A/N
Hello everyone! I just wanted to make some things clear before you start reading. I've made a few changes to the original book. Instead of choosing factions at 16, in this story, you choose them at 18. Eric and Four are a year older than the initiates in the current class. Tris isn't in Dauntless yet, but she would be choosing next year. All the other changes in the story are on purpose so please don't come at me if things aren't exactly like the original book! Also, I have a clear vision of the story, but I will admit that the beginning is a little rocky, but it gets much better as you continue reading. ALSO:
DISCLAIMER: I am not Veronica Roth, Divergent is not my book or my idea, I just am writing fanfictions about it.
Enjoy and review:) I think I covered everything, but if not I will do so in the next chapter!
Standing over the sheer drop gives me an exhilarating feeling. I had always known Erudite wasn't my faction, and now that I'm standing dangerously over this ledge, I know I've made the right choice in my new home. I hear someone's throat clear behind me and I know I need to jump before I make a complete fool out of myself. Being the first one to jump felt more like an obligation to myself than anyone else. I needed to prove to myself that I could do it.
I take one deep breath and jump off the ledge, leaving my life of Erudite behind. I land on a stretchy net and guide myself off of it, landing flat on my feet and trying not to wince. My eyes meet a tall, brown-haired guy. He looks at me with curious eyes, probably because I'm a small girl from Erudite who looks too scared to turn the lights off at night. He then gives me a small smile and lifts his eyebrows.
"You gotta name, initiate?" he asks me, his arms crossed. I can tell he's amused at the fact I jumped first, and I can't help but stick my nose up a little.
"Lacy," I announced confidently. He snorts a little, giving me a patronizing look.
"Sounds very… Dauntless."
I roll my eyes. He then announces to the people surrounding the net my name and my apparent new status: first jumper.
After everyone jumped, the tall man led us through the Dauntless compound. I can't help but gape at the largeness of it, even with all the people milling around it. It looks filled but feels empty. The dark composure of the compound makes it hard to see after being in the sunlight for so long, and it takes a while until my eyes are fully adjusted.
The Erudite inside me wants to question everything about the compound and the initiation, but I keep my questions to myself. The Candor can be the ones who get in trouble for their curiosity. Finally, the man comes to a halt outside of a room and starts talking about different things, such as his name, which is Four, and the initiation process. It's quite an interesting initiation because we are sent home in intervals, after each stage of initiation. In Erudite, initiation just consists of doing a ton of research and reading until you're caught up with everyone else. Nobody is sent to factionless. The possibility of becoming factionless scares me a little, but it mostly just motivates me to succeed.
I return my attention back to Four, his expression looking uninterested with us. He secretly looks over the entire group of transfers, and I can tell he's trying to tell which of us will make it. His eyes stop when they reach me, and I squirm a little. He looks me up and down and then narrows his eyes. Hopefully, he's thinking I'm one of the initiates that will make it.
When Four finishes with his speech and the Candors ask their dumb questions, he opens the doors we've been standing in front of to our new home for the next month or so. I can't help but sigh. Four announces that this is the room we will all be sleeping, showering, and living in. I look around at a black room which is made up of bunk beds, one bathroom, and a few showers that are only separated with a curtain. Some people gasp and others whine at the sight. In my opinion, sight is rather humorous. I throw myself onto a bottom bunk and make myself at home, at least until Four disrupts my peace.
"There's only an hour left of dinner. I suggest you leave right after you change into your new clothes. Your Dauntless clothes," he tells us.
I get up and reach for the clothes he's handing out, wanting to leave soon so I can eat dinner.
"Wow these are definitely better than the ones I have on," a girl from Candor in front of me announces after she gets her clothes. I laugh and agree with her.
"Dauntless is definitely on to something with black." She turns around and smiles. She has pretty hazel eyes and soft features. Her most stunning features are her eyelashes, long and dark. Her long blond hair doesn't match her dark lashes and eyebrows, but she pulls it off. The freckles in her face remind me of someone from Amity.
"I'm Roxxy," she says, shaking my hand. I immediately regret keeping such a soft name like Lacy. Roxxy sounds much more Dauntless.
"Lacy, nice to meet you." She waits for me to get my clothes and we go to change together.
"Come on let's go to dinner!" Roxxy exclaims, her excitement making me laugh. I am grateful it's dinner time because I am starving. All the excitement from today has left me lethargic and exhausted. We try and navigate our way through the wide, dark hallways until we hear the loud chirping from the cafeteria. When we enter the cafeteria, the flood of black clothes is overwhelming.
Erudite rarely had big gatherings like this, and when we did it would be formal and controlled. This is completely chaotic, with loud talking and running around. I smile and instantly feel welcome. Roxxy and I grab food and sit down at a relatively empty table, except for two boys who I don't recognize from our training class. Their faces look annoyed when they realize we are sitting next to them, but I don't really care.
"Hello," Roxxy greets them warmly.
"What makes you think you can talk to me?" one of the guys says. The other guy laughs at this but Roxxy and I just roll our eyes.
"Very original," I mutter under my breath, but obviously not quietly enough.
"What'd you say?" the first guy growls, narrowing his eyes at me.
"That's enough," a deep voice from behind me booms, and I immediately tense. I knew I would be doomed to bump into him while I'm here, but I didn't think it would be this early on.
"Eric," I spat with a dissatisfied tone in my voice. I turn around and see his lips turn up a little, and his eyebrows are raised. He looks cocky. I curse him out in my head, but I'm not ballsy enough to do it in person.
"Lacy. Good to see you. I'm surprised you made it this far," he sneers, and if I didn't know him I would think he was being serious. I plaster the fakest smile I could muster and keep eye contact.
"I truly wish I could say it's good to see you." I watch as his expression grows dark. The other people around the table turn quiet, surprised at the interaction. I'm sure people wouldn't have guessed I know the leader of this faction. In all fairness, I wish I hadn't.
"Come with me, initiate," he orders, but I cross my arms. Roxxy watches our interaction with a worried expression, and she nudges me to go with him. I roll my eyes and sigh. I get up and bump his shoulder out of my way while I walk past him towards the hallway. I stop when we reach a quiet corner and turn around to face him.
"What?" I ask him, annoyance dripping in my voice.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" he snaps at me. I almost flinch. Almost.
"What do you mean?"
He looks at me as though I am the dumbest person in the world.
"Do you have any idea how hard this initiation is? If you're the same girl I knew a year ago then you will not be able to make it through unless you've trained nonstop since I left."
I knew he would give me a hard time. He never believed I was strong or capable of doing anything on my own.
"You didn't know me a year ago. You knew my brother. Now leave me alone and stop using your authority to talk to me. I don't want anything to do with you while I'm here," I yell at him.
His grey eyes are cloudy now, and his face has distorted into a nasty scowl. Before he can say anything else, I walk back to the dining hall and sit back down next to Roxxy, who looks at me curiously. She shrugs and begins talking to me casually, but I'm finding it hard to focus. Talking to Eric has made me as angry as ever and now I feel like it's my duty to make it through Dauntless initiation. I need to prove it to myself, my parents, and apparently now Eric who doesn't believe I can lift a pillow on my own.
Leaving my parents was the best decision I've ever made. Growing up with parents who were more interested in the human anatomy than their own child was not a fun way to be raised. I was essentially their own science experiment from the day I was born. Right before I was born the doctors announced my heart was tearing up, and when I was born they were more fascinated in my heart than me. When I was around 4 months old they did a surgery that fixed the tear with a new type of serum my parents discovered. So after that, I was completely fine, which bored them so they would constantly give me checkups and tried to make up an excuse to inject a new serum into my body.
When I was around 17 I knew I couldn't be with them anymore, so I started doing more research into the different factions. The only one that caught my eye was Dauntless. I remember walking into my aptitude test hoping I would get Dauntless. I had done enough research to know that in the aptitude test I just need to be brave, and then the results will be Dauntless. I was fairly confident with the test when I had awakened, but the look on my tester's face made my stomach dip. He was an older man from Amity, and his once tanned face turned pale white when we made eye contact. I remember trying to conjure up a reason why I might have done so badly. I went through that whole test knowing exactly which one to choose.
"How'd you do that?" he had asked me, his voice even.
"Do what?" I was very confused about what was happening. I remember thinking to myself that I must have messed up, done something wrong. Then he told me what I had done, and how that wasn't even possible, and it scared the living daylights out of me. Apparently in the test, I kept reminding myself that I needed to choose the brave way, that this was merely a simulation.
"Only Divergents can do that," he said so quietly I wasn't even sure he had said it. A chill worked its way up my spine, and I suddenly felt ill. I knew about Divergents. I also knew they weren't wanted in this city. I shiver at the thought. I simply ran out of there and didn't look back. I made up my mind to choose Dauntless since it's far away from Erudite.
I'm suddenly taken away from my thoughts when someone bumps into our table.
"Watch it," one of the guys at our table says. His name is Jeremy and he looks nothing but pissed off. Apparently, while we've been sitting here Roxxy has made them warm up to us because she's laughing at his words. I see that Roxxy and I are both done eating, so we head back to the dormitories. It's around 6 pm but we are all tired and need to wake up quite early tomorrow, so once we reach our beds we pass out.
This morning we are woken up to Four's grouchy voice yelling at us to get up and get ready.
"You have 30 minutes to get dressed and eat breakfast. I suggest you hurry up," he snaps at us. I can't help but roll my eyes. It feels like I just managed to get to sleep. Roxxy and I get dressed and go to breakfast together. We only grab a muffin and a banana for the two of us, then go to the training room Four showed us yesterday. I grin as we walk through the doors. There are punching bags set up throughout the room, and Roxxy and I run to get ones next to each other.
"Listen up initiates. The first stage of initiation is fighting. In order to pass you need to successfully learn the different strategies to fighting and apply them when you spar with each other. Watch what I do then do it on your own," he orders, and he starts demonstrating different ways to punch and attack the punching bag.
I briefly wonder if I have an advantage as an Erudite transfer in this field because I pick up techniques quite easily. I look around at the other Erudite transfers who I don't really know, and they look very lost. I snort at their faces. Roxxy looks just as excited and eager as I do. Ever since our first interaction we've gotten along quite well. I don't like relying on other people so I've never really had a good friend, but Roxxy just makes it natural and easy. We're not really those types of friends that confide in each other and cry to each other, more so just laugh and have fun together, which is a nice distraction from the obvious stress of initiation.
Once Four is finished demonstrating how to do the different techniques of fighting, we stand behind our punching bags and try to implement the same strategy. The first punch to the bag stings my fingers, and I shake out my hand. After another row of punches, my knuckles hurt more than my fingers and I grunt with frustration, as I place another punch on the bag.
"You'll get used to it," Four says from behind me. I don't know whether to be grateful or embarrassed that he realized I was having trouble. I don't want to seem weak to the class. I decided to just nod him thanks and then continue back to my punching bag. I throw a couple of kicks and body shoves to the bag, a technique I had read about in a book. I look over at Roxxy and see she is also struggling, and considering the flustered look on her face, she knows it too. I go back to what I'm doing, and after punching the bag repeatedly for a minute, I realize my knuckles are bleeding.
"Shit," I mutter to myself.
"Ouch, that looks bad. Maybe you can ask Four for some wrap?" Roxxy suggests. I take her advice and go find Four.
"Hey, do you have something I could wrap my hand with?" I look up at Four and put a sweet smile on my face. He smirks at me in a patronizing way.
"How hard have you been punching that bag Erudite?" he teases.
I fake a laugh and look at him expectantly.
"We don't wrap hands here. I guess you can go wash off your hands in the sink over there and try not to punch so hard next time. Here in Dauntless you need to preserve your hands for an actual fight," he explains, sounding bored with our interaction.
I head over to the sink when I hear the heavy door open and close, and the sound of boots pounding into the room. I turn around and see Eric, and automatically flinch. I don't want him to see me with bloody hands already.
"Eric," Four sneers at him through gritted teeth. I guess Four also isn't a fan of the all-mighty Eric.
The whole class stalls when they see his presence. Despite him being around our age, he is very intimidating. The way he holds himself just screams arrogance and his 200 pounds of muscle doesn't help either. Every time I look at him, he always has a grimace on his face. His harsh features make him look like the least approachable person in the compound. Eric finally looks over at Four and narrows his eyes at him.
"Four," Eric says in reply in an amused voice. His eyes skirt around the room like he's on a mission. I try to avoid him seeing me and face the sink, quickly washing the blood off my knuckles. I can almost feel his eyes burning into my back but I try my best to ignore him. When I'm satisfied my knuckles are clean I do my best to keep my head down and walk undetected back to my punching bag. I guess I was wrong.
"Lacy, what a surprise seeing you here," Eric sarcastically says, and I finally face him.
"What are you doing here Eric?" I snap at him, louder than I would have liked. A couple of people from around the room turn their heads towards us, including Four. I lock eyes with him for a second and he looks at me with a concerned expression. If only he knew what I knew about Eric.
"Now that's no way to treat your leader," he says with a mocking frown.
"You're hardly a leader." He feigns a hurt look and his arrogance makes me want to punch his face. He knows what he did. I don't know why he's acting so confident now. He should be apologizing to me, not taunting me.
"Eric, I'm in the middle of a class here. Do you need something or are you just here to distract us?" Four calls out from behind us. Eric's head snaps towards him and he puts on an evil smile.
"Who has the authority here, Stiff?" Eric reminds Four. Four's face goes red not from embarrassment but from anger. I look down and see his hands rolled up in fists.
"I'm here because I need to excuse Lacy for a second. I would announce what it is, but it's a rather private matter." Eric smiles down at me, but all I can manage to do is gape at him. I'm not going to stand by and take this abuse of power.
"Eric can't you just go back to doing your job rather than taunting an initiate," I calmly tell him with a mocking smile on my face. All of a sudden I feel Eric's hand on my arm and I'm being dragged out of the room. I try to resist, but his grip is much too tight and every time I try to move away he tightens it. Once we are out of the training room he lets go of my arm with a strong force that knocks me off my balance.
"What the fuck!" I shout to him, but he's just standing above me with his arms crossed.
"Listen up initiate, I don't want you to be-" he starts, but my outrage interrupts him.
"Initiate? Don't act like you don't know me, Eric. Don't fucking act like you did nothing wrong. Just cause you're pretending it didn't happen doesn't mean I will too," I tell him, finally getting up. He's taller than the last time I saw him and I find myself needing to look up to meet his eyes. I stick my jaw out a little and try to bring my shoulders back to make myself look more intimidating than normal. His posture suddenly tenses and he looks at me uncomfortably for a fraction of a second and I almost didn't catch it. I hope he feels uncomfortable. I hope he feels guilty for what he did.