So tell me."

"No. They're secrets for a reason."

That was a lame excuse. It was just my reasoning for keeping my secrets to myself. Did I even have any that were that interesting? No. I hooked up with my best friend sometimes and snuck beyond the Fence once. There was the Divergence, but that was dangerous, and not a secret to be share. Eric laughed loudly and I watched as he flipped through my papers, which I wanted nothing more than to tear out of his hands and rip into a million shreds. I hated him knowing everything about me.

"I thought so. Get to work, initiate," he told me. I rolled my eyes. What was it with him and Four, never calling me by my name?

There had to be a reason that they refused to call me by my name. More than just to annoy me. Or maybe it wasn't. I started to spread the papers around the desk. It looked like Colt's was on top. Good. I was looking forward to his. I wanted to know all of his dirty little secrets. But I had to wait until Eric left to read them. Until then, I had to distract him.

"Are you ever going to call me anything other than initiate or Softie?" I asked.

Stopping reading over my file, Eric looked up at me and raised a pierced eyebrow. I guess no one had ever asked him when he was going to call them by their name. I guessed that most people didn't say a lot of things to Eric. Not that I really blamed them. I didn't know why I was saying all of these things. Maybe Heather was right. Maybe I did have a death wish. It was just fun to try and mess with Eric.

"No," he told me. I scoffed at him. That figured. "Do you have a problem with that?"

I shook my head back and forth quickly, my long blonde hair swishing in front of my face. It was so much longer than I had thought that it was. "No," I answered Eric, when I saw that he was waiting for an answer.

Slowly I stood up, walking over to the filing cabinet, pretending that I needed another blank file. In truth, I just wanted to see what else there was that I could peek through. I was a naturally curious person. As I looked through the files, I passed Tori's, the woman that had done my Aptitude Test. I saw Four's as well and debated on pulling it out. But then I saw something that caught my eyes even more. It was Eric's. And it was huge. I reached my hand out to grab it and just as I wrapped my fingers around the file, Eric's voice made me jump nearly ten feet into the air.

"If you touch that, you're going to lose that hand," he told me quietly.

My heart was hammering in my chest. I'd almost forgotten that he was here. "How did you even see that?" I asked.

"Eyes in the back of my head."

Glancing back, I saw that Eric was looking down at my file, making little notes here and there. He hadn't even looked up. He looked very interested as his eyes scanned over my pages. Apparently I was that interesting. How the hell had he seen me try to take the file? He had probably just figured that I would see his file in there and try to grab it.

But that wasn't fair. "Oh come on, you're looking through my file," I tried to argue, but he looked completely unconvinced. So instead I tried for a different route. "What? Does the little Dauntless leader have secrets of his own?"

It had only been teasing. I was really hoping that he wouldn't kill me. Instead of telling me to shut the hell up and go back to work, Eric looked up from my file and put it down on the table. He stood from his chair and began to walk over to me, making me extremely nervous. Okay, screw Eric not scaring me. Right now he was terrifying me. He walked up to me, backing me into the filing cabinet. He was so close to me that I could feel the heat radiating off of him. As he spoke to me, his voice was dangerously low and rumbling.

"Ones that would send you running screaming from me," he said to me. I gulped deeply. But to show him that he didn't scare me, I forced out laughter. "Something funny, initiate?" quickly sobered and shook my head at him. "Good. Get back to work. You haven't even touched the first file. Good thing you weren't going to Erudite."

There it was. There was another one of the little backhanded comments that I was getting used to him making to me. "Do you have to do that?" I snapped at him, making his head jump up to look at me.

"What?" he asked, sounding utterly bored.

"Every time that I say or do something you always have this little biting comment that you make," I said. He stayed silent though, merely watching me. "I didn't go to Erudite because they're all stick in the mud pricks. Plus you're bad, but you're nothing compared to Jeanine Matthews."

Eric snorted and I watched a strange flash of emotion go through his eyes at the mention of the Erudite leader. "What the hell do you know about Erudite? Have you ever even set foot in the Erudite compound?" he asked me.

"No." I had just always heard that they were boring.

They were all about learning. "Plus I somehow doubt that you know anything about Jeanine Matthews," he growled.

Was he getting defensive of her? That was one thing that would certainly shock me. It seemed that Eric didn't like a lot of people and Jeanine seemed like the type that he wouldn't like. As much of an asshole as he was, he had a rather teasing personality. And she was always so uptight and tense. I would have thought that he would hate someone like her.

"I know enough to know that she's the wrong type of person to be running the government," I said and he raised his eyebrows. "The whole bullshit about choosing wherever you think that you should go? It's all a lie. She thinks that the test is the only thing that we should listen to. And she hates anyone that isn't in Erudite and thinks that Dauntless are nothing more than brainless soldiers. Doesn't that bother you in the slightest? I mean come on Eric, you are an asshole but you aren't an idiot."

For once Eric looked like he might have been the slightest bit impressed with me. But before I could distinguish what it was that I had seen on his face, he merely shook his head and turned from me, folding my file up. Good, maybe he would leave now. I could finally read the file.

"Jeanine isn't as bad as she seems. She's just trying to protect the Faction system," he told me.

Maybe it was good that he wasn't in Erudite either. I kept that comment to myself though. "Are you trying to convince me or you?" I asked.

He glanced up at me and ignored my words. Although it looked like I might have struck a chord. "And as for the comment about me being smart, I might be smarter than you think," he said.

I merely laughed and shook my head. I was positive that Eric wasn't an idiot. You didn't get a leadership by being an idiot. He had to have at least some sense of intelligence. But that didn't meant that I had to tell him that. "Don't get cocky. It doesn't suit you." It looked like he almost smiled. "And please don't tell me, you have a crush on Jeanine?" I asked with a smirk.

The little smirk that was on his face faded and he looked like he might hurl. That went over better than I had thought that it would. I thought that I would get yelled at for that one. "She's old enough to be my mother. It's like I said Amity, it's a good thing that you didn't choose to go to Erudite. Drop it. You're getting nothing done," he told me.

It was strange that I found myself slightly disappointed. I had almost been enjoying the banter between us. "You've been distracting me," I said, ignoring his scathing glare.

"Get back to work. I have something to take care of. I'll be back in a little bit. Don't even think about touching that file. There are cameras in this room that I will be checking," he hissed at me.

"Fine."

He gave me a last glare before turning. I watched as he left the room and closed the door, locking it behind him. Wow, he really didn't trust me. Not that I blamed him. He was right not to trust me. As he walked out of the hallway and past where he could see me, I pulled out Colt's papers and began to read through them.

There wasn't much on him. It just had that he was from Erudite originally and his parents were both scientists. They had apparently been doing research on expanding the human life. Actually, that was pretty cool. As I read through I saw that they had his blood type, which creeped me out a little, and a few trips to the Erudite Medical Center. Apparently he had gotten in a fight last year that had broken two bones in his fingers. I smirked at the thought of Colt crying in a hospital and went to set his file down. Right before I could, though, I saw a little number. The note was labeled Training Status, and next to it, there was a little number one. What the hell did that mean?

Ignoring the note I went to making the next file. This one was going to be for Heather. I felt a little bad for looking through her file but I knew that there wouldn't be anything too bad on her. She seemed like a sweet girl, maybe just a little bit of a troublemaker. Of course, I couldn't really say anything about being a troublemaker. Wasn't I the only person that had managed to get in trouble on the first night?

Just like Colt, her file had her birth Faction, Candor, and her Aptitude Test result, Candor. What? She had scored Candor? Why the hell had she left if she had scored her home Faction? Her parents had been just normal citizens of Candor, but my eyes narrowed on the title next to her mother's name. Deceased. Her mother had died? Poor Heather. Glancing at the date I noticed that it was only a few weeks ago. I couldn't help but to wonder if she had left because it was too painful for her to stay. Feeling like I was intruding on something far too private, I stuffed the rest of her papers in but right before I closed it. I noticed the same Training Status note. The number next to her name was ten.

Placing her file gently on top of Colt's, I went to pick up the next stack of papers. It was Buck's. Buck seemed like the kind of guy to have a squeaky clean record. Like the others it had his home Faction of Candor and his Aptitude Test result, Dauntless. He had apparently been raised by his grandparents and I couldn't help but to wonder where his parents were in the picture. Maybe they had died when he was young. He had apparently been a big troublemaker as a kid, judging from the teachers notes that were all stapled into the file. One of his pranks had been slipping his teacher a truth serum. I would have to ask him about that one day. As I glanced at the number that was printed on his file, I saw that it was six.

As I placed Buck's file off to the side I couldn't help but to wonder if these numbers were ranking us. It made sense with the whole Training Status thing. It also made sense that Colt was number one. He was probably the biggest of us and he looked like he was made for Dauntless. If that was the case though, I wondered what number I was. Draven's file was next and it was rather bland. He was from Erudite and had scored Dauntless on his test. His parents were normal citizens and he had never been in much trouble. The most exciting thing in his file was his ranking. Number five. He was expected to be pretty good.

Closing Draven's file, I opened the next one. It was Skylar's. I began to grab her papers. There was almost nothing on her. But that was the way that Abnegation were. They never really told people about themselves. It made sense. As I looked through her files, I realized that she hadn't scored Dauntless on her Aptitude Test. She had scored Amity. Why had she come to Dauntless then? What a strange change of plans. Her grades had been mediocre and it seemed that her family was nothing special, just rather large. There were five kids besides Skylar. I glanced down to her number and narrowed my eyes. Her number was thirteen. They were expecting her to be the worst. I was sure that it was only because she was from Abnegation.

As cruel as it was though, I was a little glad that I wasn't the one who was number thirteen. I placed her file off to the side and grabbed the next one. I scoffed when I realized that it was Jade's. Too bad she wasn't number thirteen. I would have loved to rub that in her face. Jade was from Candor originally and had scored Dauntless on her Aptitude Test. Apparently she had been quite the fighter growing up, having many suspensions on her record. It must not have come as a shock when she had transferred over to Dauntless. She was number nine and I growled lightly. She was above Heather.

Smacking the file down onto the pile, I nearly screamed when the papers came dangerously close to flying off of the desk. I did not want to replace them all. The next file that I picked up was for an Erudite transfer named Hunter. He was the one that I hadn't heard speak yet. He had brown hair and green eyes. He was big and spent most of his time with Jade and Colt. I made a mental note to stay away from him. His file was relatively simple. He had come from a family like mine and had gotten average grades. His number was impressive though, he was ranked three. It made me wonder who number two was.

Part of me wanted to believe that it was me, but I was smarter than that. I would probably be placed in the middle of the group, somewhere around Jade and Heather. Dante's file was next and I smiled. I liked Dante. He had scored Dauntless on his Aptitude Test and it made me wonder if he was tougher than he let on. He seemed like he wouldn't hurt a fly. His family was on the older side and I noticed that he had a few half siblings. His father had apparently died when Dante was younger. He was ranked at number seven and I smiled. Right in the middle of the pack. It was a fair ranking.

Placing Dante's file down on the pile, I sighed. I was almost done, only four more to go. And once I was done I would also know my own ranking. Raven's was next and I perked up slightly. I was curious about her. She had been from Candor and I was right, she had changed her name. While living in Candor her name had been Courtney. Raven suited her better. There wasn't much about her, she had made good grades and had no disciplinary notes. She was ranked number twelve and I scoffed. I was sure that she was better than that.

But at least I wasn't number twelve. That meant that I was at least number eleven, but that was still way too low for me. As I placed her file off to the side I picked up Jax's. He was a strange one. He didn't seem that friendly, yet some part of me liked him. Maybe it was because he reminded me a little bit of myself. He was from Erudite and had scored Dauntless on his Aptitude Test. That wasn't surprising. He seemed like the type to come to Dauntless. Brooding and strong. It appeared that he had been raised by his single mother. Apparently his parents were divorced. It was pretty rare for couples to get divorces, but it was the most common in Erudite. There didn't seem to be much love in their Faction. Jax was ranked number four and I nodded. It sounded about right.

His papers were filled with old experiments that I had to shuffle through. He had been very busy in Erudite. His transfer might have been surprising. It took me a while to put in everything that Eric deemed to be important. I picked up the next file and smiled. It was Cole's. He seemed like a good guy and Heather clearly thought so too. Even though I could tell that Cole annoyed her. Opening his file I saw that he was frequently caught in Candor trying to lie to get himself out of trouble. They must have known forever that he would be a transfer. I looked over at his ranking and saw that he was in the eighth position. I frowned at the number. Cole wasn't that bad, was he? I was pretty sure that if he tried, he could beat at least half of us.

Placing his file off to the side, I picked up the last one. I knew that it would be Jet's so I skipped over the name. He had apparently been enrolled into speech therapy when he was younger. Apparently in Candor, two was too young to not be speaking yet. That must have been embarrassing. I shook my head and looked through his file. There wasn't much on him. His parents were married young. They were only in their early thirties now. They probably weren't that much older than Tori. They were like my parents. He had no disciplinary files on him and his grades were evidently very good. I glanced at his rank and nodded. He was number two. That was unsurprising. He was huge and looked like he could tear someone's head off. I wondered why Colt was number one and not him.

Finishing his file off, I placed if off to the side and sighed. Finally I was done. That meant that I only had to wait for Eric to get back to let me leave. As I thought back to the files, I wondered about the rankings. I knew everyone else's, so what was I? I knew the order. Colt was number one. Jet was number two. Hunter was number three. Jax was number four. Draven was number five. Buck was number six. Dante was number seven. Cole was number eight. Jade was number nine. Heather was number ten. Raven was number twelve and Skylar was number thirteen. That meant that every number was taken except for number eleven. I was number eleven.

My heart nearly stopped as I realized that they had put me at number eleven. No, Eric had put me at number eleven. This was what he had done. How the hell could he put me at number eleven? He was giving me one of the lowest chances of making it in Dauntless. I mean come on! I had hit the number one ranked initiate. Of the transfers anyways. Just as I was huffing, Eric walked back into the room with a confused look adorning his face.

"You scored Amity on your Aptitude Test?" he asked me.

He dropped my file into the pile with the other transfers and immediately my anger was gone. Why had he just asked me if my results from my Aptitude Test was Amity? That was when I remembered. I was Divergent. I fit into four of the five Factions. But Tori had written down that I was Amity. Eric thought that I had scored Amity.

"What?" I asked stupidly.

Eric rolled his eyes at me and showed me a tiny portion of my file. There is was. Amarantha Freesia: Amity. "Right here. It's on your file," he told me. How the hell was I going to explain this one? "The woman who administered your Aptitude Test said that you scored Amity on your test. Why the hell did you come to Dauntless if you scored your home Faction?"

I shrugged my shoulders, hoping that Eric would just let it go. The last thing that I wanted to do was hint to Eric that I was Divergent. Like Tori had told me, Divergent's were dangerous. Apparently we somehow threatened the Faction system. I couldn't imagine that something like that would go over well with a leader of one of the Factions.

"I didn't want to stay in Amity," I told Eric, rolling my eyes as he scoffed. "Screw whatever the test said, I know that I'm not an Amity. I wouldn't be able to do that for the rest of my life. I'm not like you." His eyes shot over to me. Clearly he had no idea what I was talking about. "I couldn't stay in my home Faction."

Eric stood up and walked over to me, his arms hanging by his sides. He looked genuinely surprised by what I had said and I raised my eyebrows. Had I said something weird? "Come again?" he asked.

Turning to face him I realized that Eric was slightly closer to me than I had expected. There was only a body or two space between us. It was unnerving having him stand this close to me. As attracted - physically - as I was to him, I would have loved for him to take a few steps backwards.

"Like you. I guess that you knew from birth that you wanted to stay here in Dauntless," I said to him. He raised a pierced eyebrow. I scoffed and shook my head. Eric would have never had a doubt. He was Dauntless inside and out. His parents must have loved that he would never leave them. "I mean come on Eric, you scream Dauntless. Whenever you took your test it had to be easy. You knew that you were going to stay."

I'd been hoping that he would end the conversation right there. We'd gone down a strange road with this conversation. I wanted to go back to the dorms. Naturally it wasn't going to work out that way. Hardly anything ever seemed to work out in my favor. And it definitely didn't seem that Eric would.

"I took my Aptitude Test four years ago." I nodded at him. That meant that he was twenty. It was actually a little younger than I had thought that he was. I couldn't help but to wonder if he had been in the same class as Four. It seemed like they were. "It was hard then and it's still hard." There was something strange in his voice. Maybe there was more to Eric than I thought that there was. "Staying in your home Faction or leaving, it's tough either way. You always wonder if what you chose was the right Faction."

That wasn't what I had been expecting him to say. There was something strange, something weak, in his voice. I hated to admit it, but he was right. We would never really know if we had chosen the right Faction. Something different would have happened no matter which Faction that I ended up in. We would always have at least three Factions that could have also been the right one. But that didn't mean anything. Eric had only ever lived in one Faction. He had no idea what it was like to ever live in any Faction but Dauntless. He'd never had to walk away from his family.

"And how would you know that?" I snapped at him, angry that he really didn't know what it was like to leave a Faction. To leave everything.

"What was that?" Eric snarled.

I knew that it was his warning to get me to stop talking, but I couldn't. "I've never seen someone that was more suited for any Faction than you were suited for Dauntless. It was easy for you, just admit it. Don't try to sympathize with me," I hissed.

It seemed that I actually was able to make Eric a little angry. His eyes narrowed at me and I took in a breath. I hadn't really meant to say that. I was just angry that I had left my family and he had never had to do that. It wasn't his fault that I had walked away from my family. It was my own fault.

While I had been thinking, Eric had been steaming. "I don't care what happens to you," he growled at me.

I couldn't help but to feel a little hurt. I didn't like Eric but still, it hurt for someone to say that they didn't care about you. "Thanks for that," I deadpanned.

"I'm not sympathizing, I'm telling you the truth. No matter what, it's hard to know that you made the right choice. You won't ever know. We can't go back and see what the other side was like," he said.

Scoffing, I decided that I was done with this conversation. Grabbing the files off of the desk, I shoved them over to Eric, folding my arms over my chest. "Here, I'm done," I told Eric, who looked less than impressed. I glanced up at the clock in the room and groaned. It was already well past midnight. "It's past midnight and I want to get back to the dorms. I have to be up early tomorrow for training."

For a moment I thought that maybe he would have a heart and let me go. After all, he had been an initiate once too. He must have known what it was like to wake up early and train all day. He had probably known what it was like for his entire life. I imagined that it was awful. It was already awful and the first day of training hadn't even passed. Things just seemed so strange. Everything with changing Factions and my parents. It was all finally hitting me.

"It doesn't matter how much sleep you get and how well rested you are, Softie," he said, sneering the word like it was poisonous. "It's like your Test said. You're Amity, inside and out. You're just pretending to be Dauntless. You'll fail tomorrow, and I'll be there, watching every second of it."

It was like he had slapped me in the face. That wasn't exactly something that I had been ready to hear. I hissed at Eric and dropped back against the door. He really was one of the nastiest people that I had ever met. The few moments that he had said something a little funny, or even the slightest bit nice, I had faith that he might have been making some progress, or maybe showing me the real side of Eric. But that just showed the kind of person that he really was.

"I don't know why people don't want to be around you. You're so charming," I told him.

He scoffed at me, knowing that I was being facetious. "Goes both ways," he snarled back.

Say something, you moron. Don't let him win. "I bet it was something you got from your parents," I told him with a bright smile. If he was going to be an asshole about everything so was I. Eric might have been my leader, but I was not going to let him treat me like dirt. "Maybe your mother had the same sweet glare that you have. Or maybe your father gave you his comforting personality."

Come to think of it, I wasn't sure why I had said it. It was completely uncalled for. Eric was an asshole but there were certain things that I had noticed that he never brought into the conversation. One of those things was my family. And I was grateful for that. They were a sore spot with me and it seemed like they were a sore spot with him too.

"Get out," he said darkly at me.

The room had gone completely silent. Even the air conditioning had turned off. Eric had creeped me out plenty of times in the short span of time that I had known him, but he had never really scared me. Not really. Not genuinely. But now I was scared. I had said something brutal and uncalled for. Now he was angry. Not just yelling at me angry. He would have had every right to turn around and punch me in the face. I knew that what I had to do was apologize to him. He deserved that much. I had brought in his family and that was uncalled for.

Swallowing my pride, I took a step towards Eric. "I'm so sorry. It was just a joke. I didn't mean anything -" I said softly before being abruptly cut off.

"Get out!" Eric bellowed at me, loud enough to rattle the walls.

He stormed up to me and I cried out as he pushed me back against the wall, his hand around my throat. I had thought that it might be for dramatic effect, but he was really putting pressure on me. He was to the point where he was really going to choke me. Oh my God, Eric was going to kill me. I struggled against his grip as he leaned into me, tightening his hold. My vision began to spot and he finally loosened his grip, maybe realizing just how much he was hurting me.

It just loosened a little bit though. "Please," I begged, my voice cracking.

"You listen to me Softie, and you listen well. I'm not going to babysit you and I'm not going to go soft on you. Watch your back, from now on you're in deep. You wanted to be Dauntless so bad, well now you are. Are you ready?" he asked me. No. "Leave, before I show you just how tough Dauntless can be."

Eric threw me backwards and I was ripped off of my feet. I fell out of the door, landing heavily on the platform outside of the office. I was a little dazed from the impact, but I didn't want to linger around here any longer. Eric was turned back to the wall, panting slightly. Without a second thought, I pulled myself up off of the platform and went sprinting back to the dorms. I was sure that I was taking plenty of wrong turns but I couldn't have cared less. I just wanted to get away from him before he came through on his threat.

My feet propelled me forward to tear through the halls before I finally recognized the door that led to my dorm. I threw it open and dropped into the bed, throwing off my jacket. Everyone was already asleep. I was dripping in sweat from my run and the encounter that I'd had not even two minutes prior. Laying down, I closed my eyes and turned over, fighting back tears. I wasn't suited for Dauntless. Not if every day was going to be like this. And I sure as hell wasn't ready to face the next day. I would never be ready to face Eric again. I had made too many mistakes already, and I couldn't fix any of them.

A/N: A repeat of my original note. I know that initiation only lasts ten weeks in the movie/books but that bothers me. No one learns to shoot guns, throw knives, or fight proficiently in ten weeks. So I've taken the liberty of making training much longer. Here's another edited chapter! I hope that you guys like the redone chapter! Drop me a review if you'd like! Until next time -A