"So, you and Eric huh?"
Liam is driving me to Amity in the overly large truck. I would've argued more on taking a less intimidating vehicle to a land of peace-mongers, but I suppose the dogs would appreciate the window view and not being cramped with all their stuff.
I didn't actually think Eric would've agreed to my request of having Liam with me – the only reason being because he's the only person I know; hence, I sent a request to Veronica. Personally, I would've preferred Eric to come instead; he is capable of driving trucks too. However, Liam's presence would be vital if I'm going to have the dogs pick up their own food in the morning.
At this point in time, I no longer see a reason to blush and beat around the bush. "What about it?"
He is taken aback, jaws falling for a split second at my seemingly frank answer before composing himself.
Liam is dressed smartly today. He dones the standard Dauntless jacket and cargo pants while I'm in a black tee and three-quarter pants. His blond hair is gelled up at the front and the sun is dancing across his face. Steely blue eyes, long lashes and slightly curved nose meticulously arranged onto the canvas that is his face. A looker, he is, faintly tanned and all.
His adam's apple bobs in my peripheral. "I think…", it bobs again, "it's nice that he found someone." It's almost like it was the most difficult thing he had ever said, judging by how he straightened his back and cleared his throat afterwards.
What his intentions are, I'm not sure. Eric is amazing, but I vaguely understand why he's acting like this. My eyes narrow onto the dashboard in front of me, hackles raised. "It is," I reply coolly. "He's nice."
His eyes widen marginally in surprise. "Then why me?" He blurts.
My head turns and cocks to the side to get a better view of him. "Why what?"
He clears his throat and clarifies, "why am I driving you to Amity instead?"
Ah. Veronica didn't tell him then.
I reply his question with another. "What do you know right now? About this?"
He shrugs, rubbing his neck while keeping the other hand on the steering wheel. "I honestly have no idea. Veronica told me this morning that I'll be driving you to Amity today. Something about picking up some stuff. And then after that, I get threaten-" His eyes pop as he realizes what he almost said. "I mean, I was given the day off if I help you with this. So I said yes. Plus, you're cool to be with. I mean, it'll be nice to have a change of scenery. Don't get me wrong, I would've said yes if it was anyone else." He blabbers off in embarrassment.
An ear-splitting grin spreads across my face, having really only caught wind of the part where he doesn't know what he's picking up. "You're from Candor right?"
He frowns in confusion. "Yeah….?"
It won't be long till I see his dumbfounded expression. "Then it wouldn't be too bad." Candor is the second faction with the highest pet population.
"What?" He splutters.
I chuckle at his growing apprehension. "Nothing."
As we slip back into silence, I begin to analyze what Liam said moments ago. So he was threatened; by Eric, no doubt. I should be surprised that Eric found out Liam's fetching me, yet I'm really not. But I am surprised that he didn't just ask Veronica to reject my request the moment he got the news.
As much as I appreciate Eric not invading my space, heisinvading my space. His actions are confusing, in the sense that he didn't have Liam swapped out when he clearly doesn't like the poor Dauntless soldier.
Letting out a sigh, I push Eric's interference to the back of my head. It's not a big deal anyways.
I miss home.
My windows are down before the gate shuts behind us. It is a cloudy day, the kind of perfect weather where I'll spend all day out with my dogs. I have half the mind to tell Liam to just drop me off here so I can walk all the way to the barn. He shouldn't mind such a request, after all, he would have to explain to Eric if he decides to leave me.
At that moment, my phone pings, breaking my train of thought. I pull it from the side of the door. It's 'Mine ;)'.
Arrived?
"Is that maroon? Man, I think I've only seen like, one other person with that colour."
"Really?" I ask distractedly. "How so?" Just got through the gates, maybe 5 more minutes.
"For starters, maroon phones are not sold at Dauntless, or anywhere really. The stores here only have black, the colour of our faction." Don't let Liam leave without you. I don't think I can handle three dogs and an idiot alone. "So, when did you get that? Didn't you just become a member a few days ago?"
There are butterflies in my stomach. Really? I think you'll be surprise at the extent of their abilities, I text back."Err. Two days ago I think. Eric gifted it to me."
"Wow. That's nice of him." Never mind their abilities, it's not them I want.
I look out through the window, a small smile on my lips. Not going to lie, I am liking this new side of Eric. The slight playful possessiveness is making my insides fuzzy. I'm starting to regret not asking Eric to bring me here instead. "He is."
My phone dings again. Or need. ;)
How does one become a smooth texter?
"Why are there dogs tailing us?" Liam suddenly says nervously, eyes darting between the road in front and the rear view mirror. "Does Amity just have their canines running around every where? How are they even keeping up with the truck? We're going at 25 miles an hour!"
Sure enough, my dogs are tailing the truck with Sabre as the lead. I wonder whether John was taking them out for their morning exercise. "Theoretically, they can run up to 30 miles; not that I've tested their speeds."
The barn is coming into view. Johanna agreed two days ago that I'll pick up their belongings here. "Wait, they're yours?" Liam's voice turns into an alarmed shrill; surprising, for a man. "Are we picking them up? Since when can you have pets in Dauntless?" It had conveniently slipped my mind that perhaps not every transfer shares the same likening to animals. Maybe I should've pre-empted him earlier.
"You can't, at least, not yet." Not that he would take up the opportunity when given, it appears. "I went to Max for permission to bring them over."
The truck rolls to a stop. "Oh." Blood drains from his face as the dogs approach the vehicle.
I cringe and grab hold of the door handle, slipping my phone into my pocket. "You can stay here actually, I just need to transport their stuff and we can go."
He nods immediately and jerks away from me when a silver furry head pops through the window. "Yep, yep. You don't need any help, do you?" His voice is strained, so much that I can practically hear him screaming 'please say no'.
My hand instinctively reaches to the back of my panting dog's ear. "Oh hi Sabre. Whatchu doing here? You saw me far away?" I turn back to Liam, voice briefly returning to its normal pitch. "Yep, no worries. John will help move the stuff."
Two more heads pop on each side of Sabre's, tongue lolling as they greet me. "Hi boys." I angle my body completely towards them, my hands cupping each individual and crunching their face. "Did you guys leave John far, far behind? That's not nice, you know he hates snakes." I grab the door handle. "X'cuse me, I need to get out. We need to look for- Sabre." My fingers go to his opening jaws. "No need to howl. You're gonna start a howling session."
If a dog could pout, this would be it. "Sabre; hey, Sabre. How are you even doing this when you ran a good mile?" The dog stops and stares at me for a moment before his mouth opens wide again and he's panting. "Alright, move it. I need to get out." If I don't get the dogs away from the door, I'm pretty sure the truck will go up by a few degrees with the amount of panting they are doing.
Maybe I should've waited for them to calm down a bit before exiting the vehicle.
Currently I'm lying on my back, not staring at the blue sky, but at three smelly snouts. Why does it even surprise me that Sabre and Gunner would take any opportunity to knock me down? Obviously, it's not on purpose; well, I hope it's not. But when two dogs who's combined weight exceeds your ownandsimultaneously wants to see you at eye level, there's not much you can do except submit to your unfortunate fate.
Liam's shrill voice flits over the pants. "On second thought. I think I'll come and help you."
I jerk up, throwing my arms around my dogs to give myself leverage to sit up. "No no, it's fine. I can manage." Surely he didn't see me ungracefully take a tumble right? Blood rushes to my face.
His following words are strained and constipated. "I insist. I just remembered something." Ah; so this must be involuntary then. The audible sound of the opening vehicle door registers to my ears, making me hastily scramble to my feet and pat off the dried grass.
Giving the wagging mess more pats, I subtly push them aside as I trudge towards the barn. "Their stuff is in the barn. It'll be definitely more than four boxes." Suddenly remembering my dog's caretaker, I look over my shoulder. There's a silhouette running to us; three limp ropes hanging from his left shoulder. I feel guilty for not asking Liam to back-track to pick up John on the way.
"Your dogs… my goodness." Is the first thing John rasps when he's five feet from me. By now, the dogs have all gotten a good fill of water from the horse troughs and are staring at John in unintentional innocence. "They practically just left me! Me! Their babysitter for a month – the moment they caught a whiff of you! Not even seen or heard you, a WHIFF!" He points accusingly at my canines. "Unbelievable!" He shoves the snap-release leashes to me and stumbles into the barn, grumbling something incoherent.
As much as I do feel bad that the dogs left John in the dust, I'm also glad that they picked me over him, even after abandoning them for Dauntless. "So… what have you been up to lately?" I ask, turning my heel to follow him.
At this, John straightens up and turns to me, all resentment earlier non-existent. Then he gestures to the room near the staircase – the same room I had manufactured the dogs. "Your dogs have been a tremendous help to us. You have no idea how horrified Johanna was when you called the other day to collect the dogs so quickly." He chuckles; I cringe. "Though she did already voiced that she would like to have a permanent set of helping paws, she wasn't quite ready to let go of the boys yet."
He moves over to the computer attached to the machine, clicking files. "So you've been hunting through the genes bank for her?" He pulls up multiple screens of dog breeds, all of which are large in size and in the working group.
"Not quite, I've just been narrowing down the choices for her. Was hoping you could provide some insight before your dad processes the finalised product. She wants something that represents the faction and has the same work ethic as yours." He moves over as I look through the selections.
"Where will it be staying?" I enquire. "There's a foster mom available?"
Whether lab-grown or not, puppies are puppies; and no human can teach a pup the ropes to life like a canine mother.
"The dog will be staying with her. She's been figuring out the ropes of caring for a dog. Gunner has the most patience when she's fumbling around. The other two tend to get restless after a while. One of the farmers' females are expecting in one and a half months, he assured us that the female will be able to take in a few more."
So there's more than one dog? "A few?" I press.
John's ears turn visible pink. "Well… I planning to get a dog as well…" He shuffles on his feet.
I turn back to the screen, removing the bullmastiff from the list. "Why the change of heart? My dogs have been here for two years and only now you're deciding to get one?" Mastiff, Leonberger, Newfoundland, Greater Swiss Mountain dog and Bernese Mountain dog; John has definitely done his research. I highly doubt that we would have the genome of a Leonberger.
"Is it there a girl involved?" I'm happy for him. It's about time he stop making work his main priority.
The audible sound of him shuffling his feet more bounces around the room. "Maybe…"
I decide not to press, changing the subject to the task at hand. "There." The list has been narrowed down to two breeds. "The Mastiff is lower in maintenance and somewhat quieter, just need to be careful when around other dogs. The Bernese on the other hand, definitely more grooming required but it's easier to train and calmer in general. And yours?"
"I'm planning for a Frenchie", he says. I almost want to ask if he decided that or she did, because I never took John for liking small breeds.
"Good choice."
The first thing that catches my eye when we exit the room is something in Sabre's mouth. Pinky – a pink unicorn specially made for Sabre when he went crazy seeing it in a movie over a year ago – was hanging limping in the big canine's jaws, extended out to a bordering petrified Liam. Sabre rarely lets anyone touch Pinky, much less share it. "Please help." The big bad Dauntless says, never keeping his eyes off the dog.
"He's offering it to you!" Sabre is standing between Liam and the untouched boxes, I wonder how long he's been standing there like an ice cube.
"How do you know he's not going to bite me!" He yells back. I hear a fake cough beside me and side glare at John.
A sigh escapes my lips and I stroll over to Liam. "Then he won't be offering it to you, or be wagging his tail." I grab the toy from Sabre and push it to Liam. "Look at it and give it back. He wants to show you how it cute it looks." There are multiple large boxes and a cooler bag. I turn to John and bend down, "these will last the week?" Inside the cooler bag contains at least ten tubes of what I assume is pressed meat and other produce.
My cousin sidles up to me and pulls out a tube. "Yep. Planning to get these produced in a wider scale. Now that meat is being produced at a faster rate, I think we can afford to export these to the other factions. Of course, we will see the response from Amity first. Farmers may not be willing to pay a higher price for raw food, since dry food is much less of a hassle."
"You could speak to Johanna to offer it for free?" After all, even the feed for the meat comes from Amity. However, I am uneducated on how trade works, so it may not be a good idea for it to be free. "I think Candor will be willing to put in the money though. They tend to love their pets more than we do." I side glance to Liam; he's stretching out his hand to see if he could touch the dog like it's an alien. "Well… most of them."
Johanna dropped by as we were loading the truck with supplies. I did give her a more detailed explanation on the dog breeds John chose and why I narrowed down the list. Liam on the other hand seemed to be warming up to Sabre and Hawk, after I reassured him multiple times that my dogs won't attack him like in the aptitude test. I can already foresee that this will be an issue once they arrive at the compound.
"Aren't you afraid that they'll jump out of the window?" Liam asks curiously, any previous apprehension slowly fading as time ticks on. Sabre and Hawk have their heads stuck out on the window behind Liam while Gunner has his own space. The only thing they're wearing is their standard collar with their names attached.
I lift a shoulder and roll up my window once we passed the gates, ignoring the confused faces of the guards when seeing dogs being transported in their faction's vehicle. "No, not really. They don't really have a reason to jump out," unless they see a squirrel maybe. "Why were you so afraid of them? Was it just because of the dog in the aptitude test?"
For a long time, I don't get a reply, which made me think he didn't hear me. So, I decide to text Skylar and Eric my arrival time. Skylar had me swore that she would be among the first people to welcome the dogs, even threatening me that she would spill the beans of me and Eric if I were to magically forget. Normally, I would've purposely defy a demand just because I have the right and also because I'm pretty sure some people already know about us, but then again, it would be nice to be normal once in a while.
"I guess back in Candor, all of the dogs were much smaller. Literally the largest dog I've seen back then only came up to your dogs' back. Most of the time, they are one-third the size."
Makes sense. "Ah. Most of the time, the smaller the dog, the crazier they are." Which is why Amity have larger dogs. Imagine the peace-lovers attempting to handle a crazed missile while maintain their smiley composure; definitely a sight to see.
"Yeah, your dogs seem pretty cool. What are their names?" Just as he says that, a furry head pokes out between us.
Gunner looks to me with his ears perked, his long tongue hanging out as he demands for pets. My hand goes to the back of his ear. "To start, this is Gunner. He's the calmest among the trio, has a knack for pulling wagons too. He's not as people friendly as Hawk, but he'll do. Yea boy?" The dog only tilts his head in response. "Aren't you just the cutest one." Both hands move to mush his face. "Just a big baby at heart aren't you? You want to pull more wagons? I'm sure Liam here wouldn't mind your help."
At this, the aforementioned person splutters. "Sorry what? Pull wagons? To do what? Does Veronica know about this?"
"Yep. Or moving trolleys, should work as well if you don't have them."
"When?" He sounds pretty apprehensive at the thought of this friendly dog decreasing his workload.
"Mmm… I think Max told her."
He blanks, stupefied. "Ah."
Even from yards away, Skylar is visibly bubbling with excitement. Eric texted me earlier that he'll only be back from Erudite in another hour or so. I do my best to be optimistic about his late arrival, telling myself that him being in the same vicinity of Skylar will definitely not go down well.
"Who's that?" Liam asks, shifting the gear to a reverse.
I cringe. "Err, well, that's my friend. Same initiation group." By now, the dogs have awaken from their nap and are peering curiously at the rolled up windows. "Stay."
The crazed animalistic roar of 'WHERE ARE THE OVERGROWN PUPPIES' could be heard clearly from the outside of the truck. Skylar is racing towards the truck with her arms swinging wildly in the air.
I panickily turn to Liam, "lock the doors." It would do absolutely no good if the Skylar threw the door open and the curiosity of being in a new place overcomes the command I gave the dogs.
By the time the truck comes to complete stop, Skylar's face is inches from the window and her eyes are huge. I sent a desperate prayer to the gods above that Skylar won't do anything unintelligent.
With that, I'm clambering out of the vehicle at lightspeed with three concerned – or confused – pairs of brown eyes on me. But despite all my effort, Skylar still manages to beat me to speak. "They look so cuteeee and adorable and scary and friendly. ! I love it!" she squeals, practically jumping on the spot as everyone else gives her weird looks. "Can I pet them? Please, please can I pet them?"
Moving to the trunk, I dragged out the box labelled as 'accessories'. "Sure. Just give me a moment," I grunt.
She peers curiously over my hunched form as I pull out their work vests, leashes and loop muzzles. "What's that for?"
"I'm leashing them." Mostly for their safety, not so much the general populations'. In the event a dog falls off the cliff, I don't want for them to be clinging onto dear life by their necks, hence the vests.
Skylar, surprisingly, wisely chooses not to push on the topic; or perhaps she's just too fascinated by how Gunner willingly slips on his equipment.
"Here, this is Gunner." I extend the leash that is three-quarters the length of the dog's body to her as he hops down from the truck. "You can play with him until I'm done with the other two." Gunner eyes me questioningly, but I force myself to relax and pat him on the head as reassurance. Maybe I should've leashed Hawk first, Gunner is a teeny weeny bit aloof with strangers.
Though I didn't turn to look, I knew Skylar had dropped to a squat by the way she was talking in a babyish tone to him. A tone that uncannily… resembles… mine.
"They look more majestic in real life," a resonant voice approaches behind me.
Only when Hawk jumps down do I face Veronica. "They are. Thanks so much for agreeing on this."
"It's no problem. May I?" She gestures to an excited Hawk; he's such a sucker for attention.
Draping the leash across his back, I reply, "sure."
I keep my focus trained on the dogs, feeling intensely nervous about how the rest of Dauntless will react. Yes, Skylar and Veronica seem to already fallen in love with them, but the fact that no one else has come up to greet them means something. And I hope that this will only be temporary.
A/N
I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Because I definitely did enjoy writing it.
Thank you all for your support :) Waking up to an email saying that someone has favourited/followed my story really brings a smile to my face, especially when online classes are a drain.