*Kate's P.O.V.*
Today, we start training. The cake from last night kept me up for so long that I only got about five hours of sleep before Will brutally woke us up with an air horn. God, he looked like he was having fun. I put on a pair of my new clingy black sweatpants and a plain black t-shirt and meet Blaze in the cafeteria at exactly 7:30. Charlotte plops down next to me as I realize he's talking to another girl, with brown hair and an eyebrow piercing. By Dauntless standards, she must be beautiful. Full lips, big green eyes. Yeah, she's pretty. I wonder where he knows her from? As soon as he sees me, he stops the conversation with the other girl immediately and introduces us. I learn that her name's Skye and that they've been friends since they were little. We eat toast and muffins as Blaze tells James, Charlotte and I where the fight rooms are. We'll be separated for the morning, but we'll eat together at lunch. With a pang of longing, I imagine the long hours without my new found friend. Blaze is really nice and warm, and he cracks jokes all the time. He's really witty and fun to be around. I think James and Charlotte like him too. Well if they don't, they do a great job at hiding it. Blaze's hand touches mine under the table and he smiles as we keep eating our delicious food. Damn, the cooks do such a great job here! Much better than the plain crap we had back home. Jane and her other friends are still pointing and snickering at us. God, what are they, five? Suddenly, a feeling I haven't had in a long time surges up: hate. I'm looking at them with an angry expression and I unintentionally crush my muffin to bits and let the crumbs escape my clenched fist. Blaze follows my eyes and sees Amity and Abnegation snicker in our general direction. He gets up and starts towards them. I grab his hand and say "Don't. They're not worth your time."
"What are their names?" he asks in a barely supressed angry tone.
"One of them's called Jane and the guy is Sasha. The girl in gray I don't know."
He shakes off my grip and walks towards them. For a 16 year old guy, he's pretty tall. 6'4, looks like. He plants himself in front of them and asks in a loud voice
"Why are you pointing at Kate?" They look at each other and stop laughing. They know that the Dauntless born are lethal and have been around the compound much longer than we have.
''Why. Are. You. Pointing. At. Kate?'' he asks, as if they were stupid. They're all very, very white and I'm loving every second of their terror. All kidding aside, Blaze can be pretty scary when he wants to be. He slams his fist on the table and the cafeteria goes silent. Every single Dauntless that's crazy enough to wake up at 7:30 (about 25 of us) is now staring at the table with a buzz of excitement. Nobody says a word, but I can feel the tension in the air. Sasha has mustered up enough courage to answer in a weak voice:
''She's from Abnegation. She's weak.''
Blaze retorts back, ''Then why do you hang out with the other Abnegation moron?'' Sasha doesn't seem to think Blaze is a threat anymore and says with confidence ''The other Stiff is different. She isn't weird.''
Everybody in the cafeteria holds their breath as Blaze puts up his fist as if he were about to punch Sasha. He fakes it, and Sasha jumps back, screaming. Nobody says a word except Blaze that whispers ''coward'' and walks away. He turns around and says,
''Next time I catch you shit talking ANY of my friends, you'll know the real definition of ''my face is fucked up.'' Clear?'' Sasha nods, still white, but with a hard look in his eyes. Humiliation is not a feeling many like. For a second I feel the old Abnegation girl in me feel empathy for him, but then I remember him for who he is and promise myself to out rank not only him but all of his little group.
*Blaze P.O.V.*
After this show, nobody will ever mess with Kate again. Ever. If they do, I'll enjoy seeing their asses getting hauled out of the chasm. I swear to God, if anything like this ever happens again to my girl, they'll have hell to pay. I wish we could train together. I'll miss her during our long hours of training. Maybe I can teach her a thing or two about gun wielding? We'll see later.
*Kate P.O.V.*
After I thanked Blaze, he lead us to our training rooms. He left us all with a nice long hug. Well, my hug was long. Can't wait til lunch break.
As my friends and I enter the training room, we see big blocks of wood with red circles painted on them. Targets. For what, I'm not sure, until I see a huge array of knives near a big white line. Will stands on the other side of the room, picking up knives and chucking them at the target. He keeps throwing and I notice the way his body moves ever so fluidly while he neatly chucks knives in the middle of the target. No, he's following the red outline of the middle circle. He keeps throwing until the middle remains untouched. Then, as he looks at us, he throws with all his might and the blade lodges itself deeply into the wooden plank. He smiles, knowing he's hit the plank as the rest of us stare at him in disbelief and admiration. Charlotte applauds and the rest of us join in. It was pretty cool, I guess. I pick up a knife and weigh it in my hands, calculating how much force it'll take me to have the blade hit the middle. I face the target with my feet as the rest of my body is turned towards the adjacent wall. I practice a few times before throwing it. As I'm about to chuck it like there's no tomorrow, something in the pit of my stomach tells me to duck. I do, and a split second later I hear Charlotte scream, "GET DOWN!" with all her might. I see a knife whiz where my forehead was a second ago and see Jane in a throwing position. Who the hell does that bitch think she is? She'll pay. Maybe a little nosebleed wouldn't hurt for her to understand that she can't pull that shit on me. I walk up to her and ask, "Why?"
"Cuz I felt like it." Behind her, Will is approaching us with long strides. He won't get here quickly enough, though. Before I even think about it, my fist is up and a sickening crunch is heard across the room. She falls down, clutching her nose as our instructor joins us. I don't hear anything except Jane's cries of agony. The whole room's been staring at us. Will asks in an angry tone, "What the hell was that Initiate? Fighting doesn't start until Wednesday!" I look him straight in the eyes and say, "Well, first off, she threw a knife at me. On purpose. If Charlotte hadn't screamed, you'd be yelling at her, not me. I'd be the one writhing on the floor with a halo of blood around my face. Punish me; I feel no regrets whatsoever and you can't make me feel. You might want to take her to the infirmary." Jane is still holding her nose and says something that sounded like "slipped", but I'm not sure. Will looks stunned as he points to James and says, "You. Infirmary. Her. Now." he then points at me and completes his sentence, "You shall be spending your lunch hour with me, Kate." At first, I'm mad. I won't see Blaze. And then, a thought hits me; how does he know my name? We haven't been introduced and he wasn't at the Choosing Ceremony. Could he remember me?
We resume throwing knives and I hit the target every time. Sasha doesn't even throw snide comments in my direction. Blaze was right. He's a coward. He didn't even hit the target once during training. Will has been noting us with a clipboard during our exercise and shakes his head approvingly at Charlotte and I. She's been doing well. Couldn't hit the target the first few times but she got the hang of it after a while. She now hits consistently the board and has even hit the middle of the target. She's pretty good. After a while, it becomes boring for Char and I, we're so good. James shows up and we both see that he's covered in blood. Jane's blood. I might get guilty later on, but now I am incapable of remorse. She deserved it and she can't blame anybody else. We quickly show James how to throw. He's having trouble with it; he has only hit the target twice out of the twenty five shots he's taken. I'm so bored I counted. Charlotte is helping him to the best of her abilities but nothing's making a difference, he just keeps missing. I hope he doesn't get kicked out. He'll be better at the fighting stage I'm sure; he looks very fit for a Candor guy. As the bell on Will's watch chimes, the other initiates head for the door. Will beckons me towards him and I oblige. He has a grave look on his face as he says, "Look, I know you're angry, but…" I explode and say, "Well of course I'm angry! I almost died on my second day of initiation! And it wasn't even my fault! Who the hell does she think she is, throwing knives at me? And you, you, the guy that saved me, doesn't take my side? She almost killed me, for God's sa…" I don't get to finish my sentence; his lips are crashing down on mine. Before I even register what has happened, he's pulled back and he has a cute grin on his face. He wipes it off, becomes all serious again and says, "Do you want to know why I saved you, that day?" I shake my head vigorously and he keeps going, "It's because I knew you would've died. What's an Abnegation kid to do, knowing they can't strike out and about to get about every single one of their human rights violated? Nothing. They'd do absolutely nothing. But you, fierce little Abnegation girl that you were, hit him back. You see, I was walking by there. I like to escape my violent compound. I don't like it when people fight around me for various reasons, even though I decided to stay because my life would be more… exciting." I was hanging on to his words as if it were for my dear life. I wanted to leave, but at the same time I wanted to know every single excruciating detail. He kept going, "I was filled with blind rage when I saw you and him, and I knew I would become in the next few minutes everything I hated about my faction. So I came up and I hit him as hard as I could for a 16 year old boy. I didn't even notice the sting that came on my knuckles, I just hit again, and again, and again, until he went limp and I noticed my bloody knuckles. In a second, I'd felt an amazing surge of power and I hated myself for it, but it felt so great. Unimaginably great." He bent down towards me again, close enough for his minty breath to wisp around my face. I bent back, not used to the closeness. "I didn't want you to see me after what I'd done, so I left as quickly as possible. I've been beating myself up for the past two years for not staying with you. Will you forgive me?" He asked me, with a look of pure self-hatred and desolation with a bit of hope. I replied, "Of course. Why wouldn't I? You saved my life. I owe you." He smiles, and leans in and I can't help but get up, because I will be forever grateful, but I'll never love him. He's drop dead gorgeous, but he's not for me. I hear the door open behind me and I look back ( Will's back was to the door ) and I see… Blaze. Shit. This must look really wrong. He has a hurt expression on his face as he turns around and I yell after him to come back, but he ignores me. In less than five seconds, my world has gone to shit.
*Blaze P.O.V.*
Hurt. That's what I feel first. Then anger towards that stupidly sexy instructor. And then I feel stupid, because I met that girl less than 24 hours ago and I'm already in love. I looked for her figure as Charlotte and James walked out of their knife throwing class. I didn't see her and figured she'd stayed longer or that she'd been held behind by her instructor. What was I thinking? She'd never be held back, she's too good. Or overly confident. I followed Char and James to the cafeteria and started digging into my lunch. Five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen and I started getting nervous. What could they possibly be doing? Suddenly, my gut told me to go check on her. I got up and practically ran towards her training room. I barged in and saw her and that stupid instructor so close to each other, their lips were practically touching. He was whispering something to her and he was about to join his lips to hers. I'd had enough and she saw me. Her eyes were filled with regret and shame. Enough. I've had enough. I'm going to go eat my lunch and forget about her. She obviously isn't interested with me.
*Kate P.O.V*
Before I know what I'm doing, I'm running towards the cafeteria, towards Blaze. I catch up to him and he's looking ahead, his eyes filled with a look of rage.
'' Blaze! Blaze, it's not what it looks like. Blaze, listen to me for a second, will you?''
He turns around and I bump into him.
'' Ok then. Explain to me why you were kissing your instructor?''
Oh shit. I can't tell him about The Incident.
'' He was giving me... pointers.''
''On what? Sucking face?'' Wow, he looks angry.
''On... gun wielding. Yeah. Gun wielding.''
If we weren't so close, I couldn't hear him, he's talking so softly.
''Stop lying. What were you talking about?''
I want to trust him. I really do. But I can't. I can't talk about this with anybody. Ever. Even if it means losing friends.
''Nothing, ok? He just wanted to talk to me about how and when I learned how to throw knives so well. He was impressed.''
Blaze doesn't look convinced and he's about to let it go until Will turns into the corridor where we were talking. He winks quickly at me and keeps walking. Blaze doesn't say anything, but he sees the whole thing. He lunges at Will while his back is turned, but Will's ready for it. He elegantly side steps and lets Blaze hug the wall. Blaze turns around and is about to lunge again until I put myself in between the two of them. Blaze is about to push me aside and I yell, ''STOP! Enough. That's enough. Will, get the fuck out of here before he rips your head off. Blaze, calm down. Anger management issues much?''
As soon as I'm done talking to Will, he disappears into the shadows. How come everybody can do that except for me? Blaze shakes my grip off his arm and starts walking in the direction that Will went, but I grab him and hug him. His arms encircle my waist and I hear his heart beating next to mine, in unision. I can only stand it for a couple of seconds, and I back off. His hand joins mine and we walk together to the cafeteria like that. I shake his hand off mine before we enter the cafeteria. He grabs it again anyway. We both smile.
Author's Note:
Sorry it took so long. Twas a long chapter and it was final week before the holidays, so I didn't get to write a lot. Plus, Storytellers recently came out and it's currently ruining my life. Yay! Have a Merry Christmas (or Hanukkah, or Kwanza, or whatever you celebrate) and remember : I try to update every friday *I have no life* This is gonna be a long story, so brace yourselves because Winter Is Coming (couldnt help it). I'm also juggling around with the idea of Kate's sister's story and yes, a truth or dare (candor or dauntless, interrogation or torture, whatever you want to call it) with the original characters in the ''the war did not happen divergent completely loses its meaning about war's horrors and what love makes you sacrifice'' type of thing
I'll update during the holidays randomly so be sure to follow me!
Reviews are greatly appreciated. *not an attention whore please don't internet lapidate me*