KPOV
FEAR-LANDSCAPE #2

As soon as she set foot into the room, the door behind her disappeared and got replaced by the image of her living room back at Amity.

Keena sighed as she took it in. It had been what now? 8 months? Since she'd transferred to Dauntless? It felt longer. Hell, this place seemed a lifetime ago. It was absurd. Keena also for the first time realized how much she abhorred the interior. Growing up she'd never really put much thought into it, it had just been home, but eyeing the impersonal look of it not, she'd never been more glad that she'd left.

It was different than one might imagine for a living room in Amity: Usually the rooms were colored in soft shades of yellow and pink and decorated with lots of flowers, green plants, candles, soft cushions and other cosy looking objects. This living room, however, was nothing of the above. The walls and furniture were in shades of grey and white, with the occasional royal blue statement pieces, giving the room an overall clinical feeling. Especially, since the materials used were mostly glass or leather, robbing the room from any warmth it could've had.

No, Keena's mother might not be home a lot, but she sure had decorated it to her preferences. Simultaneously matching it aptly to her personality: Cold, kill, clinical. The only thing that actually added some character the room was the mess: colorful kids books, clothes and toys were scattered all around the room as if a bomb of kindergarten had exploded only seconds ago.

It probably had.

Just as she was about to take a seat on the couch she could hear a baby crying: The youngest, Marilee. Yes, she could tell. Looking around, Keena spotted a door on the other side of the room and made her way over to it, but as soon as her hand was about to make contact with it's handle, the door vanished.

The crying got louder.

Frowning, Keena walked towards the door near the fireplace, but again, as soon as she reached it, the door disappeared.

Marilee's cries were joined by Dylan's now.

Whipping her head around, Keena looked for any other door. In real life there were only two, but this wasn't real life: Keena was sure she could trick her mind into thinking there was another one.

Relieved when a third door appeared on the other side of the room, Keena made a run for it. Only to see it vanish into thin air when she reached it.

Aaron joined the crying.

Keena noticed how the first door had reappeared and swiftly moved over, but the same thing happened and all the while the crying got louder and louder.

It was chilling her to the bone to hear her siblings cry out for her, but the stupid doors just kept disappearing on her. As the crying grew more and more persisting and was joined by the eldest two - Oliver and Thomas – as well, Keena grew more and more frustrated.

"Is this your way to punish me?!" She yelled to no one in particular, although it was probably directed at her own mind. "Is this my punishment for leaving them?! For wanting a life of my own?! SHOULD I HAVE FUCKING STAYED?!"

When the crying grew louder and into screaming sobs, she had her answer: Yes, she definitely should have stayed in Amity.

"Keena! Keena! Help!" She heard her siblings scream from the other side of the wall. One started screeching. Like a genuinely scared-to-death kind of screech.

Fuck.

Temporarily stopping her sprinting towards doors, Keena tried to decide where the cries were coming from. Settling on the wall near the fireplace, she picked up a candle and hammered it against the wall.

"Can you hear me?!" She yelled on the top of her longs? "Thomas, Oliver, can you hear me?" She called out, hoping one of the two oldest might be in their right minds enough to listen out for her.

Instead of getting a proper response, the cries turned into shrieks and screams.

They needed her! Her sweet innocent siblings needed her help and she couldn't even get out of the fucking room and help them?! How was this Dauntless?

Trying for the doors again, Keena sprinted as fast as she could while black spots appeared and clouded her vision. She knew she wasn't thinking clearly: running obviously wasn't helping, but try and think of a strategy when the people you love most in this world are at the other side of a fucking wall, screaming their longs out in pure panic. This weren't just a few you-got-me kind of screams. No, these were outrageous and petrified kind of screams and all Keena could do was listen to it.

If this were real, her heart might just shatter.

Keena didn't know how long she had been chasing the magically disappearing doors, when she eventually had to stop to catch up her breath. Her fear-simulation self, knew that she was absolutely worn-out and that proceeding would be potentially dangerous. Her rational self though, knew this was just a fear-simulation and physical exhaustion did not truly exist in here, did it?

So, she ran on... Until she passed out.

EPOV

"What is happening?" Eric demanded to know. He was secretly experiencing quite a bit of panic on the inside, although on the outside he was remaining his impeccably calm and bored self.

"Get out of the way." Was all dr. Montgomery said as she reached for the defibrillation paddles.

Nurses escorted Eric out, while Keena got a shock.

KPOV

"WHAT?!" Keena yelled when she woke up. She didn't have the power to stand up just yet, so she settled for a position on her knees while she focussed her attention to the ceiling. "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" The sound of her brothers and sister crying out to her was too much. "SAY IT!" She screamed, grabbing some ugly vase from a nearby table and throwing it against the door in front of her.

Of course, the door disappeared in time, though the vase shattered against the wall.

Damnit. All of her attempts were pointless. Hell, this entire situation seemed to be doomed from the start. How was a test like this supposed to test her Dauntless-skills? She couldn't do anything! The sim prevented her from any kind of logical step. She was just locked up in this room with no way out, forced to listen to her siblings cries for help.

How was that Dauntless?

Suddenly angry, Keena started throwing whatever object she could get her hands on and smashed it into pieces against the doors – or walls, technically speaking.

"JUST TELL ME WHAT TO FUCKING DO!" She screamed, boiling. "SAY IT! I'LL DO IT!" her anger was cracking now. "I will do anything! Just make it stop!" She was blatantly crying now. "Make it stop... Please." Keena sniffed, pulling her hair in despair. "Just tell me and I'll do it. I'll do anything." By the end of it, her voice was not even above a whisper.

But the cries continued.

And so, with a heavy heart, Keena tried the one thing she had yet to try: Nothing. Just as with the hands in her last fear, she let control slip away and surrendered herself to the feelings of helplessness, despair and self-loath while she numbed out the screams and cries for help of her siblings.

EPOV

Eric's night off was spend with friends in the Pitt, hoping that they might be able to get his mind of one particular initiate. It didn't work. As conversation seemed to flow around him, Eric found himself caught up in his own thoughts and it made him fucking furious.

Why couldn't she just wake the fuck up already?!
Why in hell did she even take those damn serums to begin with?!

Alright, fair is fair, Eric knew exactly why. He had watched the progress of her second stage of initiation closely – albeit from behind the screens, especially after Four's requests to give her more: More serum, more practicing trials, more anything. Eric had been overseeing the initiation for 4 years now and never had Four asked for anything even remotely similar for people who struggled in the second stage of initiation. There was not a single shred of doubt in Eric's mind that these ideas did not originate from the trainer himself.

Four simply didn't have the brains to think twice about existing systems. Sure, when he disagreed strongly with something – like the policy on Divergents – Four would side-step a few laws to make sure everyone would make it out alive – yes, of course Eric knew about that – but Four didn't have the balls or brain capacity to actively change anything on his own when no one was in immediate danger. The fact that he kept asking permission to him and Lauren for the smallest things spoke volumes of that. Hell, the guy probably would even seek permission to change the throwing distance of the targets by an inch.

The ideas must therefore, unsurprisingly, come from Keena herself and this naturally had piqued Eric's interest. Following Four's journal on the process of the initiates in their fear-landscapes, Eric knew that Keena kept having the same fear over and over again, and although it was not an uncommon occurrence that real-life traumas tended to reduce the number of fears one experienced in a fear landscape, just one was unheard of.

Keena herself also kept persisting how she just 'knew' there was more than the one fear she kept going through and with the double doses of fear-serum she'd gotten from Four, she had, indeed, experienced a second fear. Yet, also this fear wasn't quite enough for her. Still convinced there was more.

Four on his turn kept discouraging the possibility that something worse was out there. He couldn't possibly wrap his puny mind around something worse than being raped by a pedophile teacher as a child and if Eric hadn't gotten the full story of Keena's life afterwards, neither would he in all likelihood.

But he had. He had gotten so much more information on her life, and although there were big blanks, gaps and holes in the story sketched out for him, it was enough to keep him up at night sometimes.

Flashback

"Something wrong?" Keena asked, not diverting her eyes from the book in her hands. How she kept reading him so effortlessly was a mystery to him. No one read him like she did.

But how could he tell her what kept him up tonight? She had mentioned her siblings earlier that evening. It had been nothing more than a passing remark. Something along the lines of 'I used to do that with my siblings back in Amity sometimes', nothing special and yet… it had triggered something in Eric.

His mind flashed back to the photograph Martha had given him, the one of Keena and her siblings in the sandbox. He had safely put it away in a cabinet at his office, waiting for the right time to give it to her. But so far, there had never been a moment even remotely close to that. When the hell was the right time to give it to her? When her own brain stopped deceiving her? That could take ages, if ever. And what if she would never remember her trauma on her own account? Was he just supposed to go along with it for the rest of his life? Could he even do that? And if he decided to tell her, how would that go? How would anybody convince anyone that their worst nightmare had, in fact, already happened to them, even if they had no recollection of it?

But those were all concerns for later he supposed. There was no reason for him to actively try to remind her of some horrible truth before initiation was over. It would only get in the way of her initiation process. She could get distracted by grief, confusion or hatred, and then there was no way of telling how focused she would still be on her training. No, she needed to secure her future first, before dealing with her past. Besides, there was always the chance that in second stage of initiation, her traumas would unfold themselves in her fear-landscape, so worrying about 'what if's' now, really was a waist of his time.

But that didn't mean it sucked any less.

"No." He lied gruffly. "Should there be?" His words were unfairly laced with his irritation. Irritation directed at himself and his own thoughts, not her, and yet she was the receiver of it.

Keena raised an eyebrow and Eric waited for her to quip something back at him, but it never came. Instead she opted for a brief lick of her finger before turning a page in her book. The unspoken question hung heavy in the air though. It was obvious she had wanted to know what had bothered him enough to keep him up, tossing and turning, for the past two hours, but against all odds and for whatever reason, Keena decided not to pry.

For a moment, Eric just watched her from out the corner of his eye. The light shining from the lamp on 'her side' of the bed – wait… they had established sides now? – casted a yellowish hue over her face. He liked watching her read. Her eyes always conveyed any and every emotion she felt. Every surprise, every shock, every sparkle of hope and happiness. She would occasionally sigh or chuckle, but for the biggest part of it, her mouth would be slightly open, in a relaxing – and tempting – kind of way… Not now though. Now, very unlike other times when she had been reading, her lips were compressed into a thin and rigid line while a small furrow appeared between her brows.

"You're mad." Eric coxed, not quite knowing why he was trying to rile her up even more.

She really had done nothing wrong. She had asked him a question out of concern. Which he had on his turn – and beknown to both – answered with a lie. And instead of calling him out on it like she usually did, she had extended him a curtsy in granting him his privacy. Something he both valued and appreciated.

So why the hell did he feel like giving her shit for it anyway?

"Or at least a bit irritated." Eric coxed further.

Keena sighed and somehow Eric could just feel her rolling her eyes. "I'm not mad, I was curious."

"Right. Curious why I hadn't fallen asleep yet, right?" Eric spat viciously. "You don't have a monopoly on insomnia, you know."

"Jesus, Eric. You usually fall asleep within 30 minutes after sex." She stated matter-of-factly. "Excuse me for wondering why you couldn't fall asleep tonight."

"What? You're so keen on slipping out in the middle of the night that you actually count the minutes before I fall asleep?" Eric snorted.

"That's not what I meant –"

"You can leave any time you want to –"

"I know, but that's not what I –"

"- whether I'm asleep or not –"

"Eric."

"- because I don't give a fuck about what you do."

The second the words were out, Eric wanted to take them back. Well, that and punch himself in the fucking face for saying them to begin with. He watched as something heart-shattering flashed into Keena's eyes, but not quite in the way he would've suspected.

In the past, when Eric had said similar things to girls he'd been sleeping with, the girls had all looked crestfallen. Yes, some had been better at hiding it than others, but one by one, they had all taken the offence personal and as a confirmation of their own shortcomings. Naturally, Eric had never felt the need to let them think otherwise. But now… Keena once again proved to be nothing like other girls. She didn't get mad, nor did she look crestfallen or offended in any way. Instead, something infinitely worse happened.

She looked enlightened.

Eric watched as a slow – albeit humorless – smile crept on her face while she shook her head in a barely perceptible way. It was as if she'd been trying to solve the toughest puzzle on earth and finally succeeded, but could not quite believe she finally did it. She was not per se overjoyed by the solution, but at the very least she seemed relieved that all the puzzle pieces seemed to fall into place once more. As if the world finally made sense for the first time.

"Join the club." She chuckled darkly, more to herself than to him. "You know, if you don't want to tell me what's been bothering you, that's fine. But don't throw a tantrum simply because you missed out on your precious naptime." She slowly closed her book and placed it on the nightstand before shifting to get up. "Or do. It's your house and I'm leaving anyway."

His hands pulled her back onto the bed as fast as she had sprung out of it. Quickly, caging her body in by crawling on top of her, trying to look her in the eye – hoping his eyes could convey how badly he wanted to take the words back – but she kept avoiding his gaze. "Don't." He growled.

For a second, she just laid there: still and silent underneath him, actively trying to look anywhere but at him. Eric lowered his head, kissing the soft spot on her neck he knew she was a sucker for, but it didn't work. Hell, it had the total opposite effect. She started to struggle against him, trying to push him off, which on Eric's turn, only made him tighten his grip on her.

"I thought I was allowed to leave anytime I wanted to." Keena stated emotionless, and before Eric realized what was happening, she had kneed him in the balls, effectively making Eric release his grip on her as he reached for his crotch.

Keena quickly made used of the brief distraction and pushed him off of her with the intend of getting up, but before she had even reached the edge of the bed, Eric's arms were already there, enveloping her small frame completely as he pulled her back against him into back. This time spooning style.

"Being allowed to and me letting you are two entirely different things." He told her, placing soft kisses all over her upper arm as his right arm was securely wrapped around her naked waist, preventing her from escaping again.

"Gee. My mistake." Keena bit back sarcastically, obviously still annoyed with him.

"Sorry." Eric murmured against her shoulder before giving the spot a little kiss. "You were right, I was acting childish." He saw the muscles on her face soften a bit, although the gleam in her eyes remained just as stubborn.

"No shit." She bit.

"You didn't deserve it."

"No shit." She stated again, this time with a reluctant little smile playing on her lips. But it wasn't enough. Eric needed to fix this.

"Keena." His voice dropped an octave or two to his – what Keena had once proclaimed his – 'beehive rumble' (which until this day made no sense to him whatsoever, although the sweet smile on Keena's lips had been more than enough to go along with it anyway). It was unintentionally done, he had just opted for a serious voice but somehow this came out and the effect was immediate: Keena's big green eyes shot to his, regarding him in equal amounts of curiosity as doubt.

"I lied." Eric started, half chocking on the words. He was nervous for what was to come, but It should be said. For some reason, he could not let her think he 'didn't give a fuck' about what she did for one moment longer than she already had. "I care. I do. I care so much it terrifies me sometimes. I care so much I'm ashamed of it. I sometimes try to stay awake as long as I possibly can, just because I like having you here next to me. I like having you here when I fall asleep and I like having you here when I wake up and I hate that I always have to choose between one of those scenario's instead of having them both." Eric sighed and stroked one curl out of her face, twisting it between his fingers and he watched the confliction in her eyes. An inner debate whether she should believe him or not.

"You're always on the go, Keen. Somewhere to come from, somewhere to go and I can't stand it. If I had any say in it I would never – ever – let you leave this bed ever again. I-I-." He choked on the words. He thought them, for sure. He knew he did 'L' her, but somehow knowing it and saying the words out loud was still a whole different caliber. "Just know I care, okay?"

Her puzzle fell apart.

But despite the confusion and doubt again clouding her eyes, the warm smile on her lips was ten times worth all the solutions in the world.

"Keen?" She questioned with a challenging raise of her eyebrow, and before Eric had time to regret all his words said, her lips attacked his.

It didn't take Eric long to return the passion her hot wet tongue seemed to convey. He let her dominate the kiss for a bit as she climbed on top of him, her ringlets falling down around their heads in a golden halo. They were both still naked, and Eric's member was rapidly growing to it's full size as she grinded against it while their mouths kept clashing.

Keena grabbed the back of Eric's head and pulled him up with her, until they were sitting upright, with her straddling his lap. Eric's mouth left hers, favoring the taste of her neck instead. Scraping his teeth along the pale flesh, Keena sighed content, digging her nails deep into the skin of his shoulders. Eric's hands pressed into her form as he followed the shape of her silhouette, all the way from her shoulders to her ass, before lifting her up, only to lower her onto his member again.

They moaned in unison.

Everything turned pretty fevering from there out on. Keena rode him at an agonizingly slow pace, impaling herself time and again as their hands clutched and clinged to each other as if their lives depended on it. Eric released one of his hand from their grasp on her full ass, preferring to divide his attention with her front as well.

Lowering his head even more, he took one stout nipple into his mouth, flicking his tongue over it a few times before setting his teeth in it as Keena threw her head back in ecstasy.

"Yes!" She gasped. And he punished her for it by shooting his hips upward, impaling her even deeper.

"Eric!" She screamed in surprise.

Now, that was more like it. His name was all she was going to remember by the end of this. He rewarded her with another flick of his tongue. She continued to ride him slowly though, which was more than fine with him. The longer this took, the longer he had her with him for the remainder of the night.

Just then, Eric caught sight of her heavy lidded eyes, watching him play with her breasts. He got the sudden urge to be even closer to her – which was impossible seeing that he was already inside her.

Roughly picking her up at the bum again, he flipped them over until he was laying complete on top of her. Every inch of her milky white body was covered with his own as he filled her up with his cock, continuing the slow peace previously set by her. He claimed her mouth once again, this time the kiss being more slow and sensual as both savored every moment of it. Her hands tentatively grabbed his arsei, in a bold attempt to push him further into her as he rubbed their transpiration-covered bodies over each other.

She was so, so wet, Eric had to actively stop himself from coming too soon. Although honestly, every time was really too soon with her.

"Eric." She moaned into his mouth as their tongues danced around each other. "More."

She was just as desperate for release Eric was, but he wouldn't give in. Not yet. He was sure that as soon as she came, he would follow straight after and honestly, this heaven could continue for years without boring him.

"No." He rumbled sternly, driving his cock into her wetness with a little bit more force this time.

She gasped in ecstasy. "Eric." She pulled back from their interwind mouths, clasping her teeth at his earlobe instead. "I care about you too." She whispered in his ear, her horse voice driving him insane.

"Fack it!" He growled, sliding out of her before picking her once again up by her – damn delicious – ass and maneuvering them until her back was pressed against the headboard of his bed. Her legs quickly wrapped around his hips, securing their position as he slammed into her again, relishing in the way she screamed out his name.

"That's right, little dauntless." Eric growled as he fucked her tight wet cunt. The headboard slamming onto the wall only adding to their spur. "Say who's fucking your tight little cunt like no other ever has."

"You, Eric! YOU!" Keena screamed, her nails completely buried into the flesh of his back and upper arm. She tried to lull her head backwards, but since the wall was already there, she just let it hang in a strange angle.

Eric's left hand continued to clutch the soft skin of her ass, while his other came up to cup the back of her head. He brought his forehead against hers as he looked her straight in the eye.

Ice blue meeting bottle green.
Nothing else had ever made so much sense as right than and there.

"Your pussy is MINE." He growled, plunging his cock deep inside her before retracting it.

"Your body is MINE." He hissed, impaling her again.

"Your mind is MINE." He dived forward again, loving the way how Keena released sweet little noises with each trust, all the while nodding at him in agreement to his words.

"Your heart is mine." The words came out as a whisper instead of an order. The silent question clear in his eyes. In response, Keena lowered her gaze to his lips for half a second before coming up to meet his gaze again, determination clear in her eyes.

And then… slowly… She nodded her agreement.

Attacking her luscious lips in a bruising kiss, Eric continued to thrust into her with immense force, electing all kinds of delicious moans and screams from her. Feeling her approaching orgasm, he lowered his hand from her head and slid it between them, helping her over the edge.

She screamed out his name as she came, taking him right there with her as his strokes slowed down and both their bodies shook in contentment. Bringing his hand back up to cup her cheek, they locked gazes for an unknown – yet considerable long – time. Eventually however, their cooled down bodies were in desperate need of the warmth found under the comfort of Eric's duvet.

As Eric drifted off to sleep with Keena safe and soundly clutched to his side, he didn't even mind she would be gone as soon as he woke up. He had her now, and instead of focusing on all the things he didn't (yet) have, he sure as hell was glad for all that he did.

End of flashback

So, yeah. Eric was beyond furious. Yes, at Keena, for being so irrationally stupid as she had but, first and foremost, at himself. For one, he shouldn't care and think about her as much as he did, but mostly… he should've told her about her siblings way sooner. Perhaps even as soon as he'd found out. Consequences be damned. Looking back on it now, his former argument – that it hadn't been 'his place' to tell her – seemed nothing short of lazy and insufficient either. After all, when had he ever cared about socially desired behavior like that?

Exactly. Never.

Sure, there was no way of knowing what telling her would've made her do either, so perhaps this had been the best choice after all… and yet, Eric couldn't shake the feeling that he should've told her. That perhaps, if he had, she wouldn't be laying in the fucking infirmary right now.

Truth serum and Fear serum mixed together? Well, the girl never left anything over to chance, that could be concluded with a certainty. But Eric had already known that of her, hadn't he? She'd been the initiate building muscle in the training room hours before the rest would even leave their beds. She was the initiate that knocked out her first opponent during a fighting match with such a precise skill that it left no doubt over her immaculate knowledge in the human anatomy.

Yes, Eric should've predicted this. Seen it coming. Keena had been giving so many signs that she wanted to know what her fears were. He should've listened better. Given her more in a regulated way, instead of trying to hold her 'safe'.

He could've prevented all of this.

Frustrated he looked at the bottle in his hands. He needed a damn drink stronger than the beer he was currently holding. Giving in to his urge to throw the bottle against the nearest wall, it shattered in a million pieces while conversation around him seemed to stop.

Eric returned their stares unfazed with a steely stare of his own – challenging anyone of the bystanders to intervene, which none of them did obviously – before spotting a random initiate close-by.

"Candor." He sneered at the boy, who flinched in both fear and confusion. Not a candor then, it appeared. "Clean this mess." Eric continued with a snarl, nonetheless. "And when I get back I want to see this place so fucking spotless and glass-free, you can wipe your ass off with it."

Without another word, Eric stormed off, although undecided whether to head for the liquor store or the training room.