Daring to be Dauntless (A Divergent Fanfiction)

Chapter 19- The Body

I blink the sleep from my eyes and sit up straight. Tobias sleeps on the floor, one arm tossed over his head and the other outstretched towards the bed, I smile at how much he hasn’t changed.
It’s dark in the room except for the light creeping out from under the door to the hallway. As Tobias snores quietly I slip on my sneakers and make his bed as best as I can before slipping out of his room and into the dim light.
I walk by the training room to see Eric yelling at the initiates. Beatrice is fighting off a burly girl three times her size. Beatrice seems to be getting a beating. I walk away before I can see her go down.
I peak my head into the cafeteria only to walk out when who I was looking for was obviously not there.
Where is he?
I pass by the chasm where every time I look down I get a sense of nausea, but it helps. I’d been afraid of heights since I was eight. The fear had come from an accident on a playground.
Tobias, Caine and I had been at a park under the watchful eyes of Marcus where Tobias and I raced to get to the top of the play set. We were fantasizing about being captains of our own ship ruling the mighty seas like any other child would do, when all of a sudden the dreaded pirate Caine came aboard and backed us into a corner.
The jungle gym wasn’t spectacular, it was, if anything, rotted wood sitting painfully in the middle of a patch of shredded tires.
As Tobias and I leaned against the railing avoiding the sharp blade of Caine’s imaginary swords, there was a sudden crack.
Then we were spiraling down into the deep blue. The water hit us with such force my breath was knocked from me. Tears soaked our faces as Marcus ran to meet our sobbing bodies.
Picking us up and yelling at Caine to come down from “that deathtrap” we were pulled under a tree in the dying sunlight only to be asked if anything hurt.
From then on, heights were our dreaded pirates. I avoided heights like the plague, but now, I try to face them.
“Hey partner!” A voice shouts.
I jump, nearly losing my balance into the rail.
I spin around to meet the voice with a slap to the face. Ash, stunned, holds his cheek with one hand, his mouth agape.
“Don’t. Ever. Do that. Again.”
He raises his eyebrows, apologizing.
“I cannot believe you just did that,” I scowl. Threatening another slap.
Flinching, he puts his hands on my shoulders and walks me far away from the deep hole.
“Sorry,” he says again.
I sigh shaking my head. “Whatever, I’ve been looking for you.”
“Yeah?” He says a sly smile on his lips.
“No, don’t even,” I say hitting his chest with the back of my hand, momentarily stopping him.
We walk down the hall towards the train landing.
“I wanted to talk more about this stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“Yeah Ash.” I look at him seriously. “Stuff.”
“Ohhhh! Stuff, yeah I get it now! Okay come-on.” He says pulling me outside and to the tracks. When we get a good distance away and far away enough not to be hit when a train goes by, we sit.

“So what do you want to know?”
I sigh again, pulling my knees to my chest I rest my head on my knees.
“Well, who’s your leader? I know Natalie said you don’t have leaders but there has to be someone.”
He rolls his eyes nodding. “Yeah, Natalie is just being modest, didn’t want to scare you off. There’s this one guy… his name’s Liam. He lives well…on the outside of the fence like we mentioned.”

“He’s your leader, this Liam.”

“Well, technically, there are several leaders. One is Liam, he is in charge of the…” he looks around and leans in closer, “the Elites, out there.” He points to the fence.

“But then there are leaders inside, one is Natalie, another is an Amity woman named Mara, a Candor named Blaine and then there is a…private benefactor of info and head chief over those three in Erudite.”
My mouth falls open. I can’t help but feel betrayed, one of our own, an Erudite… has fooled us into thinking he was on our side.
“Who?”

“His identity is unknown.”

“You have to know!” I push.

“I can’t tell you, honestly Lena,” he sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “I trust you, Tobias trusts you…but others don’t. They don’t know you yet. He is our head, the big Ca-hoona!
Our organization is basically a body. We have a Head, there are different parts of the Head. There is your senses, which is basically Blaine. He hears, sees and feels out things that may relate to us. We are supposed to be a myth, so it’s not good if someone is talking about us.
Second part of the Head; the head also provides communication, mind and brain function. In other words Natalie is the right hand man to the brain. She is a means of communication to your superiors, she makes this nice big organization spin round. Mara helps Blaine a lot while Liam does the same things on the other side. And the brain is…” he waits for me to fill in the blank.

“The Erudite benefactor.”

“When you say it like that it sounds like he is such a player.”

“He is obviously, he devoted his life to this faction! Then he just ditches!”

Ash shakes his head quickly. “He didn’t ditch, he loves Erudite…he is helping with your little war plan, but he is counting on us to stop it, or at least soften the blow.”

I purse my lips disgusted with this figure but I allow Ash to go on about the body of the organization.
“So now you have your head but then who comes next? Well the neck.” He answers himself.
“You see the neck is the next best thing, it supports the weight of the head and protects the nerves that carry sensory and motor information from the brain down to the rest of the body. In addition, the neck is highly flexible and allows the head to turn and flex in all directions.
The neck…would be your buddy Tobias. The neck is a head in its own way too. We’re not talking about a physical head but when your head (meaning Natalie, Liam, Mara, Blaine and Anonymous) aren’t around, Tobias is the head… along with another anonymous benefactor from Erudite.”
He smiles warily and I just about drop dead.
“Hold up!” he puts his hands out. “You should have seen this coming, you guys are the brains. You should have seen some double dipping going around.”
I scoff. “Oh please, save it!”

He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “Do you want to hear this or not?”
I wave a hand and look towards the buildings of Erudite. 
“Tobias works along with this other benefactor and they have both been looking forward to their upcoming partner.”
“With who?”
“With you.”
There goes my jaw again. “Say what now?”
“You Aria. Tobias said you may just be the most important one out of all of us and he’s right. We are all expecting you to be as important as those two.”
“You’re crazy!”

He rolls his shoulders and smirks. “Maybe, but don’t be a dream-crusher.”
“Anyways,” I say loudly getting him to move on.
“So you’d be constituted as the neck. Then the rest as the body. You have your fighters… your arms. You have your heart… most of the devoted ones that see things through, your feet that keep things moving. We also describe Specials as different body parts as well, like Tobias is eyes, he is obsessed with security and watching everything. Did you know that?”
Rolling my eyes I ask about Specials.
“That’s what we call the neck members… they are sort of special to be able to be so high in rank… they are the smartest out of everyone.”
Well I won’t deny me being smart but probably not the smartest.
“Okay so…”
“Aria!”
Ash and I turn to look back towards the compound. Standing in the doorway, arms crossed is Eric. A scowl replaces his almost smile as he stomps up to us.
“What are you doing out here Ryder?”

“Uhhh…” Ash looks around at the concrete. “I think I’m sitting.”

“Don’t be a wise guy.”

“Hey!” I interject. “Calm down; both of you.” I have to think fast for an excuse and then BINGO! “Ash and I were just discussing what I could do better during training.”
Eric doesn’t look like he quite believes it but I grab his arm startling him. He looks down at my hand on his bicep for just a minute before covering his hand in mine and giving me a sly smile.
“Let’s go Eric,” I say as sweet as I can, leading him away from Ash. I turn around one last time and yell back a thanks to him before going inside with Eric and pretending that I was no part of the neck.