A/N: Hey guys! So sorry for this coming out late, this took me forever to write. I kind of lost my writing groove for a second, but I'm back! This chapter is shorter than others but don't worry, the next ones are going to be longer. Anyways, enjoy and tell me what you think! Big things happening soon, I'm really excited to post the next few chapters.
Eric leads me back to his apartment, his hand steady on my back the entire way so I don't fall. The hallways are swaying back and forth and it's hard to form a clear thought. We reach Eric's apartment and when we get in, he slams the door shut, making me jump. I can tell he is extremely angry about what just happened. He is fuming, his face bright red and his lips curled into a sneer. I don't blame him. I'm also angry.
"Why the fuck did you even get drunk? You are in initiation. You should be focusing on that," Eric scolds me. I sobered up a little on the walk back, but I'm definitely still drunk. My stomach feels nauseous and I regret eating those onion rings at the bar.
"First of all, you shouldn't be mad at me for having fun! It isn't my fault that I got assaulted, it's Uriah's! How was I supposed to know my friend that I trusted would take advantage of me when I was drunk?" I ask him, my words coming out very sloppy.
"You know I didn't mean it like that. I don't care that you got drunk, I care that you got drunk during initiation. So? Why'd you get drunk?" His tone reminds me of my father. He was always so serious and strict.
"We just wanted to have fun," I slur, even though I'm trying my best to sound sober. "Why do you care anyway?"
Eric's face goes completely red, and I can tell he's trying not to scream at me.
"Do you not get that I care about you Lacy?" he says through clenched teeth. I don't answer him. I don't know what to say. I manage to shake my head at him.
"Your brother died trying to protect you. He told me the day before he died that if anything happens to him, I should keep you safe." I stare at him, trying to focus on him, even if the room is spinning. He puts his hand on my cheek, and I nudge my face further into it. His hand is rough against my cheek, and it makes me feel safe, protected.
"I'm sorry," I mutter. Eric runs a finger lightly over my lips and kisses me softly. His lips against mine seem to always send a jolt through my body. People in Dauntless will never see Eric as gentle as he is now.
"I should go back to the dorms," I reluctantly say, because I don't want to go back, but I know I should. I have five more days of simulations before the final fear landscape, and I should focus on that more than Eric. He nods and walks me back to the dorms, his hand firmly on my shoulder. My stomach tingles at the touch.
When we reach the dorms, everyone is asleep, and I see that Roxxy isn't there. Eric doesn't say goodnight, just huffs at me. I honestly wouldn't expect anything more. He seems to only have small amounts of time where he shows how gentle he really is. I smile and wobble my way over to my cold bed. I curl up in hopes of getting warmer, but it doesn't help. Eric's bed was definitely a luxury compared to this.
My head spins begins to spin even more when I close my eyes, and it takes everything in me not to throw up. As the minutes pass, the alcohol in me slowly subsides, leaving me completely exhausted.
I wake up to a pounding headache in the morning. Every little noise makes my head hurt even more, and I instantly regret drinking. I think back to last night, and there are big holes in my memory. I can't remember anything past Zeke handing me another shot, but I do have certain images of being in Eric's apartment.
Ugh, this is a mess.
I wipe my face and try to shake off my hangover. I need to be prepared for today. I go to the showers and quickly rinse off my body, which smells badly of alcohol. I put on leggings and a hooded sweatshirt. I see that Roxxy still isn't here and I figure she is at Zeke's apartment. I bet I will get an earful this morning of gossip.
I still feel nauseous and don't feel like eating anything, so I make the decision to skip breakfast. Instead, I go to the water fountain and fill up my water bottle. I am absolutely parched.
"Uh, hey Lacy. Can we talk?" I hear Uriah ask from behind me. I turn around and smile at him. He looks like crap, but I don't think it's from alcohol. I look at his neck and notice a huge handprint around it.
"Oh my gosh! Uriah, what happened?" I ask him. He tilts his head and draws his eyebrows together and frowns.
"Do you not remember last night?" I have no idea what he's talking about.
"Remember what?" He touches the back of his neck and looks uncomfortable.
"Nothing, there was just a bar fight. I'm glad you made it home alright, I got caught up with some friends and couldn't walk you all the way back." He says his sentence in a rush. He's acting very weird today. Maybe he's just embarrassed about getting beat up in the bar or something.
"Geez, that looks like a nasty bruise. Honestly, I forgot most of last night, so I'm not really sure how I got home," I explain to him. He looks relieved and laughs. Then he puts his arm around my shoulder and walks with me to the waiting room for the fear simulations. We go over what we remember about last night and Uriah claims he wasn't drunk at all, but I'm hesitant to believe that. He took about 14 tequila shots and I took only around 9, and I was completely wasted.
"Do you have any idea where Roxxy is?" I ask him because once we reach the waiting room, she isn't there.
"Yeah, she's at Zeke's apartment. Maybe she's running late," he says casually, but he and I both know we are dying to hear about what happened between them.
We sit next to each other and the exhaustion kicks in. I did not get much sleep last night at all. I was constantly out of bed to go to the toilet whenever a wave of nausea struck. Thankfully I didn't throw up, but I was damn close a couple of times.
I lean my head on his shoulder and try to get some more sleep. Uriah helps me get more comfortable by opening his arm and wrapping it around my shoulder so I can snuggle into his chest. I know I'm being misleading, since he supposedly has feelings for me and this may be giving him false hope, but I am really comfortable and really want to sleep. I fall asleep in a matter of minutes.
Uriah shakes me awake, informing me that Four called me in. I thank him and make my way to the fear landscape room. I've sort of gotten a hang of these simulations, but it still makes me nervous not knowing about what fear I'll have to face. I walk in and close the door behind me.
"Good morning Lacy. Take a seat please," Four orders me. I quietly take a seat and wait for him to inject me with the serum. He moves his seat over to me and holds the syringe by my neck, but doesn't inject me yet.
"Are you okay? I was in the control room last night and saw everything. You're lucky Eric was there to help," he says to me, and I wrinkle my nose with confusion.
"Help with what?" I ask him. Am I missing something? Does everyone else know something I don't?
Four gives me a soft smile and I swear it looks like pity, then injects me with the serum.
"It's okay if you don't want to talk about it." His words fade away a little at the end while I submerge into the simulation.
It's dark all around me, and I can't see anything. I try to walk around, but I bump into something. It's cold and hard, and I realize it's a wall. I feel my way around the wall for any type of opening. I make my way around the whole room because I counted four corners, but there was no type of door or anything. Panic begins to set in when I realize I'm trapped in this pitch-black room.
I hear a chilling laugh come from behind me, and I jump. I turn around quickly, but I can't see a thing. Suddenly, I feel a breath on the back of my neck, and I freeze.
What am I supposed to do? I ask myself. I bring my elbow behind me with a strong force, but it doesn't hit anything. Then I hear banging on the walls all around me, and I cover my ears to make it stop. It grows louder and louder, and laughter fills the room as well. I hate the dark.
Desperate to get out of the simulation, I bring my fist to the wall, in hopes that I can punch through it. I make a little dent and punch it again and again, ignoring the pain in my fist. A stream of light pokes through the hole, and I begin crumbling the wall away to make the hole bigger. The noises stop when the darkness in the room is gone and filled with light, and then the whole room falls away.
I burst up in my fear landscape chair, breathing heavily. That was probably one of the scariest simulations yet.
"Scared of the dark, huh?" Four asks, and I swallow and nod at him. He smirks and lets me go without any other questions. I wipe my sweat off of my forehead and calm myself down. I remind myself that it's just a simulation. It's not real.
The fear of the landscape must have made me work up an appetite because nausea I felt earlier is gone and replaced with a rumbling stomach. I make my way to the cafeteria, not bothering to wait up for Uriah. Sometimes there is some leftover food for people who wake up later than the normal breakfast time.
When I walk into the cafeteria it lacks it's usual chaos and only about 2 or 3 people are there searching for food like me. I make my way over to the muffins and luckily they have five left, and two are blueberry which is my favorite. I take a muffin and a banana and walk to a table by myself. I've only eaten by myself once or twice since I've been here, and each time is unenjoyable. It's awkward and boring. I take a seat and carefully take a bite of my muffin, ensuring I won't make a mess.
"All by yourself initiate?" Eric asks from behind me. I hear him take a seat next to me, and I instinctively move closer to him.
"Yeah. I don't know where Roxxy is and Uriah is still in the fear simulation." I feel Eric tense up next to me. He snaps his head over to me and scowls.
"Uriah?" Eric whispers. What is up with people today? I look at him like he's crazy.
"Uh, yea. Why? Are you jealous or something?" I joke with him, but he doesn't lighten up at all. Instead, he looks at me curiously.
"How much of last night do you remember?" I laugh because it's definitely not a lot.
"Well, I remember the bar, but I don't know how I got home. I also have weird glimpses of… um… being in your apartment." I say the last part a little embarrassed. I don't know how I ended up in his apartment, but I have a terrible feeling I drunkenly went there and tried to seduce him or something. He doesn't say anything for a second. I look down at his hands and they're curled up in tight fists.
"And you talked to Uriah this morning?" he asks me, all casualty gone from his voice. He sounds like a leader, not the guy I kissed a few days ago.
"Yeah. What's up with you?" He bites down hard on his jaw and stares into my eyes.
"Uriah assaulted you last night. He started kissing you and you were too drunk to push him off. You kept telling him to stop but he never did. I saw what he was doing and pushed him off of you. I would have thrown him over the Chasm, but you didn't seem too fond of that," he informs me. I try hard to think of anything like that happening last night, and the more I think of it the more I remember Uriah grasp on me, and his lips against mine. I have a brief image of Eric dragging him towards the edge of the Chasm.
I look up at Eric in horror. How could Uriah act so casual today? As if nothing ever happened? I thought he was my friend.
"I gotta go. I should go talk to Uriah." I get up and walk away, feeling too sick to finish my breakfast. Eric doesn't oppose, which is surprising.
My blood is boiling at the thought of Uriah kissing me without my consent. He knew I was drunk. He knew I was helpless. I sink my nails into my palm and turn the corner to the fear landscape room. When I walk in, Uriah and one other girl are there. Uriah looks up at me and smiles, but it quickly falters when he catches sight of my expression.
"What's wrong?" he asks, but I don't answer. Instead, I walk up to him and punch him across the face, hard. His head hits the wall behind him. He looks up at me and holds his jaw, a startled expression on his face.
"What the fuck Lacy!" He leans his head back to stop the blood flow from his nose.
"That's what I would've done last night asshole. Don't ever talk to me again." I storm away towards the roof. I need to clear my thoughts, and although I haven't been there since gun training, the fresh air seems appealing. My hand is throbbing from the punch, and when I look at my knuckles, they are bright red. I shake it out and open the roof door.
The wind hits me immediately, and I wrap my arms around my body. I make my way over to the ledge and sit on it. This side of the roof is looking out at the abandoned part of the city. The tall buildings that are deemed useless by the factions. The houses and apartments that are apparently too run down to live in. I was always curious about what this city looked like before the war. It was probably bright and active. Everyone together as one, not afraid of being different. No restrictions on where to go or who to hang out with. If only I was alive then. Trent would be alive, Eric would be happy and I wouldn't live in fear. It's crazy to think how different things would be.
I don't leave the roof until the sun disappears behind the buildings and the wind picks up. I was probably up there for about six hours. It was rather therapeutic for me. I worked out any internal problems, such as insecurity about my ranking. I thought about Uriah, and if I will ever forgive him. But overall, I thought about Eric, as silly as that sounds. He pretty much consumes my thoughts nowadays. I just wish I knew what he thought of me, or us. If there even is an "us".
I walk down to the dorms instead of the cafeteria because I know Uriah would be there, and I'd rather not see him right now. I don't need to hear his excuses. While I was on the roof I briefly wondered whether or not I was overreacting just because all he did was kiss me, but then I realized I have no idea how far he would've gone if Eric wasn't there. He completely took advantage of the fact that I was drunk, and on top of that he didn't even say anything about it this morning, and I had to find out from Eric. So after reminding myself that, I definitely don't think I'm overreacting. I don't want friends that would do that to me. I just hope Roxxy and Zeke understand. If not, then I guess I'll be on my own, but I'm certain Roxxy will be on my side. Obviously I don't expect Roxxy to become enemies with Uriah, I just hope she hangs out with me over him. The only reason she hung out with him anyway was that he was Zeke's brother and my friend.
I reach the dorms and everyone's gone to dinner. I go to my bunk and attempt to get comfortable. After a couple of nights in Eric's comfortable bed, this bed doesn't give me the same satisfaction. Right before getting cozy enough to fall asleep, I see Four's large figure towering over my bunk.
"Yes?" I ask him, sounding a little short.
"Hey, I just wanted to check-in and make sure you were okay. We didn't get to talk much earlier. I just wanted to say that in Dauntless, we don't tolerate sexual assault, so if you want Uriah to be punished for what he did, the leadership team will review the case and discuss the proper penalty for him."
Wow. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal, especially in Dauntless. It just seems like a lot of men here are pigs, and I wouldn't expect Dauntless to do anything about them.
"Um. I don't know. I don't think that will be necessary. I think Uriah learned his lesson." Four raises his eyebrows at me. I hate it when he does that. It means he either pities me or doubts me. I hate both of those things.
"You sure? It might put you at ease-" he starts.
"I am at ease Four. It happened, I dealt with it, and now I would rather not deal with it anymore. He got more hurt than I did." He nods his head. It's true. Uriah suffered a lot more pain than I did. I'm not so affected that I got assaulted more so than who I got assaulted by. I just can't believe Uriah, my supposed friend, did that to me. It makes me wonder what people I don't even know could do to me.
I forgot for a second that Four was there until he shifted a little on his feet. I must have gotten completely lost in my thoughts.
"You didn't answer my other question. Are you okay?" Four asks me. I don't really want to talk about my feelings to Four. That's the last thing I want to do right now. I just don't want this whole thing to distract me from initiation. I want it to be over.
"I am completely 100% fine. I just want some sleep." Four gets the message and leaves without another word.
Now my brain is buzzing with thoughts of what happened and I try to replace them with thoughts of life after initiation. I want to score high enough to get a good job far far away from the fence. I want a job that's exciting and interesting. I want to use my training methods in my job rather than work in the Pit as a hairdresser or something like that. That means I'll most likely be a patrol guard. Four briefly explained that these guards go around the city patrolling and making sure everything is in order. They are mostly looking out for factionless though. The factionless are the most feared in this city just because people are scared of the misfits and what they're capable of. Personally I feel bad for them. I don't think anyone deserves to be put on the streets without much to survive. It seems overly cruel.
After about an hour of being alone with my thoughts in the dorm room, people slowly start shuffling in and getting ready for bed. I shut my eyes tightly in hopes of nobody bothering me. I'd rather not talk to anyone right now.
That is until I heard Roxxy's voice. I shot up immediately. I meet her eyes and she looks devastated. Her eyes are drooped down and her eyebrows hang low. The corners of her lips are turned down into a frown. My heart drops thinking about what it could be.
"Hey Rox! What happened? Where were you?" I ask her, and she takes a seat next to me in the bed. Then she crumbles over in her lap and starts sobbing. I'm unsure of what to do, so I just rub her back and hug her slightly.
"He's gone, Lacy. Zeke is gone," she says, barely getting it out. She cries, heavy sobs coming out of her. I'm still processing what she just said. Zeke is... gone?