"𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣
𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙢 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙙,
𝙄 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙖𝙘𝙝
𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙖 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙮 𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙙."
𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘖𝘶𝘵 𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘰 - 𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘴
▲ ▲ ▲ ▲
You pressed on silently through the shadows, slinking around the edges of the light and narrowly avoiding members of either team. The longer you could go undetected by anyone, the better. You hadn't yet mastered Four's art of becoming a fixture of the environment, although you had somehow rendered yourself completely invisible to anyone who happened to pass by.
Speaking of Four, he must have been doing a pretty good job at defending the rest of your team because Eric's soldiers were starting to return and guard the base of their steeple. The looks on their faces were anxious and vengeful, no longer ignorant of the odds of their defeat.
That persistent nagging feeling still drilled against the back of your skull as you studied your surroundings. There was a reason you opted to stay low to the ground, guarding Tris and Christina while they paved the way to your team's victory—it just had yet to make itself known to you.
You slipped out of the darkness, abandoning your perfect hiding place to run across the opening and wedge yourself between two large wooden crates. You were followed immediately by a string of rapid gunfire and knew that you'd been spotted. You cussed and tried to make yourself as small as possible until the bullets inevitably stopped falling, which didn't take long at all. When the dust cleared, the only sound you could make sense of was a single voice barking orders into a radio.
"Everyone fall back! I want defenses at the tower now!"
The urgency in Eric's voice was palpable. Turning your head slightly to the side, you spotted him nearby. Kneeled to the ground with the material of his black pants torn and frayed from battle, the barrel of his rifle prodded out from the thin gaps between slats in a wooden pallet. He shot blindly into a crowd of who could have only been your teammates.
He hadn't noticed you—hadn't even turned his head to investigate the sound of an empty dart-casing clattering to the gravel floor. Your movements were slow and calculated as you cocked your gun and emptied the chamber without ever taking your eyes off of him.
You had a straight shot at Eric—a perfect opportunity to shoot your leader point-blank and pull him out of the game. Would he be proud of you, or were you just asking to run laps around the compound until you graduated from initiation? Did you even want to shoot Eric in the first place?
Thankfully you weren't given much time to debate the ethics of War Games, because when he stood to adjust his position, someone else took the opportunity that you sorely wasted. Eric hissed, shoulder flying back from the recoil of the dart plunging into his flesh. The weapon flew out of his hands as another dart came sailing over the arena to pierce him in the opposite arm.
He didn't go down right away. Instead, he stood there in shock as round after round was fired into his chest. You counted eight gunshots total, but Eric was already down for the count by the time someone fired the eighth round into the wall behind him. His breath came out in seething pants, fingers twitching in the dark as he struggled to pry the darts out.
The serum worked through him startlingly fast and his cries of pain were lost to the night like a whisper on the wind. His assailants had long since moved on, marking a clearcut path to the turret. By the time your brain caught up to your body, you were already halfway towards Eric's writhing body. His teeth were clenched in pain, his head thrown back against the ground with his eyes squinted shut.
You tucked your hair behind your ears, bringing your knees to his side before patting down the thick black material of his chest plate. Each dart you yanked from Eric's body prompted a stifled moan of pain. His lips were sealed shut, but his eyes flew open in a flurry. He made a weak grab for his gun before his eyes adjusted to the dark and he realized that you posed no threat to him despite the orange glowstick dancing freely from around your neck.
"What–What are you doing, initiate?"
His voice was strained and every word was edged with a whimper of discomfort. You located the rest of the darts as quickly as possible, placing a hand firmly on the center of his chest and only pausing once to glance up to meet his curious gaze.
Even in this moment of weakness, Eric was exhibiting more strength than you'd ever thought possible. You saw Molly get shot earlier and she nearly passed out from the serum of one dart alone. She was probably sitting in the empty train car right about now, kicking her own boots and cursing her own uselessness.
One dart had enough power to simulate a real gunshot wound, but eight? Eric might as well have jumped on top of a live grenade.
You ignored his question under the guise of focus, licking your lips and dragging your hands down his chest to feel for any more darts that you might have missed. Eric's gloved hand reached out and latched onto yours, forcing you to face him. His lips were parted as he sucked in lungfuls of oxygen, never once tearing his eyes away despite how hard his lids fought to slip him under.
"I'm helping you. What does it look like?"
"I'm not on your fucking team," he spat.
"I don't care."
Although that was a huge lie. You cared that there might be cameras somewhere watching you break every rule in the book—climbing the ferris wheel, making orders on behalf of your own team, shooting Peter in the dick. You cared that when you returned back to base that night and looked up at the scoreboard, your name might be glaring right back at you, written in red for everyone to see.
Your short answer coaxed his lips to draw together in a thin, disapproving line. You were starting to think that was all you were good at—disappointing people.
Ripping the final dart from the place where his shoulder met his collarbone, you delighted in his cry of pain before flicking the empty dart over your shoulder. "I don't. You're in pain."
The last of the serum worked its way through his bloodstream in seconds flat and he sat up with a gasp. Eric clutched a fist to his chest, fingers flexing over the spot where your hand was resting just moments before. He studied you silently, visible confusion weighing on his expression as you reached across his lap and handed him his rifle. "If this were a real warzone, I would have killed you by now."
You shrugged and made a grab for your own gun before moving to stand. "If this were a real warzone, I wouldn't have saved you in the first place."
A noise akin to a breathy chuckle escaped Eric's lips. You bit back a smile of your own, refusing to look him in the eye before looking both ways and disappeared around the corner.
Aside from the sound of gravel popping under your boots, it was serenely silent. No more echoed gunfire crackled through the sky and you knew that it wouldn't be long until they were rounding you back up onto the train for home.
A gun cocked behind you and shattered the peaceful stillness. You whipped your head around, half expecting to see Eric standing there in the middle of the path, ready to teach you a lesson about showing mercy to the enemy. "Should have taken the shot while you could," is what he would have said before demonstrating just how painful a shot of one of those darts really was.
Your eyes caught the green glowstick first, watching it as it swung back and forth on its plastic cord before rolling to a stop and falling still on its owner's chest. Edward expelled the empty bullet shell from his rifle and let it roll down the path, eyes planted firmly on you. The dull lime-colored glow illuminated his face from below, turning his features gaunt and sharp.
He made no advancements toward you, no indication at all that he had any intention of causing you harm. But his eyes—the look in his eyes followed by the slow, evil smile that fought its way to his thin, pale lips. It made your heart race like a jackrabbit in your ribcage.
Is that what dying felt like? Your heart explodes out of your chest and then...nothing?
Every inch of your body was on high alert but your feet were welded to the debris-littered ground. Fight or flight wasn't even an option. Your mind was slamming its imaginary fist down on the flight button over and over but to no avail.
"Let's hope you actually learned something while I was detained," he growled, raising the rifle to peer down the sight with his one remaining eye.
You silenced the whimper that threatened to escape you, eyes round as you took in the threat standing a dozen paces away. Is this how he would enact his revenge? By shooting you over and over until all you could comprehend was the white-hot fiery burn of the dart serum? Or maybe he would only use his weapon to disable you. Maybe he would only make it so you couldn't run before pummeling you back into the earth with his own two hands—hands that still bore the scars of your first encounter.
His finger choked the trigger, but nothing happened. A loud click announced to both of you that his gun was empty. He'd wasted the last of his darts fighting his way over to the place his teammates said that you'd been spotted.
A smile trembled its way onto your lips and you raised your gun to the level of his eye. "I wouldn't count on that if I were you."
You didn't waste another second before pulling back on the trigger. There was no click this time, but there wasn't much of anything else either. You pulled away, shaking the body of the gun only to hear a muffled rattle from within. Jammed. Of course.
Edward's lips curled upwards menacingly as he tossed his useless munition aside. "Amity scum," he said, marching the distance that separated you. "You need to learn your place."
You knew it wouldn't do anything but you still tugged back on the trigger with every step he advanced in your direction, praying for a miracle because a miracle was the only thing that could have saved you from his wrath.
And somehow, a miracle was exactly what you got.
When Edward was no further than five steps from your retreating figure, his entire body lurched violently and his eyes went wide. He gasped for air like a fish out of water before slowly sinking to his knees before you. Two more rounds were fired into his back, rendering him an awkward crumpled heap on the cement. You gaped down at the mess that Edward had become in the span of seconds. Was that all it would have taken to knock him off his feet? Four rounds?
A painful groan sounded from behind the twitching lump of an initiate before you. Most, if not all, of Eric's weight was pinned to a large, dented radiator. He lowered his gun and tossed it aside–empty. There was a hand pressed into his lower abdomen and his face was contorted in pain. You met his eye just as a low, shaken exhale slipped past his lips. "Since we're ignoring the rules now," he shrugged.
You smiled, heart still bouncing around in your chest. You had no idea what possessed you just then, but you were at his side in an instant to sling his arm over your shoulder, hooking your fingers around a strap in his protective vest (which didn't do much protecting, as it turned out).
Eric didn't try to fight your attempts to help him, but you could practically feel his eyes rolling back into his head at the prospect of being assisted by an initiate—the same initiate whose team just broke his untarnished War Games record.
Distant gunfire melted into a low rumble triumphant roar. You both turned to glance up at the brick turret, only to see Christina and Tris waving the glowing green flag over their heads.
(A/N: yay, this was quick! I feel like this chapter was a little rushed but the last three chapters were originally one big one so it screwed with the pacing a little bit. oh well. I have a ghost concert tomorrow so im literally writing anything so I dont get so excited that I puke. im like a dog).