Author's Note:
I wanted to thank mrsbishop21, RisughXD, interdictum in aeternum, the guttersnipe, and Feigningintrest for the lovely reviews:) Fave/follow/review, I love reviews! :) Hope you enjoy xoxo
"This board is your life," Four gestured to a blank, black screen that hung on a beam above the entrance to the training room. "This is where your rankings will show up. You train separately from the Dauntless-born, but you'll be ranked together. It's easy to fall in rank, and difficult to rise. Only the top twenty initiates will become members of Dauntless; those of you who fail to earn an acceptable spot, will become Factionless."
Lia's lips parted slightly, and she shared a brief, wary glance with Marc. She didn't know what she would do if any of her new friends were to fail initiation. She couldn't bare to think that she might not pass.
"There's thirty-one of us!" a brunette from Erudite exclaimed, with wide eyes. Four smirked at her, shifting his weight to one leg.
"Yes," he agreed, simply. "Six of you will be leaving the compound after stage one, and five of you will be leaving after the final test."
Four reached inside his coat, and pulled out a small, black remote. He pressed a button on it, and the screen flashed to life. It displayed the ranks, and names, of every one of the initiates; transfer, and Dauntless-born, alike.
Lia's jaw dropped when she found her name on the board; she ranked sixth. Out of all thirty-one initiates competing for the right to make their lives in Dauntless, she ranked sixth.
"Do not let fear consume you; if you're truly Dauntless, you won't be worried that you might fail. You chose us, and now, we get to choose you."
"Aw man," Marc whispered, nudging Lia in the side, and pointing to his name. "I'm twenty-one... I'm never going to make it."
The dark-haired girl noticed her Amity friend trembling, and poked him in the stomach, giggling when he squeaked.
"You are going to make it, Marc," she told him, with a serious tone. She noticed the young, blonde leader watching her from where he leaned against a stone column, with his arms folded, off to the side. "Trust me, I won't let you fail. We're in this together, yeah?"
The ginger-haired boy gave her a small smile, and nodded his head, before they followed Four up to the rooftop shooting range.
Eric watched them go, before he followed them up the stairs, and outside. The Candor girl surprised him, to no end. She had a big mouth, but she adapted to Dauntless with little to no difficulty. Sure, she wasn't perfect, yet, but she definitely had potential. It didn't escape his attention that Lia was the only transfer to rank in the top ten.
The sun was exceptionally bright, and the heat was brutal, up on top of the roof. Lia had to squint her eyes, and still had trouble watching the brown-haired leader demonstrate how to shoot a pistol.
She picked up a gun, and pressed the release to check the clip for bullets, just the way that Four had showed them. She failed to catch the clip, and it fell to the ground, causing her to jump, in surprise.
Lia felt a small blush creep to her cheeks; she really hoped nobody saw that.
She bent down to pick the clip back up, and then clicked it back in place, before switching the safety off. She took her stance, and aimed at the target. When she pulled the trigger, the recoil caused her hands to fly up in the air, and she stumbled back. She had expected to fall to the ground, but instead she slammed back into a brick wall.
A brick wall with hands.
Lia turned her head, and, lo and behold, there was Eric, placing his hands on her shoulders, to steady her. He wore a wicked grin of amusement, and it caused her blush to deepen, substantially.
The young leader pointed ahead of her, in the direction of the target, and Lia turned back to see if she had even hit it.
She had hit the upper, right-hand corner, on the white border; not the actual target. She huffed in frustration, before taking her stance, again. This time, before she could aim down the sights, Eric snatched the weapon from her hands.
"Hey! Wha-!" Eric placed a finger to her lips, again, to shush her. She raised a quizzical eyebrow, and he smirked. The blonde leader gently pushed her to the side, and he grabbed Lia's hand, placing it on his stomach.
The dark-haired girl pulled her hand away, quickly, as though she had been burned, and the young leader rolled his eyes.
He grabbed her hand again, and placed it back over his stomach, and this time, Lia didn't remove it. Eric nodded once, in approval, before taking his stance.
The blonde breathed in, and out, firing the weapon on the exhale, and hit the target dead center. He lowered the gun, and looked down where Lia still rested her hand against him, smirking at the dark-haired girl.
Lia quickly pulled her hand to herself, her cheeks burning, and lowered her gaze. The blonde leader held the pistol out to her, and she accepted it without meeting his eyes, and went to take her stance again.
She gasped when she felt his large, warm hands on her waist, her eyes going wide. She didn't turn to look at him, for fear that she would be eye level with his chin, again.
Eric felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards, at her reaction to his touch. He kicked her feet further apart, and pulled her shoulders back a bit, before placing his hands over her smaller ones.
Lia gulped nervously, when she felt the young leader's body pressed flush against her back, his warm breath drifting over her ear, and she shuddered. She could feel his heart beating, and soon her breath fell in sync with Eric's. The blonde removed his hands from the Candor girl's, and let them rest on her shoulders, waiting.
Cordelia aimed the weapon, took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger when she exhaled, her feet absorbing the shock of the recoil.
She had missed the center by less than an inch.
She felt Eric step away from her, a chill running through her at the lack of his presence, in spite of the searing heat from the summer sun.
She turned to look at him, in shock, and he nodded, gesturing for her to continue. She felt a small smile tugging at her lips as she fired the weapon again, and again.
Lia had hit just outside the center twice more, and hit the bullseye three times, after receiving the instruction from the blue-eyed leader. She turned to thank him, with a grin on her face, but Eric had already gone. The Candor girl spotted him kicking Marc's feet apart, before he met her gaze with a smirk.
The dark-haired girl glanced back to the target, briefly, before reloading the clip, and continuing to fire.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
"Marc! Stop!" Sassy screamed, as the Amity boy tickled her relentlessly. Lia, and the rest of their little lunch group, laughed boisterously at the two. The Candor girl was having an exceptionally good day, especially considering her rank, and her improvement with marksmanship.
"Say 'I'm a pansycake'!" the ginger-haired boy retorted, grinning as he continued his assault of the blue-haired girl's armpits, and ribs.
"You're a pansycake!" she screamed, struggling to the get the words out through her hysterical laughter.
Marc chuckled, darkly, as he continued to torture the out-spoken Dauntless-born. "Not me!" he exclaimed. "You!"
"I'm a pansycake! I'm a pansycake!" Sassy yelled, and Marc immediately withdrew his weapon of choice; his fingers.
Several heads in the cafeteria had turned at their little scene, and a lot of people started cheering at Marc's victory. Sassy playfully glared at the ginger, pointing a finger in his face, and poking his nose.
"This isn't over, Amity!" she announced loudly, causing even more of a joyful chorus of laughter throughout the dining hall.
Things settled down, quickly, and Lia grinned at the two.
"Alright, now kiss and make up," she said, smirking when both Marc, and Sassy, blushed a deep scarlet, causing giggles to erupt from Uriah, Todd and Violet.
"Hey, so I heard about how deadly you are with a weapon," Todd spoke up, throwing an arm over Violet's shoulder. Lia grinned, widely, nodding her head.
"Yeah, I'm six, on day four, for a reason," she stated, simply. "We've just got to get Marc up from his twenty-one."
The Amity boy groaned, and placed his head in his hands. "I'm never gonna make it!" he whined, and Lia had to suppress a giggle when Sassy started rubbing his back. Those two totally had a thing for each other, whether they admited it, or not.
"Hey, so our mystery musician left another CD," Violet piped up, attempting to lighten the mood, once again.
"Let's hear it, then," Todd said, kissing the purple-haired girl on the cheek. Uriah whistled, and made kissing sounds, eliciting giggles from everyone.
Violet pulled the CD out of a paper covering, and placed it in the player, turning up the volume.
That there, that's not me
I go where I please
I walk through walls
I float down the Chasm
I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here, I'm not here
In a little while
I'll be gone
The moment's already passed
Yeah, it's gone
I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here, I'm not here**
"Damn, this guy has got some problems, huh?" Marc asserts, as the rest of the group laugh. Violet suddenly quiets down, and turns the power off to the CD player.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Lia starts, pouting her lips, her shoulders drooping. "It's depressing, yeah, but I was enjoying that!"
Violet points in the direction behind the Candor girl.
Lia sighs, deeply. "Seriously?" She spins around in her seat, and Eric is standing behind her, yet again. "We were kinda doing something, before you so rudely interrupted." Lia crosses her arms over her chest, staring up at the young, blonde leader. Eric's eyes flicker, briefly, to the CD player before he catches Lia's gaze, again.
"Well?" Lia asks, inclining her head forward. "What do you want?"
Something that the dark-haired girl couldn't decipher flashed across Eric's icy-blue orbs. He reaches into his back pocket, pulling out his pad and pen.
Lia watches with interest as he scribbles away over the paper; Eric has never communicated with her in this way. He hands her the small note, and turns to leave.
Lia watches him go, before scanning what he wrote to her: You did good today, for a Candor smart mouth.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
"Lia!"
Cordelia rubbed her eyes, and groaned, as she stirred under her warm blankets. She sat up slowly, to find Four standing at the end of her cot. She jumped up, quickly, her bare feet hitting the cold, stone floor.
"You need to come with me," he said softly, sighing deeply.
Lia stared at him for a moment, in confusion.
"Why, what's going on? It's the middle of the night," the dark-haired girl glanced to a large, industrial clock above the bathroom. The brown-haired leader shifted awkwardly where he stood, before beckoning the Candor girl to follow him.
Lia thought that this was odd, but she followed her instructor, regardless. The dark corridors were colder than usual, with Lia only wearing the shorts and tank top that she had been sleeping in. Four led her up several flights of stairs, and down another long hallway, before stopping outside of a metal door with a frosted glass window.
He knocked before opening the door, moving to the side for Cordelia to enter. He closed the door behind her, waiting just outside of the office. Four didn't want to be in there when she was given the news.
The brown-eyed instructor leaned against the cool wall, and waited.
"Lia," a dark-skinned man stood up from behind a desk, offering her a small smile, as he gestured for her to take a seat. The dark-haired girl hesitantly accepted the chair, crossing her arms over her chest to ward off the chill.
"Who are you?" she asked, curiously. Lia didn't think that she had seen this man, before. He leaned against the front of his desk.
"My name is Max. I'm the leader here, at Dauntless," he responded, nodding his head a bit.
"Why am I in here?" Cordelia pressed, growing nervous. She didn't understand why she was woken from her sleep in the middle of the night, and brought before the leader. She had only met the leader of Candor, Jack Kang, once, when she was caught in a lie as a small child.
The older man scratched the back of his neck, and sighed, his actions making the dark-haired girl uncomfortable, and she wiggled in her seat.
"Lia, we've received some unfortunate news," he begin, a sympathetic expression on his face. Lia got an uneasy feeling in her stomach at his tone, and she swallowed, thickly. "There was an accident at Candor..."
"Don't say it," Lia thought, as she began to shake her head.
"Three residential apartments caught fire..."
"No, please. No."
"...and your parents were trapped inside..."
"No, no, no."
"I'm very sorry. They didn't make it out."
Lia felt like her entire world had just fallen apart, in a matter of seconds. Sure, she had left her parents behind to join a new faction, but she didn't leave on bad terms. She had even told her parents, beforehand. She still loved them; they still loved her. And, now, to think that they were gone from the world...
"It's not true. You're lying!" she accused, standing up and pointing a finger in the leader's face. Tears began to stream down her face, and she trembled with rage.
"I'm sorry, Lia," the dark-skinned man reached out to place a hand on her shoulder, in an attempt to comfort the girl, but she shrugged him off, violently.
"Don't touch me!" she screamed, before running for the door, swinging it open. She tried to make a run for it; she didn't know where she was going, she just wanted to go. Four sensed the situation at hand, and grabbed her, before she could do anything stupid.
"Hey! Hey, calm down," the brown-haired instructor attempted to calm the hysterical girl. She fought against him, thrashing in his arms, attempting to get away.
"Let me go!" she screamed through her tears, kicking out at the man restraining her. "Let me go!"
The fight eventually left Cordelia, and she dropped, limply, to the floor, sobbing.
"Hey, now," Four hushed her, quietly, kneeling with her on the ground. "Let it out." He let the dark-haired girl hold onto his shirt as she cried, hiccuping, and sobbing.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
"Eric, you haven't talked about anything other than the Candor girl, for like, an hour," Lauryn asserted, peeling the skin off of an orange. He really hadn't. Eric was impressed. Lia was excelling in every area of stage one, and the young leader had no doubt that she would become Dauntless. In some ways, she reminded him of himself, only a few years ago.
"Let's talk about something else, huh?" the red-head speaks up, again, as she pulls apart the slices of orange, placing them in a bowl. "Like, I don't know..."
Eric grinned at the green-eyed woman; sometimes, things could get pretty boring, and she was grasping for straws to strike up a conversation about something other than the initiates. He wrote Lauryn a note, pertaining to such, and she smirked at him.
"Yeah, but we're not talking about iniates," she said, popping an orange slice into her mouth. "We're talking about the Candor girl."
Eric scowled at his friend, and the red-head laughed, loudly, at his reaction.
"What the fuck you tryna say, Lauryn?"
Clearly, his expression said it all, because the green-eyed woman threw her hands up in the air, in surrender. "Yep, I get it. Shutting up, now."
"Let me go!"
"Candor?"
"Let me go!"
Eric could hear the girl sobbing in the corridor, and stood with Lauryn to investigate. They exited the red-head's apartment to find Lia, on the ground, sobbing into Four's shoulder, while he was rubbing her back.
"The fuck is this? The fuck is he touching her for?!"
"What's going on, here?" Lauryn demanded, placing her hands on her hips. Four looked up, and shook his head, slowly. That meant he wanted them to back off. Lauryn wasn't as good at reading Four's unspoken requests as she was Eric's. "Come on, explain what this is."
The Candor girl pushed away from the brown-haired instructor, her gaze meeting Eric's, momentarily. He could see that her eyes were red, and puffy, and wet trails ran down her face from the tears that she had shed.
"Why are you crying?"
The dark-haired girl's gaze shifted to Four, briefly, before she sprinted away, down the hall. Eric raised a pierced eyebrow at the brown-haired man.
"Her parents died. They got trapped in their appartment, and burned alive," he informed them, glancing down the hall where Cordelia disappeared. "Max just told her."
"Why did he tell her? He should've just let her live in blissful ignorance!"
"I say we split up and look for her, before she does something stupid, or catches the flu," Lauryn suggests, Four and Eric nodding in agreement.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
Lia ran until she was out of breath, stopping when she reached the Chasm. She slowly walked out across the rail, leaning over and looking down at the river, rushing below her feet.
The sound was almost deafening, the roar of the water echoing off the walls of the cavern. Cordelia felt the tears start again, silently streaming down her face. "I shouldn't have left them!" she thought, growing angry with herself. "I could've saved them if I had stayed! This is my fault!"
Lia jumped, startled, when she felt the rail sway, and she turned around to see Eric, slowly shuffling across the metal planks. He came up beside her, pulling out that pad and pen of his.
Lia accepted the note: Please don't jump.
"Why not?" she responded, making eye contact with the young, silent leader. "It's my fault! I could've saved them if I'd stayed! If not, then I would've died with them..." Lia glanced over the rail again, the water cutting through the Chasm, violently. "Why not jump?"
"Now you just sound like an idiot, Candor."
Eric scribbled on the pad again, passing her the small, yellow paper: You're Dauntless. You belong here. Not your fault.
"You think I belong here?" Lia asked, raising an eyebrow, shivering even more, now that the cold water sprayed up in the air from the river below. Eric nodded, with a small smile.
"You found her!" Four and Lauryn hurried across the bridge, glancing between the leader, and the Candor girl. "Come on, let's get out of here, heights make me nervous."
Eric smirked at the brown-haired instructor, as they walked back into the corridor.
"Lia, why don't you stay with me tonight?" Lauryn offered, and Eric threw her a look. "That way you can get some good rest, and I'll make us some hot chocolate and grilled cheese sandwiches, huh?"
Cordelia turned around, looking to Eric, waiting for permission. She didn't need his permission, though. The blonde offered her a small smile, and nodded.
"Yeah, okay," Lia agreed, shivering; her teeth chattering. She turned to leave with Lauryn, when she felt a tap on her shoulder. The dark-haired girl turned back around, to be met with Eric holding out his jacket to her, leaving him in only a thin, black t-shirt. The Candor girl frowned, and shook her head, but Eric was persistent.
"Stubborn Candor."
The young leader threw it around her shoulders, ignoring her protest, pleased when the shivering stopped. His jacket was still warm, and it did make Lia feel a bit better. She smiled, and mouthed a 'thank you', before following Lauryn back to the red-head's apartment.
**How to Disappear Completely - Radiohead (I changed "Liffey" to "Chasm" though, to Divergentize it, lol.)