The first thing that Lilith noticed, when she woke up, was that the bed seemed to be a lot more comfortable than usual. The matress had the right ammount of firmness, and the sheets wrapped around her were extremely soft. Maybe she was finally getting used to the beds at the dorm. However, as she readied herself to go back to sleep, the sheets were tugged on from somewhere behind her, and her eyes immediately snapped open. Panic was quick to settle as she realized that she wasn't in the dorm and, as much as she tried to remember how she had gotten to this place, she couldn't. The only thing she was sure of was that there was someone else in the bed next to her, and Lilith could only hope that she hadn't made a bad call, on the previous night.
Gritting her teeth, she slowly sat up in bed, keeping the sheets wrapped around her, in case the other person was awake. Her movements were slow and careful as she dragged herself towards the edge of the bed, only daring to look over her shoulder at whoever had brought her home the previous night when her feet landed on the cold floor. Lilith could hardly believe in what she saw, at first. Though the male had his back turned to her, she would recognize Eric anywhere, and the fact that they both seemed to be fully undressed didn't leave her much room to think that maybe nothing had happened. She smacked her own forehead as Eric remained asleep, soft snores leaving his mouth.
"I should not have done this," she mumbled to herself, as she got up from the bed and started picking up her clothing from the floor. Her eyes drifted to the clock on Eric's bedside table, and she was surprised to see that it wasn't even nine yet. Still, if she wanted to leave before Eric woke up, she should hurry. Her eyes drifted to the leader's back as she buttoned up her pants, "Why am I like this?"
Usually, a one night stand wouldn't have bothered her this much. Lilith was no stranger to having fun with random guys in the darkness of the night, usually shortly before the Choosing Ceremony, when there was a possibility that they would choose something other than Candor and she wouldn't have to see them ever again. Her first time going home with someone had been a week before her own ceremony, and she hadn't felt the anxiety she was feeling as she pulled on her boots, her eyes darting around the room as she searched for her shirt and her jacket.
If word got out about what had happened, everyone would think that Peter was right and that she was only so high up in the rankings because she offered her body to Eric. Lilith wouldn't be able to argue against it, not if people managed to find proof. It wouldn't matter even if she told the truth and explained that it had been a drunken mistake, and that it had never happened before, making it impossible for that to be the reason she had been in the third spot during the last few weeks. Her efforts wouldn't matter, and just the thought that that was now a possibility made her want to cry.
Lilith chewed on her lower lip, allowing herself to glance back at Eric one last time before she walked out of the bedroom, entering a modern looking living room joined with a small kitchenette. Her eyebrows furrowed briefly, her mind not being capable of imagining Eric doing any sort of cooking, but the pots and pans left out to dry next to the sink told her otherwise. On the wall in front of the couch, there were two bookshelves, loaded up with books from one side to the other. After a few seconds, her eyes landed on a pile of clothes near the front door, and she quickly walked towards them, shoving her jacket to the side as she reached for her top.
Her eyebrows shot up to her forehead as she realized that the shirt was torn apart from top to the bottom, and a brief memory of Eric ripping it off soon after they'd gotten to the apartment flashed before her eyes. A few more events of the previous night came to the surface, and Lilith found herself blushing at most of them. She remembered how he'd made her feel better than anyone else had ever managed to, before, and how he'd mumbled her name against her lips as their bodies moved together in the dark. Realizing that she was lingering, Lilith shook her head to make those memories go away, before putting on her jacket and zipping it up to her neck.
Her destroyed top was still in her hands, and she looked towards the bedroom as she shoved it in her pocket, "Jerk."
It only took her a few seconds to exit the apartment, quietly shutting the door behind her. She wasn't sure of what floor Eric lived on, and she hoped that it wasn't too high up, since the safest way to get back down to the Pit without being seen was through the stairs. The building was weirdly silent, and Lilith assumed that most people were probably sleeping off their hangovers, after all the drinking that had taken place because of Al's funeral. She made it to the stairs in a matter of instants, doing her best to stick to the shadows and not be seen by anyone. Hopefully, the transfers were still sleeping, and she could sneak back to her bed and pretend like she'd been there the whole night.
Once she got to the Pit, it was impossible to stay in the shadows anymore, seeing as she had to cross it to get to the corridor that led to the dorm. Thankfully, the area was mostly empty, and those who walked around seemed to still be recovering from the previous day, therefore being too focused on themselves to notice her. A sigh of relief left her lips as she reached the safety of the dark corridor, finding herself walking faster, now that she was so close to her own bed. She'd come to know the corridors around the dorm like the back of her hand during the last few weeks, not having to focus too much on where she was going to make it back in what she believed to be the fastest she'd ever been.
Lilith opened the door to the dorm carefully, doing her best not to wake up her fellow transfers, but she quickly gave up on that idea when she noticed that the dorm was completely empty. She furrowed her eyebrows, wondering if something was happening that day that she didn't know about. If that was the case, she had to find the others as soon as possible. She closed the distance to her bed, quickly opening the drawer under the mattress and tucking away the remains of her shirt into the depths of it. She grabbed a black tank top that she'd picked up while hanging out with Marlene and removed her jacket, before pulling it on. She was finishing adjusting her hair around the collar of her jacket once again when the door opened, and she glanced towards it to see Christina, Tris, Will and Nate entering the room.
"Where the hell have you been?" Christina's dark eyes were wide as she jogged over to Lilith, her gaze flickering up and down as if she was looking for something.
"I, huh..." Lilith hesitated, as the other three reached the two girls. Will looked curious as well, while Tris seemed to be in her own world. Nate folded his arms over his chest, raising his eyebrows at her as if he knew something. The brunette looked away from him, "I took Siobhan and the others to their dorm, last night. Passed out on one of the empty beds," she chuckled, before shrugging her shoulders, "You know me. I get sleepy after having one too many."
Christina scanned her for any signs that she was lying, but Lilith's neutral expression didn't reveal anything, and she ended up exhaling through her nose, before pulling the taller girl into a hug, "Don't do that again. I thought Peter had come for you."
Lilith refrained from saying that he had already tried, returning Christina's hug and giving her a smile when she pulled away. Will then said that they should hurry, seeing as it was fear landscape day, and he revealed that Uriah had told them that they'd be going through an instructor's fear landscape. They'd been trying to guess which one of them it would be during breakfast, and Christina seemed to hope that it would be Four's. Lilith noticed the look that Tris gave her when she said that, though she remained quiet. As the group walked out of the dorm, Nate held out a muffin her direction, and the brunette gratefully took it.
"Why did you lie to her?" he questioned, once the other three were a few feet ahead of them. Lilith glanced at him with furrowed eyebrows, chewing her food. Out of everyone, Nate was the most likely to caught her in the lie, since he'd been with her during the most of the day. He elaborated, "You didn't take the others to their dorm."
"How do you know that?" she still tried, despite knowing that she'd been caught.
"Because I did that," there was a hint of a smirk on the boy's lips, "And you were nowhere to be seen," he paused, "And I might have seen Eric leave right after you did. Seeing the way the two of you were looking at eachother, it's not hard to put two and two together," he paused, noticing the alarm on her features, "Relax, Lilith. I'm not telling anyone. It's none of my business."
"Listen," she started, "This was the first time this eve-"
Nate simply shook his head, "You don't need to justify yourself to me. I never believed Peter's rumors, anyways. You're in third place because you deserve to be. You work harder than most of us. It's only fair."
Lilith nodded, her features softening as she looked at Nate with a newfound appreciation, "Thank you."
"Is he any good in bed, at least?"
"Oh my god, Nate, shut up."
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"Two years ago," Lauren began, her grey eyes raking over the crowd of initiates. Lilith hadn't seen her since the day she'd first arrived to the compound, but all of her Dauntless born friends seemed to think that she was a stellar instructor. Four stood to the side, his eyes fixated on the tips of his boots, allowing his coworker to take over the fear landscape. The brunette wondered if there was any particular reason for it, but she didn't have the time to dwell on it, as Lauren resumed her speech, "I was afraid of spiders, suffocation, walls that inch slowly and trap you between them, getting thrown out of Dauntless, uncontrollable bleeding, getting run over by a train, my father's death, public humiliation, and kidnapping by men without faces."
Lilith supressed a shiver at the way Lauren had suddenly became so relatable.
"That's nine fears," Nate was the only one to break the silence, looking a little bit paler than usual, "How many do people usually have?"
The instructor exhaled through her nose, "Most of you will have anywhere from ten to fifteen fears in your fear landscapes. That is the average number."
"What's the lowest number someone has gotten?" Lynn questioned, from her place next to Marlene.
"In recent years, four."
Lilith's eyebrows furrowed as her eyes drifted to Four, who still hadn't looked up. Her mind was running a hundred miles an hour, wondering if Lauren had been talking about him and if that had been the origin of his nickname. Then again, it could have come from anything else. Maybe he only had four toes on one of his feet. Even if he wasn't the person with a surprisingly low number of fears, Lilith still wondered whether there was something very wrong or very right with whoever it was.
"You will not find out your number today," Lauren proceeded to add, "The simulation is set to my fear landscape program, so you will experience my fears instead of your own. For the purposes of this exercise, though, each of you will only face one of my fears, to get a sense for how the simulation works."
The explanation was over, and the woman then proceeded to assign fears randomly to the initiates. Some of them were repeated, for there were more teenagers present than Lauren had fears, but Lilith ended up as the only with uncontrollable bleeding as her simulation. Being well aware of her sensitivity to blood and gore, and how Edward's incident had made it even worse, the brunette wasn't exactly pleased, but she didn't say a word as she sat down with her friends.
Most of the group was silent as they watched the other iniciates who were going through the process first, and Lilith couldn't help but wonder if it would be herself bleeding in the simulation, or if she had to help someone else with their endless loss of fluid. Both ideas made her slightly nauseous, and she attempted to drone them out as she watched the others. Nate had been the first of their group to be called, and Lilith flinched as he clawed at his own throat and seemed to struggle to breathe. It lasted for a few minutes before the blonde calmed himself enough to be brought out of the simulation, and he wordlessly returned to his place next to her. Lilith placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, before Lauren called her name.
Taking a deep breath, the brunette pushed herself up from the cement floor, cracking her knuckles as she closed the distance between her friend group and the instructors. Neither Four or Lauren said a single word as he handed her a syringe, and Lilith exhaled through her nose as the needle pierced her skin. This serum seemed to act a lot faster than the one used during Phase Two, for Lilith instantly found herself in an unknown room.
Her first instinct was to look around, but she didn't have the time, for a person seemed to materialize out of nowhere, a glinting blade in their hands. A scream got caught up in her throat as the knife entered her stomach, and blood filled her mouth as the weapon was twisted on her insides. The pain was nothing like what she'd felt before in her life, and tears brimmed her eyes as she brought her hands to the wound, applying pressure over the bleeding. Her gaze moved from the person to her now bloodied hands, and the world began to spin around her as her fingers became drenched and the liquid spilled onto the ground under her feet.
There was nothing in the room to help her, she soon realized. The walls were bare and there was no sign of a door or a window that she could drag herself through, in search of help. Lilith was stuck in there, bleeding out to death. The only thing she could do was wait it out. A grunt left her lips as she sat down with her back against the wall, blood pouring from her mouth and staining her clothes. The pain only became stronger and the copper taste on her tongue grew stronger, but she ignored those things as she closed her eyes, ragged breaths leaving her lips as she waited for death to take her.
Suddenly, it was over.
The pain in her abdomen was gone, and there was only a slight coppery taste in her mouth, that she realized she had because she'd bit her lip too hard during the simulation. The other initiates were silent as Lilith wiped her sweaty forehead with her hand, accepting Lauren's help to get to her feet with the other. Though she hadn't said anything, Lilith could see that the instructor was somewhat impressed with the way she'd dealt with the simulation, and even Four seemed to have come out of his funk for a few seconds to give her a nod.
Barely holding back a grin, Lilith went back to where she'd been sitting before, where Rita playfully shoved her with her shoulder, a broad smile on her lips.
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The most eventful thing to happen on that day, other than the fact that Lilith had woken up in Eric's apartment and instantly panicked, was how Tris had quite literally smacked Four across the face, after her turn trying out the fear landscape for the very first time. Her assigned fear had been kidnapping, according to what Uriah claimed to remember, and instead of the mostly calm reactions that the other initiates were having, Tris had screamed her lungs out and collapsed on the floor, on her knees. Four had instantly told Lauren to stop the simulation, before scolding the blonde for having such an intense reaction, and that was where the slap had come from.
Lilith hadn't seen Tris ever since.
Will and Christina had taken off on their own after Four had dismissed them, and Lilith hadn't wanted to intrude on their day, so she'd stuck with Nate and Lynn, who had been itching for some fighting practice. For the first time since she'd gotten to Dauntless, Lilith sparred with someone who had been in the faction for way longer than she had, and she was proud to say that the bruise on Lynn's cheekbone had been caused by her. A bruise had formed on where the other girl had managed to kick her, but Lilith was used to it, after what she'd endured in Phase One, and she stuck around as Nate and Lynn faced off against eachother. It had been a close call, but Nate, who had gotten a little bulkier since they'd transferred, ended up pinning the other girl to the floor, and Lynn had tapped out after a few seconds.
At last, Lilith walked back to the dorm, with the goal of taking a shower before dinner. Her skin was slick with sweat and her hair felt greasy, and she couldn't really handle feeling gross anymore. Licking her lips, she entered the room and made a beeline for her bed, grabbing her towel from the hanger on the wall. Before she could head to the showers, she froze, her eyes landing on a brand new shirt on top of her bed, neatly folded. Instantly, her heart was hammering against her chest, and she glanced around the room, despite it being void of anyone else. After taking a few seconds to catch her breath, Lilith reached out to the shirt, quickly opening the drawer under her bed and shoving the piece of clothing in there.
Eric remembered.
"There you are," a voice cut through the silence, making Lilith jump.
Her eyes narrowed as she spotted Christina walking into the room, "Are you trying to give me a heart attack? It nearly worked."
A chuckle left the dark skinned girl's lips, "No. I just have something to tell you," her lips spread into a wide grin, and Lilith looked at her questioningly. She hadn't noticed it when her best friend had entered the room, but she seemed a lot happier than she had been, that morning. She was about to question what Christina wanted to talk about when the door opened, and Tris walked her, her hair slightly discheveled. Christina folded her arms over her chest, "Where have you been all day? I looked for you outside but I couldn't find you. Is everything okay?"
Tris simply looked at her, and Lilith spoke up as well, "How much trouble did you get into for smacking Four like that?"
"I just had to get away," something in the blonde's tone told Lilith that the other girl was exhausted, "I walked around for a long time," her eyes moved to the brunette as she walked closer to them, "And there wasn't any trouble. He yelled at me, I apologized... that's it."
Christina nodded, "Good. I'm really glad that both of you are here, because I have something to tell you," she paused, looking around the room, and Lilith was quick to realize that she didn't want whatever she was going to tell them to be known by everyone. She adjusted her hold on her towel as she waited for Christina to be done checking the room. After a few seconds, her dark brown eyes returned to them, "Can you both be girls for a few seconds?"
Lilith raised an eyebrow, "We are?"
"You know what I mean," Christina rolled her eyes, "Like silly, annoying girls."
Tris twirled a strand of her long blonde hair around her index finger, "'Kay."
Struggling to hold back a laugh, Lilith looked back at her best friend, who had started to grin widely once again. Her cheeks looked flustered as she finally spoke, "Will kissed me."
"I knew it!" Lilith exclaimed, placing a hand on Christina's shoulder, "I fucking knew it!"
"What? When? How? What happened?" Tris fired out, at the same time.
"So you can be girls!" Christina giggled, seeming to relax. Her eyes landed on Tris, "Well, right after your little episode, we ate lunch and then we walked around near the train tracks. We were just talking about... I don't even remember what we were talking about. And then he just stopped, and leaned in, and... kissed me."
"Did you know that he liked you?" Tris asked, "I mean, you know. Like that."
"Oh, please," Lilith laughed, rolling her eyes, "Even I knew that."
Christina shook her head, "I didn't," she let out a laugh as well, "The best part was, that was it. We just kept walking and talking like nothing happened. Well, until I kissed him."
"How long have you known that you liked him?"
"Well, I hadn't really admitted it to myself," she paused, shrugging her shoulders, "But then the little things... how he put his arm around me at the funeral, how he opens doors for me like I'm a girl instead of someone who could beat the crap out of him."
Suddenly, the conversation began to make Lilith feel anxious. Christina had grown feelings for someone who treated her like she was precious, who worried and always strived to make sure that she was okay. When her mind wandered to Eric and to the interactions she'd had with him, they were either arguments, or banter. There was none of the romantic mushy stuff that Christina and Will seemed to have, and she hated how it still gave her butterflies. Having feelings for Eric was dangerous, for more than one reason, and the brunette felt like she'd already put herself in enough peril, after the previous night.
She forced herself to smile, "I'm happy for you. For the record, I totally knew this was gonna happen," she winked at both girls as she retreated towards the showers, "Now, I'm gonna finally get rid of all of this sweat. See you girls later."
Tris and Christina were still chattering and laughing as Lilith turned on the hot water, both seemingly on cloud nine. All she could feel, however, was dread.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
Hey y'all!
I managed to update after all! I did get my first dose of the vaccine yesterday, but thankfully I feel mostly okay, my arm is just really sore and I feel a little more tired than usual. Still, I managed to get this ready in time!
Also be honest, in a scale of 1/10, how much did I freak you out with the opening gif?
Not much happened in this chapter, but I still feel like it explores how Lilith is currently feeling about the whole ordeal at the moment. Let's just say it's complicated, for now lmao
Anyways I hope everyone enjoyed! Don't forget your feedback, hopefully I'll see you next week!