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For the next half an hour, Violet and I enjoy the spectacle unfolding before us.

Despite her best efforts, Daphne only manages to wrangle a few back into the class. The rest are goners. It reminds me of the initiates, spilling out of the Pit after being allowed out for a night. Lots of screaming and yelling, followed by running away from the lone chaperone trying to corral them into staying alive.

I smirk as Pete skips by us once, snickering and ducking as Daphne tries her best to catch him, oblivious to the fact that it's a lost cause since he's much faster than she is. The rest of the patients fill up the grassy areas, delighted at their newfound freedom. I raise an eyebrow at Violet as I find unexpected joy in Daphne's total failure, even more so that I'm sitting out here in fresh air and warm sunlight. It feels glorious, like a rush of the best sort of drug this place could offer.

Unfortunately, it's short-lived.

It's not long before Kenan appears with a paper in his hand and an unamused expression on his face as he surveys the chaos. He finally spots Violet and me, and though he now looks amused, he instructs me to follow him. I vaguely wonder if I'll be blamed for this incident, the downfall once again pinned on me. I glance at Violet out of the corner of my eye as I force myself to stand up and she smiles, but not very hopefully. I want to tell her I'd much rather sit out here than go along to wherever he's taking me, but I don't really have a choice and there's a speck of curiosity that I can't ignore.

It's a shame, really.

I've never been an outdoors type of person, but I could have easily spent the afternoon sitting there.

A few silent minutes later, I find my curiosity turning into rage.

I discover that Max has sent a random guard — some fucking kid with red hair who can't make eye contact — to bring me a package. The lackey scampers off the minute I arrive at the nurse's station, vanishing through the doors with a single glance back at me. I can feel his stare prickling at my skin when his gaze gets to my bare feet. I narrow my eyes as his dark uniform retreats, until the burn of seething jealousy fills my lungs with every breath I take. Luckily, it tapers down the minute the heavy doors shut and click into place.

"What is it, Coulter?"

I turn to the nurse beside me, forgetting about the little Dauntless shit almost immediately. I have other things to focus on, though words can't express how badly I would have loved to bash his head into the wall and slip his uniform on. There's no doubt that there's a truck waiting for him, ready to whisk him back to Dauntless. He's lucky Betty is standing beside me, a permanent scowl fixed on her face as she waits for me to show her what he's brought.

"How the fuck should I know?" I snap, reaching to open it up.

The box is plain, but bears the Dauntless logo stamped across the top of it. My name is written on the label, along with a stamp marked confidential. That's a laugh, considering nothing here is confidential. As soon as I open it, under the watchful glare of Betty and a few of the institution's guards, naturally, I realize it's a fucking care package filled with clothes. It's a lousy peace offering, one that's mostly loungewear and absolutely nothing threatening: pajama pants, a few black shirts, a watch that they promptly confiscate, some file folders marked IMPORTANT, and a memo with the Erudite logo. There are also a few books, and I feel ill at the idea that someone was sent to rifle through my apartment to collect my things.

I stop when my fingers touch my boxer briefs, imagining someone, quite possible Harrison, going through my shit. My blood boils and I have to try to keep my composure in check before I launch the entire box in Betty's face.

"Anything in there that could be used as a weapon?"

The guard that asks sounds suspicious, but Betty shakes her head. I know she doesn't trust me, but she watched me open everything up. She's still standing there while I shove everything back together.

"There's nothing, really. They sent clothes and some light reading."

Betty sounds mocking, but I ignore her. I leave the file folder for last, only because my curiosity is piqued. I force myself to casually glance down as though I don't really care what they've sent, giving Betty no reason to want to look at it any further. She takes a step closer to me, much closer than necessary, and leans in so only I can hear her.

"It goes against my better judgement, but I'll let you keep 'em. Don't try to give anyone a papercut. I'll be watching you," she warns, and I roll my eyes.

"Papercuts aren't really my style," I retort. I'd much rather use the papers to slit her throat, but I remind myself I'm trying to behave. I shove the files in the box with the rest, and wait until she decides she's good with everything they've sent.

"Take your stuff to your room. You have art therapy in an hour. Don't be late."

I leave without saying goodbye. I head towards my room quickly, pleased that she's failed to inspect the papers enough to read the scrawled notes in the margins. Especially the one in Tori's tiny handwriting.

"Look at these carefully. You're one of them."

I shave one stroke at a time.

I tilt my head back, making sure that the skin under my jaw is smooth and clean, as each swipe reveals the Eric I remember. I feel practically normal as I finish up, splashing water on my face and staring in the mirror. I may be overdue for a haircut, mine having grown out some during my time here, but I look enough like myself to be satisfied.

The razor had been handed to me by Kenan on my walk back to my room. He'd smiled when he gave it to me, like a proud father or something equally as embarrassing. He'd even gone so far as to pat me on the shoulder, though it held no mockery.

I still ignored him. And while the razor was far duller than I'd ever used and I'd had to shave while he stood beside me, it was what I needed. I felt more normal than I had in weeks. I hated that it was because of their fucking privileges, but at this point, I'd take them.

After I'd dropped off the box from Max, I'd been accosted by Shelley. She gleefully showed me my name on a color chart, and proudly awarded me a yellow sun with my name on it. I'd raised one eyebrow at her, snatching the sun out of her hand without another word and wondering if she knew I'd flat out refused to participate in their latest class. The whole idea of this system is stupid, but it has proved to them that I'm stable enough to earn a few privileges: new toiletries, a pair of shoes — albeit ones without laces — and a pass good for one free activity.

As I finish up shaving, I cheekily ask Kenan if I can use it to take myself on a field trip to get some fresh air. I ignore his barking laugh as I towel-dry my face.

"Fuck no, Dauntless. You ain't walking yourself anywhere off this property. But I will tell you that you look as handsome as the day you were brought in here. That's the ol' murderer we know."

"Good to know you approve," I smirk, handing him the towel and ignoring his own cocked eyebrow.

"What am I, your towel boy?

"Something like that. Thanks for the company," I pat his shoulder as I walk by. "It was enjoyable as always."

"Fuck off and carry your own towel, Dauntless," Kenan hollers after me, but the bathroom door shuts before I can be bothered to respond.

I stalk down the hallway and turn the corner, nearly taking out Violet as she rounds the corner at the same time as me. Her eyes widen in surprise as I steady her, and she stares up at me for a long time. When she finally says something, I wish she hadn't.

"You look like you did when you first came here."

Her gaze is piercing. For someone so timid, she's far nervier than the Dauntless. No one there would dare stare at me the way she is right now, nor would they comment on my appearance. But she examines my face until she's satisfied that it's me, then she smiles as though she approves.

"You look like you're from Dauntless again," she tells me, still waiting for me to respond. "Do you feel better?"

I can't answer that just yet. The word Dauntless makes me feel hot, as if it's embarrassing that I'm not there. I find myself staring back at her, until I can nod my head slowly.

"Good," she offers up as quietly as ever, and she looks down at my feet. "You got shoes, too. I told you they'd trust you."

"They should."

My answer sounds rude — cocky and arrogant and laughable, considering they have absolutely no reason to trust me. I'd been sent here with the title of murderer and labeled unsafe to be around others. Them assigning me a color that allowed me any privilege, no matter how minor, only showed the stupidity of their belief in their own program.

"I'm gonna head to the rec room to read. Would you like to come along?" Violet offers, and I find myself answering without hesitation.

"Yeah, sure."

I accept her offer immediately, not at all because I'm honored by her invitation, but because there's something I need to do, and I need it as quiet as possible.

The dates on the reports I'm reading start to piss me off. I've been looking at them for an hour, the days blurring before my eyes, until I slam them down on my lap. They make no sense to me, and it makes even less sense why Tori would send them along with a note saying I'm in there. I try to search them for something that connects the events to the day I wound up here, but I have nothing.

They are simply incident reports filed by no-name guards on our squads.

"Are you still looking at those?"

Violet's voice breaks the silence in the room. She sounds more worried than curious, and I shrug my shoulders.

"Yes. Only because I can't figure out why they sent them."

Confessing that to her makes me feel ill, but I've come to realize that she isn't as bad as the others. She won't really hold any judgment over me, and in fact, if I really think about it, she's a little too normal to be in here. Her whole persona feels odd; she is subdued, but it doesn't seem like it suits her. I can understand that she's skittish given the circumstances of where we are, but her quietness seems almost like someone has made her that way.

"Why can't you figure it out?" she asks me, very seriously.

There's a long pause as I squint at her and she squints back at me.

"Because I'm looking for something about these events that's important, but I can't figure out what or why. There's nothing there. And I can't research anything further, so this is all a waste of my fucking time."

Violet stares back at me. After a moment, she bites her lip and leans in a hair closer. "Can I look at them?"

"Knock yourself out." I nod, not at all bothered when her arm touches mine.

We're sitting on the same couch as always. The room is almost entirely deserted this time of day. A while back, she'd explained that people have the choice of reading or watching old movies with the nursing staff. She'd also told me that before I arrived at the looney bin, she was often the only one who chose to read. I don't mind when she sits beside me, and I find her company to be almost expected now. It feels good to sit without the craziness of the others, and even better not to have anyone breathing down my neck.

I watch as she glances at the papers, slowly taking them from me and flipping through the files one by one until she stops at the second to last page. She narrows her eyes in concentration, then flips through the pages again until she stops on the same page as before.

I know what she's looking at — each report is understandable in a basic sense — but I don't know if she'll put it all together.

The first page is an Amity incident report from when a young farmer was thrown from his tractor and hit his head. There were no witnesses and no security footage. An Erudite doctor announced that he had suffered a head trauma and was later pronounced unfit to return to work. The man later claimed he was pushed off the tractor. Dauntless was sent to investigate, but found no suspicious activity other than his vanishing without a trace when he never returned to work.

The second page was an incident in Dauntless, when a man who worked the fence was fighting for fun against his roommate. A day after his scheduled shift, he was found unconscious in the Pit. Guards investigated, but found nothing out of the ordinary. He didn't appear on any security footage, except for when he was last seen in the Dauntless infirmary. But it didn't show his return to work, and attached was a missing persons report from his girlfriend, filed a week later.

The third page was an incident in Abnegation, when Dauntless guards were not allowed inside the home of a woman who had been yelling for help for hours. She eventually quieted down, but she later was reported missing, never to be seen again. There were no witnesses.

The fourth page was an incident report for Candor, when a young man was found to have died from head trauma by an unknown force. There was a missing persons report attached, citing two nameless individuals as suspects in the death, and announcing that Jane Doe and John Doe were missing and considered very dangerous.

The fifth paper was a Dauntless memo regarding interview protocol when interrogating a suspect.

Violet lingers on the fourth page before she suddenly shoves the papers back at me and shakes her head.

"I don't want to read them anymore."

Her mood turns somber quickly. She turns away from me, angling her body towards the side of the sofa, and returns to the book she'd been reading. I watch her toy with the page for a minute, then she looks back at me, making sure I'm looking at her.

"Did you go all those…all those times when Dauntless investigated what happened?"

"No." I press my lips into a fine line. "That's not my department. I'd only be sent out if there was a threat or some sort of issue that required further investigation beyond what the guards found. These all found nothing, and they were closed pretty quickly aside from the missing persons reports. But we got plenty of those all the time."

"And what happened to those people? They never found any of the ones who went missing?"

"No. They give them a cursory forty-eight hours of assistance, but we often find nothing. The factions are huge. There's not a very high chance we'd find someone in the woods, even with our cameras." I shake my head, and she nods.

"Oh. So the cameras don't catch everything?" She looks right at me, staring up until I have to confess the answer I'd rather not.

"No. They fall offline quite often. They can also be manipulated, or footage can be deleted, depending on the area or who's working. It's not uncommon for entire sections of recordings to be recorded over to save space if there's nothing important on the tapes. Even then, sometimes important stuff gets covered up. Our technology department is severely lacking."

My answer seems to pacify her a bit. She turns quiet again, and I return to staring at the pages. I give up after a few minutes, and I look over at her. She's still reading the same page, her head bent down and her shoulder scrunched up.

"Is that book good?" I ask, and she shrugs.

"Well, it's not the worst I've read. But I think I've read everything there." She pauses. "Do you have books in Dauntless? Are you guys allowed to read or do you just light them on fire?"

I find myself smiling slightly. If only she knew that I had more books than probably the entire faction combined.

"We have a few. The faction isn't big on reading unless absolutely necessary."

"That's a shame," she answers, and she pushes her book closed. "It's nice to read next to you. I was just wondering if you had a library in Dauntless."

I don't say anything.

I think of the dark underground faction: the drunken fights in the Pit, and the sprawling parties that take place almost every night. I think of the initiates struggling to stay in the game, the guards patrolling the faction for endless hours, and the long nights I'd spent in my apartment, desperately trying to seek out some quiet time. I try to imagine Violet there, trying to a find a place to read and realizing there isn't one.

Even with all that on my mind, I swallow heavily and slouch back against the couch.

"You're thinking about home, aren't you? You've had enough of it here," she asks very quietly.

"Of course I am. Haven't you? If they opened up the doors and said 'get out of here', wouldn't you leave?"

"I…I guess so." Violet closes her book and she looks at the door as though she's expecting someone to come barging through it. "I mean, yes, I'd leave."

"Where would you go?" I turn the conversation back to her and this time she flinches.

"Nowhere," she tells me, shaking her head. "I don't have anywhere to go, Eric. Not like you."

She sounds pathetic now, and her answer makes my teeth hurt. I feel myself slip back into the Eric that feels familiar, the one whose words are sharp and painful on purpose, the one who wants to shake her until she wakes up.

"Is that why you stay here? Because you don't have anywhere else to go? Because you don't seem like you should be here. You seem like someone who would be completely fine outside these walls. Except I can't figure out where you're from and why you're fine with living here. It's a little odd that you're this comfortable in an insane asylum."

At my words, her expression changes to something I'm very familiar with.

Fear.

My stomach burns when I realize I've done it.

I've made the one person that I can actually stand in this shithole afraid of me.

"I'm…I'm from..." she stumbles over her words, so quiet that I have to bend towards her, until my head nearly touches hers. "You know…I have to go, Eric."

She jerks away from me as though I've struck her. She jumps up from the couch, tearing out of the room without looking back. I look down at my lap as the door slams shut and I sigh.

She's left her book beside me, and when I look at it, I suddenly feel something sharp and awful that I've rarely felt before. It burns in my throat and rages through my whole body, painful and persistent.

Disappointment.

My shitty moods lasts throughout the morning.

It wouldn't take a psychologist to figure out that I had taken my frustration out on Violet, and now I feel like a piece of shit. I just can't figure out why. She's no one to me. I don't really give a fuck what happened to her, yet it's bothering me, the scene replaying through my mind over and over until I find myself wishing I'd never asked her anything.

It makes me despise everyone. I scowl through lunch. I shove Bobby out of my way so I can sit by myself, and I pretend I don't hear Bella informing everyone that I'm cranky because they won't let me kill people and my hair looks terrible. My palms itch with the urge to smack her, but I refrain.

Instead, I chew my food with a vengeance, ignoring the worried looks from Aidy and the gentle questioning of whether something's bothering me from Dr. Branger.

An hour later, my shitty mood has intensified. Even better, it seems to spread through the room like the plague, infecting each person who dares glance at me.

It has already been a painful twenty minutes in the art therapy class. Much to both my and Pete's annoyance, the art teacher has taken a strange liking to me, and seems determined to ignore my rage. Maybe it's because she's never met anyone from Dauntless before, or maybe she just really feels like she can change my temperament through macaroni art, but I'll never know.

Because I don't care to find out.

I sit with my arms folded over my chest while those around me construct figures out of uncooked noodles. The room is crowded, the air is hot, and Violet has been missing ever since she fled the rec room after my interrogation. A table over, Bobby is working feverishly, sloppily gluing noodles together until they form some sort of statue, all while Louise wanders around the room offering words of encouragement. Occasionally, she'll frown as she stops to help someone glue something together, but for the most part, she's sunny and annoying and oblivious.

"Eric, I'm making you the most special of all gifts. It's a statue of you and me. To show our never-ending friendship."

Bobby makes the announcement loudly enough for the entire room to hear. I grunt in his general direction, refusing to partake in this ridiculous event, and instead I scan the room for an exit. But there isn't one. The room is filled to max capacity with patients sporting glazed expressions. Bobby's table has plenty of people enthusiastically gluing shit together, and two that are sleeping. The table behind his has mostly people gazing at the walls, the ones decorated with bright paintings. I find the artwork strangely optimistic considering they were done by mentally unstable patients.

"Eric, did you hear me?" Bobby yells, despite sitting no more than five feet away from me.

"He heard you, fucker," Pete yells back.

Bobby had been irritated beyond belief that Pete had sat by me, and Pete had become irritated when Louise asked him to move. I didn't give a fuck who took the seat, but I have to admit that I don't mind Pete so much anymore. His attitude tells me he feels the same way I do: that this activity is stupid and this place is worthless. I could force myself to begrudgingly understand their reasoning for the personal counseling sessions and the in-depth group therapy, but gluing shit to paper isn't going to cure anyone.

Especially not the lady who's been barking for the past ten minutes.

"Mind your own business over there, Pete!" Bobby cheerfully calls back.

Beside me, Pete rolls his eyes. After being brightly threatened by Louise, he'd taken to stacking his macaroni in a circle. He then made some strange sections down the middle, until it reminded me of something used in a satanic ritual.

"You mind your own business. And you know what, Bobby? Your friendship is gonna end when Eric gets out of here. Then what are you gonna do? Cry all day to Bella? You're stupid if you think Eric's gonna come back here and visit you," Pete taunts him, dumping some red glitter onto his project with enough enthusiasm that it flies up into the air.

I blink at him through the haze of red sparkles.

Pete's words are a surprise to me. I had no clue my leaving had even come up, considering no one seems likely to ever leave here. At the next table over, Bobby's head snaps up and his eyes find mine. He looks wounded, his expression dark as he looks down at his statue, then back to me again.

"Eric…you'd really do that? You'd leave?"

Oh, fuck. For a moment, I wonder if he's serious. Of course, I'd leave this shithole. I resist the urge to roll my eyes again, not wanting to appear completely exasperated by his dumb question.

"Would I leave here? Yes, I'll be leaving as soon as I'm done," I announce loudly, and the room goes silent. Louise freezes from across the table as Bobby flounders, panic washing over his face.

"But you aren't leaving yet. You haven't even told us your story," Bobby protests, and his voice shakes. "In group therapy, we haven't even heard about your childhood, or your adolescence, or or or or…"

Fuck no.

I narrow my eyes at him and I lean back even further. "You're good. You won't be hearing any of that."

"But Eric-"

"Eric, you'll need to make something. This is worth almost all of today's participation points. If you don't, they'll put you back on red."

Aidy's voice of reason breaks up the one-sided argument Bobby is having, but I still glare at her. Of course, she's only trying to reason with me. We've been sitting in this room for half an hour now, but only because each person is required to be here. I sneered when Louise passed out plates and noodles, directing us to build a statue that represented ourselves. Her only instructions were that the statue must rise upwards, for none of us could fall any lower than we had. It would signify our growth, our desire to elevate ourselves, to be a better version of ourselves.

I nearly vomited.

I wasn't about to make a statue out of anything, let alone macaroni, but the thought of being put back on red is a bit more motivating when I know it means spending hours locked in a room or drugged until I agree there is value in stupid art projects.

"She's right, you know. We'd hate to have you clip down to red," Louise kindly explains, and she looks relieved someone else is trying to defuse the situation.

I fix the most condescending glare on my face, and I slowly reach forward until I have a fistful of macaroni. I slap it on my plate, then reach forward to grasp the glue, squeezing it hard enough that it explodes everywhere, never taking my eyes off Aidy. I ignore it when it falls off my plate and onto the floor, hitting Pete's shoe.

"Eric, that's rude," Bella sniffs. "Who's going to clean that up?"

"You are," I taunt her.

I stare directly at her as I scrape it all together until it's a pile of noodles and glue, then I sneer at her until she looks away.

"That's lovely, Eric. Inspiring. Really," Aidy remarks dryly, tilting her head to the side to stare at the disaster on my plate.

"Eric…er…that's not quite…that's not really a statue…"

Louise smiles at me the way I smile when an initiate does something incredibly stupid. She blinks again and again before sighing heavily. "You'll need to make it recognizable. It needs to be…"

"You said make a statue. It signifies this very place that you work at." I lean towards Louise, and I smile, making sure to bare my teeth. "It's a mess, just like everything else here. Are you trying to say you don't like my interpretation of how I see things?"

Louise stares at me, chewing her lip for a moment.

"It's not that…it's…"

"Are you really insulting his masterpiece?" Bobby asks, and he swings his stare around to Louise. "You said however we interpret it. You can't get mad at someone's interpretation."

Louise opens her mouth, then closes it without saying anything.

"It's garbage," Bella pipes up, coming around like the world's best mental patient helper. She reminds me of Four, sticking her nose in the air and looking at me like I've murdered her kitten. "He's just doing it so he can get out of it."

"That makes no sense," I mock her.

"Why are you so RUDE!" Bella shrieks, and she slams her glitter down. "Get a life, ERIC."

"Bella, go away. Go find your husband. I heard he was fucking the cleaning lady. Said he likes the way she manhandles him," Aidy offers up, sounding bored as she glues what I can only assume is a dick to the front of her macaroni statue. "I heard he told you he wanted to see other people."

Bella's face goes red, and I swear her hands ball into fists.

"Why, you little jerk. You think you're so funny, but you're not. You're just as insane as everyone else here. And you…" She points her finger at me, and she looks so mad that she's shaking. "You think you're too good for everything here, but you're a disgrace to your faction. You think you're going to get out of here and you'll go back to Dauntless and things will be the same? They won't even want you back. And you think you're safe there? Well, you're wrong…" She starts to grow hysterical, but Louise interrupts her.

"Bella, go sit down. And Eric, if that's how you're feeling, then fine. That's a great interpretation of life, that it's full of messes and chaos…"

"And friendship," Bobby interrupts, but I can't hear him.

I can't hear anything.

I've grown unfortunately furious, Bella's words striking the worst and most fragile nerve left in my body. If this lunatic wanted a way to get to me, she certainly found it. It's what I've been thinking about for a week now, agonizing over how to get out of here and what I'll do when I go home. Would I ever be able to trust anyone again? Would I ever sit in my own office without wondering if Harrison was planning my next downfall?

I suddenly can't breathe.

It's like my lungs tighten, the lining sticking together until I feel lightheaded. I stare at the macaroni in front of me and the blur of faces as everyone watches me, including a smirking Bella, until I stare right at her. I reach forward until I grasp what I'd made, and I crumble it up, smashing each noodle to pieces, never taking my eyes off Bella as I fling it right at her face.

This time, the peace serum tastes like strawberries.

Betty narrows her eyes as she and another orderly observe me swallow it down with great enthusiasm. Fuck them all. I knew what was coming, and this time, I welcome it.

The destruction of my sculpture had left Bella hysterical. Hysterical enough that I was deemed a threat to her, but the kind of threat that could be neutralized with a nap. So, I was escorted into the hallway and immediately offered the option of downing the drink or choosing six hours of solitary confinement. Betty had a reinforcement with her, someone named Brody, and I could tell his hands were just itching to force my jaw apart or drag me down the hallway, so I gleefully ripped the cup from her hand and swallowed down the serum.

"Just…just take it and go lie down, Eric." Dr. Branger pinches the bridge of her nose and she turns to look at Louise. She'd been summoned, arriving moments after I got here, and she looked worn out and pale. "Who the hell scheduled him for art therapy? I thought we talked about this. He's to be watched..."

"He was doing fine. It's a defense mechanism, a breakthrough moment when he was being verbally attacked—"

"No one attacked me," I inform them, feeling a bit unsure when the ground sways woozily. "They asked if I would leave this place, and I said yes. Sorry, I don't want to hang around a mental institution for the rest of my life."

Dr. Branger shakes her head, but not at me.

"He's made progress. He's socialized by his own choice, and we've sent the reports onward. My instructions are clear, that he's to attend things that we can get him through. Classes and therapies he'll actually complete..."

"I'm right here," I loudly announce, wondering why she's ignoring me. It takes me a minute of trying to speak again, when I realize the serum is faster than I am, and my words are slurring as though I've had a few too many drinks. "You know what, fuck you….allllll."

I stumble into the hallway, a heavy feeling washing over me. I realize I have only a few minutes left before I'm rendered unconscious. I struggle to remember which way to go, my hands on the wall to keep me upright, and I walk as fast as I can.

Someone calls my name, warning me that I might fall, but I don't look back. I keep going, eventually turning left.

"Yessss."

I hiss the word when I stumble towards my door, ignoring the strange look of the girl walking towards me. For a moment I panic, thinking they've sent someone after me. But once she gets closer, I realize it's Violet, her black eyes wide with worry.

"What did they give you? What happened?"

She steps close to me, reaching out to touch my arm. I try to swat at her, but I stumble and my eyes close a bit.

"Nothing, I'm fine."

It's what I try to say, but I don't know what exactly comes out of my mouth.

"Eric, did you…did you get in a fight with someone?"

Violet, fucking Violet and her stupid hair and her stupid fucking face won't leave me alone. She keeps staring up at me, blurring before my eyes as I fumble to open my door. I want to tell her to go away. That she makes me feel weird, worse than peace serum, worse than any simulation, worse than anything on this Earth.

"Eric, what happened? Did someone—"

"Violet," I slur, and her fingers dig into my side, meaning to keep me upright. She's about to fail miserably, seeing as how I weigh a whole lot more than her. "You know what, I know that… even if… even if I had orders… even if they tried to make me… I wouldn't kill you. You make me…"

It wasn't what I meant to say, in fact, it's mostly jumbled garbage thanks to the serum, but this is where my mind goes blank.

I step towards her, reaching out and grabbing her by the back of her hair. She tenses up immediately, but I only pull her closer, my fingers digging into her soft hair until she's inches away from my face. I lean even closer, until my forehead touches hers.

"Tell me why you're here. What did you do?"

"Eric, you need to lie down," she tells me, and her nose touches mine as she tries to move away.

And then, the serum hits me all at once.

I feel delightfully drunk, completely and blissfully wasted now. The room spins a bit, and the air grows warm as I hold her in place, suddenly imaging all the delightful things I could do to her if we could just fucking leave. The things I could show her. I could take her out of here, back to Dauntless with me. She could stay in my apartment, lie beneath the sheets of my bed, her skin pressed against mine during the loneliest of nights, as she groans—

"Eric, what are you doing?"

It's the last thing I hear as I lose my balance, besides the yelp from Violet as she crashes down to the floor with me, pinned against the doorframe beneath my weight.

"Violet," I mutter, as my world darkens, and I'm out before she can utter another word.