Devious | Eric Coulter

9

Charlie

Tobias, the bastard still refused to meet my gaze, turned and led us away from Eric and his frightening words, ushering us to the other side of the room.

"Dauntless-borns, split from the group and head towards Lauren." They did as Tobias asked even before he could finish his sentence, and I admired the way they moved in such synchronization.

It was amazing and intimidating at the same time. 

Before Uriah left though, he went towards me with a wink and patted a reassuring hand on my back, running after his fellow Dauntless-borns soon after. I couldn't help but let a smile grace my face at his actions. He was such a sweet boy.

"First thing you'll all be learning is how to throw knives. Grab a set of five knives and choose a target." It was Eric who spoke this time, and I almost jumped at the tone of his deep voice. For such a large man, he moved so quietly we didn't even notice he was with us once again.

I grabbed my set together with Beatrice, but when I went to chose my target, I saw her walking off and standing beside the Candor girl from earlier, and Peter slid in her previous spot next to me not long after. 

"Hey, Charles." He said the greeting in a teasing remark. I rolled my eyes as I responded, "It's Charlie, Peter. Stop calling me Charles."

"Why? It sounds even better, more boyish. It suits you more, don't you think so?"

I was so close to stabbing his eyes with my knife as I watched him laugh his arse off, but my actions were stopped by Tobias who walked towards the two of us with raised eyebrows. Peeved off, I looked away from Peter and stared at Eric instead, observing as he showed us the right stance when throwing.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Peter snicker and stick his tongue out at me. I rolled my eyes again. He was behaving like a kid, but that didn't stop a small smile from decorating my face.

"Start!" Tobias bellowed, and we did.

My first two knives were pathetic. The two skidded to the floor not even halfway from reaching the target. Peter was doing better than me--by a long shot--as I stared at his target. Although not at the centre, he had managed to get the knives to stick. 

As Peter laughed beside me, I felt my ears burn pink from embarrassment. It was entirely my fault that my knives hadn't stuck, I was too conscious that my arms shook whenever I held a knife up.

I averted my eyes away from the guffawing Peter, and they connected with Tobias' instead. I saw his lips pull into a frown, and that in return, made me frown as well. Our frowning game was strong.

Now in a worse mood than before, I looked away once again, and my eyes found those of bright, devious ones. Eric's.

I could see the challenge in them. He'd seen the way I threw those first two knives, and he wanted to see if I could get to stick one. I let a rare smirk paint my face, and I watched amusedly as his eyebrows raised in surprise.

Challenge accepted.

I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath. A strange fire of pride burned from within me, and that only fueled my desire of proving Eric wrong. With a knife in hand, I twisted my arm back and flung it as hard as I could towards the target's direction.

It hit the middle.

I couldn't stop the big smile that eased on my face as I looked back at Eric. Fuck yes, first try! Take that, bitch--

But he wasn't leaning on the wall like he was before, he wasn't staring at me with his usual smug expression. I frowned and looked around. Where did he go off to?