Four and Eric had guided both Mattie and Isabelle's team into the backdoor that led to the labyrinth that was stationed in the way back of warehouse for special occasions. Four took Mattie's team to the opposite end of the course to set them up for the game while the rest of the initiates made their way up to the observation deck above; at the railings, the initiates were able to look down at the labyrinth like scientists looking upon a mousetrap.
Eric then took Isabelle into another room, not observable from above, where the bulletproof vests and the specialized guns were kept while her team waited outside patiently. The vests hung on hangers against one side of room while the guns were displayed on the other side, gleaming in their onyx glory from the lighting above. Eric moved to the wall and grabbed a vest off of the hangers before turning to Isabelle.
"Come here," he said firmly as he adjusted the vest in his hands, "I'm going to show you how to properly put on a vest as well as how to use the guns."
Isabelle complied, taking some steps forward until she was only a few inches away from the leader. Once she was close enough, he showed the girl how to identify the front from the back of the vest before ordering Isabelle to raise her arms. She did as she was told as Eric slipped the vest over her head. He pulled her closer so that they were chest-to-chest as he tugged at the strap to secure the vest before laying the strap across the velcro on her side. Isabelle could feel Eric breathing lightly onto her.
"You enjoy making me suffer, don't you?" Isabelle asked suddenly, her eyes watching Eric keenly.
"Why do you say that?" He asked, looking down at her.
Isabelle raised a brow, "Putting Avicus on my team? I hope you know that the first chance I get I'm taking him out."
"You kill him off and your team automatically loses." Eric threatened, making his voice deeper than normal.
The brunette sighed, parting her lips slightly as she tilted her head with furrowed brows in disbelief. "Come on, Eric. He's not going to cooperate with me. Either way we're going to lose the game because of him."
"Then you take the loss and learn from your mistakes." He said rather sternly, "In the real world you don't get to decide who is on your team and who's not—you deal with whatever you have and that's it. Stop whining."
The girl knew he was right, but Isabelle didn't want to give Eric the pleasure of knowing that. Trying to ease the mood, she grinned at the leader, "You're a sadist."
Surprisingly, it worked as Eric smirked back at her. With his hands still on her vest, gripping her tightly, he leaned into her, "I've been called worse."
"I don't doubt that." Isabelle paused for a moment as her eyes melted into Eric's, a curious question popping into her head, "If I let you sleep with me last night, would you still have put Avicus on my team?"
The smile on Eric's face broadened, giving Isabelle the answer to her question, "That might have been a possibility." He leaned in farther to press his lips against Isabelle's, but she slipped away from his grip playfully, a devious smirk lacing her lips. She wandered over to where the guns where mantled on the wall opposite of the two, looking up at them.
"Are you going to teach me how to use these or not? I want to be prepared and not have to wander around on the course like an idiot—I'd like to win, you know."
Eric had to take a deep breath to steady himself, moving over to where Isabelle stood before he unhooked one of the guns, handing it over to the girl. "Here," he said pointing to a small red button, "will turn off the safety; you'll know it's off when the button turns green." His finger moved to point at another button near the trigger—this time it was a chrome silver, "This button will switch between bullets as you have two different types: stun and kill. The stun bullets will cause temporary paralysis, but you only have three of those, so use them wisely. The kill bullets will stimulate the pain of the real ones, although it won't leave any physical damage on the body."
"That's it?" She asked, examining the gun in her hands.
"That's it. Now I'm going to send in your team so you can show them the ropes."
"Why didn't you just have them in here with me and explain it to all of us at the same time?"
"Because I won't always be your leader and you won't always have someone telling you what to do; that's what you have to learn when you become a leader, that you have to adapt to the situation when you don't have all the pieces to the puzzle."
"A simple because I said so would've sufficed, Ernest Hemingway. You want to tell me about your old war stories while you're at it? Forewarn me about the horrors of betrayal on the battlefield?"
"You have two minutes to prep your team and device a plan of attack," was all he said as he left the room, earning a chuckle from Isabelle. A few moments later her teammates walked into the room with the exception of Aliyah, who was chosen by Eric to be the "hostage" in the game.
Of course he'd choose her, Isabelle thought, shaking her head, still grinning slightly although still annoyed that he'd put Avicus with her. Bastard.
Virgil and Avicus stood before the girl, her eyes examining them before nodding over to the vests. "Put one on and grab a gun; the front of the vest has a strap that will loop back onto the velcro across the left side of your body."
The boys did as they were told, quickly pulling a vest from a hanger and sliding it on, pulling the straps before securing it tightly. They then moved over to the opposite wall and took one of the remaining guns, although there were at least forty-some left. When they finished prepping themselves, Isabelle gave the two a run-down of how to use the guns, just as Eric had done with her.
"So what's the plan, leader?" Avicus asked, his voice dark and dripping like venom with distaste for the girl.
Isabelle was a silent, the cogs in her mind turning as she tried to think of the best way to go through the course without being seen by the other team as they tried to rescue Aliyah, pressing her weapon against her chest securely. "We don't know exactly where Eric has placed Aliyah, so I think the best course of action is for us to split up, but we stick close to the walls—eventually they'll lead us to where Aliyah is; it's easier than trying to go through the middle of the maze and then end up getting lost—"
"I don't think we should split up," Avicus retorted quickly, almost as if he was planning on saying it beforehand.
"If we stick too close together we'll be easier targets—three for the price of one. At least if we spread out a little we'll cover more ground more efficiently."
"Then how will we know if one of us reaches Aliyah first or one of us is hit?"
"We stick close enough together, but we won't move as a single group; we'll keep an eye on each other, but at a distance. If at least one other person is still in the game when someone finds Aliyah, it is our primary concern to guard the two. Taking Aliyah back to our base is our number one priority. I don't want any unnecessary bloodshed, understood?"
Virgil nodded, "understood."
Isabelle turned to glance over at Avicus. He was staring at the girl with dead eyes. She narrowed her own at the black-haired boy, already fed up with him not cooperating. "I said, understood?" Her tone was much darker than before, Virgil noticed as he watched in distraught.
Still Avicus didn't reply.
Isabelle sneered, taking a step forward so that she was right in front of the dark-haired menace, her eyes burning with offense and indignation, "Listen here, Avicus," now it was Isabelle's turn to allow the venom to seep from her mouth, "To be completely honest, I don't give two shits about you, I really don't, but you're on my team and there's nothing I can do about it, so you're just going to swallow your pride and work with me. Understood?"
The end of Avicus' mouth curled upward in a nefarious smirk, his dark eyes glistening with something putrid, "I bet if you sucked off Eric like we all know you want to I wouldn't be here, would I?"
In the blink of an eye Isabelle raised her gun and hit Avicus right in the nose with the butt of it. As he stumbled back, Isabelle took the opportunity to grab him by the vest, threw him to the wall harshly. With one hand on his vest, Isabelle moved her elbow up so that it crushed his throat, pinning him to the wall, "You think I want you here?" She spat at the boy, her face incredibly close to his as she shook with anger, "I would rather see you dead, rotting at the bottom of the Chasm than see you make it to the next stage of initiation. I will make sure you don't become Dauntless if it's that last thing I do, but you are not brining me down with you by not following my orders! We are going to run the course by my plan, get Aliyah, and take her back to the base without any of your bullshit fucking up my strategy, understood?"
Slowly, Avicus nodded. Isabelle muttered a good as she released the boy roughly. Just then, the door opened on its own, Eric's voice booming from the other side even though he was standing up on the observation deck with Four and the others, "On the count of three, the game begins! One…"
Isabelle turned to her teammates, a thought suddenly popping into her head, "If we're on this end of the course and Mattie's team is on the other, that means Aliyah and the other hostage are on one of the two sides—left or right. It's a fifty-fifty chance on choosing which side Aliyah is on, so we'll move to the left first."
"No," Virgil said suddenly, although his voice wasn't condescending like Avicus' was before, "that's what they want you to think—Eric and Four. They're smart and they like watching us run around like fools, but I know they'd make us cross the course instead of having it be easy for us by sticking our hostage on our side of the maze. They'll put Aliyah on the right—the other hostage on the left."
"Two…"
Not wanting to waste anymore time, Isabelle nodded, "We move to the right but stick to walls like I originally planned. Virgil, you'll be on the far right with Avicus in the middle and I'll be on the far left. Mattie will probably be thinking close to the same thing, so we'll definitely make contact with her team at some point. Our priority is to keep Aliyah safe and make sure one of us brings her back to base. Understood?"
The two nodded.
"Three!"
Isabelle and her team raised their guns, looking through the scope as they entered the labyrinth. Looking up, the bright lights that hung from above almost blinded the girl, but she was able to make out the silhouettes of heads as they peered down into the maze, watching both team's every move with anticipation.
The air was filled with silence, much to Isabelle's surprise. She'd expected the room to be buzzing with cheers and applause as it was earlier, to hear the buzzing the those above as they stomped their feet and rattled the rails in excitement, but it was the exact opposite. It was so quiet that the girl swore that she could hear her own pulse as it throbbed in her throat, her heart pounding rapidly in her ribcage; she took a deep breath to try and calm her nerves. As Isabelle continued forward, all of the exhilaration that she felt before entering the course had slowly slipped away, instead an uneasy feeling started to creep throughout her body, her insides tensed up with each step she took.
Once they were a few feet from the base, the trio split up. Virgil and Avicus took careful steps as they moved into position, Isabelle watching ahead of them cautiously as they did so. The walls of the labyrinth were high, being six-foot-eight at least, towering immensely above the girl's head. With the three of them spaced out, they were able to cover more ground without getting separated from the pack.
They continued to move to the right slowly, never looking away from the scope of the gun just in case Mattie's team were to come into view—ready to attack. Just as Isabelle was about to move closer to the left, she got a small glimpse of a moving figure, so she hid behind one of the high walls as she clenched her weapon to her chest. Virgil and Avicus saw the figure too, and ducked behind their respective walls. Now their eyes were on Isabelle, looking for her guidance.
She took another deep breath, turning to her teammates. She raised a clenched fist, signaling them to hold their position before moving her index finger to her lips. Glancing down at her weapon, Isabelle pressed the small, silver button near the trigger to change the bullet to stun. Calming herself, Isabelle moved to the edge of the wall and peeked around it with her gun raised—peering into the scope. The instructors and initiates above waited with bated breath, waiting to see what would happen next.
A moment later Isabelle saw Jay round the corner, his weapon raised as well as he looked around nervously. The boy didn't spot Isabelle until it was too late as she had fired a stun bullet at him. The shot hit him in the right below his left clavicle and he dropped his weapon, his arm paralyzed completely; then, nearly half of a second later, Isabelle pressed the silver button again and shot the boy in the same spot with the kill bullet. At an instance, the boy fell to the ground with a loud thump as he landed on his back, groaning in pain.
As soon as he was down, Isabelle turned to her teammates and ordered them to keep moving forward by pointing fervently, so much so that she was afraid that her hand would fall from her wrist if she continued the gesture. While her team moved on, Isabelle lingered behind for a few moments, keeping an eye out for any other members of Mattie's team that might have been close by. When the coast was clear, Isabelle moved from her spot and caught up with the rest of her team.
Although her breathing was shallow and quiet, Isabelle surely thought that the sounds of her respirations would give away her team's position. Despite the heat from the lights above and the thick vest, Isabelle felt extremely cold, the tips of her fingers and toes nearly frozen, as did her cheeks. For a moment, she allowed her eyes to glance over at Avicus; Isabelle was able to make out small sweat beads on the boy's forehead they fell down the side of his face, his dark eyes darting from place to place for survey the area in front of him.
After their encounter with Jay, the trio slowly inched their way to the right side of the course, still in their goose-formation with Avicus at the front. Virgil stopped suddenly, watching behind his wall with his fist clenched in the air, much like Isabelle had done earlier, just as footsteps approached in front of him. The girl and the black-haired boy stopped dead in their tracks, watching ahead of them like Virgil. A few seconds passed by and the footsteps slowly faded out, but Virgil still held his fist in the air. He looked over at Isabelle before he pointed himself and then around the corner, signaling that he was going in alone. Isabelle nodded but walked over to him, watching his back as he turned a corner to his right.
He was gone for about thirty-seconds, the longest thirty-seconds Isabelle had ever endured, before he reappeared, his head barely peeking past the corner of the wall. Silently, he gestured them to follow him. Isabelle glanced back at Avicus and allowed him to go first, trailing close behind. The two followed Virgil as he weaved through the course. Isabelle could still hear herself breathing, thinking that it was strange that she felt so unnerved by the task at hand. The trio continued to wander about until finally they had nearly reached the right side of the labyrinth, the farthest they could go.
Just as Virgil was about to enter the last set of walls, Mattie and JD had rounded the corner, coming clear into view as they made their way into the same direction. Isabelle made eye contact with Mattie as she tried to hide behind a wall while JD raised his gun up to shoot at Avicus. Without thinking, Isabelle pushed the dark-haired boy out of the way as JD shot at him; Isabelle barely dodged a flying bullet as she fell on her knees, crawling away from the gunfire. Virgil was able to run into the straightway until he found a small room where Aliyah was tied to a chair, a white handkerchief in her mouth to prevent her from yelling to her teammates.
With Isabelle and Avicus behind their walls and JD and Mattie a few feet away behind their own, there was a cease-fire between the two teams and Virgil worked diligently to untie the hostage. Every once in a while, one of the initiates would peek their head from behind the wall to see if any one was visible or had made a move. By the looks of it, Mattie's team hadn't found their own hostage yet with Jay out, so Isabelle's team had the advantage for now.
Isabelle turned to Avicus, trying to get his attention. When he finally glanced over, she spoke to him quietly, "I'm going to make a run for it over to the wall in front of us. I should be able to coax either Mattie or JD out from behind their hideout enough for you to take them down."
"What about you? You might get hit."
"As long as one of you brings Aliyah back to base, it doesn't matter."
Avicus paused for a moment, thinking over what he was going to say. "No, I'll go out; you have the best aim out of us both. You take the shot."
"Avicus—" Isabelle was about to scold the boy for not listening to her orders, but before she could finish the boy stood and moved from his hiding spot, out in the open as he slowly made steps towards the wall to the right, slightly ahead of him.
As predicted, JD stepped out to get a better shot, but Isabelle went trigger happy as she shot at the boy three or four times, taking him down. Unfortunately, she wasn't quick enough as Avicus got hit as well. He fell to the ground instantly, cursing loudly as he pulled out the dart-like bullet that was lodged in his shoulder. Like Eric said, there was no bullet hole or blood, but the pain was still unbearable. Both the boys were out. Now it was just Mattie left to find her hostage while Virgil handled Aliyah with Isabelle provided backup.
It was not long after both Avicus and JD had gone down when Virgil rounded the corner with Aliyah at his left, the side in which she was most protected. Isabelle gestured for the two to come over to her and they did.
"You two get in front of me and I'll trail behind—Mattie's the only one left on her team."
"What about Avicus?" Aliyah asked.
"He's down. It's just us three now."
With nothing left to be said, Virgil and Aliyah led the way with Isabelle trailing behind, walking backwards cautiously as she monitored the area, just waiting for Mattie to pop up and attack, but she never did. Mattie was searching frantically for her own hostage to try and win the game, but it was useless—Virgil had been paying very close attention to the route his team had taken through the labyrinth, so it didn't take long for the three of them to make it back to base.
"And Isabelle's team wins this round." Four said from above as the initiates erupted in cheers and applause, banging on the rails and shouting in excitement for the team's victory.
"This round?" Virgil asked, looking up at the instructors above, shielding his eyes from the bright lights with his unoccupied hand.
"Yeah," it was Eric who responded this time, "now your team will face either Warsan or Nikki's team next, depending on who wins their round."