Some ideas are mine. Everything else belongs to Veronica Roth

Stars, Sam Airey

Nash dashed towards me, grabbing the gun from my hands and tossing it to the side.

His hand reached out to touch me and I swatted it away. I needed help, sure. But it would take a lot more than a helping hand to make me want to have anything to do with him.

"Damn it, Theo. stop being so fucking stubborn-" He started at me, eyes hard and angry.

"You're one to talk, you pretentious prick," I snapped back, standing my ground. I hoped for a little bit of anger from him. Something to grind his gears. But no, he looked a me for a moment and then the side of his lips lifted into smile. Haley dashed next to him and the other guy in the hallway followed her. I've never seen his face before and didn't care who he was. The only thought that ran through my mind was that his first opinion of me was me a stumbling, shot idiot.

My knees buckled a bit and Nash dashed to my side, holding me up by his shoulder. This time, I didn't oppose. The all too familiar smell of firewood was prominent once he was close enough for me to touch.

"She needs Deacon," Haley added, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Nash's eyes narrowed in thought. "RJ, keep watch. If anyone asks, I felt sick,"

He deepened his voice, becoming serious. The vibrations of his chest were felt against mine and I couldn't help myself from biting the inside of my lip. I was supposed to dislike him at the moment, hate him even, for being opaque about himself to someone who placed part of her life in his callused hands. But, as hard as I've tried, I can't repress the emotions racing through my body being near him again.

"You saw nothing, don't forget that," He spoke with authority and received a crisp nod in response.

"Where are we going?" I asked as we began to walk down the faintly lit hallways. My right hand clutched the wound in my side.

"Deacon does work on anyone who got badly injured and doesn't want to go to the main medics. They have to keep track of all your injuries and file reports on them. He keeps his jobs secret," Haley spoke from in front of us.

"How do you know about him?" I let out through clenched teeth, repressing pain.

She turned to me gave a half smile, as though trying to lighten the mood.

"Do you honestly think I was almost murdered only twice?"

I laughed at the response, considering it made complete sense.

"He's my friend," Nash added as we turned down a hallway. "He's good at what he does,"

We made out way to a door and Nash set me against the way, gently. His hands moved my hair out of my face, as if on instinct, and his gaze met mine. Haley was too busy knocking on the door to notice the moment between us. "I always knew you would do this," He murmured.

"What? End up with you again?" I bit out, nails digging into my palm out of confusion within myself.

He shook his head, smile dancing on his lips. "No. Fight through pain others would die from," His fingers wiped away the blood on my cheekbone. "You're a fire that won't go out and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,"

The door whipped open next to us, but neither us us turned. We just stared at each other, as I felt rage coupled with affection boil in my skin. I leaned against the wall for more support, as my body was trying to process the onset of feelings it was attacked with.

"Haley? What are you doing-" A male voice asked from inside. Nash moved under me again and we took Haley's place. In the doorway, stood a very tall and very lean guy with platinum blonde hair flopped over his forehead. He was shirtless, his entire upper body covered in colorful array of tattoos.

He rubbed his eyes and got a good look at the situation in front of him and instead of questioning it, he simply moved to the side, allowing us in. "I'm grabbing the alcohol," He murmured, walking barefoot along the wooden floors.

"He's going to drink while trying to cut me open?"

Nash helped me walk to a spare bed off towards the right of the room, where I sat down slowly. He crouched down in front of me and worked with the zipper of my jacket. "It's for you," His eyes flicked up to mine. "It's a poor man's anesthesia,"

"Funny," I let him unzip my jacket. He froze when he got to bandages. I looked down and saw the blood had seeped through even more, staining even the bottom of the white sports bra. Not going to lie, I'm pretty impressed with how I'm handling this. Nash swallowed and slowly pushed my jacket off my shoulders and down my arms.

"Careful," I warned, nodding to my left arm. He noticed the hole in my jacket and ever so slightly tugged from my wrist down, letting the sleeve loose. The garment fell behind me, and I suddenly felt freezing. I felt goosebumps flood up my neck, across my pale arms, even along the tops of my fingers.

I looked down at Nash. All the light-heartedness was gone. He looked at my body, shattering the preconception that it was impossible for something to hurt the fearless Theodora Eaton. He was facing the result of his fear, me being shot and it was almost as though he was surprised I could bleed.

A door opened next to us. A girl, maybe 2-3 years older than us, walked out in an oversized black sweatshirt and no pants. She yawned, looked over at us, and kept walking, her pale pink hair bobbing with each step she took. I've seen that hair before, walking around the Pit, normally during the nighttime and always with a drink in her hand. We've never actually met. If anything, the only thing I can be certain of is that I think she hung around with Xander a few times

"How many days since our last accident?" She spoke, grabbing a bottle of water off of the table in the center of the room.

"I thought we stopped counting," Haley walked in from an attached room, with a large clear box with filled with tubes and tools I've never seen before. The girl froze when Haley spoke, bottle halfway to her mouth.

"Little red, what the hell are you doing back here?"

"A field trip," Haley replied, bringing the box towards us and setting it on a coffee table. I watched as she set up everything, taking care of what went where, laying down towels and bags full of gauze.

"Nash, this your girlfriend?" Deacon walked back into the room with two bottles and a glass, changed into a black tee-shirt. Not going to lie, he was significantly attractive in the conventional Dauntless way. But as he got closer, I noticed the tattoos on his body were covering small scars across his chest.

"If every girl Nash kissed was considered his girlfriend, polygamy would be the next hottest thing in Dauntless," I bit out, but I couldn't even make it sound as malicious. Not when he looked so distraught at the moment.

Pink hair let out a laugh from the bed. "I like her,"

Deacon crouched down next to Nash and assessed me. "That's Shiloh, I'm Deacon,"

"Noted,"

Rubber gloves on, he worked the bandages off slowly, face wrinkled in concentration. "What kind of wounds?"

"Gunshots,"

"Haley put these on?"

"Yeah,"

"And she didn't try to pull them out, right?"

I shook my head, remembering the words she spoke to me on the train.

He turned and faced Haley, who was sitting at the table, fingers knotted together. "Good work, Red," Her face transformed into a smile. "You can sleep here while I work on her, got it?" Haley nodded slowly, getting up and heading towards a closet and pulling out a folded mattress.

Deacon got the end of the wraps and I finally got to see the damage. The bullet hole was a maroon, and the entire surrounding areas was a deep purple and blue. Blood was seeping down, but what I expected to be a bloody mess was not that bad. The bandages must have absorbed most of the blood.

"Looks pretty clean," He said, his hands resting on my abdomen. "Not too deep either. Now this on," He pulled my arm forward and twisted it around slowly. For the first time seeing it, I saw blood around my tricep. The only explanation would be-

"Has a nice little exit wound," Deacon finished for me, looking almost happy. "Only stitches for that one. But we still need to do a transfusion,"

"I'll do it," Nash finally spoke, standing up to remove his coat. Well, that was quick.

"I can take anyone's, you know," I said as Deacon had my lie down on my back, elevated against the arm rest. Nash was suddenly behind me, pulling my hair behind my shoulders. He muttered for a hair tie and I gave him the one off my wrist. His hands brushed over my cheeks and around my neck, gathering it all into one and tying it back. It was such a small thing, but it made my heart beat a bit faster. Meanwhile, Deacon was setting up a layout of empty bottle and tubes after recovering my wounds.

"You're taking mine," And with that, he pulled up and chair and settled himself next to me, laying his fisted arm out for Deacon to probe.

My head raced in confusion. I couldn't understand what he wanted from me. Whether this was his form of an apology to me or guilt over what he couldn't say, was a question I couldn't answer myself. I felt cold wetness of the alcohol Deacon was rubbing on the crook of my elbow before the prick of a needle.

Nash's eyes were glued to the bottles as he was given the same treatment.

"Alright kiddos, you're going to have to stay like this for a bit. After that, then I'll start fixing you up. I need some sleep before I grab a scalpel," With that, Deacon got up and tossed his gloves into a trash can, heading towards his bed.

We sat in silence, the only sound the faint dripping of blood against the bottom of the glass. My eyes were glued on the ceiling , avoiding any eye contact with him. He wanted me to thank him for doing this. He wanted me to think he was my knight in shining armor, saving my life and shit like that. But, I couldn't think like that. I shouldn't. I had people I thought were my kind rip bullets into me like a target. There were moles in Dauntless who were planning to create chaos and to enforce order in the process.

And the whipped cream and cherry was that I already was in danger after the first day of Stage Two. My trust in people was wearing so thin at this point, I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror and think that I didn't have a part in their plan. That my reckless actions tonight gave them the ammunition to work quicker, uncover Evie's plan, put them in danger. Put Beck in danger. My parents in danger. I felt rage with myself, enough for my nails to dig deep enough into my palms to feel the all too familiar sticky presence of blood.

"Stop it,"

Nash broke me out of my reflection in a low voice.

"Stop trying to feel it,"

I turned my head to him, but his eyes were down.

"Feel what?" My voice was hollow.

He exhaled. "Fear,"

My teeth dug into the side of my cheek.

"You do it all the time and you've never even noticed it. When I saw that bruise on your cheek during stage one, someone hit you and you just hit the bag harder. When you found out about Paige's lies, you hunted her down with darkness in your eyes. When Beck and I were fighting, you couldn't feel the fear of someone getting hurt, so you just narrowed your eyes and asked why I didn't fight back,"

He finally raised his eyes to mine. "And now your sitting here, shot, and you're angry at yourself instead of terrified for your life. Enough to hurt yourself," His free hand rose to his temple, stabilizing his elbow on his knee. He stopped there, didn't say another word.

I remember every time. Every time I shut down in anger. Lashing out at my parents. Holding a knife at Jackson's throat when he tried to scare me into nearly killing Ky. Knowing that having no fears should create one inside me and that i just didn't care. Fear makes you normal, fear makes you a human being, and I felt trapped in this unholy place of psychopathy, not knowing whether I was a monster for it or not. Why couldn't I understand? Why couldn't I know what I placed in this world for? Fighting for a cause only creates destruction and sitting by idly only makes me ignorant. For the first time in a long time, I felt a hot tear run down my cheek. Not from pain, but from sadness.

"I have no idea who I am," Broken.

I turned to look at him, eyes red, cheeks puffy, looking vulnerable but feeling empty. "Tell me,"

"Theo- I can't-"

"Tell me who I am!" It was a plea, loud. My voice was cracking with every shallow breath I took. I saw my hand with red crescents imprinted in it. It was silent. For a short second, I heard the deep breaths of the others in the room.

"I can tell you who I think you are," A swallow. "But that doesn't mean anything and you know it," His hand wiped away a tear on my cheek. "You have to find out on your own,"

And I believed him.