𝙸𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚎 | Divergent

Chapter 5

"Sasha get up!" Maddie's voice was far too close to my ear for her to be speaking so loud. "Jesus Christ, you're not a morning person."

"Waddaya want," I tried to hide myself under the duvet just to realise that it had been tossed on the floor.

"You slept through wake up, you have ten minutes to get to training, otherwise Eric says you're cut."

"Shit." I grumbled, jolting from the bed and stumbling as my sore legs struggled to catch up with my brain.

Frantically, I started to gather my clothes, swapping them for my pyjamas as quickly as possible.

The past week had passed in the same fashion, shower, breakfast, gym and fitness, range practice, lunch and combat training in the afternoon. I had made improvements, I could hit the centre of a moving target and I could just about throw a half decent punch but it was exhausting; we slept like corpses at the end of the day.

I sprinted through the hallways, the laces of my trainers slap against the stone, thankfully the hallways were deserted at this time, skidding around the corner, I took the stairs two at a time, scattering stones below. Of course the training rooms were one of the only places above ground.

The transfers turned to face me as I barrelled through the door, Eric didn't take his eyes off his watch, I held my breath by the door as my fate rested in his hands. When he did look up and met my eyes with a pointed look I almost want to duck back behind the door. "Nice of you to join us, initiate."

I tried not to show my relief too plainly as I joined Maddie, she reached over an hugged me briefly with one arm, whilst I used to tense at the sudden touch, I now lean into it. The hug helped calm my erratic heart, but it didn't truly begin to settle until Tobias nodded in my direction.

"Today you will be learning to throw knives," Tobias explained, picking up three small but deadly-looking knives from the table, he tossed one gently in his palm "you wont always be able to rely on a gun when faced with an attacker, therefore you must be able to perfect any hand to hand combat."

My brother stood in front of the plyboard cut outs, just like the guns, there were red circles over the heart and the head. I watched carefully as adjusted his body in front of the target, his inhale as he aimed and his exhale as he released the knife into the air, it sailed into the target's heart, the blade almost imbedded to the hilt from the force of the throw.

"Now it's your turn."

The knives were a welcome change to the heavy guns we were training with, my sore muscles didn't protest when I raised my arm to work through the motions my brother showed us, I tried to copy the rotation of his body and grip on the knife.

I could feel Eric and Tobias pacing along the line, I tried to tune them out as much as possible.

Taking a deep breath, I aimed.

Exhaling slowly through my nose, I threw.

The blade smacked into the target's heart, but dropped to the floor with a ruckus. I was the first to hit the target.

"Rotate your hips when you throw, not just your shoulders, it gives you more power so it will stick." Eric whispered in my ear.

My body froze, I hadn't heard him stop, or feel his presence behind me. Glancing behind, I realised that he was not moving, and was intently staring at the target with a raised eyebrow.

I turned back to the cut out, I could feel his hands on my waist, his skin was surprisingly warm through my tee-shirt, causing goosebumps to erupt over my arms. I ignored him and aimed, I released the breath I was holding and launched the blade forward. The warm hands guided my movements and then melted away. The blade span rapidly through the air and connected with the wood with a thump, this time remaining where I aimed it.