She Among Wolves

Chapter 4

Kazana has lived factionless her entire life, having been found by the rebels who strive to live without the faction system she becomes their new secret weapon. The plan is clear, choose dauntless, pass initiation, infiltrate the system, but what can she do when a certain leader sees through her façade? AU No War, One year after Tris' initiation.

Well this update came sooner than I had intended, I just couldn't keep the story off my mind! Do any other writers feel that? You become so immersed in that world it is hard to stop. That said thank you so much for the ongoing support and lovely reviews. I have a couple of questions to answer:

Guest: This is set one year after Tris passed initiation, she will come in to the story later. The Erudite plan has yet to commence. Divergents continue to be a taboo subject but not a main issue in this story.

Eric is appearing more bit by bit, you will understand after you read the end and I wouldn't call it a slow burner but the interactions will increase and intensify throughout the story, especially after this chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own Divergent, I don't even own a poncho, what's up with that?

3 ½ years prior to Kaz's Initiation

"One and Two and Three and Four, what have I said about tightening your core!" Cain chanted as he circled Kazana, a large staff in his hand which he used to bang the ground at a steady rhythm. Kazana growled and lunged forward with a sloppy punch to the jaw; Cain side stepped and used the staff to knock her off her feet and on to the hard cement. He chuckled, coming down to a crouch beside her.

"Wider stance and a strong stomach would have prevented that," he remarked coolly, scratching the piercing in his eyebrow which, without the facilities to clean it, was starting to pick up a nasty infection. "I'll tell you what would have prevented that, letting me fight like a normal person without all of this tribal stick banging rubbish!" Kazana snarled.

At 12 years old her body had barely begun to develop and the prospect of her leaving but a scratch on a fully grown Dauntless member was very unlikely nigh impossible. Cain simply smiled at her fondly, there was a spirit in this girl that spoke of great potential, she was capable of great strength if only she knew how to harness it. "This tribal stick banging rubbish is what enabled me to pass Stage One of my initiation with flying colours; you'd do well to remember that. Now close your eyes" his voice was calm but firm as he pulled her to her feet and began once more, to tap the ground to an even beat.

"Listen to the way your body reacts, can you feel how your movement is affected? Open your eyes." Kazana looked at Cain warily, her breathing had become calmer as she watched him circle her once more, and she began to copy his steps. They moved around each other, never looking away from their opponent, nothing could be heard but the rhythmic bang as staff hit cement. Her body moved before her mind could react, a quick jab to the solar plexus, Cain blocked and Kazana immediately followed it with a knife hand to the neck.

His eyes widened as he took a step back from her, his hands wrapped around his neck in shock he actually struggled to draw in breath for a few moments. Kazana's confident stance faltered instantly as she watched him withdraw, her brows furrowing when his face broke into a fantastic grin. "Now you've got it," he approved, his face hardened once more as he took up a ready position, stick in hand.

"Again."

Present

Harry was in the process of cramming the entirety of a banana muffin in his mouth when Kaz took her seat at the breakfast table. He looked back and forth between Kaz and Mia who just watched him in mild disgust before attempting to choke some of it back on to his plate.

"Are you actually trying to make me hurl!?" Mia asked incredulously, sipping daintily at a cold glass of fruit juice, she held it to her head and sighed in pleasure.

"Nasty hangover?" Kaz questioned, proceeding to fill her plate with a selection of hot foods. Mia just slammed her head onto the table in front and gave a sound of affirmation.

Harry's jaw dropped slightly as he watched the tower of pancakes on Kaz's plate grow until it hid a majority of her torso from view, picking up a bottle of maple syrup she squeezed until it crumpled beneath her fingers and simply gave him a blank look "What?"

He simply shook his head and reached for another muffin.

The bench almost toppled over as a considerable weight was thrown onto it, she looked up to see a tank staring down at her. Not literally a tank, Kaz recognized him to be another Candor transfer but his immense size made the previous notion just. She felt herself tense at his abrupt arrival, ready for a confrontation.

"'ello beautiful, Kaz is it?" he questioned lightly, plucking a single pancake from her stack and beaming at her.

Noticing the wary way she watched him he simply stared back as he chewed slowly, he scrunched his face up, bringing forth a prodigious double chin and squashed a finger against his nose creating a hideous pig like expression. A laugh bubbled up out of her, he simply held the expression until her shoulders shook with amusement and her stomach hurt from giggling.

He grinned as she tried to control herself, the shock of seeing someone so large and intimidating look so ridiculous had been too funny for her to ignore.

"Name's Wes," he announced proudly, holding out a hefty hand, she accepted it cautiously and he began to shake it about like a mad man, apparently his version of a formal greeting. Kaz decided that he was undoubtedly the strangest person she had ever met, and she loved it.

The training room was without a doubt a warrior's heaven, Kazana gazed around in wander as Peter led her and the other transfers down the narrow stairs, which groaned in protest as Wes leaped from one to the next beside her.

"Today all of you will be learning how to assemble and fire a gun, I don't want to have to wake you all up again so make sure you're up and ready by 8 every single morning without fail. We break for an hour's lunch at 12 and continue training until 6. Evenings can be spent however you wish just no leaving the compound, any questions?" he hissed the last part and looked around at the trembling forms staring back at him.

"Good. Let's begin."

Kaz looked around at the other initiates as they stared at the components before them, some looked excited, some confused but they were all stuck in to the task at hand. She made sure to watch the movements of those next to her closely, before assembling her own weapon at a snail pace. Cain has slammed a gun in to her hand when she was 14 years old, the power that it held had scared her and it took a long time for her to even summon the will to fire it.

Peter strolled up behind her and watched as she took another sneak peak at the Candor girl next to her, she had been the one to witness her friend die and though her progress with the gun was slow she went at it with frenzied determination

"If you are going to copy what the others are doing, you could at least find a better person than Fay, initiate" Peter remarked smarmily before finding someone else to critique. Kaz rolled her eyes as the girl, Fay, glared up at her and shifted to the side slightly in order to cover her work. Target practice couldn't have come sooner, as they all lined up in front of their own boards, weapons in hand.

It was at this precise moment, unbeknownst to Kazana, that Eric strode in to the room and found himself an ideal viewing point, leaning against the wall to watch the initiates work. Wes was the first to fire, unfazed by the recoil he managed to keep his stance wide and stable as he shot, the bullets barely grazed the edge of the target but his attempts were considerably better than the rest of the group who found they stumbled on each try.

Kaz stared down at her gun; she was supposed to be a girl who had grown up for 16 years surrounded by fields, flowers and trees, her life's purpose to live by peace and kindness. That being the case she continued to stare at her weapon a few moments longer in wide eyed wonder before raising her arms shakily towards the target. Peter, who had been watching the initiate's efforts with unveiled contempt, spotted Eric across the room and made his way over.

"Enjoying the spectacle?" Peter questioned with a snort, mimicking the movements of his boss, as they both watched from a distance. "How some of these people actually make it to this point, I don't know" he remarked as he saw Eric's gaze follow the clumsy movements of the Amity girl.

Eric looked at him then and pushed himself off the wall, walking around the arena so he could get a better view as Peter followed. "I wouldn't be so sure," Eric shrugged. "Something tells me she might surprise us" he smirked.

Taking slow breaths in, and out, Kaz tried to decide exactly where it is this exercise would get her on the table. She could fire each bullet into the centre of this target now and proceed on to the next task knowing that place was secured, or she could go on as she had been and allow herself to blend even further in to the crowd and embrace her Amity counterpart.

After the ordeal with Eric from the night before, she didn't want to risk drawing any more attention to herself, so she lifted the gun, and fired.

"Well I have to tell you Eric, I am surprised," Peter nodded slowly and barked out a laugh as he saw the Dauntless leader watch with narrowed eyes. "because that right there is surprisingly terrible." He laughed himself silly as Kazana pulled the trigger and fell right on to her arse, the bullet having hit a wall meters from her own target. Eric scowled at the display before him; he shot Peter a venomous look who sobered up instantly.

Sure that she had proven herself ridiculous and affirmed the expectations of her fellow transfers, Kaz stumbled on to her feet with the odd sensation that she was being watched. She glanced over her shoulder and found Eric glowering at her from across The Pit, but before Kaz could even begin to decipher what had caused such a reaction he shook his head and stalked away.

"Why was Eric watching us train today do you think? I thought he was supposed to be overseeing the Dauntless borns." Mia sat speculating as the others started on lunch.

Wes, who had taken it upon himself to join their little gathering, stabbed his knife into the table causing a few of the other transfers further down the table to jump. "I'll tell you exactly what it is, he's spying. We are being conspired against. It's a dog eat dog world here now, and I for one won't take it." He took a smattering of tomato sauce from his place and smeared his cheeks like warrior paint.

Mia's mouth opened and closed a few times as she watched him in complete dismay. Smoothing back a few strands of her sleek blonde bob, she turned to Kaz who just watched the display in amusement as she built herself a burger tower.

"Oh great, I've joined the crazy group."

The second half of training that day proceeded in much the same way as the first for Kazana as she gazed at the punching bag before her. Her years of experience when fighting with Cain and Edward had been limited to the tools that surrounded her. Knives wielded from sharpened stone, sacks of discarded clothing were used to beat on. The facilities that surrounded her now were incredible and she couldn't even take full advantage, and she hated it.

If she continued to make a complete fool of herself it could damage her chances of passing, so she threw power into her punches and kicks but omitted any technique. Her approach had to have worked as Peter passed and watched for a moment before moving on. "More hip twist," he called after him and she did just that.

Growing up on the run meant that eating had to be a hasty affair, Kaz found this an old habit to quell as she finally came up for air after her meal, she drained the contents of her glass in seconds and looked up to Wes giving her a proud smile.

"I knew there was a reason I liked you," he stated, sliding away his own plate. Kaz watched as Lisa swirled a piece of pasta around with her fork sadly, she had been the only one who had done worse than Kazana on her first day, and she hadn't been faking it.

"So you guys come from the same faction" Kaz offered weakly, addressing both Wes and Lisa. They looked up at each other and shrugged, it was unlikely that they had ever even spoken before their transfer.

"Which means you might be able to tell me who the others are?"

Lisa straightened and looked to the people around them wondering where to start.

"See the girl over there with the short red hair? That's Fay, I think she was dating the boy who fell from the train."

Kaz looked over at the girl who was staring off in to the distance, she noticed the stare and glared back. "The boy next to her is Jared, he's a timid one, good at listening though which has got him this far." Lisa's expression darkened as her eyes fell on to the last Candor at the far end of the table.

Kazana had rarely seen her look anything but impassive and followed her gaze to a boy with a shaven head and wicked sharp eyes, he had taken a seat with the other two Candor transfers but stared off in to the distance as they spoke.

"Solomon," Lisa sounded lost in a memory as she spoke his name, and by the look on her face, it was not a pleasant one.

"Satan's Incarnation," Wes corrected, however he did not look the least bit troubled by the boy's presence. He noted Kazana's confused look and explained.

"Sol lived a few streets down from me growing up, and he's always been a little messed up. I mean I'm always up for a good fight but Solomon lives off the pain of others. I feel sorry for whoever's up against him first," he thought about this for a moment and then added "unless it's me of course, in which case I'll kick his little ass."

Kaz had no doubt of this, she had yet to find out who the Abnegation girl was but knew it could wait.

Pushing away from the table she made her excuses to leave and found her way once again, exploring new passages in the Dauntless compound. Regarding her mental map, she found her way in to the residential area where most of the members lived.

Despite the detailed imagery that Cain had given her, he had never been able to find out where the leaders stayed and she thought it unlikely that she would make such a discovery on the first night. Her musings were interrupted then as she heard an ear piercing cry echo off the walls, people around her stopped in their tracks to see what had caused such a commotion.

"I'M NOT READY, I WON'T GO!" the voice screamed, Kazana craned her neck to see two cliffs joined by a large drawbridge, on which a woman was being hauled towards the exit above. Her face was contorted in to one of sheer terror as she dug her heels with all her might into the ground below but her efforts were to no avail as one of the guards back handed her across the face. The sharp impact of the blow snapped her head to the side and she fell silent then as they dragged her further along.

A younger woman clad in a loose black dress followed on with two small children by her side, they hid behind their mothers legs as she tried to shout to the guards. "Please! Please stop! You can't take her! Not yet!" The woman was crying now as a third guard held her back, heavy sobs wracked her body as she watched the men push her mother across the bridge and through the exit, the metal door slammed behind them.

Kazana watched as the younger woman clambered forward, her children ran after her, tripping over themselves to keep up. She banged on the metal door multiple times and more people were running up to stop her.

"YOU CAN'T TAKE HER!" she wailed, her voice heavy with grief. She repeated this over and over, rocking back and forth as her children looked on wide eyed and tearful. Kaz didn't need to see any more as Dauntless members on duty came to take the woman away, it was clear she would be punished for the public display.

Turning swiftly on her heel, she ran from the scene and didn't stop until she reached a pair of long winding train tracks leading away from the compound. The speed of her sprint had her leaning on her knees for support as she watched the train's outline approach, her chest heaved as she struggled to draw in breath.

Kaz tried to blink away the tears as the severity of what she had seen dawned on her. Those haunted faces that she had passed for so many years, always changing, abandoned and desolate, they'd had families.

With so much life still in them they were pulled from the world that they had tried so hard to build, away from the people that they loved and shoved out in to the cold with nothing more than the clothes on their back. How could she stay?

3 years prior to Kaz's Initiation

The remains of the fire were beginning to die out, soon it would be nothing more than a pile of ash and she would be made to face the night's wrath alone. 13 year old Kazana wrapped her arms tighter around her knees, watching as her breaths left her lips like wisps of smoke in the tangible chill.

A soft blanket was suddenly dropped onto her small shivering form, and she looked up over her shoulder gratefully at the woman who wrapped it around her and went to take a cross legged position by the fire.

"I have sent for more wood, it won't last us long but we have to make use of what we have." Evelyn fell silent after that, her eyes, too large in her hollowed face, stared into nothing as she lost herself in thought.

It was some time before she looked once more at Kazana, studying the young girl's face intently before deciding to speak. "If there were a way," she started, shifting closer to the young girl before continuing "to stop this…the way we are now, shunned from society, hiding in the shadows, would you want something to be done?"

The question was spoken gently, hushed, but there was something beneath that which belied the power of an idea.

"Of course," Kazana's reply was instant, but she couldn't fathom what Evelyn could possibly mean.

"I'd give anything to live in one of the Factions, I don't even care which one, I just want to-" she struggled for the words a moment "to…fit in, I suppose." She finished, peeking up at Evelyn whose face was marred with a worried frown.

"Kazana, there wouldn't be any Factions. I'm talking about starting again, in a world where we are all equal, you would have a place to call home, a full stomach, all of the books you could read." She finished the last part with a sly smile as she had caught the young girl many a time pouring over various pages from the Erudite's collection.

The concept seemed impossible to Kazana, who simply looked at the older woman in dismay. She'd always believed Evelyn to be a natural leader, her experience and wisdom having brought together many lost souls, the beginnings of a community.

"It could never work though" Kazana stuttered, worried she might offend the woman whose opinion she now clung on to more than anything.

"Factions are everything, they keep our society intact…the great war-" she began but Evelyn simply held up a hand.

"What you've read and everything you have heard is a well-constructed web of lies put in place so that nobody would question the injustice of our situation," Evelyn assured, watching as the younger girl's eyebrows knit together in confusion.

"I have a plan on how we can change that Kazana, it'll take some years but people are already coming together to make a difference." She paused and took the girl's smaller hand in her own; Kazana looked up into the older woman's eyes which were now filled with a glittering sort of hope.

"When the time comes, I'm going to need you to help me make those changes. It isn't going to be easy but Kazana you are so strong." She brushed Kazana's cheek with a motherly sort of affection, "Do you think you can do that for me?"

Present

The train was hurtling full speed past her now; she stood frozen in place as her hair whipped around her head as the air rushed past her. She couldn't leave yet, this was the reason she had joined Dauntless. Seeing the anguish of those women today, they were just small examples of a much bigger picture and that was why she had said yes all of those years ago, why she had to go back and finish what she had started.

In the dark confines of the dauntless compound, a sleeping woman lay still on a vast mattress, a pair of stony grey eyes glanced down at her in irritation before staring up at the ceiling above. Deciding that he was in need of a little distraction, Eric had allowed the nameless girl with her long smooth legs, flirtatious eyes and tempting words to seduce him into a few moments of distraction. Unfortunately, that's all it had been, a few moments, before his mind again drifted to a face that was very unwelcome in his mind.

It wasn't attraction, of that he was absolutely sure. He had felt attraction before, strong and fleeting in its wake; he was no stranger to the sensation and had no problems succumbing to it. She intrigued him, the waif of a girl with the raven hair and curious dark eyes. Or at least she had, her performance in The Pit had been a complete embarrassment, on both hers and his behalf.

He had to remind himself to punish Peter for that later, lest he think he can run his mouth again, he was a Dauntless Leader after all. Having decided that the woman beside him had now overstayed her welcome, he shifted the sheets to rouse her. She looked up at him, a sleepy content smile on her face "Er-"

"Out," he spoke, his voice held neither sneer nor anger but it was clear in his tone that the matter was not up for debate. She gathered her things and left as swiftly as possible, a small teary sniff could be heard as she shut the door behind her. Alone with his thoughts, Eric knew he couldn't allow himself to be wrong.

He'd watched as she made her excuses to leave at dinner and there was no sight of her as he perused the halls later on that night, where was she running off to? There was something different about the girl, he saw a mere glimpse of it the night before as she tried to make her escape. Although her words spoke otherwise, he had rarely seen someone respond so powerfully to his touch. Her body was responsive even if her mind was not.

His eyes alight with a new idea as he find himself finally settle in to sleep, he was going to keep a closer watch from now on. He allowed himself to fall in to sleep, his dreams replete with midnight dusk eyes.