Chapter Eighteen
Tobias lingers around the dorm while the initiates get ready hurriedly, looking horribly uncomfortable in a room full of half-naked teenagers — at least some part of his Abnegation upbringing has stayed with him over the past two years. So, to alleviate the awkwardness thickening in the air, he barks out orders. "Initiates, be in the training room in fifteen! If you are not there, you will be docked a significant amount of points. Lateness will not be tolerated. Doors will be locked. We don't have extra credit here — this isn't Erudite. Get your shit together."
Christina pokes my arm, urging me to move, but I only shake my head. She sighs, assuming that my Abnegation modesty is what is stopping me from showering with everyone else — it isn't, not entirely at least. Once she decides to join the rest for breakfast, muttering something about not knowing where the training room is, I sigh and wait for the room to clear out before pulling my shirt over my head. Tobias kindly averts his eyes.
"I brought you some waterproof bandages for your shower," he murmurs, an adorable, light pink blush spreading across his cheeks as he holds the bag out to me. I take it, face burning, and head towards the bathroom, glad to have it to myself.
The cold water stings against my skin, as if acid is spewing from the grimy faucet. I shiver and finish quickly, eager to get out of there, and when I emerge, wrapped in a scratchy towel, Tobias is sitting on my bed, facing the wall, a brown muffin in his hand. I clear my throat quietly, notifying him of my presence.
"There's a fresh bandage roll in your supply box," he tells me, his voice thick and husky. It sends tingles through my stomach. He stands, back rigid and to me, before setting the muffin down on my bed. "The gauze should last a week or so, and after that you shouldn't need it. You won't have time for breakfast before training, but you should eat this. I'll let you get dressed, now."
"Wait." He freezes, and my breaths come out shallow. "I… I can't put the bandages on properly by myself. I don't… want them coming undone in training."
"That would be bad," he agrees, gingerly taking his seat facing the wall again and reaching for the roll of bandages under my bed. He is tense and uneasy, just like I am. I gulp and clench my fists, eyes glued to the back of his head, before dropping the towel and pulling on my underwear. He's just as uncomfortable as I am. This is ridiculous! We aren't doing anything we haven't done before, that we didn't do last night. But it feels different now.
He turns around when I brush his shoulder with my fingertips, a hard look in his eye — it's not harsh or cold, but defensive, like I'm someone he needs protection from. Maybe I am, but whether we like it or not, so is he. And, at the same time, we are each other's protectors.
Eyes glued to my face, Tobias fumbles with the bandages, the lump in his throat bobbing up and down as he swallows. I twist the ends of my hair idly, waiting for him to say something. It seems as though he is waiting for me to do the same.
He clears his throat and gestures with his hand. "Can you…"
"Oh!" I exclaim, embarrassment growing, and turn so my back is facing him. My face burns under the skin, glowing a bright red, and I bury it in my hands. "Sorry."
"S'okay," he mumbles, taking a step towards me. His warmth draws nearer, and my spine straightens, jolted by the electricity shooting between us.
The second his fingertips brush my shoulder, I relax. The fiery current is gone, replaced by a pleasant calm that envelopes me. It is the feeling of Tobias being close to me, the feeling of safety: and, mixed together with the dangerous passion of Four, the feeling is entirely overwhelming.
A small, low gasp escapes his lips, and I know he feels the same.
I don't dare turn around.
"I'm just going to reapply, okay?" I nod mutely, voice long gone, as his fingers expertly smooth the soft fabric across my back. I hiss quietly as the pain flares up, and he murmurs apologies and reassurances in my ear as he works.
As the last bandage tightens, he presses a kiss to the back of my head. For a moment, I am reminded of my mother's kisses, and the fuzzy feeling spreads throughout my body. I sigh softly, the gentle exhale of air mixing with the sound of his heavy breaths. "All done?"
"All done," he says, hands resting against my shoulder blades. We stand in silence for a heartbeat or two, perfectly in sync. Then, as his eyes find the projected clock on the wall, he straightens, face becoming stoic once more. His Four face. "I have to go set up the training room. Get… dressed, eat the muffin and meet me down there."
His voice is cold, authoritative, but the minuscule stutter doesn't elude me. A small frown works its way onto my face, and I nod solemnly. "I'll be there."
Tobias nods and makes for the door, the muscles in his back tense against the thin shirt covering them. He pauses in the doorway and turns to face me, not looking me in the eye. I watch him, curious. Flushed, he raises his gaze to mine. "I… do you know how to get to the training room?"
The training room is a cold, square room with grey, stony walls and a red ring in the centre of it. Lining the walls, maroon bags filled with sand hang from the bars along the ceiling, beckoning us towards them with their bandaged knuckles. We stand off to the side, silent, as Eric and Tobias flip through sheets of paper locked into clipboards, an air of undiscussed hostility hovering between them.
"Wonder what that story is," Christina mutters, jerking her head towards our instructors. I clench my jaw, guilt rising inside of me as her eyes fall on Tobias. It was so much easier to keep our… association from her when she didn't know he existed.
"Probably nothing," I reply quietly, picking at my nails. Her eyes narrow, but she doesn't say anything else. Lark tugs at the sleeve of her shirt, whispering something in her ear, and she laughs softly, gaze falling on the Erudite boy, Will, as he attempts a flying kick at the punching bag.
Eric's stony glare shuts them all up.
"Children," he hisses, sauntering towards us. I hold back a snort — he's, maybe, two years older than the initiates. His head swerves to find me, as though he can read my mind, and lingers there for a moment before returning to the group.
"Today is the first day of your training here in Dauntless. It is the first day of the rest of your lives, or, for most of you, the first day of something you will never get back. I want all of you to imagine something for me: the factionless sector, cold, bare, a life of depending on others for the simplest of needs. And, based on your choice of faction, I can assume that I have just described your worst nightmare." He pauses, and as he grins, the rings in his eyebrow stretch out, an abyss leading inside of him. "Come a few weeks, you will be living it."
There is a concealed eloquence in his speech, as though he is actively trying to hide it. The threats in his voice almost succeed in covering it, though, and the atmosphere of the room disintegrates into one of panicked memory and stress. Eric smirks, soaking up the anxiety coming from the initiates. That's better, I can almost hear him think. Nausea rises in my stomach.
Tobias steps forward, a deep frown engraved in his face. "What Eric is trying to say is that, from here, it's only hard work that will carry you. The Dauntless-born have had their whole lives to train for this moment… and though I'm sure some of you have prepared in advance, a lot of you are fish out of water in Dauntless. Only you won't have time to learn how to walk before you need to run."
My chest tightens as he practically calls me out in front of Eric and the other initiates. His eyes linger on me for a moment before they cross to the large, muscly Erudite boy who was comforting the crying girl on the train. Tobias saunters towards him and claps him on the shoulder.
"Edward here has been training for years, or so I've heard. This isn't against the rules — we admire preparedness here in Dauntless. But it does mean that the rest of you need to step up your game." This time he doesn't look in my direction, but a fuzzy feeling envelopes me as I realize that he's trying to calm my nerves. He's trying to remind me that I've been training, too — that I will be a force to be reckoned with.
Eric glowers at Tobias, straightening his spine as though to seem larger. Tobias merely smirks at him, well-aware that they are standing in this room as equals: two Dauntless leaders, one ruthless, one honourable. In the end, it is clear who wins.
But when Eric turns his glare onto me, he falters.
Tobias composes himself quickly enough that no one notices but me — and that's only because I can't take my eyes off of him — stepping in front of the large, piercing man. "Initiates, you will learn two things today. The first is how to wield your body. The second is how to wield a gun." His voice doesn't waver when he says the last word, but the hard look in his eyes does; it's so subtle, so hidden that only I can see it, only the person who knows this boy and his body like her own. Because I'm here, the girl whose mother died of a gunshot wound, the girl who watched him fire the weapon through hazy, half-gone eyes.
For the rest of the lesson, he doesn't look my way.
Two hours later, the skin on my palms is peeling, and the stench of sweat is all I can smell around me. I keel over, panting against my knees. Christina's feet disappear from my view as she pulls her body up, fingers dangling precariously from the metal bar holding her weight. As I straighten, she catches my eye and warns me silently to continue, as Eric has been making his rounds for the last twenty minutes, ramming his steel-toed work boots into the idle initiates' sides.
I drop to the ground, catching myself on my elbows and lifting my body up, dropping down, lifting up. My muscles burn, and the fire that runs down my back is like a fissure through the earth, tearing it in two and leaving hollow, endless pain in its wake. The sheer torture of it makes my elbows buckle, and my face hits the ground forcefully.
Christina gasps, dropping down to check on me, and Lark runs over from the weights. I pull myself up, assuring them that I am fine and just embarrassed (because I am, so, so embarrassed) when a heavy shadow falls over me. Silently, I pray that it's Tobias — please, please let it be Tobias…
One would think that with as many people watching over me from above as I have, at least some of my prayers would be answered.
Eric sneers at me. If anyone could make a smile look as menacing as a lion baring its teeth, it's him. "Initiate," he snarls, bulging arms crossed over his wide chest. "Last I checked, nap time was only for the primary levels."
I hold back an insolent snort, instead painting a remorseful expression onto face. "I'll get back to work right away, sir," I tell him confidently but respectfully, swallowing back the bile that rises in my throat. Apparently, he can't find anything wrong with my reply, so he just clicks his teeth against the metal ball protruding from his tongue and turns his attention away. My terrified heart attempts to slow, but the sideways glances he sends in my direction every now and then keeps it at a steady high.
Just as I think I'm about to collapse from pain and exertion again, Tobias calls lunch. Christina groans in relief, picking herself up out of the sweat puddle on the floor where she was doing sit-ups. "After that workout, I'm going to need some serious carbs," she jokes, picking up Lark by the armpits and setting him on his feet. I lean my elbows against the wall, trying desperately to catch my breath, waiting for the fire raging on my back to calm.
"You coming, Tris?" Chris asks me, and just as I'm about to answer, Tobias cuts in.
"I need to speak with you, initiate," he interrupts, low and authoritative. Christina's eyes widen, and she backs up a few steps before throwing a concerned look my way. I put on a mask of fear and nod 'hesitantly' at her — in truth, I couldn't think of anything I would rather do than speak to him. But of course, I would never tell her that. She turns slowly, making her way out of the room, seeming as though she feels like she is leaving me to be eaten by ravenous wolves.
As Eric had to leave early for a meeting, Tobias and I are alone in the training room. He doesn't speak at first, merely marching towards the door and bolting it in place, then over to his bag and fishing out his tablet, typing furiously into it before shoving it back in, donning a placated expression.
Finally, he returns to my side, and the hard look on his face dissolves completely. Suddenly, his arms form a cage around me — not a restrictive cage, but a safe, familiar one that keeps out the bad of the world. And when my arms tighten around his middle, they do the same for him.
"It hurts," I whisper pathetically into his chest. He doesn't laugh at me, or pity me.
"I know," he simply replies instead, because it's true — he does know. He's the only one who does. "I wish I could take all your pain away."
"I know," I reply. That same wish has been running through my head for the last seven years, since I first saw him in the factionless sector. But I don't tell him, because he knows. He's always known.
He hesitates. "After lunch, it's guns."
I swallow loudly. "Yeah."
"Are you…" he trails off, pulling away from me and scratching behind his ear nervously. "Are you going to be okay?"
"It depends on what you mean by okay, Tobias."
He doesn't seem to have an answer to that.
"I'll learn the same as everyone else," I reassure him. "I'll pretend nothing ever happened… before."
He still stays silent. Annoyance flares in my chest.
"I'll act like I've seen a gun before," I spit. "I'll act like I've seen someone die in front of me. I'll act like I've never been betrayed like that before."
His face crumbles, falls apart into discernible pieces that no one would ever be able to put together, but I still continue. I don't know why I do, but it's like everything I've been keeping inside just flows out like a dam's burst.
"I'll act like my best friend, who I loved, didn't murder my mother—"
"Bea-Tris," he chokes out, sobs falling from him like vomit from a drunk's mouth. Suddenly I freeze, realizing what's been said, what's been done, what can and cannot be taken back. And I reach out my arms, hoping he will take hold of them, but he doesn't, and everything looks darker, like there's a lens over my eyes.
The pain I felt a minute ago doesn't compare to the pain I feel now.
So I turn on my heels, eyes dry as the crumpled-up leaves littering the train tracks, and wrench the deadbolt up, slamming the heavy door to the training room behind me, a silent promise to never return floating in my dust, gearing itself up to be broken.
A/N: Okay... let me have it. I know, I'm a real jerk. But hey, it was time for some more angst! Our poor little Tris just can't help herself, can she? Well, that's all for now. Reviews really do make my day, but I appreciate you just taking the time to read my work. Thanks!
Lots of love, theartlessrose xoxo