AN: As always, I want to say thanks to everyone who has reviewed, followed, and favorited this story! I am utterly overwhelmed with the response I've gotten, and every word y'all send means so much to me. I am always open to suggestions and critiques, so feel free to tell me if you have an idea or a way I can make this better!

On another note, I know this chapter is a little bit shorter than the others. It will also unfortunately be the last one for at least two weeks, as I am going out of the country. While I will have my laptop, my schedule is going to be so hectic and busy I will barely be sleeping, let alone writing! I hope y'all can be patient with me during the wait. The knife throwing is one of my favorite scenes in Divergent, as I am a knife thrower myself. Pretty much, Lilla's thoughts on the beauty, subtlety and grace of blades are my own. So I can't wait to see what you guys think! I hope you enjoy.

Chapter Five: Knives

"Let's GO Lilla!" Tris called, grabbing the other girl's hand and pulling her along the dark, rough hallway insistently. They were nearly late for training, and neither wanted to face the wrath of their intimidating instructors. Either Four or Eric. It was only Tris' kindness that had her still with Lilla. The others had left her in the dorm earlier, assuming she would wake on her own as she always did.

"I'm trying," Lilla snapped waspishly, stumbling a step behind her friend. She'd had a rough night, and the morning was shaping up to be no better. Her head ached, her back burned and throbbed in time with her elevated pulse, and she felt so exhausted she wanted to sleep for a week. She hadn't asked Tris to stay behind, and she didn't have the patience to keep her temper today.

"Well, not hard enough!"

"Go on then," the smaller girl hissed, venom in her tone, "I didn't ask you to wait. And I can't go any faster than I am." They were jogging along the treacherous, narrow paths of the Dauntless compound at a pace too fast for safety.

Tris sighed. Why had she waited? Oh, right… Lilla was her friend, and she wasn't waking up on time, and that was what friends did for each other. That she'd overslept, in itself, was very odd. The quiet girl was known for being up before everyone else in the first few days they'd been here. She and the Dauntless-born she liked to spend time with always seemed to have had their breakfast well before the others were even thinking of waking. Her blue eyes scanned Lilla as they jogged. She took note of the fine sheen of sweat on her forehead, reddening cheeks, and darker than normal eyes, and found herself a bit worried.

"Are you alright, Lilla?" she wanted to know.

"Yes."

Tris sighed again, but let it go, and the girls continued, their jog becoming a sprint as they reached the ground level of the Pit. They managed to make it to training on time, but only just, and earned a scowling glare from Four as they entered. Eric was once again nowhere to be seen, much to Lilla's relief. She wasn't sure she could handle him today.

"This morning," their instructor said, "We are going to work on shooting at targets while moving. Up on the roof we've set up a sort of obstacle course for you to work through. Targets will spring up as you pass, and you have to make a kill shot. This means head or heart." He let his eyes rove over the crowd of Transfers in silence for a moment, and it took a great deal of effort to not let them rest on his sister, who was looking a little green after her run. "Alright Initiates," he said, concern making his voice more than a little curt, "with me."

Lilla followed at the back of the pack as they trudged behind her brother. She was warm. And nauseous. And a little dizzy. The list was growing, she realized suddenly. Al, Will, and Christina all asked after her when they realized she hadn't woken up like normal, but she met their questions with short nods. She missed the significant look that passed between Tris and the others, too wrapped up in putting one foot in front of the other to notice much else. At the front, Four's focus was on much the same, though for different reasons.

He could see that, whatever Lilla's injuries were, she was markedly worse this morning. And he felt the fear clench and settle coldly in his heart. Zeke and Uriah had to act today, or he knew she could easily end up dead. Either the wounds would continue to fester, and kill her with infection, or she would make a stupid mistake in training or on one of the more hazardous paths, and die that way. Neither scenario was one he wanted to even begin to contemplate.

"Grab a gun, you lot!" he called gruffly, gesturing to the tables nearby. "You'll be going through one at a time. Time to see if your target practice the past two days did any good."

The Initiates lined up with their guns, ready to run the course. It was a gauntlet of orange, human-shaped targets the length of the gravel-topped roof they were on. These guns were a bit bigger, a bit heavier than the ones they'd first practiced with, but the function was essentially the same.

"Peter," Four called, gesturing the former Candor near the start of the course. He didn't like this boy at all. He showed up to training half-asleep, spoke with an attitude to everyone around him and – most irritating of all – continually taunted Lilla. Four felt a bit of savage glee that he'd held his gun to Peter's head the first morning, once he'd seen his treatment of his sister. "See if you can handle that gun without shooting yourself in the foot," he sneered, nodding at the targets.

One by one, each one of the Transfers went through the target line. Some did better than others. Lilla's aim was off, but she managed to at least hit the targets for the most part. The same couldn't be said for Tris or Al, but Christina was about where Lilla was. Will, on the other hand, blew the rest of them out of the water. Even Edward didn't have an eye for aiming as good as his fellow former Erudite's. As they went through the lesson, it became apparent that Four was doing his best to be nasty to Peter, Drew, and Molly. He constantly berated them without giving advice on how to improve, making the female of the trio turn red in anger and humiliation over and over again. Peter only scowled and glared, not stupid enough to rise to the instructor's bait, and Drew didn't seem like he took much notice of the insults being hurled at them.

Lilla was a bit surprised at her brother's viciousness. If it wasn't for the fact that she'd seen his temper more than once already since starting initiation, she would have been utterly shocked by it. He'd always been so soft-spoken growing up, so kind. She wondered which side of him was an act. Or was it that both were like two sides of a coin, and one had simply been hidden for his childhood years? She'd always had a temper, although the last two years had taught her to control it, but Tobias was the kind one. He barely even knew how to react in anger before.

As they finished up the first round of the exercise, Lilla heard Will remark to Tris teasingly, "You know, statistically you should have hit at least once. Even by accident." She missed the rest of the exchange though, as she was jostled by Peter and his merry band of morons, almost knocking her off her feet.

"Hey!" Al growled, seeing Lilla stumble, "Watch what you're doing."

"Or what," Molly asked nastily, "you'll aim for the opposite end of the range and actually manage to hit one of us?"

Al didn't have a response to that, but Tris and Will – now finished with their little spat – jumped to his defense. Lilla thought it would become an all-out fist fight, but her brother stepped in.

"Enough!" he spat, "Or I'll have you scrubbing every toilet in the dorms and barracks for the rest of initiation." The Initiates quieted down, but glares were still exchanged from one half of the group to the other for the rest of the morning. When they were dismissed for lunch, Four was glad to be left to pack up the guns alone. He was going to go mad this time, he was sure. The past two years hadn't been nearly this aggravating.

"Mouse!" Lilla heard Uriah yell over the noisy din as soon as she entered the mess hall. He was seated with his Dauntless-born friends, who she had yet to meet, but he quickly said goodbye and made his way through the crowd to her side. "Where the heck were you this morning?" he demanded, the harsh tone softened by the worry in his brown eyes.

"I overslept."

Uriah sighed – a noise he was making more and more often since meeting Lilla – and grabbed her small, pale hand in his, pulling her to one of the empty corner tables. He told her to sit, and went to fill a plate for each of them. The line was long for the food, but soon enough he was back at their seats. Lilla's head was resting on the table when he got back, and she seemed to be moving more slowly than normal as she sat up.

"Why don't we eat dinner with my brother tonight?" he suggested immediately. It couldn't wait. In just one night she had clearly gotten weaker. She looked rather ill, at this point.

"Sure."

Their lunch together was fairly quiet, with Uriah chatting a bit to fill the silence every once in a while. Lilla listened attentively as he described the other Dauntless-born Initiates, their dorm, their training… anything that came to mind really.

By the time their ninety minutes were nearly up, Uriah was thoroughly worried about her. Even more than he had been already.

"So meet me here after afternoon training," he said in goodbye, "and we'll head up to Zeke's place." Lilla nodded with a hint of a smile. A quiet dinner with the calming brothers sounded nice. The mess hall was always so loud and hectic, and it wasn't helping her headache.

The pair parted at the door, headed for the two separate training rooms. Lilla walked at a sedate pace, a little unsure of her footing on the uneven path, and arrived in plenty of time. At the far end of the hall, tables were set up in a row across the room, several yards from the wall. On the wall, she saw targets had been hung, but not the same ones as when they'd first learned to shoot a gun. Eric and Tobias were both there, as were a fair number of her fellow Initiates, but she wasn't last to enter. She slipped herself in behind Al, hoping to attract as little attention as possible. She was too tired to deal with Eric.

"Alright Transfers," Eric said once all the trainees were all there, "Today you get a day away from punching things. Don't get used to it. Next time you fight, you fight each other. For now, knives." He glanced around, seeing his words had the desired effect. Some looked curiously at the tables and some watched him fearfully, but some remained uninterested. The little Abnegation fluff was one of the first group. Her eyes lingered on the blades lining the table with an unusual spark in their pale grey depths. It made her pointed, delicate face a little less smoothly emotionless. An odd, but not unappealing difference. "Everyone grab three knives," he continued. "You'll be throwing them until you start sticking them, so hurry up. Four will demonstrate the proper technique."

With that said, he stood with his back against the wall while the sixteen-year-olds collected their blades and lined up behind Four, who was already ready to give his demonstration. Eric knew that, although his rival was ranked first in almost everything else, he himself was better with knives. They were, in fact, his favored weapon. However, he had no desire to teach; he never had. He'd leave that to the other man, adding comments as he felt like it. His job was to supervise Four and Lauren in the training, not train the whelps himself.

Four had several knives in his hand already. They gleamed in his fist, catching Lilla's eye. She wasn't sure why the sleek metal held such beauty to her eyes, but it did. And as she collected her own three, she decided she liked the feel of them in her hand much better than the raw power of the guns. They were a more subtle kind of power. Defense she could hide until the last minute. An attack she could use from the shadows in a silent way that no gun could ever accomplish. Yes, she decided, blades were definitely preferable to firearms.

"When you throw," Four began, raising his voice to be heard, "wherever your arm is pointing when the knife flies is where it will hit. Your eyes are used to decide where to aim, but it's your body that does the work." He raised his right hand, one long throwing knife held securely by the blade between his thumb and palm, and continued, "Bring your arm back next to your ear, swing at the elbow and shoulder in the direction you want to throw, and release. Allow your wrist to almost flick the knife as it leaves your hand, but don't just pull back once you've let go. Follow through, or your projectile will move off balance." As he spoke, he demonstrated the perfect technique, and the blade was quickly buried almost to the hilt in the green target at the end of the room. Lilla was not surprised that her brother was as excellent at this as everything else, but she couldn't help but be a little awed. She wanted to be able to do that!

"Your feet should be planted solidly, one slightly in front of the other. Remember to bring your arm all the way back, and to keep your core tight. The more tension in your core, the more power you can put behind a throw. But relax your shoulders and wrist, let the movements come naturally." With these words, Four let two more knives fly in rapid succession, lining them less than an inch apart on the target in a neat row alongside the first one. "If you do it right, you can hit a space the size of a coin. Eventually. Now it's your turn." He stepped back, allowing the Initiates to move toward the lines on the floor from which they would be throwing.

"You think we can do this?" Al asked Lilla, who was still right beside him, nervously. Tris was on his other side, with Will and Christina beside her.

"No choice," Lilla replied quietly, most of her attention on going through her brother's instructions in her head. She saw Tris practicing the motions without a blade. It was a good idea, but she decided that she could learn better with the metal in hand as a motivator. So, with a deep breath, she set up the stance they'd been shown and began to throw the blades at the end of the room.

The sound of clanging metal bouncing off the targets, coupled with muttered (and not so muttered) curses made for a loud cacophony that grated on the ear a bit. However, Lilla tuned it out and continued doggedly to send knives flying across the room. After the first two failed throws, they were striking the target fairly accurately, but it was the flat of the blade that struck, not the point.

"Relax your wrist," a voice ordered gruffly from behind her suddenly, having snuck up on her while her attention was on practicing. Eric grabbed her shoulders none too gently, unknowingly making her want to cry out in pain, and pulled them back, straightening her posture. "Keep your back straight, your feet firm, and relax your throwing arm." Lilla turned around to face the Dauntless leader warily. Why was he being so… even-tempered?

"Alright," she said after a long minute, deciding to take whatever she could get if it meant being able to stick the blades like Tobias had. Then, reluctantly turning her back to the looming man, she followed his advice.

The blade stuck. It was the first successful throw of the day.

It wasn't until nearly the end of the lesson that something went wrong. Almost everyone was hitting the target, though only a few were sticking knives consistently. Lilla was among the few. Her poor friend beside her, though, was certainly not. In fact, he was the only one who had barely had a few throws that even connected with the target, let alone stuck.

"What the hell was that, Initiate?!" Eric roared behind them when his latest knife went several feet wide of where he was aiming, interfering with the others' practice.

"It slipped," Al replied, visibly gulping down the knot in his throat. Lilla stood stock still as Eric mocked and baited her friend. She didn't know what to do. On one hand, if she spoke up it would draw attention to herself; something she desperately wanted to avoid at the moment. The more their observant young leader observed her, the more she risked her secret being discovered. On the other, Al was her friend. She hadn't had a chance to speak with him about his crying at night as she'd planned, but she did want to help him if she could. And she didn't want to stand back as someone was bullied by a person in power. And now Eric was ordering Al to stand in front of a target and let knives be thrown at him! It was ridiculous…

Just as she was opening her mouth though, another voice spoke up.

"Stop this!" Tris yelled. Lilla, relieved that someone was stopping this, listened as her friend told the irascible man what she thought of him and his idea. Her eyes widened at the boldness. And they thought she had a death wish. Tris was all but challenging Eric to kill her here and now.

The group of Initiates watched – most in horror – as Eric switched his attention to his challenger. Tris was ordered to take Al's place, and Four called upon to throw the knives. Her brother's voice as he questioned the orders was unconcerned, completely apathetic, but Lilla could see the tension around his jaw. It was a dead giveaway, but one she thought only she would spot. He was afraid to do this, afraid he would hurt Tris.

Lilla knew, just as she had when it was Al in the line of fire, that she could do nothing. Internally she raged at the helpless feeling in her chest. Her friend was about to have knives sent sailing at her head, and her brother was the one being forced to throw them. In that moment, she hated Eric with a fiery passion she'd – until now – reserved only for her father. He was cruel, calculating, and infuriating. Heartless. And he reveled in the power he held over others, using that power to make them suffer. Just like Marcus.

One knife landed about a foot from Tris. The only comfort anyone had was that they'd seen a demonstration of Four's accuracy already. Eric goaded Four to throw closer to his victim, and Four taunted Tris to give up. Lilla had to catch her breath as he heard her brother's harsh words. Had he really become that cold in these past two years, that such injustice couldn't even touch him? He sent another blade flying at her friend. It was closer than the first. Another taunt. Eric complained again that it wasn't close enough. Lilla watched her sibling's face closely. The tension was still there, so why was he making this harder for Tris if he didn't want to?

"Let someone else stand there and take it, Stiff," Four sneered. And a light bulb went on in his sister's head. He wasn't taunting her. In his own, albeit warped, way he was encouraging her. Using her selfless nature to bring out her stubbornness. It was genius, but Lilla was sure that Tris didn't see it as anything but mocking. Their friends too were giving the instructor nothing but dirty looks for his comments.

"Shut up Four!" Tris yelled.

Another blade flew. Wide-eyed, the human target lifted her hand to her ear, and brought it away bloody. Lilla held her breath. Four set his remaining knives down, clearly not willing to throw even one more.

"Alright," Eric snapped, "While I would love to stand here and see if you are all as daring as her, I think that's enough for the day." Everyone let out a collective gasp of air, as if they'd all been holding their breath. They probably had, Lilla thought. She certainly was. The group didn't waste any time in filtering out of the training room, eager to get away from the frightening man who'd started this "lesson" in following orders.

"You cut me," Lilla heard Tris spit at her brother as she was about to leave.

"I meant to," Four replied.

Tris was angry, and did nothing to hide it, but Lilla thought they'd all handled a dangerous situation with few good choices to be had in the best way possible. No one was made Factionless, no one was stabbed, and Eric had been unsuccessful in tormenting any of the Initiates further. It was the best possible outcome.

She listened as her brother explained his actions to the angry girl. Why was he bothering, she wondered, if he didn't care? But, she realized, he did care. About the Initiates, about their training… He came off as cold, but he wanted them all to make it through this. So that begged a single question in Lilla's mind.

Why doesn't he care about me anymore?