The Girl Who Cried Dauntless

Chapter Nine: Calibers

An irritating buzzing punctured the sound barriers of my ears and a lower-pitched vibration accompanied it. My watch. Sitting up, careful not to hit my head on the top bunk, I turned the alarm off.

Everybody was still asleep by the time I started getting ready, but it was to be expected seeing as my alarm was set for six o'clock in the morning. Not that this was something unusual for me. In Erudite, I would always wake up early to help my mother perfect her science experiments; however, she never let me go back to sleep afterwards. My mother would make me stay up to go over classwork with her. Quadratic relations, analytic geometry, graphing linear systems by the method of substitution or elimination. You name the unit, she could give you an itemized list of all of their properties and the theories behind them. Over the course of sixteen years doing the same routine, it was only natural that I took after my mother in the academic sense.

Brushing the thoughts of Erudite and my mother aside, I continued to get ready. I took off my blue dress from yesterday and put on the clothes they laid out for us. There was no way I was putting on my nightclothes and changing in front of that Candor nuisance. My mind continued to ineptly ramble on about the injustice Four did us last night, because no matter what, I always had to have the last, witty comment in any argument.

My mind finished railing after I finally got on the black jeans and the matching black top, paired with a black belt. I don't bother to brush out the curls in my hair this morning. The Dauntless, unlike Erudite, didn't pay much attention to the presentation of their members, meaning I was free to roam around with my natural curls instead of making my hair silky. It was the same with my glasses.

"How long have you been up?" A voice questioned. The voice was soft, unsure and feminine. Obviously not Candor's. A familiar stiff rose from the bottom bunk from beside me, along with Christina, both looking at me curiously. "Since six," I said, pulling out an elegantly traced locket watch from under my shirt.

"It makes me wonder what else you've got down there." A new voice added to the conversation. This new voice was masculine, but clearer and higher than a regular guy's. I unfortunately recognized the speaker.

"Nothing you have to concern yourself with and I honestly don't remember inviting you into this conversation." Candor's face didn't take offence to the comment. His face actually looked smugger than usually, which was a bad sign. Without any other words, he tied his shoes and continued to get ready.

As Candor got ready, Christina called me over with wild hand gestures. "I see you've met Peter," that's what that nuisance's name was? "He's pure evil. When we were kids, he would pick fights with children of other factions and once an adult came, he'd fake tears and make up a story about how the other kid started it." One of my eyebrows raised with hearing Christina's story. "And what about his friends?" Tris slipped in a question.

"Well, Molly, his slightly more feminine friend, is the kind of person who fries ants to see them squirm." Christina said, her eyes drifting between mine and Tris'. "And Drew is ... kinda just there," she said shrugging. "I'd be surprised if there was a single thought in his head." Tris lightly laughed at her comment, while though it was funny, my face remained neutral.

Our conversation stopped once we heard movement coming from the awakening transfers. "I'll meet you guys in the training room," I said, leaving for the room. "Okay. See you there."

I walked out the door and traced the path Four lead us down yesterday, my mind thinking of the new acquaintances I just made. It wasn't that unbelievable that I made friends with Christina, there was no bad blood there to prevent it. Tris, on the other hand, was quite surprising. Given the relationship between our factions and with our families, I didn't understand why she would want to be friends. That doesn't mean I'm not glad we are though. Why did my mother even want to try and destabilize their family anyways? Perhaps I'll never know, but I won't forget to ask her.

I made it to the training room with no wrong turns, although stumbles and trips did occur. I went straight in and found only Four, and now myself in the room. He was standing in front of a dummy, gun in hand and taking shots at even intervals. All of the shots pierced the dummy at the middle exactly. Beside him was a duffle bag with different caliber guns, each varying in size, weight, and design. No need to guess what we're doing here.

In a herd, the entire group of initiates came through the training room doors and immersed me into the group. I looked around for Tris and Christina. My eyes spotted them coming my way and I fight back a friendly smile. "I think we're going to be doing target practice today," I said upon their arrival. "And what makes you think that," Christina said back. By the time the rest of the transfers came, Four put away his gun and started to prepare everything for our first day of training, not acknowledging my presence once. "When I got here he was firing some rounds." Christina nodded her head as if to say she agreed with my assessment.

"The first thing you'll learn today is how to shoot a gun. The second thing is how to win a fight." Four put us into an assembly line and passed out guns as he did so. "Thankfully for me, if you're standing here already, you know how to get on and off a moving train, so I don't need to teach you that." He stopped his speech and finished handing the guns out. "Initiation is divided into three stages. We will measure your progress and rank you according to your performance in each stage. The stages are not weighted equally in determining your final rank, so it is possible to drastically improve your rank over time. Does anyone have any questions?" No one raised their hands, they were all admiring the guns that were now in their possession and lining themselves up with targets.

"But what," Peter interrupted himself with a yawn, "does shooting a gun have to do with bravery?" Four flipped the gun in his hand and threateningly stalked up towards him, pressing the barrel to his forehead. Peter's body gave a sharp jolt as though he was about to move away, but instead of that, he stayed frozen in place. "You're holding a loaded gun, you moron. Act like it!"

My body swelled with an almost giddy amusement at seeing Peter's green eyes flash with fear. Four eventually lowered the gun, and Peter's eye hardened into a glare at Four's retreating figure. "Now, does someone have an intellectual question to ask me?" Peter's glare got harder at the indiscreet insult. "No? Fine. But to answer the question: everyone is far less likely to soil their pants and cry for their mothers if you're knowledgeable on how to defend yourselves." Four got into position with the target closest to him. "All of this information might be a need-to-know for later on in the stage. So, make sure you know how to do everything I show you today." He faced the target, his feet shoulder's width apart and one slightly behind the other, he straightened and squared his chest before bringing the gun up with both hands. He squeezed the trigger and out of the four rounds he shot, all four of them wedged themselves into the centre of the dummy.

"You try now."

We all turned to our own targets and I hear the bang of bullets leaving their chamber. Everyone seemed to be hitting the target or at least close to it. All except Tris. I also wasn't the only one to notice it. "Statistically speaking, you should have at least hit the target once by now." Will. "Yeah, Tris. You're essentially defying the laws of probability." Will's head snapped in my direction, but I pretended not to notice. Tris gave him and I a pointed look and focused again on her target. She rolled out her shoulders and both hands brought the gun up. She fired, and impressively got close to the middle. I nodded my head in approval considering I didn't think she had it in her. "And what about you?" Tris asked, directing her question at me. "You haven't even fired a bullet yet!"

I look at my untouched target. It was true, I hadn't fired yet. My eyes looked around to find Four with his back faced away from us. I gave a sigh of relief. It was my first time firing a gun and I didn't want to fail in front of my instructor, that would be bad for my ranking. My feet spread apart at shoulder width, and I put my right foot slightly back to give myself stability for when I fire. I bring the gun up and levelled it with my face, squinting an eye for better aim - I fired. The bullet didn't go into the centre. It missed it at only eight millimetres below, pretty close.

I turn back to look at Tris, who held my look. After a moment she clicked her tongue in disappointment. "I was hoping it would be bad so I could make fun of you." I laughed at her truthful statement and she looked back at me, shocked, before she started to laugh too. Tris and I would make good friends.