A/N- Here's chapter nine :). I'm trying to find a good length for my chapters and I really want to make them longer but mostly I just try to find a good place to stop and I LOVE this chapters ending point. Gave me goose bumps writing it. I hope you guys don't mind, there is a lot of dialogue in this chapter.

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"Oh my God Dante! You almost gave me a heart attack!" I nearly scream. He laughs and shakes his head.

"Hey I called your name. You are the one who is mesmerized by the chasm." He leans on the rail and looks down.

"Actually this thing scares the hell out of me," I admit, "So other than you also being here to scare the hell out of me, what do you want?"

He smirks, "I didn't want to listen to Mya whine the whole time she got the damn tattoo."

I'm a little shocked, "Was she crying?" I ask.

"Almost," he says, "It's just a needle, if she can't handle that pain then there is no way she'll make it through stage one."

He knows what we're doing in stage one…of course he does! He's been training for this his whole life.

"Speaking of stage one…" I trail off, leaning towards him.

His eyes go wide, "Hey don't look at me like that! Us Dauntless born aren't supposed to tell you guys what happens in training."

A mischievous smile spreads across my face, "Well Dante, I happen to be very good at keeping secrets."

He sighs, "Alright, Tomorrow during the first half of training you will be working on target practice. After lunch will be the test. The day after tomorrow is the start of hand to hand combat training and that's all I can say!"

Hand to hand combat, interesting.

I throw my arms around Dante and hug him.

"See, this is why it's nice to be friends with a Dauntless born. Thank you!" I smile and pull away.

"Yeah, yeah. But you didn't hear it from me."

"Hear what?"

A third voice enters our conversation causing both Dante and I's heads to whip in Eric's direction.

"Now Dante, I know you're not spoiling all our surprises in store for our transfers."

Dante smiles sheepishly and holds his hands up in a mock defense. "Hey man, you know I would never-"

Eric scoffs, "Oh please, all she probably had to do was look at you to get you to talk, Stokes."

I turn away and look back at the chasm. Dante talks to Eric for a couple of minutes before getting slapped on the back and calling to me,

"Hey I gotta run. I'll see you around Shelby!"

Eric stalks over to me and sits on the bridge, one hand on the rail.

I can't hold my tongue, "So am I in trouble for just knowing what we'll be doing? Seems a bit childish to me." I look down and see his jaw tighten.

"Originally no, but I might reconsider if you keep running that smart mouth of yours."

I decide to change the subject, "So you and Dante seem close, how'd that happen?"

He smirks, "The twins' idiot brother Nick was in my initiation class. We got pretty close."

Anger flashes through my eyes and I know he saw it. I don't really know why I'm mad. Eric left Erudite, left me and he didn't even seem to care. He wasn't even affected. Did he even mean what he said the night he left?

"Okay well that's great and all, but we have training tomorrow so I better go."

I don't look back to see his reaction as I walk away from the chasm. The only thing on my mind is sleep.

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Dante was right. The first half of training today was all target practice. Before Four dismissed us for lunch he informed us about the test when we return.

"I'm just glad Eric wasn't there, he makes me so nervous," commented Mya.

"Yeah he's so intimidating! It scares me," inputs Morgan.

I knew Eric my entire life. He's been in Dauntless for one year. In that year, he's destroyed almost everything I thought he was. People change, I get that. Eric seems pretty pleased with himself though. He is intimidating, but there must be something else going on.

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When we walk into the training room Four and Eric seem to be in the middle of some kind of contest. Eric has five knives sticking out of the center of his target. Four has one more to throw. Just as he's about to release it Eric whispers something that causes Four to lose focus and hit the outer ring of the target.

Once they collect their knives Four addresses the group.

"Now is the time to put what you've learned to the test., each of you will be given an opponent, and it will be their aim against yours."

Eric takes over, "This test will be tournament style. You want to knock your opponent out with the number of times you hit the bulls-eye. The farther you progress, the more points you earn."

I end up vs. Tara first. She is an Amity transfer like Mya. She's good, but not better than me. As the afternoon drug on I end up eliminating Tara, Morgan, and Alex. In between my matches I saw Caleb take out Sam, which I enjoyed. Justin beat Ricky, and Mya lost her third round to Jenn.

We continue for about thirty more minutes until it's only Me Vs. Spencer and Justin Vs. Ricky. I didn't get to watch the other match; I was too focused on beating Spencer.

I won by one knife, and Four announces, "For the last round we'll be doubling the target distance, let's go initiates."

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Is it weird that I did better with the doubled distance than normal?

I beat Caleb by two points, he was fuming. The only thing that you had to do was aim higher and throw harder to hit the bulls-eye. Caleb didn't get it.

I decide to skip dinner and head to the showers. I stand under the hot spray for a good ten minutes, my sore muscles needed it. I wrap a towel around my body and start walking to the dorm. The sound of talking stops me in my tracks.

"No, Ricky, there is no way I'm going to be shown up by that stupid Erudite bitch!"

"Calm down, Caleb! You can't let her get to you like this."

"Oh I won't. She needs to learn a lesson," snarls Caleb.

"What exactly do you have in mind?" asks Ricky.

I peek my head around the corner to see Caleb smile wickedly.

"Just get her alone, I'll handle the rest."

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A/N- So what'd you think? I'm really sorry if the chapters not as long as you want it to be. And I'm sorry if I rushed the knife throwing test. I thought it'd be really boring if I described each one in detail. I'll make up for everything with next chapter. Eric and Shelby get very up close and personal ;) You'll see what I mean. I'll update soon, please review! I love them :)