CHAPTER TEN

8:49am

As I run up the empty path towards the Training Center, everything falls into place; why Mercy is always so nervous around Eric, why Eric acted like a superior Erudite, why someone as petite and panicky as Mercy would even transfer to Dauntless in the first place.

But the only thing I don't get is… why Eric, of all people? I've known Mercy for what? Less than 24 hours? But I'm already repulsed at the idea of Eric even looking at her.

Why though? I shouldn't even be worried about her; she can't even defend herself! We're not even technically friends. And though I cringe to say it, Eric is right; she probably won't last long here anyways.

A shudder runs through me as I think back to Aiden and I's last conversation before he became Factionless.

"How are things here?"

He grinned from ear to ear, his expression borderline aloof. "Great, Ellie! They've seriously got the best cake-"

"Leave it to you to pick out the best food within your first week here, Aiden!"

He laughed heartily, giving me a playful noogie. "Ah but it's so much better than Candor ice cream!"

"Now that I doubt!" I scoffed, rolling my eyes.

I bite my lip as I head up the stairs as quickly as I can.

If I ever become a full Dauntless member, I need to try some of that cake.

8:52am

As soon as I walk into the training center, as if in sync, nine heads swiveled around to stare at me.

It was like coming into class late all over again.

Luckily, it doesn't look like I've missed much; people are just milling around, looking anxious and bored at the same time.

I spy Clarity, Xavier, Charlie and Kate lounging around on the floor by a table covered in guns. My heart race picks up suddenly and at first I mistake it for fear; but no, I realize as I head closer to it that the rapid beating in my chest is from anticipation.

I'm distracted from my thoughts when Charlie voices from his spot in the corner, "Hey, Eleanor! Come over here!"

I force a smile onto my face as I stride across the lengthy room towards the group of four; all former Candor. Mercy and Arthur aren't back yet and Tyler is standing near the doors with Four, intensely discussing something.

"Where did you disappear off to?" Xavier asks, his voice muffled by a blueberry muffin. Even though I've known him since I was little, that was probably the first time he's ever talked to me.

I tug on the hem of my new sweatshirt. "I was cold."

He nods and turns back to Kate, wiping the falling crumbs from his chin.

I lower myself onto the floor in between Clarity and Charlie, tugging my frizzy curls to one shoulder.

"Let me warm you up next time," Charlie says in a false seductive tone as he wiggles his brown eyebrows at me.

My cheeks flush in embarrassment, even though I know he's just joking. "What?"

"I mean, I know you're always hot…"

People often mistake me as pretty just because all my features are properly proportioned. But when people get a closer look, they realize that I'm not beautiful, I'm actually quite plain.

"What happened to the quiet Charlie who could barely ask me to pass the salt?" I ask curiously, raising an eyebrow. Are we… flirting? Oh please, no. Not this again!

He chuckles softly, his chocolate brown eyes locked with my irregular heterochromia-effected eyes. "He became more dauntless. See what I did there?"

I roll my eyes and shove him good naturedly.

"Yes, we all see what you did there," Kate says sarcastically. She turns to me with a wink and pulls out a chocolate chip muffin from a brown paper bag on the floor beside her. It's only then when I realize while I was still fast asleep, everyone else was eating breakfast. My stomach grumbles as if on cue.

"Want it? I'm not hungry anyways."

I grin at her. "Oh, thank you!" I gingerly reach out and grasp the muffin delicately, sniffing. Mmm, it smells just like Mom's baking.

I carefully peel off the wrapper and basically inhale the entire muffin, reminding me of how I ate the morning of the Aptitude Test.

I wonder what my mother is doing right now; perhaps heading off to work or making herself breakfast or still sleeping in.

I choke on the muffin suddenly and gasp, pressing my hands to my chest.

"Woah, slow down there," Clarity warns.

But I didn't choke because I was eating too fast; I choked because of just the thought of my mom living her life without me, well it… scared me.

So instead of bursting out crying right then and there, I swallow down the memory of my mom, just like I've been swallowing down memories of Aiden for the past couple years.

"That's what she said!" exclaims Xavier, snapping me out of my daze, Charlie joining in with laughter.

"My dear brother, could you get any more dirty minded?" Clarity sighs.

I raise an eyebrow in surprise. "Brother? You two are siblings?"

Xavier snorts. "Yeah. We're twins. You've known us for what, eight years? Yet you still didn't know that we're related?"

I guess they both have similar features; same pointy nose, same black hair, same slanted brown eyes that are so dark they're almost black.

I laugh shakily. "I'm not very perceptive, I guess." That's a lie, and since I'm sitting with a group of Candors, I know they can all tell, yet nobody acknowledges it.

The truth is I'm quite perceptive, just not exactly with people. If they've got something odd about their physical appearance, it's easy for me to forget about it because I don't really care. It might sound like I'm a better person because I don't 'judge a book by its cover' or whatever, but it actually is the main reason for a lot of my previously failed relationships.

Poppy was always different with that because she never really cared if people listened to her, she just liked to talk and needed someone to talk to. Those are my kind of people, the ones who will talk your ear off, but don't mind when you reply with one or two simple words or an occasional laugh or nod.

While the girls and Xavier bring up more of their favourite 'that's what she said' jokes, I glance over at Charlie and notice he's already looking straight at me, a shy smile carved onto his face. Am I leading him on again?

He has talked to me an awful lot in the past 24 hours, but what if I'm reading it wrong and he just wants to be friends? The last time he did that was two years ago, when we were fourteen. We kind of-sort of-almost dated for awhile, but I kept pushing him away until he finally called it off almost a month later. He said I was leading him on but I wasn't actually interested, or something like that.

See right there? I'm a terrible listener.

But how the hell am I leading him on? All I'm doing is being polite.

"Listen up!" I lazily raise my eyes from my clasped hands and meet the gaze of Amar, who has finally entered the room. He looks even more exhausted than yesterday, his chocolate eyes hollow and red, like he hasn't slept in days.

But despite all this, Amar still looks just as authoritative, his back straight and his tone directive. The way he holds himself reminds me a bit of a Candor which leads me to the question; what faction is he really from?

All of the initiates who were sitting slowly rise up from the floor and form a line, facing Amar. The door swings open behind him, Mercy and Arthur entering softly.

"I got a bit held up this morning," he says apologetically, not acknowledging the two former Erudites. He turns to Four. "You can go back to help Lauren now. Thanks for watching the transfers."

Four nods politely before stepping out of the training room and heading swiftly down the hall.

Amar faces us once more, his expression strained for some unknown reason. "Anyways, this morning you will be learning how to shoot a gun, and after lunch, how to win a fight. Since many of you will not make it in the top 5 at the end of initiation, some of you will become guards for the city, which is why you need to know how to work a gun."

I raise a hand tentatively, my Candor-wired brain curious. "Um, you said guards for the city? What exactly is the city being guarded from?"

Amar's face washes of expression in such a subtle way that only someone who has been trained their whole life to look for a fib could tell.

"I…uh…" he stutters nervously before his expression turns cold again. "That's something that you may learn if you actually become a guard. But for now it's not important."

His hesitation to answer my question only further confirms my suspicions; whatever is outside the city is incredibly dangerous.

"Nevertheless, we expect you to be ready at any time to fight or defend the city from danger. That's what the physical stage of initiation is training you for." Amar paces towards the table with the guns on it and scoops up enough for each of us.

He walks down the line and places a gun in everyone's hand as my whole body buzzes with excitement. For some reason, I'm not scared like I probably should be to fire a gun; I feel as though adrenaline is pumping through my veins instead of blood, thick as molasses. As the cold metal makes contact with my skin, I grin nervously and run my fingers up the barrel, brushing the trigger slightly.

With this gun resting in my palms, I feel more confident than usual, as lame as that sounds. It's like I feel proud to be holding such a dangerous weapon. I mean, it could decide the difference between life and death as easily as I could tie my shoes. But instead of terrifying me, it makes me feel powerful.

"Part of cowardice is not having the courage to act when you need to the most. Preparation helps eliminate that possibility," Amar continues, now finished handing out the guns. "Now three steps to initiation might sound intimidating, and it will be hard work, but I want you to understand that we're not doing all of this to torture you; we're doing this to prepare you."

He doesn't falter once in his little speech which makes me think that he's done it about a thousand times. I wonder if Four or Lauren is delivering the exact same one wherever the Dauntless born initiates are right now.

Even though you're technically supposed to know how other factions' initiation processes work, I know quite a bit about Candor's because well… we're obviously not known for keeping secrets.

Lie detector test, I think uneasily about what I would have had to go through if I stayed in my born faction. It sure sounds a lot easier; all you have to do is spill all of your secrets to the entire faction and congrats- you're a member of the Candor! But even though I kind of would have preferred a shorter initiation, Dauntless' definitely seems more thrilling. And I don't have to admit to anything embarrassing, which is an obvious plus.

A shudder runs through me suddenly. What if the test asked me if I was Divergent?

"Eleanor?" a voice snaps sternly. Standing in front of me is Amar, his face unshaven and rough. "Pay attention please."

"Y-yes sir."

He narrows his eyes at me but doesn't question me further. Instead, he picks up a spare gun from the table and turns to the wall with one target for each of us, painted on a giant board of plywood.

"This," he states loudly. "Is how to shoot a gun."

Amar adjusts his stance so that his feet are squared perfectly with his shoulders, clutches the gun tightly with both hands and pulls down the trigger.

Kate swears at the sudden bang, covering her ears with her hands. "Damn that's loud!"

I widen my eyes as I stare at the smoking hole in the red painted center of one of the targets.

"Now it's your turn." Amar sets his gun down by his feet as all eight of us turn towards our targets robotically. That's it. No questions, no tips, no 'words of wisdom'? Well I guess I already know that Amar isn't a man of many words, but seriously? Come on.

Delicate but determined, I wrap my hands around the gun and narrow my eyes at the target. It's just a piece of wood; if I miss, it's not like I'll kill someone. But I decide to pretend that it will kill someone, sort of as a twisted piece of motivation, like jumping from pillow to pillow to avoid the lava, like I did as a kid.

Doing what feels natural, I bring the gun up close to my face, my finger hovering over the trigger as I hold my breath and close my eyes.

I let the bullet fly, releasing my pent up breath as it hits its mark… and the gun hits my cheek. I let out an exaggerated breath, dropping the gun and touching my burning red cheek. I didn't think about the recoil, apparently, and now my face has to pay for it. Lucky it didn't hit a few more inches up or else I would have had a black eye.

Embarrassed, I bend over and pick up the fallen gun. Glancing around to check if anyone saw me, I catch Amar's sympathetic stare.

I smile back sheepishly and shakily raise the gun once more, making sure it's far enough away from my face that the retreat won't cause any damage.

I suck in a shaky breath, focusing in on the red center of the plywood target. It's not that hard, Johnson! You can hit it!

This time I decide to keep my eyes open as I shoot so I'll have a better idea of where I'm aiming. I fire the gun again, the loud bang never ceasing to startle the shit out of me.

I hear a gasp from beside me and turn towards the tall, skinny Erudite: Arthur. I expect him to have an amused or sarcastic smirk on, but instead his mouth is hanging open in surprise.

"What?" I snap, not even bothering to look at the target. If he's gasping like that, I must've completely missed the board.

"You-you… hit the center. On your second try."

I impulsively crane my neck towards the target and my mouth falls open; I did hit the center circle!
I turn back to Arthur, my mouth hanging open; he hasn't even hit the target once.

"Nice," Arthur says, a slow grin spreading across his sweaty face.

I beam at him in turn, too excited to even acknowledge that this was the first time he was even being nice to me.

Because that doesn't matter. Nothing matters; not Poppy or Charlie or my mom or Aiden.

I just might belong here, and I will do anything to make it through initiation, with or without them.

I hope you like this chapter; I think it's one of my longest. xD It took forever to write so please review and give me some things to work on, or any questions you have about me or the story so far. Thanks so much for reading! Next chapter should be up soon!