Disclaimer: I do not own Divergent, any of the characters or any of the dialogue that comes directly from the text.


Chapter 21

My alarm rings out far too soon after falling back asleep. Refusing to open my eyes, I bat my hand at it, hoping to turn it off without rousing the girl currently sleeping in my arms. She shifts slightly, leaning further into my touch and I sigh. I am certain that today will bring far more questions than I am prepared to answer, but for now, I'm content pretending reality doesn't exist.

"Eric," her voice is quiet but rough, riddled with sleep.

Grudgingly, I open my eyes and look down towards her.

"Should we get up?" she mumbles, her eyes still closed.

Probably.

"Not just yet, go back to sleep," I say, closing my eyes and rubbing her back.

"But your alarm…" she starts.

"Ignore my alarm," I say, cutting her off. "Alarms are dumb."

"Eric…" she says, her tone light. I can tell that she's smiling. "We can't miss breakfast."

I let out an exaggerated groan. "What if I make us breakfast, here, then can we go back to sleep?"

She makes a noise and I open my eyes back up.

"What?" I ask.

"It's nothing."

Does she want to get away from me? Maybe she's rethinking what we talked about last night.

"We can go to the dining hall if you want," I offer.

"No, it's not that. I've just never had a man cook for me. Aside from my dad and Caleb."

"Caleb?" I question, jealously threatening to emerge.

"My brother," she responds simply.

"Ah, well…let me be the first? It'll just be simple, bacon and eggs…muffins? I don't have a lot here."

She raises her head to look at me. "You have muffins? Are they the same ones from the dining hall?"

I chuckle. "Yes, they are from the dining hall."

Her eyes grow wide. "I thought those were a myth!"

I laugh at the sheer excitement in her voice.

"Seriously though! I've heard stories, but I've never gotten there early enough to actually get one."

"Well then, today is your lucky day," I say, still laughing. "Alright, I guess we should get up."

She sits up and I immediately miss the warmth of her body against mine. We both get up and make our way over to the kitchen. I grab the eggs and bacon out of the fridge before opening the cupboard and taking out two frying pans.

"Can I help?" she asks, standing awkwardly near the table.

"I've got it, just have a seat."

She nods before pulling out a chair from the table and sitting down. I turn the coffee on then focus my attention on laying the bacon in single strips across a pan. I can feel her eyes watching me.

"What?" I say looking up from the pan.

She smiles. "I never I thought I'd see you of all people looking so…domestic."

"Take that back," I tease.

"It makes you seem more human," she says shrugging. "I like it."

With the bacon cooking, I turn my attention to the eggs. "How are you feeling this morning?"

"I'm okay," she says, her hand instinctively touching the back of her head.

"And your side?" I press.

"Hurts a bit when I breathe, Peter knocked me against the railing pretty hard. But I'll live. What about you? How are your hands?"

I roll my eyes, she needs to start worrying more about herself and less about me.

"Your Abnegation is showing," I say, smirking. "I'm fine. My hands will heal."

Before she has a chance to push further, I turn away from her and reach into the cupboard, collecting two plates. I divide the scrambled eggs between the plates and scoop up the bacon. Noticing that breakfast is nearly ready to be served, she stands up.

"I'm just going to run to the washroom before we eat," she says.

"Sounds good."

As she disappears behind the bathroom door, I pour us each a mug of coffee. Just as I'm setting our meals down on the table, an urgent knock sounds from the door.

I take my time walking over to it. Who could possibly have the balls to disturb me this early in the morning? The knocking grows louder and louder.

I swing the door open to reveal a frantic Four. "What?" I snap.

"I need to talk to you," he says, barging passed me and into my apartment.

"By all means, just come right in," I reply sarcastically shutting the door behind him.

"What the hell happened last night?" he questions angrily.

Where is this coming from? What does he know?

"What are you talking about?" I reply.

"Don't play dumb with me. I woke up to a call from the infirmary. They were calling to inform me that another one of my initiateswas badly injured. When I got there, I found Drew, nearly beaten to a pulp. He's in rough shape, can barely speak. Eventually I got him to tell me who had attacked him and do you know who he said? You. He said that you did that to him."

"Four…" I go to defend myself, but he cuts me off.

"And then, I head to the initiate dormitory to check on the rest of my initiates except when I get there, half of them are nowhere to be found and the ones who are there have no clue where everyone else is. So now I'm here, because the only thing that I do know is that whatever happened, you were involved. Now tell me what the hell you did and where the hell Tris is," he pushes his index finger into my chest, his eyes filled with rage.

I glower at him and cross my arms across my chest. How dare he barge into my apartment and accuse me of…whatever he seems to think I did.

Before I have a chance to speak, the washroom door swings open and Tris steps into the room.

"Four?" she says, seeing him in front of me. "What's going on?"

His eyes grow wide with surprise at the sound of her voice and he spins in her direction.

"Tris?" he questions. "What are you doing here? Are you okay? What did he do to you?"

Is he fucking serious?

"Watch yourself Four, I didn't do anything to her."

"Shut up Eric, I'm not talking to you," he snaps loudly, not taking his eyes off of her.

"How dare you!" I yell, rage pooling in my gut.

"Stop it! Both of you. Just stop." It's Tris' turn to yell. "Eric didn't do anything to me."

"Well someone better start telling me what the hell is going on."

I drop my arms from my chest and sigh as I look between Tris and Four. He's obviously not going to leave until he gets some kind of explanation. I can't really blame him, I'd be the same if I was in his position.

"Can we at least do this while I eat?" I say to both of them, walking over to the kitchen. "My breakfast is getting cold."

"Just tell me what's going on!" Four says again, unmoving.

"For fucks sake Four. Just sit the hell down and we'll tell you what happened," I bark over my shoulder, pulling a third mug from the cupboard. After filling it with coffee, I turn to find Tris beckoning Four over to the table as she sits in front of her plate.

Reluctantly, he trudges over to the table and sits down at one of the empty spots. I put the mug down in front of him before sitting to eat.

Spearing a piece of bacon with my fork, I look over at Tris who seems overly preoccupied with her eggs.

"Tris, do you want to tell him what happened? Or should I?" I say, pointing my fork between us.

The attack was only a few hours ago, her wounds have barely started to heal. I would understand if she wasn't ready to talk about it yet.

Her eyes remain lowered as she lays her fork down carefully next to her plate, poking at the prongs until it is perfectly straight.

"I can't believe I get to have one of the elusive double chocolate muffins," she says finally looking up, a small smile on her face.

Four's puzzled eyes look between us.

"Tris…" I start.

She shakes her head, looking over at me. "I've got this."

I nod in response.

"Last night," she begins turning her gaze towards Four. "I couldn't sleep. So I thought I would go for a walk, clear my head, gets some water…" she pauses, taking a deep breath. "Well…I had barely made it to the water when someone grabbed me."

I look over at Four who swallows hard as he stares intently at her.

"They dragged me to the Pit…to the chasm…and pushed me up against the railing. One of them held me there, I tried to fight him off but I couldn't," she looks down at her plate. "He…he…put his hand up my shirt and…"

What the fuck? Without thinking I bang my fist on the table, this new admission reigniting my rage. Fucking Hayes.

She looks up at the ceiling, blinking hard, as tears threaten to fall from her eyes. Refusing to meet my gaze, she continues.

"That's when Eric showed up. One of them ran when they saw him and Eric attacked another one."

"Drew," Four interjects.

"Yeah, Drew. After getting me over the railing, the third one took off too. I was able to grab onto the barrier from the other side, and Eric pulled me over. I was too scared to go back to the dorms, so Eric let me stay here." Finishing, she picks up her muffin and starts to pick at it.

"I'm going to fucking kill him," I say, my fists still clenched.

"Eric…" she says, placing her hand on my forearm. "It's over."

Four looks between us, likely confused by what brought on my anger so abruptly.

"So, if Drew was there, then I assume Peter and Molly were the other two?" Four asks.

"Peter was there yes…he was the one…the one who put me over the railing."

The one who touched you.

"But the other one wasn't Molly. It was Al."

"What?" Four says, stunned.

Tris nods in confirmation.

We all sit in silence and I can tell the wheels are turning in Number Boy's head.

"You!" he says, turning to me. "This is all your fault!"

"And just how in the hell did you reach that moronic conclusion?"

"If you and Max hadn't turned initiation into a fight to the death…if you hadn't decided people would be cut during each stage…then the initiates wouldn't have been pushed to this…this insanity."

I move to stand, but Tris puts pressure on my forearm as if to keep me in place.

"You can't blame Eric for the fact that Peter is a psychopath," she says to Four.

"I can blame him for pushing him passed his breaking point," he rebuttals.

Could I have prevented this? Without the threat of being cut, Peter wouldn't need to get rid of his competition in order to protect his ass. But then again, Peter is second right now. Tris or no Tris he's basically guaranteed a spot. I spread my hand across my forehead and rub my temples trying to quell the mixture of anger and guilt Four has triggered in me.

"Blaming Eric isn't going to change what happened."

"Fine," Four says grudgingly, breaking his gaze on Tris and turning his attention to me. "So, what are you going to do about this? You can't just let attempted murderers run free."

No shit Sherlock.

"I'm going to talk to Max today and see what he wants to do with them."

"That's it, you're going to talk to Max? Just kick them out and be done with it."

"Listen asshole, if it were up to me, I'd beat the shit out of all three them and leave them for dead in the street. But…and it pains me to admit this…I don't have the authority to kick initiates out for reasons not related to performance," I say. "So I'm going to have to talk to Max, explain what happened and express my opinion as to what I think should be done."

"Fine," he responds, clearly unimpressed. "What are we supposed to do until Max decides if he's kicking them out or not? Act like nothing happened?"

"I'll go to him right after breakfast. Hopefully he'll handle it immediately and the two of you will only have to deal with them for a couple hours, tops."

We both look over at Tris to see her reaction.

"Are you going to be okay?" I say. "Maybe I could figure out a reason to excuse you for the morning?"

"No," she says quickly. "I will not let them turn me into a coward. And besides, we don't know if Max will even kick them out. It won't look good on any of us if I'm being given preferential treatment. And if they do stay, I'll have to figure out a way to be around them anyways."

I can tell Four wants to argue with her, but I think we both know her well enough by now to know that it is pointless to argue with her.

"I have to get going," Four says to Tris. "I'm supposed to be in the Pit collecting the initiates right now. We're going to go over what you'll be up against in stage three."

"You should go with him," I say to Tris. "Your friends are probably already wondering where you are."

She nods and stands up. "Give me a minute, I'll go get changed."

Four and I sit in silence while Tris makes her way to the washroom and gets changed. When she emerges she is holding the sweatpants I gave her to sleep in, but the hoodie is still draped around her thin frame. I stand up as she approaches me.

"Um," she says softly, now standing directly in front of me. "My side…I can't lift if off…could you?" she half asks, her cheeks turning crimson with embarrassment before raising her arms over her head.

"Keep it," I say quietly. "It looks better on you anyways."

She puts her arms down looking relieved.

"Thank you," she says, her eyes soft and grateful. "For everything."

I smile back in response, resisting the urge to pull her into my arms. She reaches forward and grabs my hand in hers, squeezing it gently before releasing it and walking over to Four.

"If anything happens to her I'm holding you accountable," I say to Four.

"I won't take my eyes off of her," he replies.

As if you ever could before.

I watch as Four places his hand on the small of her back and leads her out.

Bastard.


Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it. We are coming to a turning point shortly, lots of things revealed and some drama! I can't wait for you guys to read it. As always, I look forward to hearing what you think. See you Friday!

- MWB