"Christina, we need to talk," I said. The words threatened to stick in my throat as I stood, dinner tray in hand, in front of the table where she was sitting. My rationale had been that as an ex-Candor she would appreciate my addressing things head on. From the way that Christina was glaring up at me, I wasn't certain that I was correct.
She jutted her chin at the bench in front of me. I took it as an invitation to sit down. Will had been following behind me in the dinner line and took a seat next to me. I glanced at him and tried to send a silent message that I wanted at least a little bit of privacy.
No such luck. I guess I had to do this with an audience.
Turning back to Christina, I played with a roll of bread to have something to do with my hands. "I know you're pissed at me. And we should talk about that because, well, because we were friends, and I don't think we should lose that," I said, mumbling the last few words because they sounded so cheesy, especially with how cold her glare was.
"We're suddenly best friends?" she shot back, arching one perfectly shaped eyebrow in indignation. I had expected pushback but it still stung.
Like ripping off a bandage, I trudged on through the pain. "Well, no, we aren't best friends," I admitted. "We've only known each other for like two weeks. But we are friends. Same as Will and Al." I resisted the urge to look and see how Will reacted to being named. He was at least still sitting next to me. If I had to see him regarding me with the same derision as Christina, I knew that I would just fold and let them stay distant forever.
"I know you're mad at me. But can you explain to me why?" The bread in my hands was now in two halves. I picked at the inner pieces, grinding them to bits between my thumb and forefinger. She still hadn't answered me. "I beat you in that last fight. Is that it?"
Christina huffed, finally spurred into speech. "That fight was asinine. And you just wanted to impress your sadistic boyfriend. You think no one's noticed how much you follow him around like a puppy dog? Is that where you go in the morning, to go have a roll in the sack with him so that when you fuck up at training you won't get stuck down with the rest of us?" she spat.
My hands clenched into tight fists as I swallowed back the immediate wave of rage that threatened to dictate my words. "How dare you," I growled. "You can be pissed that I gave you a black eye, and you can be pissed that I didn't apologize for it. But how dare you suggest that I haven't been working my ass off just as hard as the rest of you."
Her eyes narrowed and I knew Christina was getting ready to unleash some new, fresh jab. "You know where I fucking go in the morning? To the gym to warm up for the day. A couple times I saw Eric there because it's a free Faction, anyone can go in the gym till it's our training time. But I'm not screwing him," I hissed. This wasn't the kind of thing that I wanted to be screamed out over the whole damn mess hall.
She leaned in, matching my lowered voice. "Fine. Maybe you're not screwing him yet. But he's a horrible person and you should stay far, far away from him. He pits 'friends'" - she snarled the word - "against each other because it amuses him. He made me fight Four because I didn't want to chance hurting one of our own people with a flying knife."
I cut in when she stopped to take a breath. "You were basically at the same level as Molly. It was a judgement call. Four didn't bother stopping him because, gee, it was a reasonable one," I replied. "And that was the whole point of the fight with Four. He freaking said it to your face why. We all needed to realize this isn't a game. It's dressed up in traditions and paintball and, yeah, sometimes unfair cage matches, but this is training, Christina. We have to know these skills and be prepared to use them if something happens.
"It's not always going to be a fair fight out there. Sometimes we'll have to do things we won't want to do. So we have to do them, now, to know that we'll be able to do them then."
Christina scoffed, leaning back to a normal seated position. "You sound so self-righteous right now," she said.
Will, god bless his lurking ass, piped up from the seat next to me. "And that statement didn't? Chris, she's got a bit of a point," he said.
She turned on him, venom still dripping from her words. "You were supposed to be on my side. What happened to 'this curriculum is poorly defined and ineffective?' You agreed with me that night. I know you did."
"Poorly defined and unfair are two totally different points," I insisted. "I'm a hundred percent with you that the infighting between Eric and Four - and all the sudden changes that went with it - made things chaotic. But maybe we need to think about it in terms of what was going to get us to understand being a functioning Dauntless."
Will nodded solemnly between bites of his food. Clearly his heart wasn't hammering in his chest. I couldn't imagine eating right now. And what did he have to lose, really? He wasn't the one crushing on Christina's least favorite Dauntless Leader.
Not that I was, either. My mental insistence didn't feel all that strong.
"Ugh!" Christina threw her hands in the air. She moved to stand up and my heart leapt into my throat.
"Wait, come on, please don't leave," I insisted.
She glared at the ceiling, blinking quickly. Slowly she sat back down. "You still didn't actually apologize. Not really," Christina growled. "I don't care how morally right or wrong the training was. You still should have apologized for hurting me." I heard truth ring strong in her words and saw the pain in her eyes as she finally met mine. Here was the key piece of the argument, the source of the hurt feelings.
I reached across the table with one hand and touched the back of Christina's clasped hands. Her knuckles were white from how tightly she was holding them together. Squeezing for a moment, I apologized. "I am sorry that I hurt you. In my head I was putting my rank ahead of your feelings after the fight."
Swallowing hard, I let go of her hands. "That wasn't the right thing to do to a friend, and I won't make that mistake again."
A tiny smile lit across her face. Her clenched hands relaxed. "Thank you for your candor," she whispered.
The churning in my stomach settled down quickly as relief flooded down in a wave of endorphins. I could actually smell dinner now and it smelled fantastic. Before digging in, I stole another look at Will. "You're not mad at me, too, are you?"
He snorted through a mouthful of brisket. "We're good," he mumbled. Chewing and swallowing, he articulated once again. "We are good. I was mad on behalf of Chris. But you didn't sock me in the eye, so no apology is necessary."
That was my final cue to my brain to allow myself to fully relax. My shoulders dropped and I took a tentative bite of the tender beef on my plate. It was a little cold but fantastically drenched in barbeque sauce.
A fork rapped on the side of my tray as Christina had one final comment. "By the way, I'm glad you're not sleeping with Eric. If you were, I'd lose the betting pool on who'd be the first transfer to get laid," she said with a laugh.
I raised an eyebrow. "There's a betting pool?"
"Oh yeah," Will chuckled, just as amused as Christina. "The odds on you are practically non-existent for obvious reasons." My next forkful of mashed potatoes froze above my plate. The comfortable feeling from a moment ago had taken a backseat to revulsion. People were betting on whether or not I would have sex? Before someone else. Like it was a game.
"Is there any way to get my name just off the list entirely?" I asked quietly. I looked between my two friends fervently. They were still amused, laughing even as I asked the question.
Will shook his head. "It's not like an opt-in, opt-out sort of thing. Besides, like I said, no one wants to bet on you even for the long-shot payout," he replied.
I ground my teeth together as my very skin crawled. "What kind of scumbag comes up with that betting pool? Is there one for the guys, too? How fast it takes for the first one of you to man up and score a roll in the sack with some girl?" I parroted back Christina's slur from earlier.
"We're all in the same pool," Christina retorted. She tipped her head to the side and looked hard at me. "If it bugs you, I mean that's your prerogative, but it's just all in good fun."
It didn't feel like "good fun" to me. However, my desire to keep things civil and simple outweighed any want to re-open the wounds of our healing friendship. Maybe this was just something I'd have to live with as a Dauntless. "Well can we at least stop talking about it? I don't want want to think about some of our friends having sex," I grumbled.
"Especially Drew," Will snorted. "I'd like to keep my dinner down."
"Point taken," Christina said, shaking her head in amusement.
I hadn't gotten up early this morning out of respect for the still-healing wounds between Christina and I. Instead we'd sat on our bunks and wasted away the early morning munching on some bagels that Will had secured from the kitchen last night.
It felt right, having my friends back on good terms. We bonded over my dramatic retelling of Uriah and I shutting down Peter's ego trip, laughing as I recreated his stupid expression from when he fell backwards onto his ass. The topic of our fear simulations stayed firmly off the table. It was a silent agreement supported by all. Regrettably, our slow morning of relaxing and eating was brought back down to earth with a few short-tempered words. Lauren came by in the morning to order us to the simulation rooms.
I wanted to drag my feet the whole way to that damn hallway. "It's all fake," I growled under my breath. It gave me the strength to put one foot in front of the other and the patience to coax Al to do the same. "Just a few minutes of misery and then we can meet up again in the lunchroom," I suggested when Al started to turn green.
"Can you wait for me if you go before me?" he whispered. Watching his twisting hands and remembering that he stood by me, I acquiesced.
Will agreed as well followed by Christina, firming up the pact to support one another. Our conversation fell on deaf ears as Drew and Peter boasted in front of our group about how they weren't going to break a sweat this time. Behind us, I heard either Marlene or Lynn muttering about hanging back, too, when they finished their trials.
I let just the corner of my mouth twitch in a small smile. Maybe we'd outnumber the Peters and Mollys of the faction by actually sticking together. It didn't last as soon as we saw those rows of closed doors.
Lauren swiped a key card in front of one and pulled out a clipboard from inside the room. She returned, flipping through her folder that she'd brought with her. We waited in tense silence in a cluster. No one had dared to sit down on the benches. If we sat, then we had wait and wonder. I'd spent enough time wondering about what today's torment would be; I wanted it to be over with.
"We're going in reverse time order. Giving those of you who sucked some extra time to calm down and prepare yourself mentally," Lauren explained.
Those around me complained loudly, voicing protest at being punished for having messed up last time. It seemed everyone just wanted to get the damn simulations over with. I focused on keeping those bagels in my stomach where they belonged. Eric had shown me the scores of my fellow initiates. I knew that I had completed my fear with far greater ease than they had.
Lauren waved away the complaints and glared sternly at those who didn't get the hint right away. "First up, Tris," she barked. "Rest of you, sit tight. I don't have back-up until ten so it's going to be slow." The list of times went into the plastic bucket next to the door to be eagerly snatched up by Uriah.
My feet felt glued to the ground and Lauren had to wave me over once more before I budged. Will slapped my back and commended me for having "cinched the top slot." Responding to him was difficult and I muttered something nonsensical in response, I'm certain.
Lauren moved around the simulation room differently than Eric had. She shuffled through the cabinetry with exasperated motions, piling shrink-wrapped packs of diodes and needles onto the metal tray. Cursing under her breath, she poured them back onto the counter instead and passed me a spray bottle with a rag.
"Bleach everything on the rig down, would you? I think Henriette's crew was in here last night and she's terrible at remembering to decon everything afterwards," she said hurriedly.
Dutifully I sprayed everything with the cleaner - all while keeping the dilute bleach solution off of my clothes - and wiped down the instrument tray, wires, keyboard, and monitor. Next came the chair, the faux leather crinkling under the rag. This seat had plastic wrapped around the ends of the armrests to cover the worst of the cracking, but there were still bites in the plastic in tiny half-moons. I tried not to look at them or my own fingernails and finished cleaning.
Lauren had jumped on the computer as soon as I'd finished with the keyboard, booting up the simulation program. It loaded in under a minute, the GUI showing dozens of potential fears in an array on the screen. I didn't get to watch Lauren while working on the chair, but when I put the spray bottle back under the counter, I could see my name now in the top corner along with a mostly blank file list of "PREVIOUS TRIALS." I also saw some of the list items of fears were now listed in dull grey rather than the bright yellow text. Perhaps they were ones too similar to fire?
"So you did rather well last time," Lauren said. Her feet hooked around the ring on the stool she sat on, anchoring her in place. "Did you have past experience with, er, fire?" she asked after double checking the screen.
I shook my head and slid onto the chair. My palms were sweating already. They stuck to the thick plastic on the armrests, coming away with a loud noise and mild stinging sensation. Lauren grunted and shrugged. "Well at least that means you won't have issues being on e-call. That's what we call the shift for fire and rescue. A building collapses, something blows up in lab -emergency call goes out," she explained. "It's a good thing. Behind the scenes, it's a nice checkmark to have alongside your individual initiation merits. Wink-wink, you didn't hear that from me."
That pulled a smile from me, despite my nerves. Lauren wasn't talking down to me or jumping straight to the simulation. She reminded me a bit of Uriah and the other Dauntless-born; they all had their rough edges but they were more than happy to work with us new initiates to understand how things were done.
"I won't say a word," I swore while crossing my fingers. She chuckled and began unwrapping the electrode packet.
Lauren didn't give any indication of what my next challenge would be. The electrode pads were tossed in my direction as she plugged them into the rest of the simulation rig. Eric had shown me where on my temples and collar to place them and I quickly made sure they were smooth against my skin. The only question that I asked was verifying that no particular pad needed to be in a certain position.
Then came the loading of the syringe with a fresh, clean needle and load of serum. Lauren rolled over to the chair slowly, checking me over. "One thing that I was curious about," she started, "is why Four had you start with fire? Usually we go with something less intense and I had thought we were on board with bugs or crowds for day one."
I eyed the needle rather than meeting Lauren's gaze directly. I was about to lose the credibility I'd just earned in her eyes. "Four didn't give the test. Eric did," I explained. Maybe if I answered vaguely enough, there wouldn't been any follow up.
Lauren, as it turns out, is a smart cookie and can tell when someone's trying to bullshit her. "When was Eric down here? He's basically been locked in his office from what I've heard 'round the Pit," she pressed. "Don't tell me he was fucking with Four again. I don't want to put up with the complaining later at evals."
"Well, when you split up me, Uriah, and Peter, I got… forgotten," I replied. "The next unit scheduled to use the sims found me and got Eric." Somehow I felt compelled to skip over the part where I was shown Leadership's offices. "He ran my sim then sent me on my way."
"Oh," Lauren said. She frowned for a few seconds, her forehead furrowing. "Alright then. Makes sense. He wasn't in the planning meeting for the sims. Too busy with, well with stuff." On that enigmatic note, she lifted the syringe again. Oh yeah. That was why we were here.
"You ready?" she asked. I swallowed and settled against the back of the chair stiffly. Looking anywhere but at the needle heading towards my neck, I nodded.
The world around me dripped into a dark void.
A/N: It's been a while, friend-o's! This chapter is a little shorter than usual - my apologies - but the quality should still be what I always want to put out now that we're all good and invested in Tris and Eric. The plot progressed nicely and we've even got some resolution of the Christina-Tris tension! The next chapter will be… well, tell me what YOU think it'll be about!