To Save a City (Divergent/Eric) 2 of 3 COH Series

Chapter 12 (Eric's POV)

We walk to the leaders' floor with Mia. I wait for her to enter Ryan's apartment before I walk Hosanna home. I unlock the door for her.
"Will you be okay for a minute? I want to get that cream for you," I say.
She enters with her arms wrapped around herself. "Yeah, I'll be fine," she whispers.
I open my door and stride to my hallway closet for the cream before returning to her apartment. She's not in the living room so I walk down the hall to find her. Her bathroom light is on. I stand in the doorway observing her as she looks at the hickey in the mirror.
"I can't believe this is called a love bite. Anyone who does something like that must not know what love means," she says angrily.
"Where's your phone?" I ask.
"Right here," she says handing it to me. I punch in her new code and see a message she must've just read from Amar asking if she's okay. Her response was, 'I'm fine.' I switch over to take a picture in case we need it.
"I should probably keep a record of this before applying the cream," I say.
She turns for me pulling her hair aside. I take the picture quickly and check to make sure it came out alright. I think about what I saw before she flipped him off of her. He was holding onto her so tightly. "Are you hurt anywhere else?" I ask.
"I don't know," she says. "Why don't I take a shower and I can check? I feel dirty after the way he touched me."
"Okay," I say closing the door.
I walk to her bed and lay down covering my face with one arm. I hear her start the water and I can't believe this happened. I don't think I was even away from her side for two minutes. There was an entire room of people there that he did this in front of. I see why she said she's fine. This has become so commonplace for her, as if it's almost normal or expected for men, or boys when she was in school, to treat her like this. It breaks my heart that this happened to her. Ryan said that Nathan approached her the moment I left. Was he watching her? Watching us? Waiting for me to leave? He looked down her shirt during training today, too. I'm going to have to ask her about everything with him. I try not to think about the places his hands were, places I've never touched. The things he said to me were absolutely repulsive. Referring to my girlfriend as if she were an object not a human being. He wanted me to share her like she's a possession—like a meal or something. Do other men actually think that?
I hear the bathroom door open and she enters the bedroom in a towel. "There are a few bruises," she says biting her lip.
I sit up. "Where?" I ask getting upset.
"I think I should take the pictures," she insists.
"Why?" I ask.
"Because some of them are private," she replies firmly.
I can feel myself getting more upset by the second but I hand her the phone and lay back down. I can't explode at her. It's not her fault he did this. He ranked second! How could he have done this? How could he be this stupid? I try to breathe but she comes back in after a minute.
I sit up again. She starts to dress with the towel on. "Baby we have to put that cream on you," I explain.
"I know. I'll do it myself... but there's one bruise I can't take a good picture of," she says handing me the phone. "You need to stay calm." She bites her lip again.
"I am calm," I insist.
"No you're not. You're upset," she responds.
I breathe deeply. In... out... in... out. "Okay," I say after a minute. "Am I calm enough now?"
She turns around and lowers her pants and panties slightly. There is a large bruise on her backside, just below her dimples. I breathe a few times trying to steady my hands enough to take the picture. She lifts her clothes back up and turns around reaching for the phone. She takes it out of my hands and checks the picture. "That'll do," she says handing it back to me and grabbing the cream. She takes her towel back to the bathroom and shuts the door. I debate on whether to look at them. I figure that my imagination is probably worse than the pictures are. She comes back soon enough though, so I don't bother with them.
"Did you go through the pictures?" she asks.
"No," I reply.
"You can, if you want to," she offers sitting down next to me.
I look up to her eyes.  She's serious.  I open up the phone again and scroll through each picture.  They all look bad, reminding me of what Marcus did on Visiting Day.  She does bruise easily.  They're all close up images so I can't see exactly where they are located except for the last one I took.  There are five total—well, six including the hickey. 
"Are you going to tell me what happened?" I ask.  She sighs.  She knows I'm not settling for just what Ryan told me, especially when she said that more occurred than just that and she has all of these bruises on her. 
"Okay," she says taking a shaky breath. 
"You left and I was watching Julia dance with some guy.  I thought you came back without the drinks because I felt his arms wrap around me.  He pushed my hair aside and kissed my neck but it started to hurt.  I asked what you were doing and looked down to see his arms around me.  I knew it was Nathan from that tattoo on his hand.  He grabbed at my breast and put his hand down my skirt. I tried to pry his hands off of me but I couldn't get him to budge. I yelled at him to stop but he pulled me tighter to his body. I could feel his..." she says clearing her throat. "I could feel his excitement pressed against my backside. I was so disgusted by him doing that to me and I couldn't get him off any other way so I bent over and flipped him off of me and punched him in the face. I saw you and Ryan coming so I checked to see what he did to my neck. I thought he bit it or drew blood or something since it hurt so much."
She finishes and I'm so enraged. I let him get away with that simple beating. I can't believe what he shoved at my girl's backside. That's what bruised her like that?
She reaches her hand out and grabs mine. I calm down enough from that gesture to talk with her. "Are you okay? I mean really okay? I don't want to just hear that you're fine. I know you're safe and I know you only have a few bruises but tell me how you feel about what happened," I say deeply concerned.  Men just won't stop abusing her.
She climbs on top of my lap, straddling me. She puts her arms around me and buries her face in my neck. "Honestly? I still feel dirty, like I can't get clean. I can't get the feeling of his hands off of me or his..." she says with her voice wavering shaking her head.
"I'm sorry this happened. I'm so sorry that he did this the moment I left," I apologize.  I shouldn't have left her alone intoxicated. 
"He was watching us earlier. When we were dancing, he was staring at us. He was with his friends so I figured that he would just stay with them. He must have been biding his time, waiting for you to walk away so he could approach me," she sniffles. Just the thought of him waiting for me to walk away so he could make a move on my girl while we were out drinking infuriates me.
"What happened earlier today?" I ask.
"He looked at me inappropriately when I told him we'd be training.  I told him I'm his leader and he needs to show me some respect.  I also told him not to ever look at me like that and I said that I would never be interested in him, that you're my boyfriend.  When we left for the training area, he was staring at my backside.  I reminded him of what I had just said.  He apologized, so we went to train.  During the training session, he took up most of my time asking me ridiculous questions, things I had just explained in great detail.  I felt like he wasn't even listening or that maybe he wasn't suited for that job.  But then, after what Neil said, it may have been an act to touch my hand constantly or look down my shirt," she explains.
"Have there been any other instances where he acted like this?" I ask.
"When Lydia and I gave him his keys to his apartment, he kept making comments about staying with me.  Lydia told him how stupid it was to hit on me in front of you.  He thought she was joking so I just gave him a single to get him out of my face," she tells me.
I rub my temple.  "Anything else?" I ask.
"The first time I met him when you had my brother slap him during the second stage, he kept trying to touch me.  I told him I wasn't interested.  He made a comment about how he wanted to give me a tour and said I needed to check out the Dauntless-born's dormitory.  He wanted to show me where he sleeps and invited me to stay there with him sometime," she says.
"What?" I say getting even more angry.  "Why didn't you tell me he was sexually harassing you from the start?"
"I told him no, that I wasn't interested.  After Tobias hit him, he backed off and hadn't really bothered me until the day we assigned apartments," she says.
"If anyone says anything inappropriate to you like that, you need to say something right away so we can stop them before it escalates," I demand.
"Eric, do you really want to hear about every person that says something nasty to me?" she asks sighing.
"Yes," I insist quickly.
"Okay. This afternoon alone, there were about five different occasions where men whistled at me or made inappropriate comments just between us having lunch today and me walking up to the control room for training by myself," she says.  "I had to deal with Nathan in the control room.  Then I went to the nursery.  There were two different men that bothered me on the way down the stairs and just past the infirmary.  From the infirmary to the cafeteria, three more people made catcalls, lewd comments, or stared at me in a place they shouldn't be looking.  That's eleven occasions, not just eleven people this afternoon alone and that's the ones I noticed. Do you really want every man in Dauntless on watch?" she asks.
"Baby, this isn't normal," I say.
"Yes, it is.  It shouldn't be but it is.  Are you going to arrest every man that bothers me?  Because if that's the case, half of the men in Dauntless are going to lockup.  Have you ever looked at the difference in male versus female statistics of the population of Dauntless?" she asks.
"No.  What does that have to do with anything?" I question confused.  I think we're getting off topic.
"It has everything to do with it," she says.  "I can guarantee that most of those men are lonely.  There aren't near as many women in Dauntless as men and most of the women are taken.  The only two girls I know without boyfriends already are Abby and Julia because they haven't been going out.  Did you see how many boys were interested in them when they found out they were single?  There were lines waiting to dance with them.  Even most of the Dauntless-born female members already have boyfriends, at least that's what Jasmine told me at the gun range.  There are several single male transfers and Dauntless born, just from my group alone," she says.
"Why do you know all of this?" I ask.
"Because that's the problem.  If these lonely men don't get anyone, they seem to lash out and want to take someone.  I've watched this my whole life.  For some reason, everyone has always been interested in me," she says.
I'm surprised about everything she's saying. I don't even know what to say. "So what do you want to do about this?" I ask.
"I don't know," she says. "But I definitely don't think we should ever get rid of any girls in the compound unless they've broken the law."
"So what are you saying?" I ask.
"I know you want to cut the initiation acceptance rates and only take the best of the best next year but the females tend to rank lower than the males, at least from the statistics I've looked at, and I don't think we can spare them," she explains.
"So you think leadership changing the rules over the last few years has contributed to this?" I ask.
"It's possible but I don't think we should cut them. Maybe we should use the rankings to determine who needs more training," she tells me.
Hmm. "Maybe you're right. Why don't we use the training of your friends next week to see how that goes?" I say to test out this theory of hers. But we still need to discuss the matter at hand.
"What do you want to do about this matter with Nathan?" I ask.
She rubs her temples. "I don't know," she sighs. "I mean, he was ranked second. That would be a huge loss to Dauntless. Is this his first offense?"
I see her computer set aside on her nightstand. I slide her off my lap. "I'm not sure. Let me check," I say. I open it up and look through his file. "I know it's rumored that he's a player and has slept around with a lot of the Dauntless girls, but there's nothing in his file. It must have been mutual or nobody ever reported any incidents."
"This is my first time deciding a punishment and I'm not even done with my training yet," she frowns.
I sigh. "I know. I'll help you with that," I offer. "What are you thinking?"
"I don't know, several things actually. Possibly any or all of these: demotion, having him monitored, keeping him in lockup for a while?" she lists off.
"Those are all pretty good," I advise her. "The problem is that he works in the control room. If we have him monitored, he may be able to mess with the recordings. If we demote him though, he's gone through some of your computer training. Can he keep that confidential since he's already learned so much?"
"I wish there was a way to question him and have him be honest. I don't know if he understood any of what I tried to teach him today. I'd hate to have to demote him just from an assumption," she says.
I laugh. "There is. We have some truth serum we keep on hand for questioning perpetrators," I say smiling.
She looks to me. "I don't know," she says hesitantly. "I'm sure he'll admit his most perverse thoughts about me without any filter."
"Well, we'll do it together.  I can bring one of the others down too if you want, probably Ryan since he's already involved.  If you want to know if he understood any of the training, this will probably be the only way to get a truthful answer.  We can also question him on his past behavior and intentions past and present to determine if he's a threat," I say.
"I think we should ask him if he's Divergent," she comments.
I furrow my brows.  "Why do you think that is necessary?" I ask.
"Because, the more I think about it the more I wonder whether he is.  He can either be brilliant or unintelligent.  Maybe he's smart with certain things and loses control with others.  Think about it.  He ranked second.  He either had very few fears or figured out how to get through them quickly," she says.
I laugh.  "Baby, by your logic, I'd be Divergent," I point out.
She stares at me.  "What?" I say trying not to laugh. 
"I think you are," she says quietly still staring.
I stop laughing and furrow my brows.  "Oh? And what makes you say that?" I question crossing my arms.
"Eric, you haven't realized how well suited you are for both Dauntless and Erudite?" she states.
"No, I'm not," I say defensively.
"What were your test results?" she asks.
"Dauntless," I say quickly.
"Did you have prior training on what to expect from the test?" she inquires.
I start to respond saying no, but then I remember Jeanine sitting down with me asking me hypothetical questions not long before my aptitude test.  I thought about each question and answered her based on what I thought she wanted to hear, not how I truly felt.  I look up to her.
"You did, didn't you?" she asks.
I nod.  "Marcus tried to do the same for me.  I wouldn't let him and left, but he did tell my brother what to do," she admits.  "I think there's more of us than we even know, than the Bureau even knows about."
I still don't believe I'm one of them.  I can't be. 
"Whatever," I say dismissing her on this.  "You can ask him if you want.  We can give him the serum tomorrow and decide his punishment afterward."
She nods but remains quiet. 
"So... what's going on with Ellen?" I ask quietly.
She turns her head to the door and stands up.  As she walks towards the door she asks, "Do you want to watch a movie?"
"Sure," I say.
She closes the door and comes back towards me.  Plopping down on the bed, she takes the computer out of my hands.  "Is there anything you want to watch?" she asks me seriously.
"Are there any other Hunger Games movies like there were two Terminator movies?" I question.
"There are more of both," she says.
"Really?" I inquire surprised.
She nods.  "Which one?" she asks.
"Um, Hunger Games for now but we could watch more of the Terminator movies another time," I choose.
"Okay.  The second one is called Catching Fire," she says playing it.  As it starts, she turns up the volume. 
She sets the computer on the end of her bed and scoots over next to me.  She wraps her arms around me.  I put an arm around her.  She nuzzles her head into my chest. 
"I found out that Ellen is Divergent.  The whole reason that I wanted to talk to her though is because she's so smart that she picked out the code for the Bureau out of all of the other codes," she tells me.
"Really?" I ask.  Maybe she's right about a lot more people being Divergent than I thought.  Not me though, there's no way...
"Yeah.  I had to warn her to never mess with it.  I don't want them to get upset at us and do something drastic," she says.
"So, if you're Divergent, your cousin is Divergent, and your brother was told what to do in the aptitude tests, is he Divergent, too?" I ask out of curiosity.
She looks into my eyes.  "Yes, he is," she says.
I pull her face close to me kissing her lips so gently.  She trusts me so much.  She's given her life to me and trusts me with her brother's and cousin's secrets. 
I pull away from her lips and stare at her.  She stares back.  "Can I admit something to you?" I say.
"Of course," she responds.
"I don't want to leave you alone tonight," I tell her.
She bites her lip.  "What are you thinking?" I ask stroking her hair.
"After what happened earlier, I don't want to be left alone tonight, either," she admits. 
"Can I stay?" I whisper.  "I won't force you into anything.  I won't even touch you if you want.  I just know I won't sleep tonight wondering if you're safe.  I can sleep on your sofa if you want.  I just want to be able to check on you in the night," I plead. 
"I... I'll think about it," she whispers.
She turns her head to watch the movie but pulls me closer to her.  I smile.  She'll think about it.  I kiss her head and hold her tighter as the movie plays on. I sigh, happy for her to be here in my arms.
I look down as the credits roll disappointed in the cliffhanger ending to see that she's asleep. I don't want to wake her but I need to know what to do.
"Hosanna, baby. Wake up," I say shaking her.
She moans and rolls over. What do I do now? Well, she's not asleep on me so I get up and move her computer off of her bed. I figure that I can get ready for bed and come back. Maybe I can wake her enough to get her to answer my question.
I lock her door and cross the hallway to my place. I put on my pajama pants and brush my teeth. Grabbing my keys and phone, I lock my door and come back into her place. I walk into her bedroom to see that she hasn't moved since I left. I crouch down next to her side of the bed. "Hosanna?" I say shaking her. She takes a deep breath and opens her eyes stretching.
"Eric," she says reaching her hand out to me.
"Can I stay?" I ask rubbing the back of her hand.
Her sleepy eyes lock on mine. "No funny business?" she questions.
"None at all," I promise her smiling.
"Okay," she agrees.
"Okay?" I ask thinking I heard her wrong.
"Just for tonight," she confirms pulling her blankets back for me to climb in on the other side of the bed.
I can't stop the massive grin I have on my face. She's letting me stay. I slide into the bed and pull her blankets over me. I debate on whether to pull her closer or not but she moves over to me. She rests her head on my bare chest and puts her arm around me. I put one arm around her and hold her other hand stroking the back of it.
"Goodnight, Eric," she says to me.
"Goodnight, my love," I tell her.
After a minute, her breathing evens out and I think she's fallen asleep. I lay here not wanting to fall asleep, watching her body rise and fall with each breath. I continue to stroke her hand but eventually fall into a calm sleep now that she's safe in my arms.

*****Thanks for reading.  I hope you liked it.*****

Words of Wisdom:
When something bad happens and we need comfort, it's nice to have someone there to love you and talk it out.  It's good to have a friend or companion who cares enough to be there beside you through everything.  I'll admit that I regret having them in bed together but when you've been abused, it's nice to know that someone will hold you and protect you.  You're not alone.  Eric is offering to be there for her, only to make sure she's safe and protected.  He promises to control himself so she won't feel pressured and uncomfortable.  He loves her and is showing that he will always be there for her however she needs him to be. 

"who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God."
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭1:4‬ ‭NIV‬‬