TRIS POV
Something shakes me forcefully. It could be the explosion in my dream, but it feels more like a rocking than a harsh blast.
"Tris."
The shaking is detached from the frightening visions in my mind now. The chaos begins to fade away.
"Tris, wake up."
My eyes fly open, and I bolt up on my cot. I am in the Dauntless dormitory, and by the looks of it, Christina and I are nearly the only ones left. There are only a few people still changing.
"Huh?" I murmur, my mouth numb.
"We're going to be late. Hurry and get dressed," she rushes out.
Everything clicks in place. I'm late for training. Great. My constant nightmares have kept me up to the point where I desperately needed to sleep in, and now I am going to pay for it.
In a frenzy, I change my pants, my shirt, and throw a jacket on over my outfit. When I am pulling on my combat boots, Christina offers me a muffin with a bright smile that no person should have at this time in the morning.
"Thanks," I say, accepting it once my hands are empty.
On the way to the training room, I devour the muffin, wishing I had more time to savor it, but it was wasted. We arrive a minute before we're supposed to begin, and I throw my hair up in a messy ponytail for the remaining seconds that we wait for any late initiates to arrive. It turns out that Christina and I were the last ones.
That was close, if the warning look that Four shot at me when we walked in wasn't indication enough. From now on, I can't let my nightmares claim me as they usually do. If I don't want to be factionless, it is of the upmost importance that I arrive to training on time.
I am still kneeling to tie my shoes when Four begins.
"That was a close call for some of you," he warns. He looks grumpy and like he doesn't want to talk, as he normally does in the mornings. "Training starts at eight. I would recommend that you all get here at least five minutes earlier."
Tucking the long parts of my shoelaces in, I rise and offer my full attention.
"Before we begin, I'm going to go over our schedule. We will train from eight to twelve, take a one-hour lunch break, and continue training from one to five. Then you will be free to do as you please for the rest of the night until ten, which is lights out." So essentially the same as last year. Good.
"Training will last about a month, or a little longer considering the amount of initiates we have this year," Four adds, pacing as he recites his annual lines in monotone. "There will be three stages of training. The first is physical, in which you will learn the combat techniques that you will need to become a Dauntless soldier. In the second stage, you will face your worst fears. And in the third, you will combine these skills to prove your worth to us."
All of this information goes in my ear and out the other. The basics of initiation have not changed, and therefore there is no reason to try to fill my head with something I already know. I will be relearning enough today anyway; I need all of the possible space in my head to be cleared.
Four continues, "Transfers from last year, I suggest you pay attention to this part." We perk up at this. "There will be cuts again this year, meaning that if you aren't fit to be Dauntless, then you will be made factionless."
The training room becomes so silent that it is impossible to hear anyone's breathing. While I am not completely surprised, there is a hopeful part of me that deflates. I thought that with the population drop in Dauntless because of the war, maybe there wouldn't be cuts. I thought that with Eric gone, Dauntless wouldn't be so brutal.
It isn't me that I'm worried about, since I was able to emerge at the top last year. Christina is capable too, as is Uriah. I'm mostly concerned for Dez, who is shell-shocked next to me, because despite my perseverance last year, the scrawny girls don't always make it. Myra was an example of this.
"Of the thirty-two transfers, it is estimated that only twenty of you will stay in Dauntless. We will be ranking you with the Dauntless-born, who are a total of forty right now. Most of them will end up staying, so you will have to work your ass off if you want to have a spot in the top fifty."
Momentarily, I wonder why there are so many Dauntless initiates this year. But then I remember the war, and how dire it was to know how to fight back and defend myself, and I understand. If something like that were to happen again, then they want to be prepared, like I was.
"And keep in mind that your rankings will determine your career at the end of initiation. Any questions?" he finishes. When nobody dares to speak, he says, "Good. Let's go."
The pack of transfers follows him cluelessly to the end of the training room that is lined with man-shaped targets. My stomach twists into a knot at the sight because I know what is coming next.
"The first thing you will learn how to do is shoot a gun, since that has proved to be the most valuable skill to have," Four tells us. At the mention of war, everybody around me falls into their own memories of horror, leaving their faces in dead stares. But he seems unfazed, like the war didn't affect him much, and I don't know how he can put on such a show when his friends died, when he had to take lives, when he was tortured.
He steps over to one of the tables that is lined with guns and picks up a pistol. "You'll be starting out light with one of these, but before lunchtime I want you working with rifles."
I gulp. I don't even think I can get past the pistol stage. As far as I remember, the last time I fired a gun of any kind was on the day I murdered Will. And if my nightmares are any indication of what this will be like, well...
Four picks up a clip and inserts it into the bottom of the pistol, slamming it in all the way with his palm. After demonstrating how to remove the clip as well, he then positions himself in front of a target, and I ponder over how he can still be so comfortable and smooth with a gun after everything that happened last year.
"Watch how I position myself," he orders us. People stand on their tiptoes to look over other people's shoulders, and I'm still biting my nails trying to figure out how I will be able to pick up a weapon. He spreads his legs so that they are shoulder-width apart, keeps his arms straight out, and fires a round into the center of the target in front of him.
How can everyone remain unbothered by the sound of gunshots? On the first shot, I nearly jump out of my skin with fear. I no longer see the training room in front of me; instead there are rows of Abnegation houses, where neighbors are getting shot in their front lawns; there are Abnegation fleeing in the Amity fields as the Dauntless-Erudite open fire; there are mind-controlled Candor killing Fernando on a ladder in an alley.
"Don't shoot wildly," Four reminds the group, and I can barely hear him over the ringing in my ears. "I want you to hit the center at least five times before you move on to the rifles."
With all of the instructions given, he starts handing out guns. One by one, the initiates take their places in front of the targets and begin shooting. Each bang is felt in my body, and I vibrate with anxiety. This will not end well.
I am so shaky that I almost drop the gun that Four places in my hands. When I feel the cold metal against my palms, my throat constricts.
"Are you okay?" Dez whispers to me as we move to stand in front of our targets. "You look pale."
"I'm fine," I grit out in frustration. I shouldn't be this weak. How many times have I done this before? It should be simple.
Raising my arms, I mimic Four's stance and take a deep breath. All around me there is gunfire, and sooner or later I am going to have to join in, or else I will attract our instructor's unwanted attention.
I try to keep my trembling to a minimum as I aim down the sights at the center ring of the target, which is the center of the chest. It's wood, I repeat over and over to myself. But the frigid sweat that gathers on my forehead seems to suggest that I believe otherwise.
My finger brushes over the trigger for a split second, and Will is now the target. I gasp out my breaths while my pounding heart refuses to settle down.
"Will!"
I see him approach me in the alley with his own gun raised, and I don't have a choice, but I do and—
"Will, stop!"
"Tris!"
I didn't know that my eyes were closed until now. When they fly open, I am in the training room again, and instead of pointing my gun at the target, I am aiming it at Four's chest, my finger hanging over the trigger. He probably came over to ask why I wasn't shooting and saw my personal struggle, and in my haze I must have flipped around in a panic to defend myself.
My heartbeat becomes even more erratic when I realize what I almost did.
"Tris," he says carefully, like I will do something unexpected. For some reason, he seems calm in this life-or-death situation, with his hand held out steadily.
Then I realize how quiet the room is, and that there are now over thirty pairs of eyes on me. My chagrin is obvious as my face turns red and my eyes release the tears they were holding back.
"Tris," Four says slowly, his eyes wide and ironically innocent, and I remember when I pointed a gun at him when he was under the simulation that controlled Divergents. "Give me the gun."
With no desire to keep the weapon in my hands any longer, I place it in his outstretched palm. It seems that everyone in the room shares a breath of relief, that the insane girl with likely five different panic disorders didn't shoot up the training room.
I hold my head high and wipe away my tears as I leave.
Christina finds me during lunch later that day, curled up in one of the dim hallways where I can find some sort of peace that the dormitory doesn't offer. I meant to return there after my meltdown in the training room, but I took one glance at the bed that Edward slept in last year and remembered the butter knife incident and decided that it would be best to avoid the dorms.
My best friend doesn't treat me any differently. After asking if I want to talk about it and hearing my answer of no, she sits next to me and tucks her knees into her chest like me.
But I do eventually open up. I have spent the last nine months in a place where I wasn't allowed to discuss my emotions, and now it is a relief to have that option. So I take advantage of it.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," I mumble into my knees. "How am I supposed to pass initiation if I can't even accomplish the basics and hold a gun?"
Christina sighs and replies, "You're kidding, right? You got first place last year. I bet that you won't even have to get near a gun to get a decent rank."
"I can't just skip it." I come out from my hiding spot and look at her. "But if I am going to learn, then I don't want to do it in front of everyone. They already think I'm insane."
She shrugs. "Maybe a few do." Thanks for that Candor honesty. "But the rest of us know what you had to do in the war, and we're not judging you."
I know that she isn't referring to me killing her boyfriend, yet it is the first thing that comes to mind. Leaning my head back against the stone wall, I try to recall what happened a few hours ago; I wonder if I called out Will's name in my vulnerable state.
"Quit moping," Christina urges. With a huff, she drags me to my feet. "Let's go make you look pretty."
It pulls a smile out of me. "I'd rather just go back to training," I tease.
"Oh, don't be dramatic."
We walk to the Pit floor, and then we weave through the crowds and up to the ramps that line it above. Once inside the makeup/piercing store next to the tattoo parlor, she takes me to the back of the room and sits me down on a stool.
"I'm surprised you didn't bring your makeup bag on the train," I remark, remembering how she brought it to Abnegation during the war.
She starts picking out strange tools that she means to buy once she is finished with my makeover. "I may have stuffed a few things into my pocket."
"I was joking."
"Hold still," she demands as I attempt to avoid whatever contraption she is trying harass my eyes with.
Twenty minutes of torture later, we stop by the cafeteria for a quick lunch, which all of the initiates already finished. As soon as we clear our plates, we head straight to the training room. I am surprised and slightly anxious when I see that Four is waiting at the doors.
"Tris," he says. "Can I speak with you for a moment?"
Christina sends me a glance that bears the message, "Good luck." I straighten up and remain neutral as I follow him a little farther down the hall, anticipating the lecture that I am bound to get. I mean, I did almost shoot him today.
I do not expect his words. "Are you okay?"
A laugh that sounds more like a scoff escapes me. "Why would you care?" I say.
Where was he when I lost Lynn, yet another friend that was taken by the war? Where was he in the chaos that ensued after the Erudite overthrew the factionless? Where was he when I was self-loathing in Abnegation and crawling through each day? Where was he when I was cutting myself—
He was never there. He cut all ties with one sentence that shattered everything within me, and he didn't stay to clean up the mess he made.
And suddenly he is concerned with my well-being?
Four's face hardens, his eyebrows drawing in. "Don't I have the right to be worried about an initiate that nearly killed me and could potentially be a threat to the other initiates?" he asks.
Of course. It wasn't even about me personally in the first place; it was a systematic check-in, a job requirement.
"Yeah, well, thanks for the concern," I spit, "but I'm just fine."
I turn to leave, but he catches my wrist, yanking me back to him with the call of my name. A jolt leaves his fingers and converts into goosebumps on my arm. I wish my body wouldn't be so reactive to him, even though he is the only man that has ever really touched me.
"You don't have to worry about gun training," he offers. "I can just lower your rank, and you won't have to do it."
For a second it sounds like a gift. But then I recall that this isn't personal to him. He doesn't care about me. He is thinking of his trainees.
"Don't do me any favors." I rip my arm out of his grasp and walk into the training room. Maybe at one point in time he would have pursued me. But then again, based on the way things turned out between us, maybe not.
