Eric huffs out a laugh, drawing her closer to him. "And what point was that?"
"That I'm not defenceless." Eric's grip tightens.
"But –" Kim starts, her eyes narrowed in confusion. "– With crutches?!"
Issy shrugs slightly as if the point was obvious. "Anything can be a weapon if you use it correctly."
It took a few more weeks until Issy's leg was healed enough that Bennett and Vex gave her permission to stop using her crutches. She had a very noticeable limp though and her and Kayden laughed about while their friends glared at them. To Issy and Kayden it was funny; they both had limps on opposite legs but no one else found light in the situation.
Harrison, and Max, kept Issy on leave though. Neither of them were confident that Issy could walk on it for hours on end, despite Issy's constant grumblings that she could. Thankfully this year's initiates were practicing for Stage Two so that left the training rooms free. Vex and Bennett moved the therapy sessions into the training room belonging mostly to Initiation so that they could start putting more and more pressure onto Issy's leg and wrist. Four would mostly be overseeing this part and it almost felt like initiation again. The only differences were that she was already a member and for some reason Four would look at her with pain and sorrow in his eyes, an apology of some sort, but it would disappear as quickly as it came.
During this time, Issy had been signed out of the infirmary and was allowed to go back to her apartment. She only went back to the infirmary every week for a routine check-ups. Issy was thankful for the newly reinstated freedom and enjoyed lying in her own bed, getting meals when she wanted and not having anyone glare at her as she ate – and the coffee! Issy missed her coffee. Everything seemed back to normal – but things have changed… Emotions have shifted, leaving things awkward than they were before…
She had gotten used to falling asleep next to Eric, his warmth curled around her, and his arms holding her. Things were easy during her stay at the infirmary. Eric didn't need a key to sleep beside her and they weren't subjected to everyone's stares in that room. But that bubble has popped and Issy realises that very move they do now is watched – or at least every move Eric makes is watched… It puts them in an awkward position. At least Issy thinks its awkward for her, Eric doesn't seem to want to make the first move and Bree looks like she wants to strangle the pair of them…
Now, Issy was following the rest of her friends towards the cafeteria to see if they could get any cake; Uri was leading the charge obviously. She was towards the back of the group, her hand reaching out to catch the door before it slammed shut again when a hand took a hold of her upper arm and pulled her back a step. Issy turned slightly in confusion to see Four frowning down at her.
He was tense and he kept on glancing back to the cafeteria, like he expected someone to pop up. "Hey Issy?" Four asked, his voice low. "You remember that favour you owe me? The one from letting you join Capture?"
"Yeah?" Issy nods her head slowly. She was suspicious as to where this was going.
"I'm cashing that in now." Issy raised an eyebrow. "Can you keep the group distracted until I get back? I've got some…work…to do. Just tell them I'll be back in a bit and there's no need to worry."
Issy stared at Four for a moment and he started to shift on his feet. "Okay, sure. See you in a bit."
Four nodded thankfully, before walking off. Though, what had her suspicions rise was the fact that he didn't walk deeper into Dauntless towards his office… Four walked towards the compound exit out of the faction.
By the time she re-joins everyone in the cafeteria, Uri and Zeke are hyping the others up for a game of paintball. All of them are raring to go but Uriah hesitates when he spots Issy.
"I – we can do something else?" Uri says sheepishly, knowing that Issy is on strict orders from Max and Harrison not to do anything stupid that would lead her back into the infirmary. Going to play paintball is one of those stupid things. The others seem to realise this too and the mood deflates slightly.
"No, don't stop on my account." Issy shoos them away slightly with a smirk. "You're gonna need all the practice you can get 'cause I'm gonna beat all ya arses when I'm better."
This makes them all laugh and perk up. None of them mention the missing presence of Four but with the challenge Issy just offered them, she guessed that they were raring to prove her wrong.
xXx
Issy spent a few hours wandering around the compound but never strayed too far from the main area of the Pit just in case she was to fall. She was bored, incredibly so that during her fifth lap around the outer parts of the Pit, she decided to go find Max.
She finally found the Head Leader in the cafeteria in the time in between meals where the cafeteria was most empty. He and the other Leaders were sat on their usual table but seemed to be in some kind of lunch meeting. Paperwork was spread about the table and in the middle were trays of food in a buffet style. Lilah stopped talking once she saw Issy limping towards the table, drawing everyone's attention too. The Leaders watch the soldier limping carefully, none of them missing the hand that Issy presses into the side of her left leg. Burning eyes assess her for any injuries and Issy refuses to acknowledge him. Max and Harrison share a look.
"I'm bored." Issy says in a way of greeting.
"What are the odds?" Harrison remarks quietly, causing Liam to chuckle.
Max just shrugs. "Practice shooting from a stationary position? Train with knives? Just don't do anything stupid like run laps or play rooftop tag." Issy's jaw clenches slightly as she looks down to her boots, trying to keep in the sarcastic response that will get her into shit. When she looks back up, Max starts speaking again. "This isn't a punishment Issy. The quicker you heal, the quicker you can be back with your squad." Harrison grimaces but nods supportively when Issy glances to him.
"Okay." She says, knowing that she won't be getting another response. She nods at each of the Leaders respectively as she turns to leave and her eyes finally fall on Eric. Her Leader is staring down at his phone, not even looking at her when she passes him.
When the cafeteria door slams shut behind her, Issy leans heavily against the wall gasping slightly. It turns out that walking faster also puts pressure on her leg. Dark spots blotch her vision when she feels a hand on her shoulder, steadying her against the wall.
"Easy Golden Eyes, just breathe." Issy started to breathe slower and deeper while the hand rubbed her shoulder lightly. "That's it."
As her vision cleared, Issy realised that Josh was stood in front of her, ready to catch her if she collapsed. "Why are you here? I thought you were working?" Issy said between breaths.
"I got ordered to watch your back to make sure you don't do anything stupid." Josh frowns slightly. "And I'm glad I was."
"By who?"
A smug grin replaces the frown as he wiggles his phone in her face. "I think you know who."
Issy sighs as she slips her arm across his shoulders. "Help me to the Obstacle Room?"
Josh raises an eyebrow silently but wraps an arm around her waist and leads her there anyway.
xXx
"So why here Golden Eyes?" Josh says as he lets go of her.
Issy ignores his question with one of her own. "I remember during initiation someone said that there was a course that all Leaders had to go through during their training. Which one is that?"
Josh bites his lip before going towards one of the walls. He presses a button on the keypad and a menu of sorts lights up the wall. All of the possible courses lay before her with the top score, time and date beside it, sectioned of by titles such as Blade, Bullet, Athletics, Team, Other. "There's a range of courses really… Any that have LS next to them but ordinary members can still have a go." Josh brings up one course in the Blade section with LS next to it. "It's basically a knife throwing course but you have a set of knives and it involves constant movement. You stop, you fail. Targets appear randomly and are never in the same order."
"Who owns the high score."
Josh smirks. "Tris. Four takes second with Kim following by mere seconds." He goes back to the main menu after a few seconds.
"Is there any where Max owns first place?"
"There used to be a few but he's been beaten out of the rankings by the younger Leaders and members. Max normally comes back to the courses that he's been beat on every few years to try and retake his lead. Though he hasn't managed to take first place back from Eric on one course." Josh brings it up. Eric's name and picture is in front of Max's by a good sum of minutes. Following Max is Harrison and then Four. "It's basically the same course as the knife one but with three guns instead. There's only one that I can see where Max still owns first place and it's… Ah! Here it is!" Josh brings up another course up. Despite the years difference between Max's score and the other Leaders and members, no one is even close to just under half an hour. "It's a gun course but its more or less stationary." Issy's eyes light up but Josh doesn't notice. "It's basically in a box room with a smallish square outlined in the centre of the floor. The challenger has to stay in the square and shoot down targets that will pop up randomly and –" Josh pauses when he sees the building predatory glint in Issy's eyes. "You want a go, don't you?"
"Oh Joshie, you know me so well." She grins.
Josh mutters under his breath as he leads her to the room designed for the course. There's a part of the room sectioned off with glass where the control panel is and Josh goes over there to set the system up. The outlined square is smaller than Issy was expecting. As Josh begins to calibrate the targets, Issy walks to an area away from the course which holds a range of guns. Issy slots two handguns into the sheathes on her thighs and picks up a rifle similar to the one that she uses during patrol. She loads all of them and slips a couple cartridges of ammo into her pockets just as Josh calls her over. Issy walks over slowly until she stands in front of Josh.
"Okay! So you earn points on this course depending on how quickly you shoot the target after it pops up and where on the target you shoot. There will be targets with five rings around the bullseye. Bullseye is worth thirty points and each ring after decreases by five points. If you don't hit or see a target after five minutes of it popping up then you will be to lose points off your overall score. Be careful though, there will also be boards painted like kids that pop up too. These are the innocents and you'll lose points if you accidently shoot one of those." Josh slowly leads her into the outlined square. "It will put you through a trial run so that you can get the gist of things before starting alright?" When Issy nods her head Josh jogs back over to the control panel. "Ready for the trial?"
"Bring it!"
Issy turns in a slow circle with the rifle in her hands as three bells ring out. She clicks the safety off and waits, her breathing steady. There's the sound of grinding gears and a sudden snap. Issy pivots to her left and shoots one target down before turning again and shooting another just as it begins to move sideways. Issy gets through eight more similar targets, accidentally shooting an innocent, before a single bell pauses the course.
"That was good!" Josh calls out. "Try not to get too trigger happy though or you'll kill more innocents." Issy reloads her rifle as Josh fiddles with something else. "There will be fifty targets now with a few innocents mixed in. Ready?"
This time Issy only nods, keeping an eye on her surroundings. This time there's six bells and the grinding of gears begins almost immediately. The snaps are instant and echoing and Issy continues to pivot around, only taking a few steps to balance her stance as she shoots. The targets pop up more frequent so Issy quickly clicks the rifle's safety on and slings it across her back before taking out both handguns. This makes it way easier when more than one target pops up. She manages to avoid all the innocents but there was one that made it very close. A target was using an innocent as a shield, the bullseyes just grazing the edge of the innocent. Issy was unsure if made the shot or not but she pushed it out of her mind as more targets appeared.
Three cartridges of ammo and what felt like hours later, the course came to an end. Sweat beaded along her forehead and she breathed in deeply.
"You can step outta the square now!" Josh said as he motioned her over. Issy sheathed the guns after putting the safety on as she walked over. "It's just adding up your scores." He said when she reached him.
"Is there a way to freeze it from coming up on the screens around Dauntless?"
"Yeah." He pressed a few more buttons and the word freeze appeared on the top corner. "There ya go." They waited for a while before the times appeared. "Well shit."
Issy Vince – 19:53:49
Max Ashwood – 29:17:48
Zeke Pedrad – 53:31:02
Issy grins, her eyes glowing gold. "Is there a way to schedule when that time appears on the screens?"
Josh stares at her for a moment through narrowed eyes. "You wanna rub this in his face." It wasn't even a question; Josh knew her too well…
"Yesss!" Issy hisses.
Josh holds up one finger before taking his phone out and begins to type something. His phone buzzes in his hand. "Well Eric says they'll all be in the meeting in the cafeteria for the next hour so I'll schedule it in half an hours' time. And no, I didn't tell Eric about this before you ask because where's the fun in that?" Josh mocks Issy, earning him a swift punch to the shoulder. "C'mon, let's get going."
xXx
Issy hobbles into the cafeteria with Josh by her side. Her face was pulled into the most neutral and emotionless expression she could muster and Josh would shake his head at her now and then. Just like the text Josh received said, the Leaders were still in the same meeting. Some of the Leaders did a double take at Issy and groaned. Issy and Josh paused close together at the end of the table. No one seemed to notice how Issy was gripping Josh's sleeve and putting most of her weight on him. She may or may not have done a stupid thing… Josh had been already sworn to secrecy and that included not telling Eric….or her brothers…..or Bree...
"I swear to god," Kim breathed, her hands going to her temples. Issy doesn't know what she's done but for some reason Kim's never seemed to like the golden eyed woman. "If you say that you're bored, I'm going to kill you." Eric shifted in his seat and growled lowly, cold eyes drilling into Kim. Kim began to sneer back but Harrison cut them off.
"ENOUGH! That's it from both of you!" Seems like Eric and Kim didn't get along very well either. "Now Issy you better have a good reason to be interrupting a meeting. Why don't you take Max's suggestions and –" Harrison paused, his jaw dropping slowly. The other Leaders looked at each other and Harrison in confusion until Liam swore loudly.
"HOLY FUCCCKK!" Liam gazed at Issy after staring at the screen. The placement list was on all of the screens and Max's name was in second place. Liam slowly checked her out. "You're one of a kind girl." The lad had a lot of balls seeing as Eric was sat right opposite him, his cold eyes now on Liam. If looks could kill.
Issy turned to Max with a wide grin. The older Leader had his mouth opening and closing with no sound coming out. "You told me to shoot something and I did." Issy shrugged.
Max's mouth open and closed a few more times before he cried out incredulously. "I didn't mean it as a challenge! I – uh – Go away!" He started to shoo her out with a small smile. "Go bother someone else!"
As Josh began to lead her out, still taking most of her weight, all they could hear was Issy's laughter.
What do ya reckon Four's up to? The answer will be revealed in Four's outtake, which is coming up soon. I'd still love to hear your ideas though. ;)