Tuvia:

I am sitting in a large pillar of fire when my eyes open. Panicking, I attempt to get my butt out of that fiery death, but I can't move my legs. Terrified, I give a mainly vain attempt to calm myself down and I wait for the fire to crumble me to a pile of ash and memory - but I feel nothing. I suddenly realize a hand reaching outward toward me, to help me upward and out of this strange fire that cannot consume me.

Once I have this hand in my grip, I see the other end of this arm - a crooked jaw, goofy smile, and brown hair, which was once long, cut short. Nechemia. My Candor brother.

"Hey, little bro," He whispers, smiling.

"Hey, big bro," I reply. "I miss you," I blurt out, then clasp an embarrassed hand over my mouth.

He smirks. "Hey, it's okay. I'm Candor, honesty is our thing. I miss you, too."

I grin, and he yanks me up, out of the fire, and I am able to walk once I leave the flames. I realize he's standing on something, and I look past him to see he stands on a giant brass scale. He releases my hand and steps off of the scale. Puzzled, I watch as he carries several large rocks that had bordered the pillar of fire, and he places them into the other side of the scale. Suddenly, I look down to realize that I have risen about four feet, with the weight of the rocks challenging my weight, making me go up, as the rocks descend in the scale. Thrown off balance, I sit down on the edge.

Nechemia jumps onto the scale, so he is sitting next to me. We go down about two feet, so our feet dangle just barely above the ground. He hums quietly, searching for something to say. "How's Amity?" He asks.

I hold my breath, trying to stay calm about my own brother not knowing such a crucial fact. "Actually," I say, sounding a bit too bitter. "I switched. To Dauntless."

"Dauntless, eh?" He ruffles my hair the way he used to, shaking my black curls and messing them up so I look like a trainwreck. "Tough place, I heard."

I nod. "Pretty hard so far. How's Candor?" See, I remember you, I think angrily.

"Hey, it's pretty great. Honesty is just..." He heaves a contented sigh. "Liberating."

"Well, I miss you." I repeat sadly. "Why'd you leave?" I ask, sounding juvenile.

"I..." He hesitates, probably the last bit of non-Candor yet to be stomped out of my brother. "I didn't feel right. I couldn't tell people how I really thought of them, if it was bad. I wanted to be my own man, so...I left. I left to the place where I don't have to hide. I couldn't stand being somewhere in which I'm stuck faking who I am, just trying to hold back."

My throat feels dry. "No," I shake my head firmly, though I say the word weakly. I feel anger well up in my throat. Killer, furious anger. "You didn't leave a prison of a faction. You left me, your brother. I don't matter at all to you?!" I realize now just how loudly I'm screaming.

"Tuvia...Tuvia..." He says gently, trying to calm me down. This, however, makes me want to kill him more. I begin thrashing, punching and kicking, and I hit flesh. I hear a blood-curdling scream, but much higher than I'd think Nechemia can shriek.

My eyes fly open to see Sivan clutching her side and left arm, moaning as she stands beside my bed. She grabs a plastic box of alcohol wipes frantically, and begins to wipe her bare arm, not covered by her black tank top.

"Sorry," I grunt, lifting myself up to get dressed.

"It's...It's okay," She says shakily. "I was going to shower anyway, tonight. Anyway, you need to get ready for training. Be there in ten minutes. I can wait for you to get dressed - oh, for fu...I mean, darn it, I didn't realize how that sounded!"

I swallow back a laugh. "Hey, it's fine. It's your room too, you know." I feel uncomfortable just agreeing, but I need to get to training, or I'm as good as dead. As I change, she just sort of sits on her bed, awkwardly looking around the room, trying to avoid laying eyes on me, revealing a bit of Abnegation in the transfer girl.

Before we leave the room, among the last trickle of Initiates, Sivan grabs a pair of latex gloves and slips them over her tiny hands. I give her a questioning look, to which she replies with a sly raised eyebrow.

We stand in line before Four and Tris, and now that grumpy guy, Eric. Eric walks across the length of the line, evaluating how strong we look in appearance. When he reaches Sivan, an evil leer grows across his face. "You, what's wrong with your hands?"

"It's...It's contact, sir," She whispers. "I can't."

"It's contact, sir," He mocks. "You don't want to stay here, do you?"

Four takes a step forward, closer to the two, ready to defend the girl. Sivan shivers beside me. "Eric!" Four says sharply. "Let her wear the gloves. For now."

Eric turns to face him. "It's a fear, isn't it? Fear, you know, is not accepted in Dauntless. The gloves go-" He sneers at Sivan. "-Or you do.'

Four gets an amused look on his face, intriguing me. What does this guy have up his sleeve? "Fearless as an Initiate, huh? Well, Mr. Eric-Seventeen-Fears, I don't think that's the case. Let her keep the gloves, or I might reveal those seventeen."

Eric's eyes widen. "You...wouldn't."

Four raises an eyebrow. "Wouldn't I? Fear Number One: Starvation, Number Two: Ch-"

"Stop!" Eric yells. "Little coward, keep your gloves."

Tris finally speaks. "Okay, the fights, now. Sivan and Lele; Tuvia and Ohad; Marge and Yaakov; Shahar and Ioni; Avigayil and Shmuel, and they go in the order I just said. Sivan and Lele first."

Sivan steps cautiously forward. Four mistakes this for purely her germ problem kicking in, so he gives her a small, encouraging smile. He has no way of knowing that Lele, Sivan, and I are best friends, and two of them are being pitted against each other to beat their friends up. Gentle Lele and Formerly Abnegation Sivan are a bad enough pairing, but it's horrible if they're best friends.

The two stand together on the mat. They stare at each other for a moment, but then they remember that Eric won't stand for his little show to be delayed. Sivan throws the first punch, right to the chest. Lele throws herself into Sivan's stomach, running forward and leading with her shoulder. Sivan falls back, and the two are wrestling, rolling on the mat as they try to get this over with as quickly as they can. I suppose the gloves are helping Sivan a lot, because she seems dominant. Finally, they manage to wrestle upward, onto their knees. Sivan smacks Lele in the head with all the might she has in those rubber-covered hands, and Lele crumples to the floor, knocked out. Sivan lets out a strangled gasp, looking at the unconscious girl, but Eric doesn't seem to care as Four lifts the losing opponent in his arms, and directs Sivan back in line.

"Tuvia and Ohad," He says, unsure of who we are in the line. We both approach the mat.

"Hey, man," I whisper. I don't know why this seems so necessary - maybe because of what everyone witnessed me do to Ioni. "Whatever happens, I just want you to know that...you seem pretty cool." Ohad grins, but Eric doesn't approve of this quick pre-fight conversation.

"Hey, wimps! Shut your faces - be Dauntless-worthy, and talk with your fists!" Eric shouts and makes his way over and, panicking, I bring my knee up and plunge it into his stomach, making him double over.

He grabs my face, his slightly overgrown fingernails digging into my cheeks, as we go down. Pained, I blindly slam my head into his shoulder, breaking his grip - but hitting my head as well. We both seem to be in a bit of mild pain as we sink lower to the ground, throwing punches not as murderous as that of Ioni's and mine, considering the lack of bad blood between us.

I roll onto him and pin him down, as I did to Ioni, and I raise a hand to slap his face, but he takes advantage of the one hand he has unchained, shoving my chest and making me back up a bit, just enough for him to get up, but I stop him when he's on his knees and about to turn the tables on me. We are both holding each other's elbows, kneeling on the mat.

We both stand up, letting go of each other simultaneously, and resume our fight while on our feet. He kicks my thigh, giving me a dead-leg, but I try to ignore it - hopping around groaning in front of everyone is definitely going to look dumb, and you know I hate that - and I give a punch to his rib. His hand instinctively moves to the spot where he was hit, and I use the moment of time in which one of Ohad's hands is occupied to end it all with one swift push to the floor. Ohad falls and hits his head on the floor, out cold. Eric approaches, gives me a single, small appraising nod, and roughly forces me back in line, making me stumble a bit.

I'm not sure why, but this bothers me horribly. I need to fight back. This jerk treats us like trash. My eyes burn with all the fury that I had ever wanted to release on my brother all those times when I missed him, but this really sucks for Eric - because while Nechemia wasn't around to get the pain, Eric is right here with a thick head and lots of room to hit.

"Quit it, Eric," I growl.

He gapes at me. "Excuse me?"

I step forward, yelling now. "Quit treating us like this. Or I'll be your eighteenth fear." I lunge for him with a howl, and my fist connects with his stomach. He grabs me and hoists me over his head, ready to slam me on the ground like a drinking glass, but I grab his neck tightly. He chokes, his windpipe blocked, but tries to pry me off.

Probably to spare his life from a death by strangling, he bends down to the floor, and I release his throat. I stand up, triumphant, when he gives me a final kick to the stomach, hard enough that I feel as though every organ is tearing another organ apart as I fall to the ground. I realize that the other Initiates are staring at me, and I turn crimson, feeling like a total wimp.

"Next time," He smirks as I writhe in pain and humiliation. "If you're gonna fight to win, fight Four or Tris. Not me."