Four, Six, and Eric block our view of the board as we all file in. I try to look at Eric through the corner of my eye, but he doesn't look over at all. All of my insecurities from yesterday come rushing back to me. But, I feel my tattoo and remember my mother's words again; I won't fear the unknown. I'll find out, eventually and nothing will change that. All three of them move away from the board and Six addresses us.
"There's an even number of you, so everyone will be fighting today. Look on the board for who you're matched with." I look at the board and find my name on the top with Elizabeth's right next to it. I look over to Six and she gives me a smirk; I'll have to thank her later for arranging this.
"Looks like it's your lucky day," Coraline says, smiling over at me, "I'm with Kayla. She's so sweet, I don't know how I'll hit her."
"I got Jeremy," Alex says, "His attacks are just as honest as he is. He doesn't use any fakes or anything."
"At least none that you've ever seen," I say, "Don't let your guard down."
"I'm worried about Ashley, though," Coraline says, "She's up against the sociopath."
"I just hope his body is as slow as his brain," Alex says, "She may have a chance, then."
"First fighters, into the ring!" Four shouts, "Everyone else, practice or wait."
I walk into the ring, while Elizabeth prances over, giving a quick wave to Four. We both get in a fighting stance and I try to find her weaknesses. Her hands are too far from her face to properly stop a punch, her elbows are too far out, leaving her ribs exposed, her feet are too close for her to have a solid stance, and when she moves she crosses her feet. This will be too easy.
"How do we know when to stop?" Elizabeth asks, batting her eyelashes. You'd think a girl would learn.
"When one of you can't fight anymore," Eric says. Good.
She decides that talking while moving in would be the best idea, "I've always wanted to kick your ass. You may have been good in Erudite, but here, you're—" My right fist connects with her jaw. That's the nice thing about a right straight; no one expects you to start with one. She wipes the blood from her mouth, then lunges at me. Again, she starts talking.
"You bi—" Left hook, right straight, left uppercut to a sweep. She goes down and I slam my knee into her stomach, knocking the air out of her; hopefully, she'll shut up now. I slide my knee across her stomach and take mount, for once thankful for yesterday's lesson. She tries to fight me off, but it's too late; I punch her until she stops moving.
"Great job," Six says, smiling, "Think you can drag her to the side?"
"Sure." I grab Elizabeth's arms and drag her out the ring. As soon as she's far enough away, I drop her.
"The hell?" Oh, she's awake now.
"Rise and shine. You just lost. Now, whose ass were you going to kick?" She glares up at me and I smile and walk over to Coraline. Halfway there, Eric stops me.
"Very nice," he says, with a devilish grin, "Looks like you got some fire, too." He brushes his hand over part of the tattoo peeking out of my pants. I'm tired of just blushing; let's see how he likes it.
"I've always had fire," I say, putting my hand over his to keep it in place, "I just need the right people to make it burn." I strut away as I feel his eyes watching me. I won't be a toy.
"Way to dominate," she says, "I think everyone here wanted to give you a standing ovation for your fight and based on the look on Eric's face, I'd say you just won a battle."
"Now, onto the war," I respond with a smile.
Next to fight are Darren and Sam. They have a similar build, but their fighting styles are very different. Darren uses kicks to keep Sam away, then comes in with strikes. Sam tends to dance around Darren, striking fast, then backing off. They're evenly matched, but Darren fakes getting hit by one of Sam's punches, convincing Sam to continue in. Darren takes the moment to hit Sam with a back fist, then kick him in the stomach. Sam goes down and Darren finishes the match with a kick to the head. As soon as Sam's out, Darren carries him out of the ring and tries to wake him up. Soon as Sam sits up, he claps Darren on the back; it's not like he could hold it against him, not everyone is as happy as I was about the rules.
"Guess it's my turn now," says Coraline as she heads over to the ring, "Wish me luck."
It's rather obvious she won't need it. The one thing she carried with her from Amity is a muscular frame from hours of farming. Coraline's also fast; I don't see Kayla doing well. Kayla's slender, so she may have a chance at being faster than Coraline, but I don't think she'll be fast enough to make a difference. Coraline and Kayla circle each other, but neither is in any hurry to throw the first hit.
"One of you will have to strike first eventually," Four says, "Just get it over with."
As soon as he says that, Kayla punches towards Coraline. Looks like I underestimated her speed; she successfully hits Coraline in the center of her face. But it seems Kayla didn't hit her hard enough; Coraline just brushes it off and follows up with a left jab and right hook. Kayla stumbles backwards, so Coraline throws a roundhouse. It hits Kayla full in the ribs, but she grabs onto Coraline's leg and throws her down. As Kayla comes closer, Coraline kicks her in the face with her other leg and stands back up. Kayla's nose is heavily bleeding now and she seems dazed. Coraline throws another left jab and right hook and finishes with an uppercut. Kayla falls and doesn't get up. Rather than wait for Coraline to carry her off, Jeremy lifts Kayla and takes her off. He sets her down and kisses her on the forehead; I can't help but think it's the cutest thing ever.
Jeremy and Alex step into the ring now. As soon as both are inside, Jeremy rushes Alex. He punches his left arm forward, but as soon as Alex gets ready to block, he turns and throws a left roundhouse instead. I guess he was just hiding his fakes. Alex is caught off guard by the kick and has the wind knocked out of him; he lurches forward and Jeremy moves in to knee him in the face. Alex rolls out of the way, stands, and throws a punch to the side of Jeremy's face. He stumbles a bit, but goes back into a defensive position. Alex goes in again, throwing a typical one, two combo, but Jeremy dodges the second punch while pivoting so he ends right behind Alex. He hops on Alex's back, wrapping his arms around Alex's neck and his legs around Alex's waist. For the remainder of the fight, Alex tries to throw Jeremy off, but he's just wrapped around too tightly; after a while, he collapses on the ground, knocked out.
I look over to Coraline and she's straight faced and pale. I take her hand to assure her he'll be fine and we walk together over to where Jeremy left Alex. With his air and blood flow no longer inhibited, he soon wakes up.
"I swear that guy's secretly a monkey," he says with a hoarse whisper. Coraline and I both laugh; now that he's awake, Coraline seems much better.
"Yeah, with your reflexes, he mistook you for a tree," Coraline says with a smile.
I give them some space and look back at the ring; the final fight is Jared and Ashley and I can't see it going well. I just hope she can outsmart him. Ashley takes the incentive to strike first and punches Jared twice in the face; she tries to throw a knee into his chest, but he catches it and backhands her across the face. She hits him in the throat with her knuckles, causing him to wheeze and release her leg. They both catch their breath and I look at his eyes; they have the same look they always got when he was about to torture something small and defenseless; Ashley needs to come up with something good now. Jared rushes her first and she tries to move out of the way, but he catches her hair and starts punching her face again and again. There's a huge gash above her eyebrow, covering her face with blood, but she keeps fighting back. He lets go of her hair and she drops to all fours; he kicks her in the stomach and I hear all the air leave her body. He continues to kick her in the stomach, but never hard enough to end the fight and the smile on his face says he won't stop it anytime soon.
"Please…stop." I don't know how Ashley can speak through all the blood. "I…I c-can't." Jared actually pauses in his attack and just smirks down at her.
"You can't? What do you mean you can't? Get up, now." What the heck is Eric doing? Ashley struggles to stand, so he just grabs her by the collar and heads out the door with her. Four and Six give each other a look and follow after him with the rest of us. We stop in front of the railing dividing us from the river below.
"Climb over it." He has to be kidding.
"What?"
"Climb over the railing. If you can hang over the chasm for five minutes, I'll forget your cowardice. If you can't, I won't allow you to continue initiation." I don't know what I even see in him. Is there anything anyone can do about this? But I know the answer to that; he's a Dauntless leader which means Four and Six can't do anything. And everyone here wants to stay too much to do anything.
"Okay." Ashley puts her feet on the bottom of the railing, swings one foot over, then the other. She takes a deep breath then clutches onto the railing, and finally lowering each leg; her arms are all that are keeping her with us now. She keeps her mouth shut tight and breathes through her nose while keeping her eyes closed.
"Eyes open or the time restarts." This asshole. Ashley opens her eyes and glares at him instead. She's halfway done with her time when her arms begin shaking; Kayla puts her face in Jeremy's chest and starts crying. I start to strategize, I will not let there be another Liza. Before her arms give out, there's going to be a brief pause in the shaking; I'll have to move the very minute that happens. She's down to a minute and a half now when the river splashes her; she shrieks and her breathing becomes rapid.
"Come on, Ashley, hold on!" I finally look at Darren and he looks like he's either going to cry or run over to her and pull her up. "It's less than a minute now, just a few more seconds, please."
I begin to count down the time and finally five minutes are up. The very second it's over, Four, Six, Darren, and I all run over to her to get her back over the railing.
"Good job, initiate," Eric says. I have no idea how he can talk now.
"You're all done for today. Go." Six says, while glaring at Eric. Everyone leaves, each taking a moment to glare at Eric, but I stick around to talk with him. It's about time we cleared the air, I guess.
"The hell was that all about?"
"I was teaching an initiate a lesson," he says with a glare, "Don't act like you know any better just because you won a fight."
"This isn't about me winning a fight, this is about you almost killing someone!" And I shove him. He stares at me livid.
"Shut up and watch." And suddenly he's climbing over the railing. He grabs onto the railing and drops his feet down, so he's hanging. Then he lets go.
"Eric!" No, this can't be happening. Please, don't let this be happening.
"I'm fine! Look down, you idiot!" What the hell? I look over and see him standing on a small ledge that barely fits a person.
"In case you haven't noticed, there's a ledge. As long as she wasn't dumb enough to lean backwards, she would have been fine. And now, she'll never quit again." He jumps up, catching the bars of the barrier and climbs back over. He leans against the railing and scowls at me. I wasn't exactly wrong, but I wasn't right either.
"How was I supposed to know about a damn ledge?" I say it more like an excuse than an accusation. I can't pick my eyes up off the ground either.
"How about you don't assume I'm a bastard next time?" He walks away and I stare at him he leaves. I hate that I feel tears coming. I hate that I'm mad, sad, annoyed, and a thousand other things all at the same time. I hate that he's right.
A/N: Sorry this took so long, I was stuck in bed sick. Running a fever, throwing up, can't move, considering going to the hospital sick. Monday through Wednesday, I may go out of town, which means no updates and then possibly a flood of them Thursday :p
