The Girl Who Cried Dauntless

Chapter Fifteen: Target Practice

When the next day came, a bubbly and explosive feeling was seething in my stomach, bringing about a wave of queasiness throughout my body. This happened any and every time my intuition thought something was going to go badly that day, and Erudite intuition was rarely incorrect.

The feeling stayed with me for the entirety of breakfast and grew at a consistent rate as I went closer and closer to the training room. I hesitantly walk in, but the tension in my body eased when nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. As usual, equipment was set up for training that day, which were dummies lined up at the back of the room, standing side-by-side. Tracing a perpendicular path to the dummies was a table with daggers carelessly scattered across it. We were doing target practice again.

Everything in the room was normal, except Eric who was standing with such rigidness I thought someone took his spine and substituted it for a metal pole. No doubt he was the one causing the irrational and anxious thoughts. From the moment we got back from capture the flag, he'd been in a bad mood. More so than usual. It put me in a state of paranoia because I assumed his anger was going to be directed at me since I was the one who came up with the plan. Though if he stuck with it we would've won.

Eric started to speak when all the initiates and Four were present. "Tomorrow will be the last day of stage one. You'll resume fighting, but for today, you'll be learning how to aim while throwing knives." His cold eyes swept threw the crowd before settling on Four. "Now grab some knives and watch as Four demonstrates the correct technique for throwing them."

None of us moved until Eric's patience grew thin. "Now!" The entire group scrambled in the direction of the table with the daggers and took some for themselves. We paired up with a target and waited for further instructions from Four.

"He's in a bad mood," Christina mumbled from the target beside me. Tris, who was on the other side of Christina, responded back to her. "Is he ever in a good mood?" They were both whispering to each other softly, stopping any non-welcomed ears from hearing their conversation. Tris did speak the truth, but so did Christina. Eric was never in a good mood, though it seemed to be on a fatal scale today. "His ego must still be wounded from losing to Four last night," I whispered to them, despite not originally being invited in the conversation. Like always, they didn't mind my intrusion and agreed with me.

Four was already lined up with a target in the centre of us, allowing us a view of his stance when he threw the daggers. For the first viewing I just assessed. Not surprisingly, he got it right in the middle of the chest and it stayed put. On my second viewing, I evaluated his posture. His body was relaxed and free of any stress, but he also stood with his chest squared on the target. He pulled his arm back and with the release of the dagger, a sharp exhale escaped him.

"Start throwing them!" Eric ordered as he threw on last venomous look at Four's unaware figure.

Like I did with shooting the gun, I lined myself up with the target directly across from me. This was one of our skills that I didn't have previous training in. When practicing combat, our instructor never taught me how to throw a dagger. I recalled Four's technique when he threw and emulated that. I relaxed my body as best I could. The only good a tensed body would give me in this scenario is a bad form and inconsistency with my throws. There was no need for me to get in the habit of straightening my stance considering my mother always told me to walk and sit with good posture when I was little. Taking the dagger in hand, I backed my left foot slightly behind my right and took multiple practice throws, but never releasing the dagger.

"Is the Erudite Princess finally losing her wits?" Peter's voice came from a couple people down. I turned my head his way to see what nonsense he's spewing out this time. "You do remember you have to release the knife to hit the dummy, right?" Though I knew his rhetorical question didn't invite a response, I gave him one anyways. "Keep your mouth shut or else the only dummy that's going to be hit with my dagger is you," Tris laughed and Christina snorted in amusement and went back to focussing on their targets. I finally let the dagger go to have it hit straight in the middle and stick. It stayed in place for only a minute before it fell from its spot. Even if it didn't stay on, I was the first initiate to hit the target.