I know, I know. Months before I updated again! Well, I was on vacation back then, and we made the most of our last week, then I recently got back to school. Then, I forgot a bunch of the stuff I had planned, plus busy days. Anyway, here's the next chapter. Still super sorry! Please review though!

Chapter 5

It's All Fun and Games 'Til Someone Gets Hurt

(When Opinions Change)

The next few days of initiation weren't so bad. We were called for clean-up duty a couple of times again, but none tired us out as much as our first time. I'm not sure what was different this time, exactly, but there it was. The air was filled with friendly vibes, the initiates helping each other, actually working as a faction, as a whole. I saw my life as Abnegation going as planned, and it was looking good.

Only a few days after our first, we had another one of our rounds in the city, but this time, instead of just the Factionless sector, we ventured further into the rural parts of the city. Although most of the city is pretty much divided equally among the factions, other Factionless apparently still end up wandering here. Marissa, one of our mentoring members, told us that this may be some of the Factionless who can't help but return to their home factions. Anyway, this parts were still pretty close to the Factionless sector, so the Abnegation are responsible for keeping them back before they get any further.

This time, Susan pulled me out of the group and partnered with me before Robert could even ask me, which he was about to do when I glanced at him. Susan noticed and, for some reason, she seemed a bit jumpy as she pulled me away. I had to pull her back to get our bags, though.

She wrapped her arm around mine as we walked, looking for Factionless. I was about to say something, just to break the silence, before she spoke.

"So… you and my brother."

Her hair covered her face almost entirely on the side, so I couldn't see her expression when she said this, but from her tone, she seemed to be teasing. If only Caleb hadn't transferred, it would have been me teasing her. Now, that was never going to happen again; and now, I just made myself sad.

"Robert and me nothing," I tell her. She turns to me with a sheepish grin before pulling away.

"Well I for one am happy for my brother, because finally, you notice him," she says with a genuine smile on her face. Did I not give much notice to him before?

When we make a turn at the block, we see some of the Factionless, looking around at the buildings as if it was familiar territory—as if they'd seen them before, in pictures or distant, childhood memories, but they haven't been there in a while. Some, I noticed, were looking at the schools and offices with longing.

Susan and I look at each other and nod in understanding. We separate, bringing our bags with us.

On this trip, our goal is not only to give supplies to the Factionless; we also need to bring them back to their sector. Other faction members still tend to get jumpy at the sight of Factionless.

I approach one sitting on a bench by the stairs leading to the train platform. I scan the area for Susan and I see her deep in conversation with a Factionless woman sitting in an alley between two small restaurants. I take this chance to walk past the Factionless man and climb up the platform. From here, I could see the train tracks closer. I follow the tracks until I can no longer see where it leads. From experience of watching the trains for as long as I can remember, I know for a fact that the train circling around the city never stops—it slows down occasionally on the places the Dauntless usually jump off on, particularly school and the Hub.

That's when I see him.

It happened very fast. The train tracks begin making this faint sound, and I realize the train was approaching. I was about to go down when I notice something—someone—moving inside one of the cars. It was late in the afternoon, so I doubt it was a student headed to school.

Then he jumps off. A tall, dark figure dressed in Dauntless clothing jumps off the train, which was still far from the platform then. He raises and lowers his arms as he drops to the ground, and he crouches down close to the ground as he lands, on his two feet, I might add. And as he looks up, I realize that this face is one I will never forget.

It was a young man with a spare upper lip and eyes a dark blue I've never seen on anyone's eyes before. He had a cut just above his cheekbone. I wanted to go to him, ask him who he was and what a Dauntless could be doing here at this time of day so close to the Factionless area. But it didn't feel like the right thing to do, especially for an Abnegation initiate.

Then he looks down at the ground, bowing his head, before he stands up and begins to walk away calmly, slowly, as if he lived here; although he was also looking around, almost curiously, as if he was new here.

When I did decide to go down, he was nowhere to be found anymore. I think I may have seen a glimpse of him walking into a passageway leading into the city, but I couldn't be sure. It could have been the Factionless man I left a while ago and was now no longer sitting on the bench, or a fellow initiate for all I know.


The rest of our time left for our rounds, I spend with Susan. When she found out that I sort of wandered off instead of helping that Factionless man, she felt obliged that we do our rounds together instead of separately. I helped her, of course I did, but my mind was on the guy that just jumped off the train. Before I became a full-pledged Abnegation initiate, the only place we ever went to on a regular day was school then we would go back home, so I wasn't really sure if a Dauntless traveling alone so close to the Factionless was normal. The worse thing was not that; it was dwelling on the idea that he might have been a Dauntless initiate, or member, who decided to leave his faction. Would he really choose to be Factionless instead of Dauntless? Could life there be as horrible as my father thinks, because if you asked me, I would have chosen Dauntless and maybe even death anytime over being factionless.


We all got back to the Abnegation sector pretty early, so our leaders send us back to our dormitories to wait for dinner. I lay down in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, thinking about nothing and everything. Probably after an hour after, a loud knock on our door interrupts my thoughts and makes me sit up, also waking up Susan and Tina and some others who were asleep. Rhea opens the door to Bryan and the other Abnegation-born male initiates, Riza's boyfriend from Dauntless. When the door opens, he was leaning against the door frame and stands up straight as he asks where Riza is. Riza was lying on the bed closest to the door and, as he sees her, was just about to enter before Rhea pushes him back, and Michael pulls him back.

"What?" he exclaims with a grin.

"You can't just come in the girls' dormitory like that," Susan tells him with a smile creeping its way into her face.

"Well then," he says as he slightly leans back against the wall of our room, gesturing at himself, "May I come in?"

The guys behind him laugh. One, I recognize as Adrian, hits him at the back of his neck.

"What? Look, the members said we can't sleep together in one room, but there weren't exact rules saying we can't be in one room together, right?"

Come to think of it, there wasn't. And if there was, I just wasn't sure. I realize that for an Abnegation-born, I wasn't very sure about many things Abnegation.

Riza considers this, but shakes her head eventually. Riza just watches them from her bed, a wide smile on her face; it was pretty amusing to watch.

This goes on for a bit longer. The boys dare each other to try and enter the dormitories, with Bryan even jokingly asking if there was some sort of force field that was going to stop them from entering anyway.

In the end, it was us girls that just stepped out of the room to avoid trouble. If there was a rule or none about being in the same room with boys, we didn't want to risk it. We all go to the cafeteria after the others call the boys left in their room. We spend the rest of the night sitting on one long table, squeezed so close together, talking about anything anyone could think of. I don't complain, seeing as I was sitting next to Robert and… well.

At one point, the Amity transfer Robert befriended, Charlie, took out a bottle of water and set it on the table. He taught us a game they used to play in the Amity compound, which Tina explained to us girls, called "Spot the Lie." They would spin the bottle, and whoever the bottle pointed to would say three things about him/herself, then the person will spin the bottle again then he or she would guess which one of those things stated was a lie. If he guesses it right, he can choose to either say three things about himself or pass and just handpick the next liar. Every time someone guesses correctly, everyone else applauds and wait for an explanation from the guesser and the liar, but when someone gets it wrong, well, we just laugh before the liar points out which is the lie.

The whole time, I was hoping I wouldn't get picked. I wouldn't have, until Robert gets picked by the bottle to guess Michael's lie. Growing up with Michael, it was obvious when Michael included "I love cats" in his three statements. Michael was terrified of cats. Then Robert chose to pass the challenge on to me. I hit his arm before thinking of what I could say.

Damn, I think. I should have thought this through. I decide on this:

"Okay, um," I begin. "I have a brother, I love high places, and I fear tall buildings."

I didn't know what to say, it was completely random, so some laughed at it. It was pretty much either one or the other: I either loved heights or feared it.

I spun the bottle, and it chose Bryan. He grinned.

"You don't fear tall buildings." The others wait for my response, so I finally say "I… don't."

Applause. "I just don't," I say in between laughs.

"I know you don't," Bryan said, "I don't think you as the type to fear anything, much less tall buildings."

My smile slowly fades then. I don't know what he meant by that, but I felt like it was something. Everyone shakes off his statement as Bryan points at Riza for her turn, but I don't. Did he just say I seemed fearless to him? Wasn't that a dauntless trait?

I couldn't just shake a thought like that off.

Thanks, Bryan. Now my mind's back on the man who seemed to have just left Dauntless earlier today.


After at least three more lies, though, the kitchen staff enters the cafeteria and is pretty much shocked to see us there too early. We just told them another lie: that we didn't want them to bother calling us for dinner later. They shrug this off and serve us dinner. The members were apparently not joining us for dinner tonight.

After dinner, we spend a few more minutes in the cafeteria to let the food settle in before we decided to go back to our own dormitories.

I was half-asleep, lying on my side, facing Susan, when I heard laughter from behind me. I turn to my side and see some of the girls sitting around Riza's bed. She sees me watching and tosses me a pillow, waking me up. I chuckle as I sit up, pulling myself towards the circle. I realize that they were playing with cards. Apparently, when Riza moved out of the Dauntless compound preparing for the Choosing Ceremony, she and Bryan snuck out one card deck each.

It wasn't the first time I've seen them. I know that the Dauntless play them often. I've seen Dauntless kids in our school cafeteria play them; even the Erudite play them, although the mechanics seemed different. The Erudite play either individually, setting the cards on the table in front of them and arranging them somehow, or by twos, where they exchange cards and take out some from the deck in front of them or something. The Dauntless, on the other hand, play in big groups, noisily, too; they would shout at and make fun of each other. I was pretty sure there was also cheating involved, as I've seen cards exchanged from under the table from afar. On several occasions, I've seen some of the Dauntless stomp the table loudly or throw the cards onto the table before walking away. The remaining Dauntless would just laugh and gather the cards again for another round. Then the Dauntless who walked away would eventually come back to watch or join the game again.

Riza taught us one of their games. It was the first time I've actually held a bunch of cards. Well, more than once, I've gotten a hold of a couple during clean-up at the cafeteria. Anyway, I found the designs really cute, and I swear I think I had a big, goofy smile on my face as I arranged the cards according to suit.

But just when we were starting to have the real fun, with squeals and shocked reactions and pure, happy laughter whenever someone won or lost or made an intentional, wrong, cheaty move, we suddenly hear slow, but loud echoed footsteps from the outside. Looking out at the window, we realize that it had gotten dark, and none of us even noticed. It was time for the members to inspect the rooms and turn the lights out. We all laugh under our breaths as we quickly try to hide our cards on-hand under our pillows and we all rush to our respective beds. Then the lights turn off, and almost everyone, especially those still far from their beds. Those who bunk at the opposite sides of the room run off, then I feel cards flying around. Someone a bit more panicked than everyone else must have thought it would be a good idea to just toss them somewhere, or was probably trying to hide it quickly, but failing at it. I hear a high-pitched "Ow!" from somewhere across the room and a bed squeak before the door opens. I peak at the inspector through my blanket and see that it was an elderly member. He looks around the room with one quick scan before closing the door.

I turn to my side and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I try to look around the room without sitting up, and I see Maribel, one of the Abnegation-borns I never really got to know, sitting up in her bed, rubbing her eyes. The Candor transfer on the bed next to her was muttering something under her breath, too soft for me to hear anything except bits of apologies.

"It's okay," I hear Maribel say, before she pulls out a couple of cards from her bed. She holds them for a while, then sort of throws it over to the transfer's bed and lies down. Silence follows, and I am left to wonder if Maribel really was okay with that. Maybe she was trying to act selfless; you know, think of the transfer's feelings instead of hers. But I wouldn't know. I think she meant to throw the cards a bit too far, so it landed on the transfer's face instead of the bed. I didn't want to dwell on it any longer, and, thankfully, I fell asleep soon after that.


Again, pleaseeee review! I'll try to update soon. Thank you so much!