Chapter 2
Jamie POV
I walk with my family to the choosing ceremony. Last night, Alex and I both told our parents what our results were. They were glad to know they would at least be keeping Alex. I know they weren't just overjoyed when I told them I'd be leaving, but Dauntless and Erudite seem to be working pretty closely together these days, so they weren't upset.
We get in and sit down, and I see Will and his family come in and sit down. Will is a good friend of mine, we've grown up together. He's really smart, he would do well here, but there is something different about him. He's not quite Erudite. I look around, and then look at my parents and Alex, knowing that I won't be going home with them today, hoping that I'm making the right decision.
"May I have your attention, please?"
We all look up to the stage where the voice came from. It's the head of Abnegation, Marcus Eaton. I know that most of what Jeanine says about the Abnegation leaders isn't true, but I just have a feeling about him. I never have been comfortable when I see him around. He makes me nervous like he'll turn on me in a second. Like he's hiding a monster deep down.
"Thank you. It is now time to begin our choosing ceremony."
He starts calling names, and people start going up to the stage, cutting their hand, and choosing, dripping their blood into the bowl of the desired faction.
I zone out only a few people in. The majority of people are just staying in their original faction. The first transfer is from Dauntless. His family looks shocked, but more angry than anything. From what I've heard, that's about the only emotion they show. Well, that and pure happiness when they're doing something really stupid or really crazy.
When I hear Will's name called, I perk up just a bit, because it's finally someone I know. He cuts his hand, looks at his family and gives a short simple nod. He then holds his hand over Dauntless, and lets the blood drip, then makes his way over to them. He's the first Erudite transfer. The first transfer over all is really shocking, but the first from your faction is nearly as big. At least I won't be the first. He sort of softened my blow a little. Good thing is, I'll be seeing him again, and I won't be the only Erudite transfer in Dauntless. This brings me some relief, but I'm still a little tense in anticipation.
The next big shocker is a boy from Abnegation transferring to Erudite. Abnegation and Erudite are so hard against each other, any transfer from one to the other is very surprising. Immediately after he did that, his sister went to Dauntless. An Abnegation in Dauntless? This has got to be the craziest choosing I've ever been to.
They call my brother up, and I know I'll be next. I see him cut his hand and drip it into Erudite. As he starts his walk back up to our parents, I'm called, and I walk up to the stage, knowing most of the eyes in the room are on me.
Marcus gives me a warm smile as he hands me the knife, but the smile doesn't travel to his eyes. I still don't trust him.
I cut my hand and put it over the Dauntless bowl. I hear the blood sizzle. There's no turning back now. I hear the roar of the Dauntless, excited to have a new member and I slowly make my way over there, finding Will and taking a seat beside him.
"Hey! You excited?"
"Uh, yeah. Little scared too, but excited. I didn't figure you would stay in Erudite."
"Yeah, just a few too many rules. I knew your brother would, but I wasn't too sure about you. Didn't know if you'd follow him or change over. I actually figured you would go to Candor."
"Yeah, I was thinking about it at first, but the test gave me Dauntless. Trust the test."
Here I am, lying again. Maybe Candor wouldn't have been best for me.
As I'm sitting here thinking, I notice that the group is moving out the door. Everybody is running. Will and I get up and go with them and I see the girl from Abnegation falling behind already. I want to help her, but all we're doing is running. If she can't stand that, I don't know how she's going to survive Dauntless. I've even seen them jump on and off a moving…
"Train!"
"What?"
Will points just head of us, and some of the Dauntless born are already jumping on.
"Seriously? Less than five minutes I've been part of Dauntless, and they already want to kill me?"
Will nods and grabs my hand.
"What the heck are you doing?"
"I"m not doing this on my own. If I do it, I'm dragging you with me. Same time."
We pick up speed and jump. I close my eyes, probably not the safest thing to do, but I feel my feet hit solid ground. I open my eyes, and look at Will. We made it. We both look back out and he holds his hand out to a Candor girl who then turns and helps the girl from Abnegation. Will seems to be in a bit of a trance, still looking at the Candor. She holds her hand out to him and they shake hands.
"Hi, I'm Christina." Will just stares and nods. I roll my eyes and hold my hand out to her.
"This is Will. I'm Jamie."
"Nice to meet you."
I see the Abnegation girl sort of shying behind Christina, so I offer her my hand. She stares at it, a little wide eyed, for a second, then shakes it.
"I'm B-, uh, Tris."
"Cool. I'm Jamie." I say, smiling at her. She nods and smiles back just a little bit.
We're all just sitting here in silence when I hear a shout from the front of the train car.
"They're jumping!"
What? Again? I look at the other three and they are all wearing the same look as I am.
"Do they want to have any new members, or are they just gonna kill us all off before we get there?"
We look out the door and see a bunch of them jumping off the train onto the roof of a building. I look up at Will and back out at the roof. I back up to get a running start.
"What are you doing?"
"Jumping."
With that, I run and jump. I feel the ground meet my feet… then my knees and arms. I quickly pop up off the ground to make sure that the others got off. Will is already up and walking to me, and Christina and Tris are working their way off the ground. As we go over to the group, I hear a scream. A Dauntless girl is standing at the edge of the roof, looking down and crying. I already know what happened, I don't want to go over there and look, but I see Tris making her way over there. She turns back around and I can see a hint of tears in her eyes.
"One of the Dauntless girls. She didn't make the jump."
If one of the Dauntless born couldn't make it, I don't know how in the world I'm going to make it in Dauntless.
"Okay, listen up!"
Everyone gets quiet and looks to the person who spoke. He's a very muscular guy, I would say just a year or two older than all of us. He has tattoos covering pretty much every visible part of his body, other than his face. He has two piercings above his eyebrow, but that's about it.
"I'm Eric, one of your leaders. If you're standing here, you made it on and off the train without dying. Congrats." geez, sarcastic much? I've noticed that even all the Dauntless are staying quiet now. They all seem to be afraid of him. I'm not really afraid of him, but I don't like him. He seems cold. Just because you're brave and Dauntless doesn't mean you have to keep everyone else at bay.
"So, welcome to the second part. You see this hole?" he waves his arm in gesture to the gigantic hole behind him. "You're going to be jumping into that. You don't want to jump? Fine, you're factionless. Any questions?"
A tall boy in Candor clothing raises his hand
"Is there anything at the bottom? Like water or something?"
Eric grins, "I guess you'll find out. Alright, come on. Volunteers."
We all look around at each other, no one wanting to go first.
"Come on, we haven't got all day."
Logically speaking, there has to be something at the bottom, other than the ground, otherwise, they would be sending every single one of their initiates to their death, therefore getting no new members.
"Alright everybody, make up your minds. Who's gonna be first?"
"Me."
Everyone looks to see who spoke, and it's Tris. I look around and see that everyone else is as shocked as I am.
"The Stiff. Alright, come on up."
Tris steps up on the ledge and takes her grey sweater off, getting a couple of insults from a group of Candors.
"Today, initiate."
Give her time Eric, at least she had the guts to go first. Not that I would say that out loud, but I want to.
Tris jumps, but I don't hear a scream. She's much braver than I am. One thing that I can't do is heights, especially jumping from really high up. I hear something far below that sounds like springs stretching. Maybe there's a net or something like that down there.
"A Stiff was braver than all of you. This is going to be a fun year. Who's up next?"
If I don't go now, I never will.
"I'll go."
He nods, and I walk up to him. As I step up on the ledge, I have to remind myself that I'm not going to die. I'm not going to die, I'm not going to die, I'm not going to die.
"What's wrong initiate? Scared?"
"What do you think?" I say, and immediately regret it. I don't think too many people are dumb enough to talk back to him. Lord, I hope I didn't make him mad.
I don't look him in the face as I jump, not wanting to know how angry I just made him. I'm falling and trying not to scream, which is really hard for me, but I don't want to be outdone by Tris.
I finally hit a net, and I hang on. I see a hand reach up and grab the net, pulling it down, I guess so that I would roll off, but I don't budge. I am hanging on with all my might.
"It's okay, you're not dead or dying. You can let go." I simply shake my head. I then feel two hands grab my waist, pry me off the net and set me down.
"Geez kid, you had a pretty good grip on that net. Not a fan of heights?" I shake my head again. I'm afraid if I open my mouth to say anything, I'll still want to scream. Or puke. The guy just chuckles at me.
"I'm Four. You are?"
"Wait, Four? Really?"
"No, that's my name. What's yours?"
"Jamie."
He nods and sends me on my way. Once everyone has jumped, Four leads us to our quarters.
"For those of you who I didn't talk to, I'm Four."
"Four? Like the number?"
Oh Christina, please don't let Candor take you over.
"Yes. Is there a problem with that?"
"No, just what happened to One, Two, and Three?"
"What's your name?", he says and starts over to her.
"Christina." now he's nearly right in her face.
"Okay, Christina. I suggest you keep your Candor mouth shut, understood?" Christina nods, her eyes bugged out.
"Now, this is where you will be staying."
"Boys or girls?"
"Both."
He turns and gestures to the back of the room with toilets and showers, no walls or curtains between any of them.
"You should like this Candor, everything out in the open" he says, looking at Christina and the boy that was insulting Tris on the roof. I think I heard him say his name was Peter. He has two people that seem to be following whatever he does, a broad shouldered girl, and a red headed boy.
After giving us a small tour of everything, Four gave us our new Dauntless clothing and left us to figure things out and get to dinner when we're done. I'm not sure if I like him or not. He seems like a no nonsense type of person, but he's not quite as cold as Eric. Maybe that's just how the Dauntless are. Sometimes being brave means not letting people see what you really feel in order to keep them brave. I guess it just becomes habit after a while.
I follow Will, Christina, Tris, and the Candor boy who asked what was at the bottom. His name is Al. He's been staring at Tris for the entire walk down to eat. I think he might like her just a little bit.
"So where should we sit?"
Tris points to a spot that just happens to be right beside Four. "We could go there."
We all look at her like she's lost her mind, but it's too late. She's already on her way over there. We follow and she sits down, and starts to try to talk to him. I am so hungry, and there is so much food! As I'm filling my plate, I snap to attention when I hear Four's voice. I was too focused on the food to realize she was still talking to him.
"What makes you think you can talk to me?"
"I guess it's because you're so approachable." when she says this, he hesitates, not sure what to say.
"Careful."
She kind of ducks down a little and turns back to us. We're all staring open mouthed, amazed that she's still alive. Christina is the first to break the silence.
"Do you have a death wish?"
Tris just shrugs and starts to eat. Four was still in ear shot, and I noticed him grin a little when Christina said that. There's more to him than he's showing, he just has to keep up the tough guy cover. I guess I can get used to him. I look up at the table with the leadership and see Eric sitting there, eating in silence. I almost feel bad for him for a second when I look around and see everyone having conversations with their friends, but then I remember what a big jerk he was on the ledge today… and then I remember that I probably made him mad. That was not my brightest move. Well, maybe I got lucky.
Eric POV
I look around at all the Dauntless, listening to all the noise going on around me. I enjoy listening to the craziness, but I also enjoy not having to actually talk to any of them. There are perks to everyone being afraid of you.
I look down at my initiates. I'm going to be helping Four train them all this year. I hate Four with a passion, and Max knows that, but I'm stuck with him anyways. I'm looking at the Stiff and her group of friends when I realize that one of them is looking at me. I don't think she even realizes that I'm looking back, she seems to be studying me or something. I kind of want to yell at her to quit staring, but then I'd have Four to deal with. He's always so protective of the new kids. Wait a second, that's the girl that's afraid of heights. I remembered her looking a little nervous before she jumped, but Four told us after, that she wouldn't let go of the net. I don't know about that one. She was the second jumper, even though she's afraid of heights, so she's brave, but she's from Erudite. The one trouble maker always comes from either Erudite or Candor. She's already smarted off once, but I could tell it got past her before she could stop herself. She looked almost afraid of me when she jumped. Almost, but not quite. She shakes out of it and starts digging into her food. She's the only one that isn't absolutely terrified of me. Well, we can fix that easily.
