A/N: I realized that the initiate who died was named "Allison." That was unintentional with respect to being similar to poor Al.
Totally unrelated to anything, I was doing very important research and discovered that Jai Courtney (Eric) is Australian. Like how? How does that work? Accent training fucks me up, man.
The morning began with the harsh sound of metal-on-metal and I shot up from my bunk. All around me, the transfers reacted with various levels of preparedness. Al threw himself off the bed, trying to put on shoes and a shirt at the same time. Christina stayed lying down, swearing to herself about ungodly wakeup times. I blearily stared at the source of the noise - Four, rattling a metal pipe between the bars of an unused bunk.
"Ten minutes, training room," he barked once everyone at least has their eyes open. "Grab breakfast if you want, but don't be late." He dropped the pipe with another loud clang and walked out without another word.
Nine minutes and forty seconds later, according to Al's watch, the nine of us gathered in a tight circle inside the training room. Will had already memorized the path to get there, saving Christina and I from going in the totally wrong direction. I kept taking furtive glances behind me at the door, wishing I had tied my boots on quicker and gotten a muffin from the dining hall.
A shadow blocked the already dim light from the hall and Four walked in. He seemed to be in pretty much the same mood as yesterday - tense and unamused. He walked past the group, whistling loudly between his teeth to get the our attention. "Alright, listen up. Your training is going to be broken into three parts. You'll be ranked at the conclusion of each section and those who aren't making the cut will, in fact, be cut," Four called out as he continued to walk past the group.
Stopping at a long table tucked by the brick warehouse wall, he started assembling what appeared to be a pistol. "You'll be trained separately from the Dauntless born until the end of phase one, but you'll still be ranked together," he added. Looking up with a stern expression, he finished the pistol and cocked it in a smooth motion. "I suggest you train well and train hard in these next few weeks. There will be no considerations for who was born into what faction when determining who gets cut."
We were still standing about fifteen yards from the table of weaponry, no one moving at all. Peter seemed to want to make a comment about the rankings, but I think after the reaming out that Christina got yesterday, he decided to keep quiet. "Now today you're going to be learning two important things: how to use a gun and how to win a fight. To do that, you first need to learn how to put together a gun. Get over here and grab a spot," Four ordered.
The group moved slowly, still not adjusted to the fast pace of Dauntless. "Now, initiates!" our instructor barked, his arm snapping straight up and a loud crack of a gunshot echoing about the room. I jogged to the edge of the table, farthest away from Four, and stared at the pieces of metal laid out in front of me.
The process was fairly simple, and once Four walked us through it, it easy to build the firearm. He made us take the pistol apart three times and build it again faster each time. I found it relaxing and easy to get into a quick flow of spring, spring guide, slide, barrel, frame, magazine, cock it, done. Fire a single blank and start the process all over again. The echoing sounds of blank cartridges was unnerving, but at least I was no longer flinching each time someone let off a shot.
"Very nice, initiate. But can you do it without looking?" a rough voice sounded in my ear. My heart rate immediately spiked, and I fought to not jump and turn around. Barely a foot behind me lurked Eric, dressed in his same vest as yesterday and black pants. His hands were behind his back again, like he was at rest, waiting for orders.
I shifted to stand a bit straighter and nodded confidently. "I don't see why I couldn't," I replied, feeling cocky. If this is what Dauntless training was going to be like, I was definitely feeling less intimidated about the cutting process.
He smirked and held one hand out, looking pointedly at the pistol. Silently I handed it over, carefully trying to keep my confidence from wavering. In rapid motions, he disassembled the gun and laid it out on the table once more. "Okay, jumper, time to put your money where your mouth is," he said gruffly. A piece of long, black fabric appeared from one of his pockets and he stepped even closer to where I was standing.
"It's not unusual for a transfer to pick this up quickly, jumper," he murmured as he slipped the band of fabric over my eyes. His breath tickled the back of my neck while he continued talking. "I just hope you keep up the progress." I could feel him knotting it, his hands brushing against my tied-back hair.
I heard the snapping of fingers in front of me, but I couldn't see it through the dark blindfold. "Go ahead, then," Eric said, apparently satisfied that I couldn't cheat.
I reached for the table gingerly, the pieces laid out in unfamiliar places. I fumbled and nearly dropped the slide at one point, but I managed to piece together the firearm at about the same speed as before. I found myself smirking as I pointed the muzzle to the ceiling and cocked it, about to fire.
"Wait," Eric's voice was in my ear again. His hand wrapped around mine, trapping my fingers from moving onto the trigger. "We don't want an accident from a ricocheting bullet." He didn't take the pistol from me, but instead used my arm to quickly turn me around, facing the opposite wall across the training room.
I used my free hand to tug off the blindfold, no longer wanting to play along when I clearly was at an even greater disadvantage than I'd thought. "What did you say?" I asked quietly. "Is this thing-?"
"Live? Quite," he replied with a smirk. Eric's grip on my hand slackened slightly, but he was still standing directly behind me, guiding my arm to point at a target against the far wall. "How else can you tell if you hit the target?" I was barely registering what was going on. But damn if I was going to let that stop me from beating Eric at his own game.
I shut out the wide-eyed stares of Christina and Will, two slots down from where I was. "That target?" I confirmed, jutting my chin at it.
"Mmm," he murmured softly. His hand finally dropped from mine, and he stepped back far enough that I could no longer feel his breath on my neck. Shut it all out. I gripped the pistol a little more firmly and stared down the target. After my best attempt at aiming - squinting one eye and adjusting where I thought the muzzle was facing - I squeezed the trigger. A hole appeared on the bottom of the target, nowhere near the center.
Something moved to my right - Four, turning quickly from helping Al to see what was going on - and I breathed in. A small adjustment to my aiming and I shot again, breathing out instinctively. Too high now, and too far left. Breathe in, aim, breathe out, fire. Three more shots, all circling tighter to the center of the target, but still not inside the two closest rings.
"Tris!" Four was barking. I blinked and turned to look at him, carefully pointing the pistol to the ground. "What do you think you're doing, initiate?" My mouth instantly became dry and my stomach seemed to be filled with lead. Here I was, blindly listening to Eric without thinking that just maybe my actual instructor might not like that.
I opened my mouth, not fully certain what I was planning on saying. Part of me hoped that Eric would jump in and explain, but he seemed to be perfectly content to examine his own pistol's clip - no, it was my clip, filled with blanks that he was sliding into his own gun. "I was trying some target practice?" I finally managed to reply.
Goddamn Eric was still just leaning back on the table. Four was livid, stalking towards me slowly. "So you just decided you knew enough to start shooting targets. With live ammunition. Untrained," he spat each word out.
I wish I had just stayed in Abnegation.
Four stopped in front of me, jabbing his finger painfully into my collarbone. "You don't make the curriculum, initiate. Break that weapon down and take twenty laps," he sneered. I nodded quickly and turned around to avoid meeting his eyes for any longer. God, I would be lucky if I was ranked above anyone at this point.
Eric moved only slightly to allow me to put my things down. Otherwise, he continued to inspect his spotless gun, brushing invisible powder from it with a tiny cleaning tool. My hands shaking slightly, I broke my pistol back down into the now familiar pieces. "The rest of you, take ten and go eat something," Four called out. My face burned from pure embarrassment and anger.
"Actually, make it fifteen." Was that kindness on Four's part? I could probably run twenty laps in that much time and still sprint and get something quick.
I tried my best to smile at Christina when I met her eyes, but I don't think I was very convincing. I started jogging, not even saying 'sorry' when I almost stepped on Eric's boots. Two laps through and I couldn't keep from sprinting, my pent up anger needing to go somewhere. Eleven laps through and I couldn't have dreamed of sprinting anywhere, never mind down to the dining hall and back to the room.
"Stop running," Eric called out from his perch by the weapon's table. I gritted my teeth and slowed down slightly, but not completely.
"Why?" I asked breathlessly. "You heard - huff - Four. Twenty laps." My sides were killing me and each step felt like agony. I slowed down to a walk reluctantly, needing the slowdown but hating that Eric would think I was listening to him again.
I think he smiled. Or maybe smirked again. It was hard to tell from where I was in the room. "And you can finish those some other time tonight. But right now," he said walking to the center of the room, "you're going to finish target practice."
If I had been Christina, I think I would have told him where he could stick his target practice. But I wasn't Christina, so I trotted over to where he was standing, clutching my sides when I finally stopped moving. "We're literally about to do this when Four comes back," I retorted weakly. I was glad for the respite, but that didn't mean I had to let him know.
Eric chuckled darkly. "You mean, you're going to learn trigger discipline and how to assemble three other kinds of weapons. Then, everyone else is going to work on shooting and he's going to make you replace targets because you were a bad girl," he said, sounding fairly confident with his expectations of Four.
I stared at the paper target I'd been shooting at before, scowling. I was in dangerous waters, getting caught between this apparent rivalry between Four and Eric. But the more that I looked at those five bullet holes sprayed everywhere but the center, the more determined I felt. "Screw that," I growled, turning to look at Eric. "I'm not going to miss out on shooting. Especially because you were the reason I even did it." I stuck out my hand, hoping that I wasn't making the a huge mistake.
He tugged his pistol from his belt and slipped it into my hand. "I like a Stiff with bite," Eric murmured as he took up position behind me again. "Almost as much as I like someone who knows when to keep their mouth shut." I could feel my ears redden, and I tried to act calm.
I took a deep breath and aimed once more at the paper target. "Breathe like you were before," Eric said calmly behind me. "Exhale when you shoot so you don't tense up." I think I nodded back. I'm not fully certain. My attention was almost entirely on the center ring alone.
I squeezed the trigger twice in succession, feeling how the heavy firearm moved each time. Two more holes appeared in the target, close together but still beyond the center of the target. I growled and quickly adjusted my aiming before firing two more angry shots. Bam, bam. Middle rings again.
From behind me, two tattooed arms came up and Eric's hands clasped over mine. "Relax, Stiff. Aim just a little higher and don't be afraid of the recoil," he murmured, his lips brushing against my right ear as he quickly adjusted my aim. "Now, exhale and fire."
My heartbeat racing, I listened to his orders and prayed that I didn't screw up. One single squeeze of the trigger and an earshattering gunshot.
"Bingo," he breathed in my ear, though he didn't let go for another two heartbeats. I nodded nervously and stepped away from him quickly. I swallowed hard. The center of the target was shot out, a tiny ridge of white the only remaining indicator that there had been a bullseye at all.
Bingo, indeed.