Coals Burn Slow
Disclaimer: This story deals with mature themes and contains explicit content. It's not intended for underage readers, and it handles subjects of all kinds of abuse, murder, and themes of a sexual nature eventually, so I'm warning ahead of time. If you might be sensitive to those themes in a fictional context, then maybe this isn't the best choice for you and you may wish to leave this one be. Otherwise, happy reading.
Chapter 4
Tris POV
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To my surprise, Four doesn't disappear to his friends the second we reach the cafeteria. He skips the line, throwing a look over his shoulder that I take to mean I should follow him, and then he picks out food for the both of us. Nobody comments on the fact we've skipped the line or tries anything to stop us, and I wonder who exactly Four is in Dauntless.
More than just ex-trainer, it seems.
"You need some proper nutrition, not whatever measly shit they gave you in Abnegation," he says, maybe catching me staring at the rows of cake and syrupy foods that he's overlooked in our order. I've had cake only a few times in my life, even though I'd have had it every meal of the day for the rest of my days if I had any say about it. "Whenever I'm not here, I want you to stick to something basic and healthy from every food group."
I nod my head, like I have any idea what a meal like that would look like.
In Abnegation, I cooked rice and beans most nights and ate alone in my room, or in silence at the dinner table. Sometimes, I added some seasoning to make it a little bit more bearable, but that was rare. I didn't want Marcus to notice we were getting low.
The man across the counter slides two trays with plates of food over to us. Four grabs one, so I grab the other. I hesitate, not sure if I'm supposed to go with him, but when he looks at me over his shoulder again, I follow.
I hope it's the right thing to do.
When he sits at an empty table, I pause just a moment before sitting opposite him.
He doesn't say anything or even look up, and I have no idea if what I've done is what he wanted me to. He doesn't seem in any hurry to give me an indication, either. Nobody comes to join us.
I tell myself if he didn't want me here, I'm sure he'd have no problem verbalizing that, so I shouldn't stress myself out over it. It helps relax me a sliver, but not much more than that. I pick at my food, not really sure what half of it is.
"You need to eat," he snaps. "If you want to make it through training, you'll need the energy."
He's finished with his food before I'm even halfway done, but he stays there and doesn't take his eyes off of me until my plate is empty, too. The silence is thick and uncomfortable, and I squeeze the fork tightly in my hand to keep myself from fidgeting.
"Max said you're an ex-trainer," I say quietly, once I've finally mustered the courage. "Why'd you quit?"
After this morning, I'm half convinced he was fired for training his initiates too hard, but I ask the question because it's the only topic of conversation that comes to mind. The idea of me asking him anything more personal than that is laughable.
For many, many reasons, I don't imagine Four cares to tell me his favourite colour or anything about where he's from and what he likes to do.
He doesn't answer me for a while, only scrutinises me like he's trying to decide if I'm worthy of any response at all. "Bigger things came up," he says, which is as vague an answer as anyone could give so I guess he decided I'm not.
I nod, stabbing my fork into a piece of chicken. For breakfast, the meal seems excessive.
"Do you always take so long to eat?" he asks, a little snappily and while it'd normally make me shrink back, I don't let myself. I'm not supposed to be a shrivelling violet, even if I don't like his pretty eyes glaring and his handsome face seems a bit wasted on his scowls.
I'm supposed to be Dauntless. Because that's what I chose. Because if I want to make it through initiation, I have to prove I'm more than a scrawny thing from Abnegation with flimsy notions of bravery.
I can always cry later, when I'm alone and he can't see me.
So, I don't flinch back, and instead lift my eyes to meet his. "I don't normally plate myself up enough for a family of four, so it's hard to tell." The words come before I've thought them through, and my tone is much harsher than I intended.
But he doesn't look offended. Maybe a little surprised, behind the cloak of disapproval. "A family of four?" he echoes, flatly. "It must be too selfish to feed yourself properly in Abnegation. What a surprise."
I don't answer, instead take the last mouthful from my plate and scowl back at him, with one brow cocked. It's been a while since I really glared at anyone.
But I don't want to let myself be pushed around forever. It defeats the whole purpose of everything. The whole point of doing what I did, of leaving, of living, if I'm going to spend forever being thrown around by everybody else's opinions. Four doesn't even seem to care, anyway. I don't seem to be interesting enough to warrant much of his attention.
Wordlessly, he stands, and I follow suit, completely unsure of myself again.
It's the biggest meal I've had in a long time, but it's not so bad after a morning of hard work.
On the way out, I catch sight of a table full of people that fall silent as Four and I pass, me rushing to keep up with him. They've got flashes of red on their clothes, too, and I assume they're the initiates I should be training with.
The look on their faces is anything but friendly, and I turn away, lowering my head.
I don't even realise Four has noticed or slowed his pace until he's beside me and hisses at me, "Don't." He turns his head away from me to look over his shoulder at them.
"What?"
"Don't let them scare you. They're only initiates."
"I'm not," I say, frowning at him. I try to masquerade myself in a veil of defiance. Like I'm just as brave as I'm pretending to be.
He raises a brow at me like he knows I'm a liar, and I think he does. "Keep your chin up, then."
So, I do as I'm told, and I find myself walking a little taller.
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Over the course of the day, we alternate between running and working on the punch bags, and he even makes me lift some weights – very light weights. He doesn't say much except what he has to say to tell me what to do, but he's always watching.
It's more unnerving than the edge in his voice and the sneer on his face.
At lunch, we sit together again and eat silently. I'm too tired from the work to try to think up any kind of conversation, and he doesn't seem interested in talking to me, anyway.
At dinner, though, he walks me to the cafeteria, orders one plate of food and then hands it to me. "I'll see you tomorrow at five in the training room," he says. "Don't be late." He disappears then, and I haven't the slightest clue where he's going or what he's doing, but I assume it's something important.
So, I sit and eat alone, eating as much as I can with what little scraps of energy I have left. My early conclusion about him being fired has only been affirmed by the rest of the day. Even breathing feels like it's taking more energy than I have to give and for the first time in a long while, I'm looking forward to the chance to sleep.
Eventually, the glaring stares from the table of initiates are enough to wear on me and I give in to my tiredness, leaving my food half finished, and disappear from the cafeteria with the intention of finding my room, somehow, somewhere in miles of identical cement hallways.
I wind up by the entrance that I arrived through last night, and then I stumble for what feels like hours and hours until I find my room – 444.
It seems a little ironic now.
I fumble with my key until I manage to slot it in, and then I shut the door behind me.
I barely have the energy to shrug out of my sweaty clothes before collapsing atop the sheets.
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When I wake, I'm both freezing cold and sweating, my mind tainted with all kinds of hideous memories. My teeth chatter, my breath rasps in my throat, and my heart races like it has somewhere to be.
However tired I may have been when I fell asleep, I'm wide awake now, too awake to even dream of going back to bed anytime soon.
I shower, change, and lace up my boots. I look through the apartment in more detail to occupy my mind, going through my empty kitchen cabinets and I'm rewarded by finding an extra comforter that I toss on the bed. Then, at four thirty, I leave, so that I have enough time to get lost trying to find my way there and not be late.
That plan doesn't pan out, and by the time I do eventually find the training room, Four is already there, irritated and glaring at his watch.
"You're late."
"Sorry, I got lost," I say, walking over.
He only shakes his head in response. "Stretch out and then start running," he says.
His words from yesterday – the demand for twenty-five laps – echo in my ears as I stretch out near one of the podiums. I start running once I've stretched myself to the best of my knowledge.
It doesn't take long before I'm struggling. My pace begins to slow, my legs burning worse than I've ever known.
I glance at him, maybe hoping he'll take pity on me and call me to stop, but he doesn't. Instead, I can't be sure because I'm far away, but he might be smirking.
It's wishful thinking to assume he cares that this hurts at all. Entirely too naïve and Abnegation of me, really.
I manage twenty-three laps before my legs make good on their threat to give in and I come to a halt, dropping down to a crouch and swiftly falling back onto my ass, managing to catch myself with my elbows to save my head from the blow.
Surprisingly, I don't hear Four yelling at me and I'm too scared to look over at him and the blood is rushing so fast through my ears it's hard to hear much of anything beyond my own heartbeat and gasping.
I give myself one hundred seconds to breathe and regain a little bit of feeling in my legs.
He can't force me to run any longer, and he doesn't seem like the type that would try to drag me around the track. He'd find a way to make me regret it some other way. Or maybe he wouldn't do anything at all, just mark me so low that he'll never have to see me again once the first stage of training is over. Let me reap the reward of my own decisions.
But, in a way, it's not about what Four will do. It's about what I'll do. What I'm willing to do to make it. Because I know that if I let myself cave, I'll never make it. I'll never be Dauntless the way I planned for myself to be. I won't make it through this initiation, and I'll never last a lifetime here or anywhere if I start giving in now.
And then it's all for nothing, because being Dauntless is the only option for me now.
So once my hundred seconds are up, I push myself back up, standing on my shaky legs, and I force myself to run the last two laps.
It hurts like Hell.
But the silent nod Four gives me when I stumble back to where he's sat on the fighting podium makes me think it was the right decision, and in a way that makes it kind of worth it.
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A/N: Here's the fourth chapter.
Sorry it's been a while, but I'm almost done with some pieces of work hanging over my head, so I'll try and start up a posting schedule once that's done. But I should have another chapter up soon enough.
Leave me your thoughts.
- Laylz :)