Chapter Forty-Five
Eric was angry. The burning rage from Liv's stupid decision was still growing with every hour that pasted, even though nearly twenty-four hours had gone by since she beckoned him into the booth. Getting rid of the evidence had been the easy part, but explaining Max's disappearance had taken him sometime to figure out. When he had left the club to clear his head while the girls cleaned up the mess there was no immediate plan that jumped out at him that would avoid questioning or pot-holes. Max wasn't just some nobody in Dauntless, he was regarded highly amongst not only his own faction but the new council aswell and his death would draw in a large scale investigation which Eric was keen to avoid. In the end he had decided to make it look like a suicide and have one of the patrolling guards find Max's body at the bottom of The Chasm, as long as he was first to the scene he could dispose of the body without the medical team having a chance to look at it. So that's exactly what he and Ivy did; shoving Max's bloody corpse into a bag, they carted him to The Chasm and threw him over it before leaving and heading in their seperate directions. It hadn't taken long for his phone to ring with a guard explaining that they had found a body. The only loose end he hadn't prepared for was Felicity, she had been dragged to the club with Max and Eric had found her slumped in a dark corner of The Pit with one of Max's serum syringes hanging out of her arm. Liv's mess appeared to be never ending.
"How are you feeling?" He asked Felicity upon returning from his days work. She was slumped on his bed, sweating prefusely from the withdrawal of whatever the serum Max had been giving her was. Apparently it was highly addictive. "Have you eaten today?"
Felicity groaned in reply, unable to form words through the agony her body was currently in. She hadn't moved all day, the mere thought of food or drink made her dry heave all she wanted was whatever it was that Eric was with holding from her.
"I'll get you something to eat and a glass of water. You'll feel better." It wasn't optional, he had got the young girl this far and he was damned if he would have her die or starvation or thirsty because she couldn't handle a come down.
Stalking out of his bedroom, Eric went to the kitchen to make Felicity a sandwich and himself a strong drink. Since the take over his life had been nothing but difficult, re-gathering the faction had been a task in itself and then rebuilding it was only slightly easier. But his main cause of discomfort was Liv, the woman was nothing but a thorn in his side, adding to the never ending list of tasks he had to do daily. Max's murder had been the worst by far and he wasn't quite sure why he was even covering it up for her; his life would be so much easier if Liv was dead but the thought of cremating her dead body made him feel physically sick.
"Eric."
Felicity's hoarse voice snapped Eric's attention away from buttering bread and over to where the young girl stood in the enterway to the kitchen on shaking legs. She looked bad. Eric had never seen anyone in a state close to Felicity's, not even when Liv had been locked up at Erudite, she was a very slim girl always had been, but her skin was a sickly grey colour and covered in a sheen of sweat and suddenly he questioned whether the withdrawl from the serum might actually kill her. "Go sit down before you fall down Felicity."
Grabbing onto the wall Felicity remained where she was stood, the hold gave her some stability but her long legs still shook violently. "Why am I here? Max never lets any of us leave."
Sick or not Felicity was clearly Erudite to the core, she didn't miss a thing. "Max is dead." Eric answered simply, returning his attention to making the sandwich. He hadn't expected to have a conversation about Max for atleast a few days and she had successfully blindsided him.
"How?"
Letting out an exasperated sigh, Eric slammed the knife he was holding down onto the counter. Obviously the Avery sisters were exactly the same when it came to pushing his patience. "He fell off The Chasm, I imagine he had drank too much. I'm sure you can attest to how much he liked a drink."
Felicity's teeth began to chatter, she had been experiencing waves of hot and cold flushes all day and she still couldn't decide which temperature was worse. "That still doesn't explain why I'm here...Did we..."
"Fuck?"
Eric's answer was blunt and something that Felicity wasn't used to, people in Erudite didn't speak like that and she flinched. Her pride and self worth and long since been erradicated but for some reason she had no knowledge of what had happened for some time, she didn't know how long, and although Eric had only been gentlemanly with her previously there was still a chance something might have happened between them. "Did we?"
With a malicious glint in his eyes, Eric closed the distance between the two of them over shadowing Felicity's small frame with his large one. "And if we did? There aren't many men in Dauntless...men who mean something to this faction, who haven't fucked you Felicity. What's one more?"
"I...I...I..." Stuttered Felicity in fear, in her time at Dauntless Eric had shown nothing but kindness to her and despite knowing his reputation for being cruel and brutal the sudden one-eighty in his behaviour terrifed her.
Eric knew it was unfair to take out the anger he was feeling because of Liv on her younger sister but he couldn't help himself. He wasn't the type of man who could keep his temper bottled up, he either fucked or fought the anger away and with no one currently suitable to fuck he had settled on taking it out on the young girl in his firing line, how ever unjust it was. "As pretty as you are Felicity, the mere thought of putting my dick in you puts me off sex for weeks. I don't fuck little girls, no matter how much other men rave about your talents." Felicity's grey face flushed red with embarrassment making Eric smirk cruelly down at her. "You don't remember do you? That shit he pumped you full of has fucked up your memory."
Again Felicity blushed, the way he was speaking made it all to clear that what ever she had been doing while Max drugged her was not something she'd want to remember. "I don't know when I remember from." She said, hoping it sounded braver than she felt.
"Perhaps I can jog your memory?" Just as Eric was about to divulge some of the sick things Max had made her do while on the serum there was a knock at his door. "Sit. And don't speak unless I tell you to do so."
Guiding Felicity to the couch, Eric shoved her down and then made his way over to the front door to bite off the head of whoever it was that thought nine o'clock at night was an okay time to drop by. To his surprise he was greeted with the miserable face of Gus when he threw the door open.
"Can I come in?"
Wordlessly, Eric stood aside allowing Gus to cross the threshhold into his apartment. He had expected it to be Liv or Ivy coming round to complain about how difficult it was to keep their mouth shut about what had gone down in the club, he had not prepared for it to be his friend. "What's the problem? I'm sorry Gus but there's still no word on Mila." Heading back into the living area, Eric watched in bewilderment as Gus cried into Felicity's chest as she craddled him in her arms whilst quietly humming a comforting tune. It was something he had never seen before, Dauntless didn't cry or show any form of weakness and comforting another person was just seen as enabling that weakness but there sat a girl, eight years younger than him, a Divergent slave who had been abused in more ways than he could count, with a man she didn't know, showing him unquestioning kindness and compassion.
He wanted to say something, anything to convince his friend that it was going to be okay but it was simply something Eric was incapapble of doing. Instead he chose to return to making Felicity her sandwich and fetch both he and Gus a strong drink; on his way through to the kitchen his icy eyes locked with Felicity's and she smiled at him knowingly like she knew exactly what he was thinking and feeling, the young girl could read him and he disliked it greatly. During the small, silent interaction between them she didn't falter in her humming and her scrawny arms remained tight around Gus' huge body, and as Eric mused about it whilst slathering some peanut butter onto two slices of bread it dawned on him it was an action that not only Dauntless wouldn't do but Erudite too. It was very much something Amity would do, even Abnegation when they still existed. Is this what Divergent's were like? Was it as simple as that? A dizzying thought bounced around Eric's mind, making him grasp the kitchen counter tightly. Were Divergent's really bad?
A/N/ Sorry again for the short chapter but my update schedule is getting better atleast lol. Thank you to Solstice7777, 4Gracedivergent, Lady, Ariwolff14 and the Guest for reviewing. I'm glad you're all enjoying it :) Makes me super happy!
