More time skips.

"What the hell did you say to him?" Hugo demands as he glances between the two. Bree repeats back some of what they said and Eric bursts out laughing. "You're an evil, evil person Iss." Hugo says between his own laughter.

Issy shrugs as Alec hands her back her phone. "I just can't help myself sometimes."

They were in their last week of Stage Two and emotions were running high with only a few days left. Four had told them that morning that initiates below the line at the end of this stage weren't cut yet but were given the chance to improve their ranking in Stage Three – the final test. New fears showed up for Bree, setting her back in the rankings a little bit. Today a new fear appeared for Issy as well. She had gotten through it a little slower but not as slow as her first sim. Once again all her family were present and once again, Issy can do nothing to stop their deaths.

Flashback to Sim.

Darkness. For a moment Issy wonders if her eyes are closed but she knows there not. Slowly, the darkness seems to retreat back into the small nooks and crannies of the world allowing Issy to see her surroundings. She stands next to the Hub, or what she thinks was once the Hub, it just is more ruined than normal. In fact all the buildings around her are. They're all far more decayed than she's used to seeing, it looks like someone let off a bomb or something.

She walks around, unsure of her surroundings and the silence of the city. That is until she steps on something and it snaps. Looking down she slaps her hand over her mouth to stop the scream that threatens to rise. A body. She can't tell who it is – or was. Issy turns around, staggering back when she sees bodies littering the ground. White and black. Grey. Red and yellow. Blue and white. Black and red. Their colours separate them from each other but together they lay emotionless, unmoving. Issy's head snaps up to the horizon when she hears gunshots. A minute later she hears footsteps running towards her, two sets at least pounding against the ground, getting louder, getting closer. Her mouth parts in surprise. "It cannot be." Unconsciously she takes a step forward and then another until her own feet are pounding into the ground, bolting forwards. Hurling herself over bodies and rubble, she pushes herself to go faster. It was! She wasn't dreaming! Her twin brother comes to a stop on a large ledge made from rubble not twenty feet in front of her in Dauntless uniform. His knees are bent as he crouches low with a gun in his hand, glancing around. "Alec!" She shouts and his eyes snap to her as she gets closer. Issy is greeted with a frown, his eyes screaming at her to run.

"Issy! Go!" With a free hand, he points in the direction she came from. "Don't look back, go! I –" He suddenly stops talking. His eyes go blank as he falls onto his knees.

"Alec?" Issy whispers. Slowly, as if time was put on slow motion, his body falls forward and she sees a knife sticking out of his back. "Alec!" She screams at her brother, rushing forward the last few steps between them. Falling to the ground next to him she carefully rolls him over, cradling his head in her lap. Tears race down her face as she begs him to get up, to move, to breathe. She doesn't understand what's going on. What happened to their city to get like this?

"Issy?" Another voice she would recognize anywhere speaks up. Hugo. Her eyes pale with sadness lock with his and she takes him in. just like Alec, he's in uniform, ready for battle with a gun strapped to his thigh and another in his hands. His eyebrows are scrunched down in confusion until his eyes focus on Alec.

"Hugo! Hugo we have to help him! We have to do something!" She grips at Alec's jacket as Hugo's stance loosens.

"Issy what –" A gunshot cuts him off and his blue eyes widen as he starts to sway. "Iss-" Hugo topples over on his side. Unmoving. Not breathing. Dead. Issy chokes on a lump in her throat as she gently lays Alec's head on the ground before crawling over to Hugo. Shakily she checks his pulse with false hope. Nothing. Her eyes blur as she brushes his black hair away from his face.

Somewhere behind her more footsteps pound and more gunshots follow. Her instincts take over and her eyes clear. Quickly Issy takes the gun from Hugo's cold hands and his thigh, checking the safety is on and rams them into the back of her waistband. Standing up, she crouches low o the ground and stalks forward carefully, alert and ready. Something shoves her into the ground from behind, pushing her into the ground from the weight. She tries to fight, to reach for the gun that spun out of her grasp when another familiar voice filled with worry and a small bit of annoyance stops her.

"What are you doing?" That voice. Declan. His face becomes clearer to her now despite it being somewhat dirty. It's as familiar as those that follow it.

"Issy come on, we need to go! Declan get her up!" Dad. It's their dad stood to their left. Dec's hands grab at her arms, heaving her up. She turns to see Cara leant against a wall with their mum lifting up a bloodied bandage from Cara's arm. Declan is still holding her close when Issy notices they all are prepared for war. Their dad stands with a rifle in his hands, their mum has a gun strapped over her back and Cara has two on each hip but what Issy finds the strangest is that they're all in Dauntless uniform. All of them. Their dad watches as their mum finishes fiddling with the bandage before speaking up again. "C'mon we need to –" A force pushes him forward and he too falls to the ground, blood pouring from his neck. Cara screams and their mum pulls her back. Issy can't the tears to cry or her voice to scream. She stands their with her eyes fixed on the blood.

"There's nothing we can do, we have to leave them." Their mum's voice breaks as her eyes drift to Alec to Hugo and to her husband. She takes a deep breath before pulling out a hand gun and leading the way to fuck knows where. Cara follows with Issy behind her after Issy picked up the gun from the floor and Declan brought up the rear, constantly checking their surroundings. None of them speak, none of them can form the words. Alec's body, Hugo's lifeless eyes, Dad's blood soaked neck. It's all Issy can see and if she wasn't currently running on adrenaline right now, she'd be on the floor in tears but she finds that even if she wanted to, she can't. She doesn't question what they're doing, where they're going or what happened. Issy finds that she can't give a shit at the moment.

A gunshot goes off in the distance and they freeze. Issy clicks off the safety while their mum shares a look with Declan. As a squad, they move towards another building across the street. Bodies wearing the faction's colours are still covering the floor and Issy's curiosity gets the best of her.

"Okay, so what the fuck happened here?" Issy whispers to Cara once they reach the building.

Her sister's eyes cloud over. "Times change Issy."

"What? What's that 'posed to mean?" Issy throws her hands up in frustration when Cara doesn't answer. "Cara! Tell me!" She hisses louder. Just as Cara opens her mouth to answer, something ghosts past Issy's ear and draws blood before it lands in Cara's chest, forcing her to the ground. Issy rushes forward and grips her hair when she finds no pulse. 'What the fuck is going on?!' Issy mentally screams to herself. "Cara? Cara! Mum! Cara, she – Mum? Dec?" Issy's gaze was too focused on Cara to noticed what happened but their mum was slumped against the wall, glassy eyed, and Dec was on his back, choking and coughing up blood. "Shit! Shit! Shit!" Issy collapses at Declan's side and her fingers run along his body for any open wounds. When she gets to his ribs, she comes into contact with something warm and sticky. Her hand comes away covered in blood and she almost wants to gag. Instead she rips the bottom of her top and pushes it into the wound. Dec coughs up more blood and smiles grimly as she does everything she can to stop the bleeding.

"Issy." Declan's voice is raspy and rough and painful. It's so unlike Declan, it almost hurts. Shakily, he raises a hand to cup her cheek and Issy leans into it, covering it with her free hand. "It's gonna be okay. You'll be okay." She doesn't know if he's trying to reassure her or himself. "We all love you. We'll always…love…you…." With his last word, he exhales his final breath.

Issy screws her eyes shut as she holds his hand to her cheek with both hands. Breathing deeply Issy places his hand on his chest and slumps back. The tears she couldn't find earlier finally fall, slowly, quietly, one by one. She curls into herself and places her chin on her knees. Never in her life has she felt so alone like she does now and she closes her eyes, wishing for Dec to jump up, laughing, saying it was all a joke as the rest of her get up and join in the laughter with wide smiles on their faces but no one does, no one moves and silence falls around her.

End of flashback and of sim.

Issy had been the first to go in and the first to leave. She didn't stay with the other initiates when she came out, instead she headed to the tattoo parlor and got the first letter of her family's names overlapping, she even included the first letters of Bree's, Noah's, Cody's and Josh's names in the design. She had a feeling that Josh knew exactly what the letters meant when he looked at the drawing, she saw the flash of something in his eyes when he looked at it for a little while longer than he would normally. When he glanced up at her his eyes were raw with emotion and Issy smiled from the chair before closing her eyes. The tattoo was inked into the left of her waist, below the tatt on her ribs. Issy wanted it placed somewhere with enough room that more letter's could be added later and where she could see it without having to bend awkwardly to see it. All the letters were in black ink and it was finished just before dinner.

Now Issy is walking across the Chasm to the dinning hall after placing her sketch pad back in the dorms when she hears the faint sounds of someone crying. Issy pauses halfway across the bridge before she edges in that direction. A familiar figure is hunched against a wall.

"Lilah?" Issy calls out as she steps closer. "Are you okay?"

Surprised, Lilah span around and dabbed at her eyes. "Oh, hey Iss." Her voice was thick with the tears she had cried. "Yeah, I'm –" Lilah's eyes glazed over as they lost focus. A tear fell down her face as Issy watched with concern. Slowly Issy made her way forward and wrapped her arms around her. The floodgates broke as tears seeped into Issy's top. Fear sims were getting to everyone, they had all learnt to stop judging others that cried, after all, they were all going through the same hell just different demons. She rubbed circles on her friend's back, shushing her gently until she calmed down. When the tears seemed to stop, they slid to the floor shoulder to shoulders silently.

"Wanna talk about it?"

"It was a new fear today and my dad was in it. He, uh, was disappointed in how I ranked in initiation and he said that he didn't want a disgrace like me in Leadership." Lilah choked on her words while Issy rubbed her back again.

"I don't know Max that well, only through my brothers, but I don't think Max thinks that way about you." Issy paused, watching Lilah's reaction. When she did nothing to show how she was feeling, Issy carried on. "In fact I distinctly remember him being so smug when you won all of your fights and when he found out it was your plan we went with at Capture."

"I never noticed that."

"I did." Issy grinned as Lilah snorted, shoving her shoulder into Issy's.

"That's maybe 'cause you were looking at the Leaders for a different reason?" Issy didn't miss the suggestive tone in Lilah's voice. She rolled her eyes, thinking how similar Lilah is to Bree.

"And what, do tell, are you suggesting?"

"Out of all the people you could have attracted, it had to be the most fearsome?" Lilah said with raised eyebrows and a crooked smile.

Issy shrugged her shoulders. "Go big or go home?" She offered and they both laughed until they fell into a comfortable silence. Something that Lilah said resurfaces in her mind and Issy turns to her. "So you want to choose Leadership?"

"Yeah, I just – I remember when I was little dad would come home tired and exhausted from work and somehow he still had the effort to play with me and cook dinner if mum was busy with work and I want to be able to take some of that work load off of him so he can be there more for Livvie. I'm not saying he was never there for me, I just wish that he was there more."

"Admirable." Issy smiled before getting back onto her feet and pulling Lilah to hers. "I'm –" Issy's stomach growled loudly making Lilah laugh. "– That . . . apparently." Once they get into the dinning hall Lilah sits down next to Alec, who is in a deep conversation with Noah and Cody, and Issy sits on her other side.

"– So what you're saying is to get through it I have to either stop the walls from moving or make myself smaller?" Cody asks incredulously.

"In theory, yes."

"How would one get past dying?" Noah wonders a loud, slightly sarcastic.

From Cody's right, Declan looks up from his tablet. "We get closer to death every second of the day if that helps?" Everyone on the table just stops and turns to Declan with 'What the fuck?' written clear on their faces.

Issy opens and closes her mouth several times before she can actually get anything out. "Duude. My days are morbid enough as it is, can you not?"

After a while a few of their friends, including Lilah leave the table and some join their table until on one side there is Tris, Four, Declan, Eric, Noah and Zeke and opposite them is Cody, Blake, Alec, Issy, Bree and Shauna. Tris and Four were pulled into conversation by Cody as Blake and Dec risk their hands for a chunk of Four's cake that he has in front of him. Each time they try to grab the plate they only just draw their hands back before Four's fork strikes out. This provides much entertainment for the rest of the table but they quieten down when Max comes to stand behind Four, drawing his attention away from the cake. Four turns to face Max fully so his back is to the table.

With a wicked grin, Issy slowly reaches over as she grabs the rim of the plate, watching Four carefully. Slowly and quietly, she drags it back to her with her eyes fixed on Four and every so often she stops as Four shifts, only moving the plate again when she feels safe to do so. A few minutes pass until she has the plate in front of her with a triumphant grin. Amused glances are passed around the table as people try to hold their laughter back. Opposite her Eric smirks as she, along with Alec, Dec and Noah, pick up a fork or spoon and dig in. Max glances at them from over Four's shoulder with a thin smile on his lips. Between the four of them the cake gets smaller quickly until nothings left. Soon after, Max finishes his conversation with Four and Issy starts to get up as Four turns back round. His fork hits the table just where his cake should be and his eyes go wide as he locates his now empty plate. The look he gives Issy is a mix of anger and betrayal.

"Thanks for the cake Four." She winks at him before walking away. Metal screeches against the floor and she turns back to see Four running after her. "Oh fuck!" And she sprints away causing their friends to laugh. They do a few laps around the dining room, drawing the attention of everyone else who also begin to laugh. After a few too close encounters, Issy changes tactics and begins to weave through the tables. Four is still too close on her heels for her liking so with a quick wave to her friends she runs out of the room with Four close behind.

Issy skids around corners and runs around groups of people hoping to lose her follower but somehow Four stays on her tail. It's not until she runs through the many partying people in the Pit that she finally loses him. 'Note to self: don't steal Four's cake.' Her chest heaves as she catches her breath. 'Also I owe Four a slab of cake.' Issy puffs out a laugh and spots Charlie, Kayden, Hector and Sam on a table to the side. They smile at her in acknowledgement and they go back to their conversations. From where she's stood Issy can see Crystal dancing with Luke. They stop and Crystal says something before walking off and Luke joined them at the table. Issy must have zoned out when Kayden clicked his fingers in front of her face.

"Huh, what?" Her friends chuckled and Luke shook his head.

"I asked if you wanted a dance?"

Issy rolled her eyes at him. "How about no?"

Luke knocked his shoulder with hers. "Aw, c'mon Issy, please?"

"You know what, if we pass I'll owe everyone in our initiation a dance. How's that?"

He shrugs with a lop-sided grin. "I'll take it."