Daring to be Dauntless (A Divergent Fanfiction)

Chapter 23- Drink and be Merry

The car pulled into the Erudite Square at around midnight. Lights in the surrounding building were out, all except for The Library and the main labs. We’d had the generators booted up for months for this project. I stare up at the monstrous building of Erudite Headquarters. The moon lights up the aluminum and glass sidings used as energy savers. You know, just creating a healthy environment while filling another with mind control to go pump another with led.
Just lovely.
Joseph walks around the car and opens the door like the nice little goon he is. Smiling that fake smile, he removes his glasses and rubs his eyes.
“Get some sleep Joe,” I nod to him. “Yes Ma’am,” he says showing a real smile and shutting the door after I step out of the way.
Joseph nods to the building. “Looks like you’ve got a welcoming party.”
I look over my shoulder towards the doors. All illuminated by the lights was standing Jeanine, Caine and my father. Smiling, Jeanine walked up to me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and pulling me in. This was a lot of physical contact than usual for her. Maybe she really did miss me.
“Oh, Aria, I’m glad Eric did not send you back with green hair and piercings,” she said relieved. “I’d have to murder him if he did.” How ironic. She pulls back and leads me to the others.
“Hello Aria,” my father smiles pulling me in for a hug. “I was sure you’d come back looking like a completely different person.”
Who said looks came in only obvious forms. I just give him a wink and look to Caine. He watches me closely. That Erudite eye searching.
“I would love to send you off to bed,” Jeanine says wasting no time. “But I do need to speak with you some more.”
“Of course,” I say.
Jeanine loops an arm with mine and pulling me with her, leads me into Erudite.
Caine and my father begin walking towards one of the labs, in the complete other direction. I’ll talk with him as soon as I escape from Jeanine, I promise myself.
Caine looks over his shoulder once more at me. Leveling my eyes with his I give him the death stare. He is not getting off the hook for this. No matter how noble and unlike him it is. This time, Caine is the one that goes down.

As soon as we reach Jeanine’s office she locks us in and takes a seat behind her desk, motioning for me to take a seat in one of the other chairs in the room.
I sit and cross my legs like the little lady she taught me to be. I look so out of place in my dark, torn jeans and stained green sweatshirt. Against the white backdrop of Erudite I probably looked like the aftermath of a food fight, trash brought in from the streets. The bright lights are already a problem; it’s too bright compared to the dim setting of Dauntless.
“So, tell me how your stay was. You were not very vocal over the phone,” Jeanine says leaning back in her chair.
I shrug. “I tried sparring with Eric at one point and got flattened.”
Jeanine snorts, her face scrunching in amusement.
“I ate cake and got a tattoo,” I say. The real reason I mentioned the tattoo was to determine the level of her surprise. Her face fell flat as she looked at me. “Nowhere visible, correct?”
“Lower back,” I nod once.
Pinching her lips she shakes her head and gives me a devious smile. “So, tell me, what did Eric do when he realized you as that little girl from so long ago?”
I squirm in my seat. An uneasy feeling blossoms in my stomach as I try to recall why I told her about that incident. I suppose I had been so shocked when she told me Eric was her connection in Dauntless that I had just given away to recognition. I mentioned to her the day in school when he taunted me.
I clear my throat and run a hand through my hair. “I don’t think he really cared,” I state.
Jeanine raises an eyebrow and directs her eyes to the astronomical amount of papers on her desk. “Well, that is good,” She says not looking at me.
I get a feeling there is more to the question than she is letting on. It’s almost as if she expected him to torment me. “I actually think there was more positive air between us when he knew where I came from.”
Her mouth goes into a silent O shape.
“That is a positive result, as you were quite worried looking when I announced that you would be staying with him.” So she did notice. 
"Well, I didn't know how I'd feel about being under his control," I say honestly.
"I'm sure," she replies looking out the window into the dark. "
She looks back briefly to give me her own version of genuine smile before sending me off to bed. “Goodnight,” I say glancing back at her. She’s already begun pulling the papers to the center of her desk readying herself for a long night.
“Goodnight Aria,” she says.
I shut the door behind me and decide before going to bed I’d go look for Caine. Slipping past the private labs and finding no one, I decide to head back to the apartments.
Caine has the apartment adjacent to mine. It’s so close to headquarters it was hard not to decline when Jeanine offered it to us. Sadly, we’d be closer to each other than we really wanted but as long as he stayed on his side of the wall and I stayed on mine there would be no problems.
Shadowed shapes greet the sidewalk as I walk towards the buildings. Most of the tenants were privileged co-conspirators in the project and had to be within running distance should Jeanine summon the slaves at midnight.
The hallway was quiet as I reached my floor. I had almost passed my apartment door when something crashed from inside.
Not waiting to see who emerged, I threw my shoulder against the door and fell in.
“What the—. ”
My head was spinning from hitting the floor. Two hands grab my shoulders and haul me to my feet. 
“Aria?”
I shake my head a little trying to clear the sludge. What kind of dauntless soldier would I be if I couldn’t even stay balanced when catching an intruder. “Sit down,” Caine says walking me to the couch.
“What are you doing in here?” I ask.
“What are you doing home?” He counters. I look up at his unshaven self. His hair nearly touched his shoulders now it was so long; he needed a haircut last time I saw him, now it was just ridiculous. I’d never seen Caine so disheveled looking before. His shirt was wrinkled and plastered with white crust that looked like toothpaste, besides his hair looking like a woman’s and his face hairy like a factionless man, he seemed to be alright, except for the daze in his eyes and the booze on his breath.
“I asked first,” I say touching my forehead, sure a bump was growing.
He sits down next to me and stares at a half bottle of whiskey on my coffee table. Of course he’d be drinking my alcohol, I roll my eyes.
“Hanging out,” he says grabbing the bottle by its neck and taking a swig.
“With my whiskey,” I scoff taking the bottle from him and sipping. A smooth fire snakes down my throat as I swallow. Caine tries to take the bottle again but I hold it out of reach.
“How was the barracks?” Caine asks.
“Fine.”
He looks at me and puts out a hand. Rolling my eyes, I hand him the bottle and let him take another sip. Sighing, he leans back and kicks up his feet. “Fine don’t tell me.”
“Listen,” I say narrowing my eyes. “I just spent weeks in a dank building that felt like walking through the subway tunnels, seeing our cousin and mother again, meeting Jeanine’s arms dealer and getting stared at by guys with rings in their faces, so excuse me if I’d like to forget for one minute that I ever left.”
He raises an eyebrow and hands me back the bottle.
Huffing, I snatch it away and suck the last of it down. A small fire pits itself in my stomach, and my mind slowly begins to find static.
“How’s the project?” I ask leaning back.
Caine shrugs and closes his eyes, running a hand over his chest. “It’s going well, Jeanine has really pushed for everything to be on schedule and it looks like it will be.”
I sigh and close my eyes to match him. “Just in time to start a new mission; isn’t that right neck buddy.”
I can feel the heat radiating off his body. His muscle flexes against my arm and his breathing begins to slow.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
No response. I look over at him staring at the ceiling. “Would you have run to Jeanine?”
I have no answer for him but I still might not have.
“What I thought,” he murmurs.
“I didn’t say I would,” I say.
“But you didn’t say you wouldn’t have either.”
I shake my head and go to find more booze. It looks like he’d been here more than once, depicting from all the empty bottles in my recycling.
After looking at what he left I decided on a bottle of scotch. Ripping open the plastic seal I unscrew the top and lift the bottle to my mouth.
“Maybe I wouldn’t have,” I say placing the bottle on the counter and leaning on my elbows. He gets up, walking over to me; he takes the bottle and swigs.
“So how much do you know?”
“Just enough to know that basically everyone I know now is in on it.”
He bobs his head up and down like a buoy in open waters. “Sounds like you know enough.”
“No, I don’t think I know enough,” I state.
“What’s enough?”
“How about what my part is in all this?”
Caine stares at me this time with eyes focused. “Not to speak of this to anybody,” he says. “For now,” he mentions after a minute.
“How do you know I’ll be good at my task?”
He balances the bottle in his hand and hums a little tune before answering. “It’s not about knowing if you’ll be good enough Mags, it’s about trusting that what you’re asked to do you’ll succeed at.”
I blink in surprise. “Who are you and what did you do with my schmuck brain brother?”
He gives me a sarcastic smile and flicks me in the back of my head.
“There he is,” I say slapping his back.
“I’m serious though,” he nods. “I believe you’ll be good at whatever you are assigned too when the time comes.” That's it, the liquor has gone to his head. 
“Do you have a job yet?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “My only job right now is to help with the final distribution of the mind control. I’ll be given another task eventually.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, and mine is to drink and be merry.”
“If I recall correctly there was the word ‘Eat’ in that saying somewhere.”
I snort. “Not in my book buddy.”
Rolling his eyes, he grabs the bottle and picks his jacket off the counter. “Where are you going?” I ask.
“To bed, goodnight,” he says. 
“With my booze,” I call after him.
“But of course,” he shouts back from the hallway. “It’s better than my collection; which consists of nothing.”
Yawning with numb aggravation, I slam the door behind him. Finding a comfy spot on the couch--which was just about everywhere with the booze sloshing in my brain—I close my eyes.
What will this new group be like? What’s the cost of knowing just that they exist? What if Caine was wrong, what if I failed? That is not an option. I can’t fail. I’m too divergent to fail a group of divergents.