CHAPTER 7

FOUR POV

"You have to let off fireworks in the dining hall," says Uriah.

I look at Zeke and he looks at me. I shrug thinking that's not too bad. "When everyone is in the dining hall eating," says Uriah. Crap. We are going to be in so much trouble for this. I hope dad is at a restaurant and not the dining hall tonight for dinner. "Dinner should be starting soon so let's go," says Zeke.

"Where are we getting fireworks from?" I ask. Having no idea where Zeke or Uriah get half the things for our dares that they get.

"I have them right here," says Uriah. I don't want to know where he got them from.

We walk into the dining hall and it is full. Uriah hands half the fireworks to me and the other half to Zeke along with a box of matches each. We decide to start on either end of the hall and work our way in to the middle of the hall. Uriah, Lynn and Marlene go and sit together at a table so they can watch the drama unfold.

I look at Zeke and he gives me a thumbs up and we start. We start letting the fireworks off and chaos is the only word to describe what happens. By the time we have met in the middle of the room the Dauntless dining hall has people running in all directions. There are men and women running around with their guns out, I think a few may have shot their guns but you can't really tell with the noise of the fireworks. People are screaming and running for the door. Food is flying through the air as people have turned over trays and tables as they try to get away from the fireworks.

Zeke and I are hiding under a table. We are curled up in balls laughing. This has been so funny. Until we go to get up from under the table and we find dad, Sasha and Hana standing in front of us. Crap. We are in so much trouble now. We get up from under the table and we are trying not to laugh. Dad looks at us and then he says, "I think you two should clean up this mess then we will talk about punishment."

Zeke and I are grounded from playing Dare for the next six months. Uriah thought that it was hilarious until he, Marlene and Lynn were barred from playing dare until their initiation. I know dad got a good laugh out of what we had done but he had to ground me. Dauntless was in a bit of an uproar afterwards. Some people were even trying to get us banned from the dining hall. Sometimes it is lucky to have a dad who is a leader.

I'm just really glad that they didn't find out that it was one of our dares that caused all the accidents in Dauntless Nights. We found out a few days later that there were quite a few accidents on the dance floor that night. There were three sprained ankles and a broken wrist. No one remembered Shauna and Zeke being in there after the dining hall chaos.

Plus I think dad was in a really good mood because Sasha had agreed to marry him. Sasha wasn't happy that I had ruined her night. They had to drag dad out of the restaurant they were in to reprimand us. But she got over it when she found out that Charlie and I were happy for her and dad. Dad said she was worried we wouldn't want her as a step mum. I think it was when Charlie asked if she could call her mum that she calmed down.

I got home from school to see Sasha is at home. Dad and Sasha got married last month. So she is now living with us, Charlie loves having her here. "Your dad needs you to go and see him at work," she says.

Great I think. He has obviously heard about what happened at school today. I drop my bag and start to turn around to head out the door when I see Sasha get up too. I open the door and Sasha says, "Wait I'm coming with you."

"Why?" I ask.

She points to my black eye and says, "Because it looks like you have had a bad day."

I give her a small smile and say, "yeah, not my best day."

"Well lets go get this over with, I would hate to see what the other guy looks like if you got a black eye," Sasha says.

We walk into dad's office and he tells me to sit. "I had a call from the principal today Four," dad says.

"It's not what you think dad," I say.

"Start explaining Four," he says.

"I didn't hit back dad. It was this stupid Erudite kid named Eric. He has been trying to fight me for months. I was walking down the hall and he just hit me."

"Why didn't you hit him back?" he asks.

"Dad I have been training with Amar for two years. If I hit him back he'd probably be dead. I'm not going to hit someone just for the hell of it. I know I am better than most fighters in Dauntless, hitting Eric wouldn't be right. So I blocked his other punches and then kicked him to the ground. I walked off," I say.

"Four what are you going to do when you are in initiation? You are going to have to fight then," Dad says.

"I know I will have to fight then and I will deal with it. But I'm not going to fight unless I have too. I don't see the point of it."

"I wished you'd given him a beat down son. You say he is from Erudite?" I nod. "No wonder the principal blamed you. I will be having a few choice words with that moron tomorrow," Dad says.

"Yeah well Eric reckons he is going to transfer here so I'm sure I am going to be seeing a lot more of him," I say. I hate Eric he is always trying to pick on kids weaker than him. The only reason he got a punch in today is because I wasn't looking. Every other time he has tried to hit me I was able to block him. If he does come here I don't know how long I will be able to keep my cool and not hit him.

"Maybe I should have Dauntless-borns and transfers fight each other this year then," Dad says.

Sasha can see how uncomfortable I look and she says; "now Max I wouldn't worry about anything like that, it probably won't happen anyway."

"Come on Four, you can come with me while I pick Charlie up from day care. She will be happy to see her big brother," says Sasha.

"I'll see you both at home later," Dad says.

We walk out of dad's office and I turn to Sasha and say, "thanks for distracting him Sasha."

"That's okay Four. I'm here if you ever want to talk."

"I know but I'm not very good with all that," I say.

"I get it I do. Your dad had to tell me about your nightmares, he was worried I would wake up in the night and freak out if I heard you. I promise you're secrets are safe with me," she says.

"Yeah I know he told you." Dad asked me if he could tell Sasha about my past. He didn't want her to worry if I woke up screaming in the middle of the night. I still get the nightmares but it isn't often that I wake up screaming anymore. I also know that Sasha wouldn't tell people about my past. I know that Sasha has her own secrets but I would never ask. No one has told me she has, I can just see it, sometimes when someone has said something you can see the pain in her eyes. Like me she is good at hiding what is really going on inside. "Sasha would you mind if I called you mum? Like Charlie does," I ask. I have wanted to ask her this for ages. She has treated Charlie and me better than Evelyn ever did. It feels right to call her mum almost as much as it did when I started to call dad, dad.

She turns to me with the biggest smile on her face and says, "Yes, that would mean the world to me Four." She stops and turns to me and says, "do you think I could get a hug?" I smile and give her a hug. I might only have a couple of months until my Choosing Ceremony and then I will be getting my own place but I finally feel like I have a great family I can come home too. It just makes me feel sad that my real parents could never make me feel the way Max and Sasha do.

It is two weeks before my Choosing Ceremony and my nightmares have been really bad. They haven't been this bad since Evelyn left. I haven't slept properly for the last three nights. I keep waking up screaming with the same dream.

I have just woken up when mum comes running into my room. She rushes over to the bed and she sits next to me and puts her arms around me. I am dripping in sweat and my breathing is heavy. "its okay baby, it's okay," she whispers into my ear. She is so comforting it makes me start to cry. I have never had anyone comfort me like she is now. Evelyn had never been like this, not even when we first came to Dauntless after Marcus had nearly killed me.

"It's okay Four. Whatever happened in your dream can't get you now," she says.

"That's the problem mum, it can still get me. It can," I say.

"Four do you want to tell me what it is about?" she asks.

I want to tell her but I don't know if I should. I don't want to hurt dad and I know that if I tell her she will tell dad and I don't want to upset him. I hear someone in the kitchen and I know that means dad has just come home from work. He often has to work really late.

"Go and have a shower Four. Then we will sit down with your dad, I think we all need to talk about this," she says.

I know she's right I really do need a shower. My clothes are soaked with my sweat from my nightmare.

I get out from the shower and I can see that mum has changed the sheets on my bed; they were probably drenched in my sweat as well. I hop back into bed; I'm hoping that if I stay in my room then my parents will leave me alone. There is a knock on my door and then my dad opens it. He and mum walk into my room and they both sit on my bed.

"You need to talk to us Four, we want to help you," dad says. Not in his usual brash Dauntless voice but in his quiet I love you and want to help you voice.

"I keep dreaming that I am at my Choosing Ceremony and they call my name. Not Four but my real name. And that when they call my name Marcus realises who I am and then everyone else finds out who I am. Then everyone works out what he used to do to me and they make me go back to Abnegation. They won't let me choose Dauntless they make me go and live with him," I say.

Dad looks at me and he says, "well let's change it then."

"What?"

"I will talk to Jack Kang over at Candor tomorrow. We will have new documents made up for you. We have had it done before, I am sure we can do it again. We will have your name legally changed to Four, no one will need to ever know what your name was," dad says.

"What happens if I have more than four fears?"

"It doesn't matter, it is a name I gave you when you were little and you decided to keep it. Who is going to question a Dauntless leader? Marcus only likes to abuse the weak, he is not going to take any notice to someone who called their son by a number," dad says.

"Can I ask for something else as well?" I ask.

"Of course you can," dad says.

"Can Sasha be put down on there as my mum?"

"If that's what you want, then we should be able to do that. It would be better if she is. That way if Marcus did ever start snooping it won't have Evelyn on there and so he would probably let it go. Plus you and Sasha have the same colour eyes so she could pass as your mum probably more than I will ever pass as your dad. As long as you're happy with this Sasha," dad says.

Sasha has tears in her eyes and she can't seem to get any words out, she just starts nodding her head and gives me a really big hug. I feel like the weight of the world has just been lifted off my shoulders. Now there won't be anything linking me to either Marcus or Evelyn, they are part of my past. At least on paper now I just have to find a way to keep the nightmares away.

"We should see if we can get the same done for Charlie as well," dad says.

Mum is full on crying now, but at least she is hugging dad instead of me. She stops crying and she says, "there is something I need to tell you both. I'm pregnant."

Now dad has tears in his eyes, it has been a night for tears in the Johnson house tonight. Just as dad is about to say something Charlie walks in the room. "What's wrong, why is everyone crying?" she asks.

"It's happy tears pumpkin, only happy tears," dad says.

"Mums going to have a baby Charlie," I say.

"Really," she says. Mum nods. "I'm going to be a big sister." Charlie jumps up on my bed and gives dad and mum a big hug. I didn't expect her to be this happy. I thought she would be upset that she wouldn't be the baby anymore. I'm sure that will come later. But for now I have to enjoy this moment, while Charlie might be my only blood relative here it doesn't matter, we are a family. And when I choose Dauntless in two weeks time it will have even more meaning for me. Faction before blood, because it is this family that I have right here along with the friends I have made in Dauntless that make my life worth living.