Chapter 40 - Out Of The Woods

Eric

'I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees…'

I never really cared for Thoreau, but damn does that particular line of his have me appreciating the man. My face is blank, my back is straight, and my head is held high as I'm walking with Kat by my side. You would never know to look at me that inside there is a raging storm of emotions that are currently mostly made up of the happiness and desire I've felt since waking up this morning with Kat in my arms.

I never gave much thought to what my perfect girl would be like. I don't know that I really believed that I deserved someone like that. I definitely haven't believed that I have room in my life for someone like that. So, I just decided that no one like that could exist. But she does exist and not only does she exist, she wants me too. I'm her first choice and not some notch on her belt or a runner up because her first choice didn't want the job.

This morning could have gone so very wrong, and I realize this. I could have lost Kat to my own destructive behavior and there would be no one to blame but my own damn self. If she weren't such a forgiving person, if she didn't have the heart that she does, I know that she couldn't have gotten over my betrayal. Because that's what that shit was no matter how I tried to rationalize things by thinking it wasn't because I never made any verbal promises or commitments to her. My feelings, thoughts, and actions had already sealed my intentions towards her, even if she wasn't aware of it. That alone was enough to make it a betrayal to Kat and how I feel about her.

Seeing how much I hurt her nearly destroyed me. What I told her about letting her walk away...I meant that shit.

I would have just to keep her safe from me doing anything like that to her again. Not that I plan to, but I know myself well enough and have no delusions that I'm going to fuck up in some way again. Because of this, I know I'm going to need to go into this thing with her ready to talk about shit I usually try and keep bottled up or just deny, my feelings. There's no way this is going to work with me operating how I normally do.

That's just one more thing I need to add to the things she and I will need to talk about soon.

When we make it into the dining hall I see that Chase and Zach are already there, waiting for us. I know by just the glance I give them before I go over to grab some coffee with Kat that they're both livid at me and I get it. I would be too in their shoes. I can't say I'm all that pleased with either of them myself right now since neither one of my brothers saw fit to let me know what happened with Kat last night. And I don't even know how I'm feeling about Chase's talk with her at the moment or the fact that he all but demanded I bring her back from wherever I took her off too and seemed upset about it. I watch them watch us out of the corner of my eye and I see they're mostly eyeing Kat critically, trying to see how she's doing right now.

The dining hall is usually pretty empty at this time of the morning and no one bats an eyelash seeing Kat with the three of us. Anyone that is here right now is usually here at this time regularly enough that if there had been surprised seeing us together at one point they're over it by now.

"Morning," Kat says, grinning as we slide into seats at our regular table.

Zach is looking between me and Kat, his eyebrows raised and looking slightly confused. I can clearly read the 'what the fuck' thought running through his mind right about now.

My lips twitch slightly and I fight back the shit-eating grin I've been fighting since leaving the roof. I shouldn't feel as happy as I do considering how...emotional...this morning has been and the reason for it. But I can't help being fucking thankful for it in a way. Because without all that shit happening and forcing me to do what I've been so damn hesitant to do before now, Kat and I wouldn't be where we are right now with each other.

"Morning," Chase grumbles to her, giving her a tight smile and completely ignoring me for the moment.

Yeah, we're going to have a few words for each other once we're alone.

His head is tilted as he eyes her, asking her without words if she's okay. Kat picks up on this and smiles at him then nods, telling him she's okay. He sighs and relaxes slightly and finally looks at me and gives me a terse nod. "Well, okay then." And I know he's dropping things for right now.

The four of us sit drinking our coffee in silence for a few minutes. It's a bit more awkward and strained at first but we quickly fall into the rhythm we've established on these mornings. Basically talking about what we think our days are going to be like. What Chase and Zach are going to be doing while Kat and I go do whatever I've come up with.

Chase mentions that he's having to spend some time with Raze again to continue looking for clues about the attack during capture. That reminder of what happened, as well as knowing that we are working hard to make sure the lie we told about what Kat got hit with, is a stark reminder of what's on the horizon for us. This new development with Kat doesn't change anything.

Well, it changes a few things but the main parts are still the same. The end goals are still the same for sure.

Getting Kat through initiation and hopefully with as high of a ranking as possible. Trying to do that while not drawing too much attention to herself during the process. Making sure her divergence stays a secret, especially during sims. Finding a way to get her off Erudite's radar all-together. And if at all possible stop Erudite's plans or at the very least, end Dauntless's involvement with them.

No fucking pressure, right?

But first…"So, what's planned for the two of you?" Zach asks us both and Kat looks at me expectantly.

"The plan for us," I pause to take a sip of my coffee and mentally run over everything, determining if there's anything that I might need to change. "Because of your fight today we won't do the full training we normally would do and I think it best we stick to sparring. That will leave plenty of time for breakfast and getting your meds. After that, we should have a bit of downtime for us to…" I look down at her sitting by my side and images of that kiss start to run through my mind at probably the worst time. "...talk."

If she didn't know by how my looking at her became much more heated, she has to know by me licking my lips as I lock my eyes onto hers before I tore them away and look her in the eyes again. She blushes and tugs her bottom lip between her teeth as she looks away for a second.

"M'Kay," She responds breathily while looking down. Then she looks back up at me with a sparkle in her eye that reminds me of the exact same look she had when she was sassing and messing with me.

She squares her shoulders and I know she's gathering the courage to say whatever she's thought of. I know I should probably stop her...but I fucking love this side of her.

"Then can we get to...doing it?"

Zach chokes on his coffee, and despite knowing that it was coming I can't help but growl just a little before I get myself together.

"Careful, Initiate. You might start something that I promise I will finish." I respond while clenching my hands around my cup and forcing myself to look away from her.

"An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises, Eric. Are you up to the challenge?" Her tone is a breathy purr and the emphasis on certain words leaves no room for doubt what she's meaning.

"Kat!" Zach calls out her name in shock then laughs while turning a little red.

Chase is looking shocked as well, and slightly uncomfortable, at her boldness. If they only knew the half of it and I have a feeling that she's just getting started too.

"You two might want to get going if you want to keep to the plan." He grumbles into his cup.

Kat, still blushing, was already done with her coffee. She pops up with a nod and moves off quickly to put her cup up. I drain mine and go to join her but before I do Chase has one last thing he has to say.

"Eric, I expect you know we're going to talk about what happened soon."

I give him a terse nod in reply and move away, eager to get to where Kat is standing waiting for me.

Until now I hadn't wanted to tell Kat who she was going up against for her last fight but she had already guessed that it would be Edward. I don't regret making the pairing but it doesn't stop me from worrying about it. That worry seems to be translating into me pushing her harder for the shorter time we have set for today.

I had just caught the kick she threw at me and now have a tight hold of her by the ankle.

"You're being predictable again, Kat!" I bark at her then proceed to swing her by the leg hard and let her go, sending her flying until she goes to the ground. "What have I told you about that?"

My eyes are blazing with anger as I watch her scramble up and eye me back with just as much fire. I briefly note, with approval, that she's much calmer than she would have been just a few weeks ago.

She huffs and straightens up before she responds evenly. "That, in my previous fights I tended to go for the cleanest hits. Ones that were meant to try and end the fight as quickly as I could with as little damage as possible."

"I also said that for those people you were going against, the strategy worked because they weren't able to pick up on that habit you have. But the time to change it up is now. Tell me what you know about Edward? What are his strengths?"

I'm already advancing on her again as I ask this. I know it won't distract her to keep her talking like this. It was something I noticed early on when I tried to use this technique to keep her off balance. It had the opposite effect with Kat. When we spar, her fucking mind comes alive.

She blocks my punches and jabs before doing one of her gymnastic moves to launch herself over me and gets a strike on me at my back before I can fully spin to counter her.

"Edward is controlled and calculating. When he fights he seems to go in for a strategy that uses stamina rather than strength but he definitely has power behind his hits and kicks." She responds while circling me and looking for another opening.

"Do you think that you've seen everything he's capable of or everything that he might know?"

She scoffs at me, shaking her head. "Hell no. He's been studying fighting techniques since he was ten. There's no way we've seen everything."

"What would that mean for when you face him? What do you have in common with him?"

She rolls with a few hits I land while she comes in closer and lands a few of her own before dancing away again, using her size to dart in and out of my reach.

"It means that I can't count on him still holding back in our match. But we're both self-taught so…" She stops speaking as she launches another attack that I block and she grunts out the rest. "While we both might know a lot of theory, we haven't been able to use it before now."

"How can you use that to your advantage?"

"If he uses something he hasn't done before, he's more likely to have a tell or hesitate before he uses it. He also might not know how to counter moves correctly that he's never had experience fighting against before, and if I can unsettle him with that I could gain an upper hand. He won't expect me to go at him hard because that hasn't been my style so far. I can use his own style against him, going for stamina and wearing him down, and then bring out going for the harder hits once I have."

My grin is feral at her response and I'm done talking. I intend to see if she can put that strategy into action right here and now with me. I can see she realizes what's about to come at her when she groans even while bracing herself.

Before the end of the session, I have her working to counter moves that I throw at her in a relentless flurry. Not giving her time to think, just react and move and I can only hope that this helps her later today.

"You two are something to look at." Chase says, smirking and shaking his head while looking me over. "She got some damn good hits on you there, Eric."

"Yeah, she did." Zach agrees enthusiastically then fist-bumping Kat who only laughs softly and shakes her head at him.

I decided to cut my brothers slack for their glee at my state. I shrug and can't help but grin a little knowing that I look way more banged up than I have in the past after one of our mornings. Kat was extremely focused and went at our sparring with surprising energy.

"I would gladly take all that and more." I respond to them quietly while I watch Kat go off to the bathroom in my bedroom to clean up as much as she's going to allow herself to. She's insistent that there still needs to be a physical reminder for the others to keep reinforcing that she's being punished and what that punishment is for.

It's become part of our ritual that I go in there and help her. But this time when I told her that we would be just going straight to the apartment and not doing our little bargaining session in the training room, her eyes had turned glazed and anticipatory. I hadn't been able to resist kissing her.

I almost lost it right there in the training room. A simple kiss resulted in about a five-minute session of her under me on the mat where I barely tore myself away from a kiss that I meant to be brief. Once again, I had to pin her arms so that I could keep her hands from where she seemed hell-bent on reaching all while also trying to pin her bottom half because she started working that against me too.

When I couldn't take anymore and launched myself off of her, Kat made a growling, grumbling noise and quickly scampered up to follow me, stalking me to where I was getting our stuff together with a very pissed off and determined expression on her face.

I knew that going into the bathroom with her was a bad fucking idea if I wanted to keep my promises.

"So how was this morning? Do you think she's ready for this?" Zach immediately asks me, his forehead wrinkled in worry.

I nod and settle into my chair in the dining room. "You should watch it before Chase erases the footage but, yeah, I think she's ready for it. Keeping focused and calm isn't an issue for her anymore, thankfully. With who Tris is being matched against it's going to be the real test."

Chase nods in agreement, lips thinned and looking stressed. "With how that girl has been harassing the both of them it is definitely going to be tense."

I sigh my agreement while digging out the bag that has all the medications I carry around for Kat now and I start to sort through them so I can put out what she needs to take this morning. At least she doesn't grill us over everything that's in the small piles I give her anymore because she trusts that I won't be giving her anything heavy.

When I have that all sorted out Chase gives me a look and I know the talk is coming. "So, you two obviously talked. Did she tell you she saw you go off with that girl?"

"She did," I nod tightly before I turn a question on him. "My question is why the hell didn't you give me a heads up?"

He scowls at me, his nostrils flaring out and I can tell he's working to keep his temper. "I would have this morning had you not already taken her out of the dorm and went off with her. And if you're wondering why I wasn't going to tell you before then I'll tell you why. It's because seeing her like that, knowing how bad she was hurting and why, left me in no condition to be able to talk to you right then. She was destroyed by it, Eric. It absolutely wrecked her. But the fucking worst part of it was having to fucking listen to her say she understood perfectly fine why you wanted that girl over her. That you could never want someone like her."

"Enough, Chase!" I bark out at him to get him to stop then catch a breath and lower my voice. "Fucking enough. You think I don't know what I did to her, but I do."

He scoffs angrily and looks like he's about to lay into me again but a warning from Zach stops him. I know that it killed him to see her like that, to hear what she was feeling. I also know that it probably killed him more to know that it wasn't just some other guy hurting the girl he would kill to be with, but me, his brother.

"Nothing you can say to me will make me feel as bad as I've made myself feel by knowing what I did. I didn't tell Kat this because I know this might sound like one of those lines a guy gives when he's been caught, but nothing happened with that girl. I did take her to my office and I had the intention of something happening but...I got there and couldn't. I literally couldn't fucking do anything. But also...as soon as we got there I knew I was fucking up and I stopped. I'm not trying to excuse what I did to her or you guys, I'm just being honest. It took that, I think for me to finally get it through my head that nothing would ever compare to what just being with her is like."

Chase closes his eyes and heaves out a sigh. "I'm glad you guys talked, Eric. Really, I am. I see how happy she looks...you both do...and I…" He stops and shakes his head. "But does it need to be said?"

"Brother, I'll hand you the fucking knife myself if I ever do something like that again." I reply in all seriousness, shaking my head. "I can't promise I'm not going to make mistakes along the way but I don't plan on ever doing anything that will hurt her like that again."

Chase nods slowly, losing the tension in his shoulders and the scowl on his face while Zach lets out a relieved breath. Probably feeling relieved that things didn't turn into a fight between us.

"That's good." Zach breathes and runs a hand through his hair. "Remember what I said about what you're going to need to do to make things work. Just keep talking things out with her."

I nod and give him a wry smile. "Easier said than done, brother."

At this Zach sighs heavily and nods. "Don't I know it, from the both of you."

All things considered, the talk with Chase went pretty well. There are still things that are floating in my mind, questions I had wanted to ask him about his talk with Kat that I know I won't put out there. I know he never would, but there is a dark voice whispering at the back of my mind wondering if he said or did something with her in that vulnerable state to try and...I don't know...sway her to him in some way.

I fucking hate my mind sometimes. I hope to hell this isn't one of those times it just sits there festering before it explodes on me. Once a thought like that enters it, it's so damn hard to get rid of it.

It does help that when Kat comes out of my bedroom her eyes meet mine first thing and a beautiful smile crossed her face. When she takes a seat in the chair next to mine I immediately drag it closer, making sure she's as close to me as I can get her without just putting her in my lap. Which I debate seriously doing before I decide that might be taking things a bit too far. She blushes and casts a shy glance at my friends but doesn't resist either.

I worried about how things would be once we did finally get together, officially anyway. I don't know why, but I had this worry that she would suddenly become clingy or that it would make things awkward between the four of us. But none of that has happened.

First of all, I realize that from the beginning I've always been openly affectionate with her when it's just the four of us. It was usually just things like sitting really close, holding her hand, or having my hand on her leg, but I'm always touching her in some way and my friends have just gotten used to seeing that side of me with her.

The other thing I realize is that Kat would never be the clingy kind. If anyone could be called clingy of the two of us it's fucking me. She doesn't pull away from my shows of affections but she also doesn't initiate many of them either. Something I can tell is amusing the hell out of my brothers by their smirks and the occasional smirk when I can't resist touching Kat in some fashion. But even that doesn't make things weird. In fact, it feels right with us all together right now. Looking around the table I realize I'm looking at my family. It's starting to feel like the only real thing in my life, or the parts worth living for anymore, all happened within the walls of my apartment, behind closed doors, or just when I'm with these people. They are the pulsing beats of my heart, everything is the silence.

I know there is a long way to go for us. There is still so much up in the air right now. But in moments like these, it feels like there is a light at the end of the tunnel for once.