A/N: Rewritten. Enjoy!


Disclaimer: I don't own Divergent.


Eric

She wasn't supposed to be that beautiful.

I pick at my food absently, eyes trained on the little Amity girl across the room. She seems familiar with Uriah, who she's sitting next to. He seems to annoy her.

I know the feeling.

I wanted to get a good look at her before the Stiff, so I helped her out of the net. Clumsy as hell, she stumbled out and thought that my arms were the best option to catch herself on. She surprised me – her hands were tiny and calloused and she had a tighter grip than I would have imagined. Must have been from all the farming, I remember thinking.

I was ready to smirk and make her feel like the small, out-of-place little girl she is when she turned her face up to mine and I lost all semblance of thought. The room was dark, and the majority of the light was coming from the hole. As she stood with her back to the net, the light surrounded her and that was the first and only time I can swear I've seen an angel.

She has long, curly dark hair that fall in a mess of ringlets down her back. Her dark eyes were sparkling with excitement, taking in every detail around her. Freckles were splashed across a sun-tanned nose – probably another result of farming. Her cheeks were flushed with adrenaline and her chest was heaving and she looked so bright and alive and like the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

"Whoa," she muttered as her feet hit solid ground, hands tightening on my biceps. She giggled a little, a musical, tinkling sound. "That was something."

She seemed to remember where she was and let go of me, looking up with those big, dark eyes. They were mesmerizing – a dark chocolate color, but when she looked up the light hit them just so and they turned into a warm, honeyed amber – a color that reflected the light back at me and sparkled brilliantly.

I mentally berated myself for getting so lost in her eyes. She's just an initiate. Nothing special.

Just an initiate.

Max says his piece, and before I can blink the initiates are being hoisted into the air. I narrow my eyes as Uriah lifts the Amity girl by the waist and passes her off. Her face is alive again – cheeks flushed and eyes bright – and it stirs something within me. She's laughing, real laughter, with her head thrown back and eyes closed.

As the crowd sends her to me, as if they can read my mind, I stand. She reaches the end of the crowd, where I grip her waist and set her down. She uses my shoulders to steady herself.

"Thanks," she says with a smile, nearly shouting over the cacophony of the Dauntless.

I simply nod, not knowing what else to do. I fear that talking will give away the strange attraction I feel for her and she will panic and run away – or worse, return it.

The last thing I need right now is a distraction. And this little Amity girl with her fiery eyes and sweet smile is the exact type of distraction I'm craving.

God help us both.

Az

The soft breathing and occasional snoring tells me that all of the other transfers are sound asleep. I glance at the clock positioned high up on the wall and sigh quietly to myself. 2:19 am.

I should probably do as the others are and get some sleep, but my brain just won't turn itself off. I'm not used to so much excitement, let alone in such a short amount of time.

With a sigh, I swing my legs over the side of the cot and reach blindly for the unisex black cargo pants we were given before lights out. Once I find them, I start searching for the black t-shirt.

"Where are you?" I mutter under my breath. After a few more minutes of blindly searching I give up, quietly pulling the pants over my legs and hoping that nobody catches me out at night in nothing but my pants and a sports bra.

Taking a deep breath, I maneuver my way through the sleeping transfers, heading to the door. I wonder what my family back in Amity would think if they could see me now, half-dressed in black clothes and about to go running through the Dauntless compound.

I take a deep breath as I exit the sleeping area. Looking around and seeing that the hallway is deserted, I smile in relief and start jogging.

When I was little, I would eat too much. It was an ongoing problem, one that my family tried to rectify in a number of ways. It wasn't my fault; my body just didn't tell me when to stop eating, so I didn't. My mother was horrified at the weight I was starting to gain, and so I was given smaller and smaller portions of food. When that didn't work, every day after the farming work was complete I was sent out to run the fields until the sun went down. That, coupled with how little I was allowed to eat, had me losing the weight and then some by the time I was eleven. My family stopped restricting my food and telling me to run, but by then the damage was done. I had horrible self-image and refused to eat the full amount of food on my plate, and every day I continued to run. Over the years I've gotten better about eating, but running is still something I do on occasion.

The more corners I turn, the faster I go, relishing the feel of power in my legs, the burn in my chest. I feel powerful for the first time in a long time and it feels good. Despite being underground I still feel the same freedom while running, perhaps even more so than I ever did in Amity.

It takes me a while to realize that I am lost.

I slow down back to a jog to catch my bearings. Four and Six gave us a small tour earlier, but that doesn't make me an expert. My surroundings are unfamiliar, and it doesn't help that there's nobody around to point me in the right direction.

Picking up the pace once again, I shrug to myself. It's all underground, right? I'll find the right room sooner or later.

The corridor I stop to take a breather in has doors with numbers on them. I've no idea what they're for or what they lead to, so after a few minutes of catching my breath I start up a slow jog down the hallway. The end branches off into two other hallways. I take the left, not really thinking about it too much. Once I reach the end of that hallway, I'm about to take another left when a door opens and I collide with a hard chest.

Letting out a small "oof," I start to tumble backwards when strong hands catch me. One wraps around my waist and grips onto my hip, the other grips my upper arm. I can feel that there's going to be bruises later.

I reach out instinctively to steady myself. Once I'm sure I'm not going to go careening towards the floor, I look up.

My eyes grow wide as the muscles under my fingers contract slightly and the fingers on my body tighten.

"Amity?" Eric asks, sleepy confusion making his grey eyes bleary and voice extra husky. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Um," I say intelligently, trying my hardest to keep my eyes on his face and not his beautifully-sculpted bare torso. I also try to ignore that the arm around my waist is slowly pulling me closer to said bare torso. "I couldn't sleep."

He lets go of my arm and rubs his eyes. "Yeah, I got that part when I heard you making a racket out here."

My eyebrows furrow. He must be the lightest sleeper in the world if he could hear me lightly jogging down the hallway. "Sorry, when I have a lot of things on my mind I find that running usually helps."

He yawns, and I find his behavior adorable. He's acting so differently than the way he was earlier, all cold eyes and guarded features. Maybe I should wake him up more often.

"Whatever," he mumbles, and the fingers at my hip lightly stroke the skin above my pant line. I immediately stiffen, not used to being touched like this at all. Is he doing it on purpose? Trying to make me nervous? I don't think so, judging from how discombobulated he seems. "Go to bed, Amity."

He finally lets me go and starts to walk back into his apartment.

"Eric?"

He turns, a disgruntled expression on his handsome face. "What?"

"I don't know how to get back to the room," I say sheepishly.

He groans, rubbing his face with both hands. "You're annoying."

I bristle a bit at his admission, but I reign in my temper as he locks his apartment behind him, slipping the key into the pocket of his pajama pants before resting a hand at the small of my back and guiding me forwards. He's doing me a huge favor and I don't want to piss him off and have him leave me in some random part of the compound overnight.

His hand is large and warm and rough and the bare skin it's touching tingles pleasantly. Nobody's ever touched me like this – it feels forbidden and exciting and I'm not sure if I want more of it or not.

"You shouldn't wander around after hours until you know this place a little better," he warns, his voice less sleepy but still husky. "It's a good way to get yourself killed."

I feel a light prickle of fear, but it's hard to feel scared when you have a large, well-muscled man beside you. "Who would want to kill me?" I ask incredulously. "I'm just a transfer from Amity."

Eric's eyes meet mine and I'm surprised by the intensity with which he looks at me. "Just be careful, Amity."

I nod, not finding my voice.

We walk in silence for a few more moments before we reach the room. His fingers do that thing again where they brush against my bare skin, back and forth, almost like a caress. "Go to sleep," he commands again, giving me a little push into the room. I nod again and give him a grateful little smile.

"Thanks," I say before entering the room.

The clock says 3:47. I wasn't gone too long, thank goodness. Stripping back down, I curl up on my cot and immediately fall asleep, a little smile on my face.

Eric

Her skin wasn't supposed to be so soft.

I watch the transfers jog into the pit, just barely making it on time. Her dark curls are pulled up into a ponytail and her black Dauntless jacket covers the surprising curves I saw – and felt – last night.

Last night. I mentally groan at my own stupidity. There's a reason I don't allow people to see me when I just wake up – because I act like a complete and utter idiot.

My plan of staying away from her flew out the window as soon as she almost gave herself a concussion running into me in the hallway. I had woken from a deep sleep because I thought I heard something outside, and when I opened my door to investigate, there she was. For the second time in a 24-hour time span, she used my arms to catch herself from falling.

I don't really remember much – I was half asleep. I do know that she had roused me out of a dream featuring silky dark curls and honeyed amber eyes, and I'm pretty sure I mistook her presence as just part of the dream.

I also know that she was shirtless. Something else I must have assumed was part of the dream.

A dream about some random girl. Yeah.

Looking at her now, I'd have never guessed she had such curves underneath the unisex black Dauntless jacket. Round breasts above a tiny waist with full hips to round off the hourglass shape.

Thinking about her figure isn't helping me feel any less attracted to her.

Her eyes meet mine and I immediately berate myself for allowing her to catch me staring. She sends me a little, knowing smile – and it infuriates me. For years I've hidden that part of myself – the part that acts like a fool when I'm sleepy – and this little girl from Amity comes along and uncovers one of my deepest secrets on her first night?

I refuse to believe that any part of me felt comfortable enough in her presence to reveal my true, idiot self – no, it was all her fault. She has me under some kind of spell, an attraction spell of some sort. She is probably in line with Four and the Stiff, trying to discredit me and make me look like a fool. Well, it won't work. This… attraction or whatever is unnatural; I've never been so attracted to a girl that it made me act like a fool in front of her. No, this is something more, and I'm not going to play into her evil little hands.

I school my features into a scowl, keeping my face guarded and eyes cold. Her smile falters a little, and she looks confused, her expressive eyes showing a hint of hurt. Good, I think, even as she shakes herself a bit and looks away and something inside of me feels a bit lost as her pretty dark eyes are no longer on me. Let her think I'm an asshole. Maybe it will keep her away from me.

I should have known that a girl with such fire behind her eyes would only take my dismissal of her as a challenge instead of a warning.


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