TRIS POV
Four stands in front of the tightly packed crowd, a chalkboard leaning against his tall legs.
"Your rankings have been determined by your shooting and fighting ability over the last week. Fighting is weighted more heavily though, as we have spent more time on it and it is more difficult than shooting," he explains. "I've determined your ranks through a system of points, automatically subtracting points from the seventeen-year-olds who completed initiation last year to make it fair for the sixteen-year-olds who are brand new to this. I added a certain number of points to your score if you won, depending on your opponent's wins and losses, and if you lost, I removed points in the same way.
"So these are your rankings as they stand. Remember that you only have until next week to pull your score up. I would advise that you avoid the bottom, since you will are likely to be cut if you are down there. That being said..."
Every initiate shares a breath as we stare at the chalkboard that he hangs on the wall, trying to make sense of it. I have to stand on my tiptoes to see over people's shoulders, and then I am able to make out the names when a few disperse.
I am not surprised, but I do beam anyway.
1. Tris
2. Peter
3. Justin
4. Christina
Christina turns to me and squeezes me in an embrace, squealing loudly in my ear and pressing several painful bruises. I laugh and shove her off so I can scan the rest of the names, the ones that I actually recognize catching my eye.
8. Jessica
22. Dez
23. April
"You're doing great, Dez," I tell her while she frowns at the board.
"Not good enough," she sighs with a shake of her head.
Christina sets a hand on her arm and says, "Hey, you're far from the bottom. You won't get cut, and that's really all that matters this early on."
It's true. I was definitely one of the worst initiates last year, but the second stage was enough to put me right on top, in first place like I am now. Peter even dropped down from second place to fifth in that time period, so anything can happen. Although I doubt my ranking will shift much.
Speaking of Peter, I realize that there is something I want to do. My eyes search the group for him, and once I spot him a few feet away, pursing his lips and looking nearly as worn as I do from our fight two days ago, I start toward him.
"Peter," I call.
He turns his head and watches me incredulously, trying to guess my motive.
"I just wanted to say good job on the fight," I say honestly. And while a part of me wants to be nice, I am also looking out for myself. More specifically my eyes, since last time Peter took second was when Edward fell victim to his malice, and then later me when he tried to toss me into the chasm.
Peter's seemingly innocent, doe-like eyes stay that way instead of hardening at me with a promise for revenge. I hold my breath, waiting for something, anything, and then he sticks out his hand.
"Yeah, okay, Stiff," he replies, and I hear a truce in his voice. A truce is better than being even, and I shake his hand and offer a polite smile before retreating back to my friends.
"What was that about?" Christina scowls.
"Insurance," I say.
Four pulls our attention away from the board and to the larger one standing up close to the ring. "All right, here are the fights for today. If your name isn't on here, then you will fight your third opponent tomorrow, which will be the last day of fights," he announces. "Derek and Bryce, you're first up."
"So that's his name!" Christina exclaims in a hushed voice.
"Which one?" I get a good look at both of the boys, but neither of them stand out to me as somebody I'm supposed to be familiar with.
She points to the sort of scrawny one with black hair. "I've been wanting to know what his name was this whole time, and apparently it's Bryce. He's cute."
Dez laughs. "I don't understand your type, Christina," she comments.
Christina even blushes over the guy and keeps her eyes trained on him. Good for her if she likes him; she deserves someone after Will.
"I want a cute guy," Dez pouts.
"I'll find you one," my best friend assures her. "Maybe I can hook you up with someone Uriah knows, since not many of these transfers are good-looking." She pauses and then adds quickly, "And you too, Tris—oh wait, never mind."
"What?" I ask. "Why not?" I don't care about some love interest, but I am curious as to why Christina would take back her suggestion.
The two girls share a knowing glance. When I frown at them, Christina says, "We all know that you're not interested in anyone else."
I tilt my head, trying to figure her out. She is right, but I don't know why they act like it is obvious that I don't want some kind of romance right now, let alone how they would know something like that. Completely stumped, I drop the subject.
I watch the fight with a renewed interest since Christina revealed her crush. Bryce takes a visibly ugly hit above the eyebrow, causing my own cut in the same spot to ache.
My fight with Peter was two days ago, but my body hasn't done much healing since then. I am currently blue and green in more places than I am my normal coloring, and my knuckles are trying to scab over but the gashes in them are taking time. Not that it matters, because today I will tear them open again.
In my distracted haze, I realize that I forgot to even check the pairings for today. I crane my neck to see the name written next to mine, and a challenging smile turns up my lips.
Tris vs. Jessica
I glance over at Jessica, who is picking at her cuticles nonchalantly. While she is in eighth place, I don't expect her to be that great of a fighter. And I am eagerly awaiting my chance to beat her in more ways than one, with our slight rivalry as a factor. The only thing I am worried about is my sore body; if somebody called me Stiff right now, I couldn't disagree with them.
The morning passes slowly with each boring brawl out on the mat, landing seven more poor souls in the infirmary. By the time it comes down to Jessica and I, there are ten minutes left until we are supposed to be released for lunch.
"Hurry, let's get this last fight over with," says Four.
I walk up to the ring, stretching out my tender muscles and hoping she doesn't put up too much of a fight. I am extremely grateful that I won't be fighting tomorrow and that the next day is Visiting Day because I am in desperate need of a break.
"Don't worry," Jessica drawls with a bat of her eyelashes. "This won't last long."
I roll my eyes at her pettiness.
"Is something funny, Stiff? Other than the fact that you think you're better than everyone else because of your short-lived, war fame?"
Where did she even get that notion? I shake my head and put my arms out in front of me, elbows locked and ready to spring. "No, but you did just prove how desperate you are," I point out. I don't want to sink to her level, but someone's catcall encourages me.
Jessica scowls and copies my position. "Hag."
"Skank," I fire back.
"Bitch."
"This isn't a verbal fight," Four growls. "Are you two going to stand there and act like children or do what you're supposed to?"
He has always been distracting to me, and Jessica catches me off guard when my mind is occupied by him. She swipes her knuckles across my face, right in a spot where I had been hit more than once by much more powerful fists two days ago. With a gasp, I step back and press my hand to it.
My face is hot as I find my composure. Then I retaliate, getting in punch after carefully calculated punch at her face in between her menacing glares. I hold back my cries every time my knuckles split open again and focus on just getting through this fight.
That is, until she tangles her hands in my hair and yanks so hard I think my scalp will rip off.
I let out a pained yelp and elbow anything in my path until she lets go. And suddenly this fight isn't just about getting through the omnipresent ache but also beating her down because this is personal.
It ends with me being yanked by Justin off of a moaning and bloody Jessica. I hiss and wriggle out of his grip in an effort to get him to stop touching me in sore places.
"Somebody take Jessica to the infirmary," Four orders. "The rest of you are dismissed for lunch."
I barely hear him, crossing the room to a drinking fountain where I can cool off. Christina tries to bother me, and I get her to leave me alone with a promise to meet her at lunch once I get cleaned up. After taking a few sips of water and removing my hair tie from my now disastrous hair, the room is no longer hazy, and I am left to deal with my crippled hands.
"Tris?" I realize that Four is the only other person in the room, and I close my eyes, begging him silently for a moment of peace.
"What?" I whine.
He stops several feet away, like he is approaching a wild animal. "Do you want some help?" he asks. "With your hands, I mean."
In any other situation, I would refuse him. But my knuckles are stinging fiercely and I don't prefer to take another trip to the infirmary, where I already spent a day and a half. Besides, he was kind to me when I was there and looks genuinely concerned now, so maybe he will help me without confusing things further and I will be on my way.
"Okay," I relent.
He nods and assesses the damage I have done. "That's pretty bad," he eventually says. Clearly. "I have some better medicine back at my apartment, if you don't mind going there."
I meet his eyes. The last time I was at his apartment, we slept together, and then I abandoned him and turned myself into Erudite—he hinted that it left scars. We have many memories there, most of them pleasant, though that doesn't make a difference.
I swallow and try to make my decision. While I'm sure that returning there will make me uncomfortable and nostalgic, we will only be there for a short time. There shouldn't be any harm in it...
So I agree. "Yeah, that's fine."
I walk next to him on our way there, matching his pace a full foot away, a friendly distance. It is awkward, and my hand itches to reach out for his because it seems natural in these hallways, in the compound where we used to be happy together.
When we arrive, he lets me in first and then walks to the bathroom to find some remedies for my hands. I stand in the middle of the room with my shoulders tense, scanning the area for any changes since I was last here.
He got a new couch, but the bed is still in the same place with the same blue quilt, and the phrase "Fear God Alone" is still painted on the wall across from it. He doesn't have any keepsakes out of course, and then I discover that I have another mission: to figure out if he has a girlfriend, not that I care or anything. But the room is bare with no evidence of another girl living with him.
Four exits the bathroom with supplies in his hands, and we take a seat on the couch together—thank God for the couch because sitting on his bed would have been too intimate. He takes my hand gently, and my stomach tightens in anticipation for some reason. The feeling goes right out the window when he dabs my knuckles with a wet cloth.
"Ow," I accidentally blurt out.
"Sorry," he says.
The burning subsides after a moment. The worst is over now, and I am left to my own silent thoughts as he cleans both Jessica's and my blood off of my hands.
He furrows his eyebrows in concentration, an expression he does when he is solely absorbed by the task at hand, an expression I am very familiar with. I almost want to reach out and press away the slight lines it makes in his forehead because even though he is always handsome to me, I prefer his smile so much more.
Who am I kidding? These thoughts I am having...I may have been convinced that he was making things complicated, but it seems that I am the one that has a problem pretending that the past is the present.
"I would wrap your hands, but your skin is cut so deep that I'm afraid it would just make things worse," he says, applying some sort of gel to my knuckles with the faintest touch.
"It's fine." I would rather not wear a bandage if I don't have to; I refuse to show weakness to Jessica.
With a sigh, he drops my hands and scans my face and shoulders, all littered with bruises and in plain sight because of the tank top I am wearing. Nearly all of them are leftover from my fight with Peter, with the exception of a couple new ones that have yet to surface.
"I can give you some of my salve, if you want," he offers.
He has already done enough, and my nerves are building the longer I sit here. I am tempted to say no, but then I think about how much more sore my face will be tomorrow and give in.
When Four goes back to the bathroom and returns with a tub of salve, I start to rethink this. Undoubtedly he will help me since I don't know where exactly my face is purple or green, and the idea makes me wary.
So I keep myself busy, applying the salve to my arms and shoulders while he does it to my face. Eventually I run out of injuries though, and I am forced to meet his eyes as he spreads the salve across my tender cheekbone. I get a whiff of the minty ointment, transporting me back into the past when we would lie in bed together and I would catch that same scent on him.
"You look exhausted," he remarks, noticing the dark bags under my eyes.
I close my eyes when he removes his hand. "I am," I affirm.
"Still having nightmares?"
"Yes." That is primarily why I can't get enough rest. There are times when I will almost fall asleep in the dining hall, and when I will wake up with a scream I have to muffle in my pillow in the middle of the night. The other initiates must be irritated by me. It is beginning to be embarrassing, even though I can't help it.
He worries his lip for a moment, contemplating. "Don't take this the wrong way, but do you want to take my bed?" he questions.
"Huh?" I reply dumbly.
With a humiliated look, he averts my eyes. "Not like that. I just thought that you can't be getting any decent sleep on that cot on the floor, and maybe that's part of the problem. Just for the next week or so before people get cut, I thought you might want to take my bed, and I can take the couch."
It is too nice of an offer that I can't take it up. And finally I burst, getting what I've wanted to say for a while off my chest.
"God, Four!" I exclaim, standing up and pacing away from the couch. "Which is it? One second you're yelling things at me, blaming me for every mistake I've ever made, and the next you're kissing my forehead in the infirmary and helping me with my hands and being nice."
I turn to face him and find him standing as well. He pinches the bridge of his nose and says, "So now I'm being punished for being nice? That's—"
"No," I huff, thoroughly annoyed. "I'm saying that you make no sense. You're constantly sending me mixed signals that I have no idea how to interpret. You broke up with me, so why do I have to keep playing guessing games with you when you hate me in the first place?"
He scowls. "I don't hate you, Tris. Just because I broke up with you doesn't mean I do," he corrects me.
I throw my hands up dramatically. "Well, then stop being nice at least! You're making things so...complicated when it doesn't have to be. Why won't you just cut off all ties and let me be?"
Because I refuse to be friends with someone I once loved. The memories combined with his presence are too much to bear, and once you see someone as more than a friend, that relationship will always remain that way; no matter how hard I try to see him differently, he will always be the one who would kiss me in greeting rather than hug, who wouldn't keep a respectable distance, who would be there for me in more ways than a friend ever could.
Four turns his back on me and hangs his head, his shoulder blades visible through his black shirt.
"You knew what you wanted when you made your decision," I spit out past the hurt. He knew that he wanted to kill the last foundations of me, the final pillars that were holding me up during the war.
The sigh that leaves him is heavy and forlorn. "I'm not sure what I want anymore," he mumbles.
I don't pretend to understand what he is talking about. "Well, you better figure yourself out before you do any more damage than you already have. I won't take any more from you."
And then I walk out, slamming the apartment door behind me, the sound of it a finality.
TOBIAS POV
When she leaves, her words are still ringing in my head, firing back and forth across my brain in a torturing echo.
I won't take any more from you.
And I can't help but think of what I saw when I was cleaning her split knuckles: the faint, white scars lining her left wrist, perpendicular to the vein that runs up it.
There were four of them.
TRIS POV
"Hey, Tris."
I startle in my seat with a gasp when someone sets a hand on my shoulder, hitting my knee into the table above it. It shakes my leftover dinner.
"Woah, you okay?" Uriah asks. "I didn't mean to scare you."
"It's fine," I grit out, massaging the ache in my knee. My constant jumpiness is starting to get on every last of my nerves. I feel like a coward, being so fearful all of the time when I am back in a place where I should be happy and free of the control of my nightmares. This is my home, and I shouldn't be scared in my own home.
Uriah shoots me an apologetic look when he sinks down onto the seat next to me, facing the wrong direction. "Where is everyone?" he asks.
"Christina went shopping with Dez right after dinner." I shrug. "I didn't feel like it, so I stayed behind."
"What about Justin?"
"Still in the infirmary. Peter beat him today."
"Ouch." He leans back against the table. "Why aren't you sitting with Shauna?"
I follow his nod over to her a table down, where she is sitting across from her little brother, Hector.
"She's been wary of me since the Divergent thing during the war," I say.
"Still?" At my nod, he shakes his head. "That's lame," he says, because there is not much else to say on the subject. After a pause, he starts, "Well, I don't mean to be a damper on your mood or anything..."
My eyes shoot up to his. "What is it?" I inquire, concerned.
"There was another suicide."
My stomach sinks. "No." This cannot be true. Foolishly, I thought maybe after the Dauntless one, the worst would be over.
"Yes," he confirms. "A Candor girl this time. Somehow got her hands on a gun."
I close my eyes and take a deep, cleansing breath, but it does nothing to calm the buzz that makes my hands jittery.
"Something is going on," he infers. "This isn't normal."
"No," I agree. "It's not..."
Movement catches my eye, and I glimpse over to my right, where a teenage boy—who must be a year older than me—accidentally walks into the handles on Shauna's wheelchair.
"Excuse me," he says, sarcasm evident in his voice. "I didn't know your big ass wheelchair was going to be in my way, cripple."
His friends behind him chuckle at his "joke" while Shauna hangs her head in shame. Something tells me that this happens often. Too often.
My hands ball into fists when he cracks another joke, teasing Shauna about how she shouldn't even be in Dauntless with her disability. Hector looks like he wants to say something, but Shauna gives him a warning glance that tells him that he would only make the situation worse, so he cowers with her.
And Shauna may not like me, but I am not going to sit back and watch this happen.
So I stand, and when they turn their backs to walk away, I call, "Leave her alone, asshole."
A momentary hush falls over the dining hall, all eyes settling on the scene. Then whispers of gossip and catcalls for a fight fill the silence again.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" The boy steps closer and puts a mocking hand to his ear, as if he didn't catch my words.
"You heard what I said, coward," I seethe, feeling rather than seeing Uriah step up behind me for support.
"Tris," Shauna murmurs, her face a deep red. "You don't have to—"
The boy and his crew throw back their heads and howl with laughter. "You see this little bitch over here?" He points to me, and a couple onlookers chuckle along with him. Judging by the other boys behind him, they are preparing for a fight, which I am not sure Uriah and I can win alone. "Sticking up for the cripple, eh? Why don't you—"
Someone brushes past me in a flash of black. The neck tattoo tells me straightaway that it is Four, and he grabs the back of the boy's neck and slams his head into the nearest table so fast that I don't have time to think.
People all around us whoop and holler with excitement at the action, and I want to myself just because I despise him. Four forces him to stand up again and keeps a firm grip on the back of his neck.
"I-I-I didn't mean it, Four, I swear," he stutters, pleading for mercy that he will not receive. His buddies watch in fear, unwilling to intervene even if it would be three against one.
Four is powerful, in more ways than one. They wouldn't dare challenge their former leader.
"Apologize," he says coolly, despite the deadly, unforgiving look in his eyes. "To both of them."
"Sorry," the boy whimpers.
He doesn't expect the next blow, and neither do I. I flinch when Four brings his face down onto his knee and wonder if his nose is broken now.
"Apologize sincerely."
"I'm sorry!" He trembles like a little boy under Four's controlling hand. "I take it back. I shouldn't have said those things."
It satisfies Four enough to let him go. As soon as he and his friends stumble out, the cafeteria bursts into chatter again, as if the whole ordeal didn't just happen.
"Are you okay?" Four asks, bending slightly so that he doesn't completely tower over Shauna.
"I'm okay," she assures him. And then her head turns towards me, and I am surprised by her words and that she actually seems to mean them. "Thank you, Tris. That was brave of you."
I bite my lip. "It was what any decent person would have done," I deflect. Besides, I wasn't even the one to fight them off, so I don't deserve the credit.
Four steps over to me, his eyebrows raised expectantly and his dark eyes already void of any fury.
"Aren't you going to ask me if I'm okay?" I assume, since he always does when any kind of conflict happens.
Unlike during the war, this time he responds to that question with something that makes me stand taller and gives me a sense of pride that I shouldn't get from him—but I do anyway.
"No," he says. "I know that you're fine."
