Parker's POV

I catch up to Eric and we walk the rest of the way to the training room in a comfortable silence. Luckily I don't see any of the other initiates, which makes sense as they are probably in the mess hall eating their lunch. I talk to my brother for a good half an hour before Eric returns to organise the fights for this afternoon. Tobias goes over to help him and the room is a blissful silence, but not for long as the first of the initiates come through the doors, as soon as they see me most of them start whispering, and I know they are talking about me, I won't let them see it affect me so I continue looking at them, I am kind of glad I do when I see Tris, Edward and Myra not talking about me, and I smile slightly in thanks. The same can't be said for Peter and his cronies, who start giving their opinions with raised voices, but ignore them, hopefully they won't make it through initiation.

Thankfully, Eric and Tobias start talking, forcing them to shut up. "This afternoon the last of the fights are going to commence, this is your last chance to change your rank, and may make the difference between being cut or making it through to stage two, so you need to fight your hardest." Tobias tells them, but I know that these fights are going to make very little difference the lowest ranking initiates are just too low, there isn't any way they are going to make the cut, and looking at the others, they seem to think the same. Eric turns the board round, and I read through the list of names:

Edward – Peter

Brent – Molly

Tris – Will

Drew – Al

Myra – Christina

Clearly Eric and Tobias thought the same, these fights were going to make very little difference, and they seemed to pair the fights to order final ranks, especially with the fight between Edward and Peter, the two were the best initiates, so the fight must be to decide who ranks first and second. I was glad I wasn't fighting, but it meant I had no idea what rank I was at, and it also meant I had no way to change my rank, and that was worrying. The fights dragged on for quite a bit, which meant everyone was fairly evenly matched, well everyone except for Myra and Al their fights went far too quickly to be good, and both ended up in the infirmary. Edward won the fight against Peter, which I was happy about. The fight between Molly and Brent and resulted, in Molly winning, which I wasn't happy about but it is better than Brent winning. Sadly, Tris lost against Will but I think she is high enough not to get cut.

Once the fights finish, we are free to go to dinner. As the others file out of room, I wait behind to talk to Tobias and Eric. The door swings shut as the last person leaves and I approach the two instructors, "How come I didn't fight?" I ask them.

"There's an odd number of you, one of you has to sit out." Tobias tells me, like I'm stupid.

"Yes thank you for that insightful piece of information, I can count. But you're not answering my question, you could have made anybody else sit out, why not somebody who clearly isn't going to get cut." I tell him, starting to get annoyed.

"Because, as you just mentioned we all know who is going to cut tomorrow, but we also know the exact rankings, we knew them before the fights started, the final fights are just procedure. Besides you are not in the best state of mind," Eric says returning for storing the mats away. I go to interrupt him, but he doesn't let me finish. "No, let me finish, you were no fit state to fight, and that is fact, so why make you fight when you didn't need to." He finishes. "Now I'm hungry, so I'm going to have some dinner before all the food goes." And at this Eric leaves me and Tobias alone. I wait for him to finish before walking with him to the mess hall. "You are going to be okay you know" Tobias says somewhat out of the blue. I look at him confused, unsure of what he's talking about. "About people knowing about Marcus, the people who matter won't care" he clarifies. I nod and give him a brief hug, before making my way to the food, and sitting at our usual table, next to Eric and across from Tobias, and part of me agrees with him, one day it will be alright.

I'm back, sorry it has been so long, school has just ramped up big time, i have my GCSEs in a few months and I've missed so much school, so catch-up and revision has taken up a lot of my time and I havent been feeling the best in reagrds to mental health, but i think things are on the up. Anyway, hope you liked the chapter and i hope you are still interested, I've got a couple more chapters already written and have plans for far future chapters.

~depressedintrovert~