Any hopes of things getting better were all eliminated by two events. Both of which I hated myself for. I was forced to make decisions based on subliminal orders. Dauntless breeds on obedience…but at what point does it become nefarious over following orders. Max once told me that Dauntless was about standing up for what you believed in. Protecting those that others wouldn't. Even if that means betraying your orders to do what you feel is right in your heart. To Max, that was true bravery. If only I had realized that before and wasn't too much of a fucking coward to not do anything about it .
So the two decisions I had to make in response to some unfortunate events only made me hate myself all the more. I was a terrible person…and one of the most promising leaders of Dauntless in the words of Jeanine's email to me.
The first event happened when Max came knocking on the door to my apartment a little after midnight. I stumbled groggily out of bed and stumbled to the door.
"Wassup?" I asked rubbing my eyes. Once I realized it was Max, I tried to straighten my mangy bed head and straighten up my posture.
"Eric," he said with a deadly serious look on his face, "get dressed and get downstairs to the initiates dorm."
With nothing more said he started down the stairs hastily. I quickly threw on some clothes and sprinted downstairs. Most of Dauntless was eerily silent; I went through the many hallways past the empty gym to the initiate's dorm. At the top of the stairs there were several Dauntless medics gathered around someone, but I couldn't see who. Off to the side I saw Christina hugging Will crying. Tris looked shaken as she stood with Al. Four was sulking in the corner; arms folded looking like he was ready to kill.
"What the hell is going on?" I asked everyone. All eyes turned to me.
"Eric," one of the medics named Lincoln called, "come here."
I headed over to the group of men including Max all gathered around someone. When I got close enough I peered over their shoulders and felt my stomach churn. It was Edward, he was lying on the ground whining in pain, and I could blame the poor bastard. He had extremely bloody gauze covering up one of his eyes. Even with the gauze most of his face and hands were covered in blood.
"What the hell happened?" I demanded looking around to the medics.
One of them held up a bloody fork with a gloved hands, "Someone stabbed him with this."
"What the fuck?" I said under my breath and turned to the all the intiates who were standing at the stairs.
"I wanna know who the fuck did this right now!" I screamed loudly to them, it seemed to jump off the walls and resonate all through Dauntless.
A couple of them jumped…including Tris. They all looked terrified, no one said anything. The only thing that could be heard was the cries of agony from Edward.
"Eric!" Max yelled just as loud and pulled me aside away from everyone.
"I promise you that I will find out who-" I started to say to him angrily.
"No you won't," Max replied calmly folding his hands behind his back.
"What?" I said exasperated.
"Look Eric we need to keep this as quiet as possible," Max said with a calm coolness in his eyes.
"What? Why? If these initiates are attacking each other-," I started to defend but Max cut me off again.
"Jeanine doesn't need to know about this," Max replied boldly, "no one does. We've all come this far, we can't just blow it over one small incident."
"How is this a small incident?" I replied angrily.
"If you want to waste Jeanine's time and my time by looking for the one responsible, running a trial and getting Edward back on his feet then you can go right ahead," Max said irritably with a dead expression, "otherwise you're going to have to kick him out so we can continue on schedule."
I felt like there was an order in there instead of an option. I grimaced darkly looking down at the ground. So, he was going to put this on my shoulders…
He stepped closer to me and started whispering my ear venomously, "Jeanine has a mission for us…all of us that's going to start right when the initiates are done with training. I need all the hands I can get. Jeanine needs us, we don't have time to do all this detective bullshit chasing down someone over a small incident…but they're you initiates. The choice is yours."
A mission? This soon… what were they planning? What did Jeanine say a few weeks ago when I had that meeting with everyone. They wanted to eradicate the Divergent problem. How the hell were they planning on doing that? And of course it was my decision to decide the fate of the one person who has been number one all throughout training. Now I had to decide whether I was going to make him factionless or put off Jeanine's precious plans and put training on hold to find out what the hell happened down in that dorm.
"Go tell the initiates what you plan to do," Max said and nodded towards them, waiting for me.
He wanted to watch me do it. In fact…just from me blowing up on him like I did I had a feeling they might start watching me a lot closer now. I had to be what they wanted me to be. I turned my back to Max.
I felt a flaming rage developing within me. No one would have been able to get away with this before. Things were getting reckless and dangerous. I stalked angrily over to the initiates who all seemed to start buckling at my presence. The medics picked up Edwards on a stretcher and started taking him away.
I took a strong stance, and looked to them coldly and said, "Edwards can't continue his training…so he's out."
There was a murmured shock and a look of disgust from Tris shot at me. I shoved her from my mind; there were bigger things to worry about at this point. They all looked at me, some crying even more and some who just looked shocked and scared that they were going to be attacked next.
"All of you go to bed," I shot harshly, "training resumes in the morning."
Some of them started to scramble down the stairs while I turned around to see Max smiling and nodded at me and headed back to leadership. I sighed frustrated…this was getting bad. How much longer until…
"Eric!" I heard someone call from behind me, it was Tris.
Her following me around wasn't making me feel any better; in fact she was just pissing me off even more. The only way to squash whatever connected there was between us was for her to stay away from me. it angered me that I couldn't get her to stay away.
"I think it was Peter that stabbed Edward," Tris said with wide eyes.
"You think?" I said getting more frustrated, this girl was wasting my time, "Do you have any evidence?"
"Well no-," she said shifting in her place.
"Then you don't you keep your mouth shut," I suggested coldly. I guess it would be better to make her hate me then.
"Because I saw him right afterwards and you just lost your top initiate-," Tris started to explain.
"He's not my top initiate anymore," I cut her off coldly; "everyone needs to watch their backs…okay?"
It would be a lie to say that the hurt in her eyes didn't affect me…a little bit. I glanced up to see another Dauntless leader, Tom my old trainer, watching us. He had moved up the ladder and was sure as hell higher up than me. He was also notoriously close with Max.
"Why is this ok? I don't get it, are we supposed to be cruel? Or just stupid?" Tris expressed frustrated, "or is this just supposed to be a part of the new rules?"
I noticed Tom turned his back rubbing his temples, he was tired and he wasn't looking right now. There was no one here now except for the three of us.
"It is," I said quickly and while no one was looking I grabbed her hand lightly and spoke softly saying, "Tris just…just please quiet."
She looked down at my hand in hers and back up to me, the mood on her face was shifting and her cheeks were turning pink again.
"Please," I begged her hoping that she'd take the hint.
I didn't have time to figure out if she did or not as Tom slowly turned back around stretching his arms as I sprinted past Tris back to my apartment.
The second even was that I had found a divergent…at least I think I did. I ran over my notes from all the tests I administered…and noticed Jacob Arson. He finished his test in seven minutes, two times faster than the average…and four minutes faster than Tris. Jeanine was on my ass about Divergents and Max was now acting mistrusting to me. I had to win them back…but it dawned on me that if I reported Jacob for finishing in seven minutes wouldn't I have to report Tris for finishing in three? I could destroy her records…rewrite them to better benefit her…and I did. I burnt all the files describing her first test and rewrote it saying she finished in twenty-three minutes. I then wrote an email to Jeanine and Max saying nothing more than Jacob Arson.
Then I drank and entire bottle of Jack Daniel's, puked in the garbage can by my desk and laid on the floor of my office with my head spinning as I was thinking about how much I fucking wish that Tris would pin me down to the ground and sit on top of me again.
Thank you to all my amazing loyal readers!
Story is about to pick up real soon so that all die hard Eric/Tris shippers will be very satisfied. :D
Also I have a little poll for everyone, I'm thinking of ending the story in one of two ways
I feel like no matter which way I write it, it'll be awesome but I can't make up my mind.
So you guys can help me, so which should it be:
Beautiful Death OR Lonely Ending
