Fire and Ice

Casualties

I felt Eric get out of bed the next morning followed by the running of water from the shower indicating he was cleaning up and going so he could go to "work". I knew him like the back of my hand.

I heard buzzing on his night stand and reached over for his palm pilot and read the message

"We still on for our meeting in ten minutes?"

I sighed and stared at it for five seconds before getting dressed and replying "Yep on way to my room now" and deleted the message and snuck my hand into Erics' jacket and taking his keys.

++++++++++++++

I walked into Erics' apartment and noticed how plain it was... a couch, kitchen and bed in one room along with a monitor. Boring.

I sat in the chair with the back of it to the monitor so she couldn't see me and waited. It wasn't even two minutes when I heard it turn on and her annoying voice.

"So any progress yet?" I smirk and turn around and watched her smile turn into rage.

"Yes Jeanine. There's been a lot of progress." I smile sweetly to piss her off. "I'm quite concerned about you're interest in my husband but I was reminded last night that I'm going nowhere so your plan on getting rid of me is failing Jeanie. You don't mind if I call you Jeanie right? Maybe Jean..."

"What do you think you're doing?" She cut me off as I smiled on... "I'm just trying to conversate, see what you're up to. I have my suspicions and I'll be damned if you make my husband a faction traitor and bring him down with you" She started laughing at me.

"What makes you think you can stop me Jadence? Hmmm" I stood up and rubbed my stomach so she could see my swollen area. "Simple. Eric isn't going to risk losing his family he's created for you. SO I suggest you leave him alone and find someone else to ruin" We glared at each other in silence until she finally broke it "You may think you have won Jadence but you've proven to be a problem in my plan and I get rid of my problems. I need Eric to succeed and you will not mess it up. I don't care what has to be done to solve it." My stomach dropped when she said this as I thought of what she would do to get rid of me but I didn't get to speak when the door barged open and Eric walks in looking dumbfounded at us

"What are you doing babe?" He asks as I smile at him and walk towards him to kiss him "Nothing just girl talk love" I mutter and headed for the door "Remember what I said Jadence" She smirks at me as I look at her and smile back "Always" and head outside.

++++++++++++

I walk to Fours room and barge in without knocking as he's in just a pair of sweats looking like he just got out of the shower. "What the hell Jade" he looks at me like I'm crazy, I kinda am.

I look at him and let the tears go, and he brings me into a hug. "What's wrong" I shake as I pull back and look at him "I messed up big time this go around Four" He looks at me confused "While Eric was in the shower and Jeanine messaged him to talk so I went to his room and surprised her and she knows I'm pregnant and basically threatened my life and my baby's... I'm panicking Tobias" I started crying harder as he held the sides of my face shh'ing me and kissing my forehead as he held me as I calmed down.

"You ok now?" He asked, looking concerned as I nodded. "Yeah sorry you're my go to person anymore I didn't mean to barge in" He smirked "I'm glad you know you can come to me and feel safe here. You hungry?" I nodded, smiling as we both laughed "Let's go eat then"

+++++++

I was half way through my breakfast with Four when Drew shuffled into the hall, I drop my toast, and my mouth drifts open. Calling him "bruised" would be an understatement. His face is swollen and purple. He has a split lip and a cut running through his eyebrow. He keeps his eyes down on the way to his table. I glance across the table at Four He wears a satisfied smile. I hear whispering from Tris' friends about what happened, I shake my head as I prepare for today www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=17903... gets up and stands between the tables. Conversation abruptly ceases. "Transfers. We're doing something different today," he says. "Follow me."

Four and I lead the initiates out of the dining hall and along the paths that surround the Pit. We climb higher than they've gone before, Four turns around and walks backward a few steps—backward, on a narrow path with no railing. I roll my eyes at his smirk as I know he's showing off for Tris. He eyes Drew, who trudges at the back of the group, and says, "Pick up the pace, Drew!" It's a cruel joke, but it's hard for me to fight off a smile. That is, until Four's eyes shift to Tris' arm around Will's, and all the humor drains from them. His expression sends a chill through me. I've seen that look before on Eric, Is he...jealous?

We get closer and closer to the glass ceiling, Four walks up a flight of metal stairs leading through a hole in the ceiling. They creak under my feet, and I look down to see the Pit and the chasm below us. Four leads us through another door. Beyond it is a huge, dank space with graffitied walls and exposed pipes. The room is lit by a series of old-fashioned fluorescent tubes with plastic covers.

"This," says Four, his eyes bright in pale light, "is a different kind of simulation known as the fear landscape. It has been disabled for our purposes, so this isn't what it will be like the next time you see it."

Behind him, the word "Dauntless" is spray-painted in red artistic lettering on a concrete wall. "Through your simulations, we have stored data about your worst fears. The fear landscape accesses that data and presents you with a series of virtual obstacles. Some of the obstacles will be fears you previously faced in your simulations. Some may be new fears. The difference is that you are aware, in the fear landscape, that it is a simulation, so you will have all your wits about you as you go through it."

Four continues, "The number of fears you have in your landscape varies according to how many you have. I told you before that the third stage of initiation focuses on mental preparation," he says. I remember when he said that. On the first day. Right before I put a gun to Peter's head.

"That is because it requires you to control both your emotions and your body—to combine the physical abilities you learned in stage one with the emotional mastery you learned in stage two. To keep a level head." One of the fluorescent tubes above Four's head twitches and flickers. Four stops scanning the crowd of initiates and focuses his stare on me and I continue the speech.

"Next week you will go through your fear landscape as quickly as possible in front of a panel of Dauntless leaders, myself included. That will be your final test, which determines your ranking for stage three. Just as stage two of initiation is weighted more heavily than stage one, stage three is weighted heaviest of all. Understood?" They all nod as I circle them

"You can get past each obstacle in one of two ways. Either you find a way to calm down enough that the simulation registers a normal, steady heartbeat, or you find a way to face your fear, which can force the simulation to move on. One way to face a fear of drowning is to swim deeper, for example."

Four shrugs as he takes back over "So I suggest that you take the next week to consider your fears and develop strategies to face them."

"That doesn't sound fair," says Peter. "What if one person only has seven fears and someone else has twenty? That's not their fault." Four stares at him for a few seconds and then laughs. "Do you really want to talk to me about what's fair?"

The crowd of initiates parts to make way for him as he walks toward Peter, folds his arms, and says, in a deadly voice, "I understand why you're worried, Peter. The events of last night certainly proved that you are a miserable coward."

Peter stares back, expressionless.

"So now we all know," says Four, quietly, "that you are afraid of a short, skinny girl from Abnegation." His mouth curls in a smile as I chuckle beside them causing Peter to flinch knowing he's fucked if he thinks about anything like the stunt he pulled the other night again.

++++++

After I make my way towards my apartment, I was walking by the chasm when I heard a loud, crunching thump and splash as I froze when I realized where it was coming from, someone has jumped into the chasm.

I yelled for help as I sped walked down lower to get to the pit next to the chasm as I yelled for Rope while I looked to see who jumped and I froze when I seen the body and stopped as I watched people start wrapping rope around him to pull him up, Al.

I felt an arm wrap around me as I looked at him and sighed as I leaned my head on his shoulder, "There's our casualty for the year"

Eric sighed and nodded "for now anyways" I looked at him as he continued to talk to Max.