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Chapter 17

I have a relaxing, dreamless night with Tris in my room. I wake to see her still sound asleep. She looks comfortable and as beautiful as ever curled up in my blankets with her arms wrapped around my pillow with her face buried in it.

I quietly get up and move to the bathroom where I get a shower.

As I stand there, the shower beating on my back I think about how exactly I'm going to let her know who I am and how much I want to share with her. Suddenly I realize, I want her to know everything about me. I want her to know the good and the bad, including who my father is and why I left Abnegation. But how? I don't know what I'm going to do, or how I'm going to do it. But I am going to let her into my world.

I finish my shower, dry off, and dress. I feel lighter than I have in a long time. Having made the decision to let her know me has lifted a weight from me that I didn't even realize I was carrying.

I open the bathroom door to see Tris standing on her toes looking in the mirror at her bruises.

"Hi," she says tightly.

I walk over to her and touch my fingertips to her cheek.

"Not bad," I say. "How's your head?"

"Fine," she says obviously lying.

She touches her fingers to the bump on the back of her head and winces from the pain.

My hand drops down to her side where she got kicked. Her body tenses at my touch.

"And your side?"

"Only hurts when I breathe."

I smile, "Not much you can do about that."

"Peter would probably throw a party if I stopped breathing," she says.

"Well," I say smiling. "I would only go if there was cake."

She laughs and winces from the pain. She covers my hand with hers on her side.

I slide my hand from her slowly. I graze my fingers along her side. I don't want to move, but I have to. I want nothing more than to stay in this room with her and never leave.

We make our way out of my room and down to the dining hall.

"I'll go in first," I say once we've reached the cafeteria. "See you soon, Tris."

I turn and walk into the room to my usual table with Zeke, Shauna, and Lauren.

Shauna looks at the cut on my mouth and my bruised and battered knuckles and asks, "What happened to you?"

Suddenly her gaze shifts to Tris who has just entered the room. She does exactly what I told her to do. Her head is down and she hugs the wall. She walks to her friends' table without looking up.

Uriah wave to her then quickly puts his hand down when he sees her face. Will and Christina look shocked. Uriah moves over to sit next to her. He looks up at Peter and looks visibly upset.

"What happened to her?" Lauren asks.

"Does that have something to do with your knuckles?" Shauna asks.

"Peter, Drew, and Al attacked her last night. They drug her to the chasm and tried to…" My voice trails off. I think they get the point. "I was leaving the control room when I heard her scream. Peter had her by the neck, hanging her over the railing."

"Is she alright?" Zeke asks. "What did you do to them?"

Drew stumbles into the room. He is beyond bruised, is face is swollen, purple, and cut. He keeps his eyes down and walks over to his table with Peter.

"Did you do that?" Lauren looks at me with shock on her face.

I don't respond I just wear a satisfied expression on my face. I look across at Tris and she looks shocked. She meets my eyes briefly and looks like she approves.

"Of course he did that," Zeke says. "There aren't many other people in Dauntless that could cause that much damage to someone without damaging themselves in the process."

"Four, what if he goes to one of the leaders?" Lauren asks me.

"Do you honestly think he would do that?" asks Shauna. "I mean look at what three large guys did to that one girl. And the fact that they were ready to do more than just beat on her? He would have to admit to what happened to explain why Four went after him."

I sit there and I don't respond to their conversation. I don't care if Drew goes to one of the leaders. And if I ever have the chance, Peter will regret ever putting his hands on her.

XXX

I finish eating and stand between the initiates tables.

"Transfers. We're doing something different today," I say. "Follow me."

I lead them out of the dining hall and along the paths that surround the Pit. Tris walks in the middle of the pack with Will on one side and Christina on the other. Peter, Molly, and Drew lag far behind. As we ascend higher, I turn and begin walking backward. I know these paths so well that I have no fear.

I see Drew at the far end of the pack and call back, "Pick up the pace, Drew!" I know it is cruel, but I don't care. Right now I don't care about much, except her.

I glance in her direction smiling and see her arm in arm with Will. Fierce jealousy courses through me. My expression changes from a smile to a scowl instantly. I look from her to him and realize that it isn't a sign of affection, he is afraid of heights and she is helping him through it. In spite of her injuries and the terror that she recently went through, she still helps her friend. Her Abnegation is showing through again.

We reach the glass ceiling and I lead them up a staircase that move through a hole in the ceiling. We walk across the glass through a set of doors into a dark cement room with exposed pipes and fluorescent lights.

"This," I say, "is a different kind of simulation known as the fear landscape. It has been disabled for our purposes, so this isn't what it will be like the next time you see it."

I continue, "Through your simulations, we have stored data about your worst fears. The fear landscape accesses that and presents you with a series of virtual obstacles. Some of the obstacles will be fears you previously faced in your simulations. Some may be new fears. The difference is that you are aware, in the fear landscape, that it is a simulation, so you will have all your wits about you as you go through it."

I look around and see that they are all intently listening to me.

"The number of fears you have in your fear landscape varies according to how many you have."

"I told you before that the third stage of initiation focuses on mental preparation." I say. "that is because it requires you to control both your emotions and your body- to combine the physical abilities you learned in stage one with the emotional mastery you learned in stage two. To keep a level head."

I my eyes skirt around the room quickly, landing on Tris' eyes. She needs to understand what this means.

"Next week you will go through your fear landscape as quickly as possible in front of a panel of Dauntless leaders. That will be your final test, which determines your ranking for stage three. Just as stage two of initiation is weighed more heavily than stage one, stage three is weighted heaviest of all. Understood?"

They all nod. I continue, because they also need to know how to get out.

"You can find a way to calm down enough that the simulation registers a normal, steady heartbeat, or you find a way to face your fear, which can force the simulation to move on. One way to face a fear of drowning is to swim deeper, for example." I shrug. "So I suggest that you take the next week to consider your fears and develop strategies to face them."

"That doesn't sound fair," Peter complains. "What if one person only has seven fears and someone else has twenty? That's not their fault."

I glare at him with the vicious loathing that I feel in my gut and laugh. "Do you really want to talk to me about what's fair?"

I walk toward him, and the initiates move out of my way. I look down at him with my arms folded and say in a deep venomous voice, "I understand why you're worried, Peter. The events of last night certainly proved that you are a miserable coward."

Peter stares back at me with a blank expression.

"So now we all know," I say in almost a ferocious whisper, but so everyone else could hear, "that you are afraid of a short, skinny girl from Abnegation." A smile spreads across my face and I see that Tris smiles too.

XXX

I release them to go and do whatever they want for the rest of the day.

I go to see Tori in the tattoo parlor. I think it might be time for another since my back is completely healed. I'm going to have her put something on my shoulder and the top of my bicep on my right arm.

"Hey Four, how's it going today?" Tori asks.

"Pretty well. I think I'm ready for something new." I remove my shirt, Tori is the only woman who has ever seen me without my shirt on, but it is purely for art. "I'm thinking of something that starts at the base of my neck and extends over my right shoulder to the top of my bicep. I also want it to blend in to the rest of my back."

We sit and brainstorm for a while and come up with something that I love. And she gets started with the outline.

"So how is Tris doing? I hear she is ranked first. Did I do a good enough job talking to her?"

"Whatever you said to her was perfect. She did do well, but not so well that it raised any flags." I say.

"Good. So tell me, what is going on with the two of you? Don't think I don't realize that parts of this new tattoo are reminiscent of her," Tory smiles.

"There is nothing going on… yet." I say. "That doesn't mean that I'm not hoping for something, someday."

I've always found it easy to talk to Tori. She is in her mid 30's and has been very mom-like with me since I arrived from Abnegation two years ago. She smiles at me in that maternal way and continues with the tattoo needle.

We talk more about Tris, what happened by the chasm and what I did to Drew. We also talk about the initiation and the fear landscapes. And as I sit and watch as my blank skin turns into a piece of artwork that reminds me of her, I realize how I want to introduce her to the real me.

"Tori, what do you think about me taking Tris into my fear landscape?" Tori is the only person other than the leaders who knows who my father is and what he did to me. "I've decided that I want to tell her who I am, I think it might be better to show her than just tell her."

"That is kind of a big deal, Four. You would be letting her into your deepest, darkest fears. It isn't just about your father, I'm sure the other three fears say things about you that are just as deep. But if you feel that strongly about her, and you have faith that she can handle it, I say go for it."

She puts the finishing touches on my new tattoo, covers it so it heals, and I leave. I feel confident about what I plan to do. I just have to find the right time to do it.

I go back to my room. It is lonely without her here, but I can smell her on my pillow as I drift off to sleep.