With a soft thud the knife embedded itself in the wood, inches from where my hand had been. "Snake! Be careful where you put that next time!" I shrieked, giving him a punch in the arm. He grinned innocently, not even acknowledging the fact that I'd just slammed my fist into him. "But it was exactly where I wanted it!" he said innocently. I took the knife out of the table and put it away. No more damage would be done with this one, even though he probably had a couple more on him. Still smirking he sat down next to me, waiting for the table to fill up with our friends. I could already see him fingering his next knife, the one he kept under his jacket, but maybe my punch had hurt a little for he did not take it out as he usually would have. I craned my neck to get a good look around – our friends were a bit later than usual today, but I had no doubt they'd show up. Soon enough Uriah arrived, carrying his ridiculous muffin-filled lunch tray. "You really should eat less of those things y'know," I commented as I took one from him. "But they're so good! I don't want to stop," he pouted. "You, my friend, have an addiction," said Marlene as she and Lynn joined us. "Do not!" he said, only to be interrupted by his brother Zeke slamming his tray down on the table. Zeke's girlfriend Lauren sat down too and grinned. "Oh come on Uri, we all know you've never been able to resist them," she said teasingly. It was true – ever since we were kids Uri had been eating them almost non-stop, to the point where it was strange to see him go anywhere without one. No one really knew what that was about, but we accepted it - at least none of us ever grew hungry around him. I'd loved growing up in Dauntless, always running around and trying new things with Snake, who then was still called Jonathan. We'd decided to change our names at the age of twelve, being tired of the endless calls of "Johnny come back" and "Ashlee, you're late for dinner" following us around the compound. Viper and Snake would sound much better, especially if we ever became members – which we had no doubt about of course. Things had changed since then, for starters our names, but we were still friends. Another thing that had changed was my certainty about making it through initiation. I'd always felt pretty confident about my chances, but no one could have predicted this. This year's transfers were quite a strong bunch and even Snake had had difficulty in the one-on-one fights. I hadn't done too bad myself, but I kept getting distracted by the presence of a certain young man.. who coincidentally just now joined our table, filling the last spot in our friend circle. It was rare for a transfer to be in an entirely Dauntless-born group, but he was not just any transfer. He was Four, the miracle boy with the lowest fear count ever recorded in Dauntless, not to mention he was our instructor. All of this made him very much out of my league, but I hadn't given up hope just yet. Snake kept telling me to just ask him out, but I just couldn't do it. Sure, he was quite relaxed around us, but still he had that intimidating demeanour, like a castle built high up on a rock, unattainable to anyone without permission. It was this, and the overall fact that he was my superior and therefore off-limits, that had stopped me from doing anything with my feelings. He laughed out loud at something that Zeke had said, not a very common thing for him to do, and as I turned my head in his direction to hear the rest of the joke he looked straight at me. I had never seen him look like this before, dark blue eyes lit up with joy, his face free from the stern expression he usually wore in training. Before I knew it I'd opened my mouth, temporarily forgetting we were at a crowded table, that he would never want me, that it was against the rules.. "Four, will you go out with me?" I blurted out. All conversation suddenly fell silent as my friends turned to stare at me, and in my head I cursed myself. Why why why had I done that? Did I WANT to die of shame and get rejected in front of all of our friends?! As everyone looked at us expectantly he held my gaze for a few moments, and then simply nodded. "Why not?" he said. I could think of a million reasons, but for once I had nothing to say.