I was glad that Molly was a coward, if only because she didn't have the guts to try anything as soon as she was being watched. Or maybe it was the broken arm that stopped her. She stared at nothing at all, her face white as a sheet. I didn't speak to her the entire time that we waited for the transport.
My gut churned the entire time. This was so far from my fault, and yet I was certain to somehow land the blame. We couldn't manage to work together to get from point A to point B without devolving into a fistfight. Hell, we hadn't even needed to speak to accomplish the task. I fished out the brick from my bag and turned it over in my hands. It didn't have any markings on it. Maybe neither were tagged or there was some sort of signal emitter inside. Maybe the whole point of telling us one was tagged was purely to keep us from splitting off.
I was overthinking this. Relief came from the transport finally arriving, its dark grey sides painted with crisp blue lines to denote that it belonged to emergency response. I'd seen the trucks around before. They were impossible to ignore when they were rushing to a call, spitting gravel and thundering around the smaller passenger cars that normal people drove. Once a whole brigade had rushed through Abnegation to tackle a fire in the factionless zone nearby. They drove inches from the sidewalk, in perfect control as their engines roared.
I marvelled at their efficiency as this single truck's crew piled out. A team of three, two immediately went to Molly and the third - the driver - began seeking out witnesses. They had a radio on their hip along with several sets of zip tie cuffs. I didn't get a chance to watch them further as the one of the medics started asking me questions about how Molly had been injured.
Molly's eyes were cruel and unforgiving as I explained that it had been in self defense. Pain hadn't managed to dull her tongue even if she was no longer attacking me physically. "She's lying," Molly spat. "That's what Stiffs do. Lie."
The medic looked back to me. "You're both Dauntless, aren't you?" he asked. I nodded. Molly wasn't about to let a little thing like the truth get in the way of her sniping.
"She can dress however she wants, but she's a Stiff, through and through," Molly snarled.
"That why I kicked your ass when you attacked me for no reason, Molly?" I retorted. The medic sighed and I winced. "We're initiates. Still in training," I explained.
That was a lightbulb moment. He waved over the driver as his partner continued to check Molly over for additional injuries. Her arm was in a field splint and secured around her torso so that she couldn't move it further. I heard the driver call into dispatch that the initiate trainers would need to meet them at the hospital. My heart dropped like a stone. Yeah, we were in for it.
Despite having been checked over for injuries in the field, once we got to the hospital I was forced to let another medic look me over. The only small mercy was being put in a different room than Molly. Something about the way that she kept muttering under her breath about me deserving what came to me on the truck ride over told them that we probably shouldn't be in the same one.
The trainers hadn't showed up by the time that I was discharged. Other than a few rising bruises - par for the course, I'd told the doctor - there was nothing else to examine. I counted my lucky stars and left for the bus stop. I headed over to the shelter, my boots scuffing the ground and my pack slung over one shoulder.
Molly was being held until one of the trainers came to get her. I had a funny feeling like I should have also waited for them as well, but I wanted to push off explaining what had happened to the last minute. If I could get on the bus and get back to Dauntless, it would take just a bit longer to track down Lauren or Four and give me more time to figure out just what I wanted to say.
What could I say? Molly had attacked me. She'd basically implicated herself in the first attack, the one that I hadn't reported. I grimaced. That hadn't been smart, looking back. Cutthroat as Dauntless may be, I'd been wrong to assume that being beaten up outside of planned training was acceptable. Of course it wasn't. Anarchy wasn't the way to build up the city's defense.
I groaned and ran a hand through my hair. Now that I'd rationalized my way through my old mistakes, I was preparing to make the same one once again. By running away from Molly and whomever was coming to drag her back to Dauntless I was still avoiding the fact that that I very much needed to tell someone what had happened. Molly had already tried to lie about the incident with the medics. The more that I kept my mouth shut, the more her lie would be able to spread.
Still, it was easier to sit on the bus bench. Easier than confronting my unfounded fears that by telling the truth I'd put myself in danger. Tori had warned me that Dauntless didn't want people like me around. I assumed that she meant because we caused trouble, that we weren't Dauntless enough. That fear was leaching into everything I did in the faction, especially Initiation.
Being aware of it didn't give me any sudden bout of clarity. I didn't feel freed from my fears just because I knew about them. I continued to tap my heel and pull at the end of my ponytail, not budging from the bus stop bench.
There I sat, trapped by indecision. A bus pulled up, loaded with a mix of faction members and even one or two factionless. I watched them slowly offload, some looking ready to hurl and others wearing smiles of varying levels of genuineness. Not everyone left the bus and I found myself in a staring match with the driver. Actually budging from the bench meant continuing down my path of ignoring what I should have been doing. I suppose that was what I'd gained by confronting my past weaknesses and fears.
"Getting on?" the driver finally grunted. I felt his and his passengers stares on me.
I shook my head and looked at my boots instead. He closed the door and the bus lurched forward. I watched it lumber along until it turned down the next intersection and vanished behind one of Erudite's towers.
I still hadn't gotten up from the bench, but at least I hadn't left the hospital. I kept looking over my shoulder in the direction of the closest train tracks, wary that I'd somehow miss the arrival of Four and Lauren. Not that I wanted to.
I shouldn't have wanted to. That wasn't the brave thing. My fingers knotted once more in the ends of my hair. I was still training to be brave, I reminded myself. This was just one more lesson.
Whistling air and whining brakes marked the arrival of the train. This was one of the very few stops where it would fully halt, allowing for anyone who had gotten on from the one station by the wall or the other by the hub to safely - and quickly - get to the hospital. I gritted my teeth and finally stood. My backpack weighed me down, slowing my steps as I moved to the open ground between the raised disembarking platform and the glassy hospital.
Four arrived first. He openly grimaced once we made eye contact. It didn't set my stomach at ease. Yeah, I'd been involved in a lot of crap, but this time was honestly as far from my fault as it could have been. He was followed by Lauren. My feet stilled as I saw another dark, Dauntless form trailing behind them. Max.
Other than the first, horrifying speech that the Leaders had made after Allison's death, I hadn't seen Max again. I only knew who he was from listening to the Dauntless-born gossip about the other Leaders and by process of elimination.
I remained where I was standing and waited for the three Dauntless to move past the very small cluster of Amity who had departed ahead of them. Even if I'd wanted to, my feet weren't quite cooperating anymore.
"Tris, why am I not surprised to see you involved in this," Four sighed. Max didn't slow much, regarding me briefly before continuing towards the hospital entrance. I couldn't tell what he was thinking behind those cold, calculating eyes.
I dogged behind them. "Molly has a vendetta. She started the fight. All I did was keep her from making my face into mincemeat like she did my gut last time," I retorted.
"I'm sure she'll say something similar about you starting things instead," Lauren remarked. I huffed and was about to launch into my full rant about what had happened, but I didn't have to. She turned suddenly and regarded me carefully, her head tipped. I stopped as well. The other two men continued on, Four remaining at Max's heels. "You said last time. Were you the one with the busted ribs? The unreported attack?"
It was exactly the nightmare I'd thought it would be. My instinct to defend myself fought with admitting the truth and my ears flared crimson. "Yes, that was me," I said through gritted teeth. "This time she admitted to it. Before, I couldn't tell who had done it. That was why I didn't bother reporting it."
Her eyes softened. Lauren sighed and turned her head to watch Four and Max enter the hospital. "Maybe Four has a point. We are awfully harsh on you initiates," she mused.
"We're supposed to be Dauntless," I muttered. "I thought that was just… how it was."
Her hand came up and rested on my shoulder. "You need to be tough, but there's something wrong if you're so worried about showing that instead of keeping yourself and others safe," Lauren said.
"She was trying to scare me off. I could handle it," I explained. Even as I said so, I felt the flatness of my own argument. How did that excuse Molly's behavior?
"And if you hadn't been able to?" she retorted.
I shook my head. "I don't know. I would have had another bruised rib or something," I lied.
Lauren gave me a look. Her other hand came up to rest on my other shoulder. "That's not the truth, is it? You can tell me. You need to tell me."
It was hard, meeting her gaze and admitting what had happened. I didn't want to vocalize it. Naming Molly's intention made it real, more real than I was comfortable with. I didn't want to have to be worried about people hating me for being Abnegation while also agonizing over not being Dauntless enough a Divergent.
Oddly enough, I thought about what Eric had told me on Visiting Day. Everyone in Dauntless - everyone actually a part of the faction and not flailing around like us Initiates, worrying over being good enough to stay - had each other's back. Lauren would have my back. So would Four and Max. That was why they were here.
"She was trying to scare me off. Said she was going to break every bone in my body if she had to if it would keep me from finishing Initiation," I admitted.
Lauren's fingers curled tightly on my shoulders. "I see," she said darkly. I cleared my throat and her hands dropped, balling into fists instead. She looked again at the hospital, resolve settling onto her face.
"You're not going to ask if I provoked her or anything?" I asked.
She laughed mirthlessly. "Unless you killed her cat, there's not much that can justify a threat like that. I've seen how you work in drills. You're not an aggressive person," Lauren said. I bit my tongue, thinking of how I felt after sparring. Maybe I didn't relish in causing pain, but it had made my blood run hot.
"You were the victim here, Tris. Keep your head up. We'll take care of it from here," Lauren assured me.
I was allowed to take the train back to Dauntless. Well, it was more that I was told to take the train back. Lauren didn't let me follow her back into Molly's room, sending me out in the hall while she spoke in hushed, clipped tones to Max and Four. A few minutes later and she pointed me to the tracks.
The wind tearing through the open doorway of the train tugged at my hair and grabbed at the dangling straps of my pack. I sat right at the opening, watching Chicago rush by me. The tracks wound in and through the factions like a sidewinder. I passed by the back entrance of the faction, watching until the glass Spire passed by. Then I jumped out, just on the edge of Dauntless territory.
I'd picked my jump off spot to be just by the side door that Eric and I had exited from this morning. Eric had used his key card to swipe us back in, taking that moment to explain why he'd swiped to exit as well. There wasn't an interior lock, but it was to keep a log on when and why Dauntless used its entrances. That was also when he explained about the camera that I waved to now. I could have come back to the faction through the garages like I had previously, but that would have put me more than a few corridors away from our gym. Here, I was just one stairwell away from the training section.
"I'm coming back from the hospital," I said loudly when a small green light turned on next to the camera. "Max told me-" The lock clicked before I finished explaining. I quickly pulled the door open, slipping inside. It hadn't been Max to send me home, but he had been there when Lauren did. Close enough, right?
I sighed in relief when I got to the gym and it wasn't empty. Christina and Will were there along with Al and their assigned partners. I waved to them as I jogged over to the lockers. "Hey," I breathed. It was a relief to see friendly faces again, to be back where things made sense most of the time.
Christina looked at me with a mixture of confusion and curiosity. "Hey yourself. Where's your partner?" she asked. Al and Will echoed each other with quiet hellos as I threw my bag down onto the ground.
"Don't ask," I groaned. I started thumbing through my locker combination rather than make eye contact. The story was going to come out soon. I just wanted a few more seconds without dealing with it.
"You were with, who, Molly?" Will pressed. I nodded and picked up my bag. I wanted my water bottle on hand, and there was still the question of what the hell to do with the brick. I passed it to Christina when she leaned on the locker next to mine.
"Thanks. I'll love and cherish this forever," she said dryly. "Why do you still have this? Didn't you hand it to your guy at the drop point?"
I rested my forehead on the edge of my locker door. The cool metal felt nice, though not as nice as the wind in the train car. "We didn't get to the drop point," I finally admitted. I hated the barely-concealed laugh that Marlene let out from her spot by the fighting mats.
"Why?" Will asked.
It was easier to talk into the locker than it was to look at my friends. "Molly attacked me. Didn't want me to make it through initiation. So I broke her arm and brought her to the hospital," I replied evenly. Then I chanced a glance at Christina.
Her mouth was pressed in a thin line. "When is she getting out?" she growled. "I think we need to teach her some manners."
I laughed. I shouldn't have, not with the curve of Christina's eyebrow descending into a glare that rivalled Four's best. There was just something about having agonized over what it would be like to tell everyone the truth and then have near immediate support. "Thanks," I managed to say. "I don't mean to laugh; I'm not laughing at you," I added.
She seemed to understand or at least she didn't question it. Her arms wrapped around my shoulders. I hugged her back, finally letting the relief really, truly hit me. Will patted my back in solidarity. "You okay?" Al asked me. He hadn't come any closer, remaining on the bench.
Christina talked over my affirmation, one hand moving from the hug to pick at something on my locker door. "What's this from?" she asked. She let go of me to examine the blue note in her hand.
My face blanched. I hadn't seen another note from Eric. What did it say? Why, of all days, had he put a note in there? "I don't know," I quickly insisted.
"'Hope your run went well. Be a shame if this morning fell on deaf ears. Same time tomorrow, stairwell?' What's this mean?" Christina read the note aloud. She flipped the note over, looking for a signature. "Who wrote this?"
The interrogation was back on. I snatched the sticky note from her hand, crumpling it in my fist and shoving it into my pocket. "Doesn't matter. I've got a running partner. We took a jog around above ground, that's all," I insisted.
"A running partner? We're not allowed outside the compound unless it's for training," she snapped back. "You really like to push the envelope, don't you."
I hated the way that my heart raced now, more even than when they'd been asking about Molly. Worse, I knew that every single person in the room was paying attention to me. Not just my friends but the Dauntless-born as well. Only by the grace of pure chance had Peter or Drew not come back yet.
"It wasn't my idea to go outside," I said.
Will actually spoke up. "It's Eric, isn't it?" he asked.
I turned to stare at him. "Since when are you Mr. Detective? It doesn't matter who it is," I hissed. It was too late though. Blood was in the water and the sharks were circling. Marlene sauntered over, no longer content to lounge.
"You're getting private training from him? That's bullshit. You shouldn't be able to do that. We can't do that - right?" Marlene said.
I threw my hands in the air. "It's not 'private training.' I like to run in the mornings. So does he sometimes. Anyone could be doing it, too, if you got up before breakfast," I yelled. This wasn't what I wanted to be doing. It was a recipe to make enemies. Christina and I had barely been on stable ground again.
In vain hope looked to Christina for support, for anything. "All I'm doing is using my free time in the empty gym. Sometimes he's there. I'm not… like… cheating," I said weakly.
She studied me and I worried that this was going to be the moment where she decided that our pittiance of a friendship wasn't worth her time. I nearly missed the tight nod of her chin before she whirled around to face Marlene. "Tris is right. If we all wanted, we could be using our free time to work in the gym. And so what if she's going outside? She's with a faction member. That's allowed, too," Christina said.
"She still has to do the same shit we all do. And everything boils down to what effort we put into Initiation. This isn't a game, no matter what we do for traditions or practice." I recognized my words from our own fight yesterday. That was only yesterday? So much had happened.
Christina looked over the Dauntless-born with her hands tucked nonchalantly in her pockets. It was a message just as powerful as standing there with her fists out. She was ready for anything they threw at her, especially in the arena of words. Go Candor.
Marlene stared at her and then me again. Huffing, she rolled her eyes. "Fine," she conceded. "But if she's fucking him, I'm collecting on that pool."
I felt my blood pressure drop and my vision narrowed to a small tunnel. I gripped my water bottle in one shaking hand and stormed out. That was one argument that I didn't have to defend myself on, I thought to myself.
I barely had anything at dinner. People had shifted back to the question of what would happen to Molly which regrettably still lead them back to looking at me. It was worse than when Edward had been attacked because there was a known culprit. Now the question was of what was going to happen to her.
I left before the conversation could come around to asking me what I thought should happen to her. A dark part of me hoped that she didn't come back. I shoved that idea away and walked to the top of the chasm. It was quiet up here, just as it had been when I'd come to get away from Al.
Swinging my legs through the gaps in the railing, I stared at the rushing water below. The blue lights couldn't reach all the way down the chasm and the river below was a dark suggestion of water rather than anything concrete. Al. I honestly hadn't really thought too much about the tall boy other than to take him for granted as a default friend while Christina had been mad at me. Now that we were back on even ground, I had hardly thought about him.
My forehead creased. He hadn't really involved himself in my life, even when he had the opportunity to. And I knew that he was interested. At the party where we played Faction-
The party.
A heavy sigh joined the cacophony of the chasm, nigh unhearable. With what happened with Edward, I'd forgotten about Al's attempts to flirt with me. To get a kiss from me. My fingers flexed around the railing bars I was holding. We hadn't spoken about that. If we never did, I had little doubt that Al would continue to back away forever, even from Will. He would have noone then.
I carded my fingers through my hair, tugging it out from its ponytail holder. "Thought I might find you here," Eric's gruff voice sounded loudly from the space behind me. It was impossible due to the water to hear much more, never mind footsteps.
I was tired, bone tired. There wasn't much more that could surprise me. Sure, Eric was here now. Alright. I glanced over my shoulder. "That's me, predictable," I said.
He cocked his head and gestured to the hallway beyond the walkway. I got the message. Standing up, I brushed the few scattered drops of water from my pants. Even this far up, the water could still flare up and hit someone. Eric waited for me to lead the way, trailing a half step behind me.
When we were far enough away to actually be able to hear one another, Eric spoke. He was quiet, not his normal self at all. "Are you alright, Tris?" he asked first.
I shrugged. "About as much as can be. Thinking about stuff I need to do," I replied.
He touched my arm with a quick touch, just enough to coax me to stop. Then he took the hand away. "Let me ask again. Are you okay?" he said.
I met his eyes. They were tough to read in the blue lights. I had to rely on his body language; the stiffness in his shoulders suggested he was worried about what I might say. Or was stressed about something else. I was sure there was more than just one initiate class that could be concerning a Leader.
"I'm fine," I insisted.
Eric nodded slowly. "Okay," he said. I watched as his jaw tightened. "I wanted to be sure. The issue with Molly is being dealt with. She won't be coming back."
"Until her arm is better?"
"Ever," Eric said. His voice was final, resolute. I swallowed hard. I had hoped, but not actually thought, that Dauntless wouldn't tolerate that kind of blind hatred. The realization sat heavy in my stomach. We were down one more initiate. The spaces left looked a lot more likely for me to land in.
I brushed my hair back behind my ear. "Good," I muttered.
Eric still looked uncomfortable. He started to walk again, slowly this time. As I moved to follow him, he remained close to me. I became aware of his elbow brushing against my arm every time that my hands swung.
"Tris, I wanted to say that I'm sorry." His words stuck in his throat. I started. What on Earth did he have to apologize for?
"For what?" I blurted out.
He sighed and stared at the ceiling. "For not being able to find out about Molly. She attacked two initiates three times and we weren't even the ones who found out about her; she told you while trying to make you into the next Edward," Eric said. "You should be focusing on your training not keeping an eye out on your fellow trainees."
We'd stopped again. I fumbled for the right thing to say. "I don't blame you guys. You were trying," I said.
Eric grunted and reached up with one hand to press the knuckles of his fist against the low ceiling. I'd seen some of the patrolling Dauntless do much the same on doorways they passed through. "Not well enough. I'm just… I'm glad you're alright and not the one with an arm in a sling," he admitted.
I smiled lightly. "She got lucky attacking me once. Wasn't going to let her beat me a second time. And I had a good sparring partner," I teased.
"We hadn't sparred after your broken ribs," he corrected.
"Then I guess I'll give Four the credit," I retorted.
He looked at me, still not breaking his grim expression. Eric wasn't so easily roused from his mood. "Credit whoever you want. Just keep your eyes open, Prior. Maybe don't hang around the chasm by yourself 'til we know for sure that Molly was responsible for Edward, too," he said.
I didn't have a funny quip to counter that. My blood still ran cold looking over at Edward's bunk. There was a red-brown stain in the concrete that hadn't been fully bleached away. "Okay," I said quietly.
He walked me back to the Pit, vanishing as soon as I spotted Will and Uriah. I didn't even get to ask him if we'd still be running tomorrow. After making such a big deal about it with the other initiates, I didn't not want to go. But if he really thought that being alone was a danger, then was he also telling me to not show up?
I chewed over the mystery while I half-heartedly listened to Uriah talk about his run through the city with Peter. By the time that I went to bed, I'd decided on one thing. I knew what there was to fear. And I knew that I wasn't going to let it defeat me.