"You look horrible".

"Thanks, Lucas. I'm thrilled to see your visage, too," Kylie replied dryly.

"Can you see anything at all with that shiner?" interjected Lucas as he made himself comfortable on her hospital bed.

Kylie had indeed fainted sooner or later, and Lucas had taken her to the hospital wing.

There had been two more fights before the training was over. So Lucas and Alex were not due for their first fight until the next day.

The two had headed straight for the infirmary, half of which was occupied by Initiates.

This time Alex was able to get a real picture of the infirmary. The infirmary was L-shaped, with one entering the ward on the short side. At the entrance, on the right side, was a small pharmacy. Behind the counter, an aide was rummaging frantically through some drawers.
"Every year the same with the Initiates. He could train them once first and then let them fight, but no, let's send them all...", the helper complained quietly to herself and then disappeared through a door. Probably parallel to the long wing were the pharmacy warehouse and laboratories, Alex reasoned.

They followed the course of the infirmary and came to the long wing where patients were treated. Kylie was lying on one of the rearmost beds, looking rather grim.

With her arms folded in front of her chest, she stared into the air.

"I saw Rina earlier. She still can't walk upright properly again. You got her pretty good there," Alex tried to flatter her pride a bit and sat down on the other side of the hospital bed.

"Really?" Kylie looked up.

"I think another punch or two and she would have been knocked out," Alex said, winking at her. "I guess she's not quite as persistent as some of the others around here."

Kylie's mood seemed to lift considerably as a result because when she talked about the incredible healing methods in Dauntless afterwards, she almost sounded like her old self again. And in fact, the wounds on her face were already clearly healing. One eye was still a bit swollen and by her own account the bruised ribs hurt, but the scratches had largely healed.

"Do you know when you'll be released?" asked Lucas.

"They were going to check my ribs again in an hour, but probably by then, the bruise will have healed enough to let me go. So if I'm lucky, at least I'll get another chocolate cake."

"Not if Lucas beats you to it," Alex interjected.

"Don't you dare deny your sick, injured friend her chocolate cake," Kylie gave Lucas a warning look.

"Really, you're acting like I only feed on that cake," Lucas protested.

"I think if he had a choice of saving one of us or this cake, he'd choose the cake," Alex then said, turning to Kylie.

"I'm pretty sure he was talking about cake in his sleep last night," Kylie agreed.

"You know what, right now I'd actually save the cake before I'd even offer either of you my help," Lucas returned annoyed, to which Kylie grabbed her chest in shock.

Alex gently patted him on the shoulder. "Insight is the first step to recovery," she said in her best therapist voice.

The door softly fell shut behind Alex. For a moment, she listened for sounds coming from the shared dormitory. When she was sure that all the initiates were asleep, Alex turned her attention to the security camera at the other end of the hallway, which was slowly moving from one side to the other, recording the intersecting corridor as well. At the moment, it was pointing entirely according to plan in the direction of the corridor leading off to the right. Alex used this moment to scurry unseen down the hallway and into the hallway to her left.

It was a tedious way to stay hidden from the eyes of the Dauntless member, but Alex had a clear goal in mind. Again and again, she used slight indentations of the stone-carved corridors and twists and turns to wait for the right moments and angles of the security cameras. Fortunately for her, the initiates' dormitory was relatively secluded and thus close to the currently unused floors. Her tension dropped when, after about 10 minutes, she finally reached the nearest deserted hallway. On one of her first visits to Dauntless, she had noticed that the security cameras there were unplugged.

One by one, she opened the doors with the tool she had dusted off from a wire she had found in the training room and inspected the rooms behind them. They were all vacant apartments, of varying sizes and furnishings. Alex could hardly believe her luck when she entered the room located at the end of the hallway. It was a fully furnished gym. Apparently, each floor had its own to show. Alex was already jumping for joy on the spot and shortly thereafter set about inspecting the new equipment and beginning her workout. A workout where she could finally go to her limits and beyond without being seen.

Exhausted but happy, she arrived back at the dorm 2 hours later. Alex squinted at the small alarm clock she had discovered in one of the empty apartments. In two hours Four would wake up the Initiates for training, that had to be enough sleep for her body for now.