UPDATED
Maylyn's POV-
Eric drags me outside of the compound. I can tell he is fuming. However, I do not care. Eric is malicious and I refuse to put up with it. He cannot treat his members like this.
I already know I am going to have claw marks in my shoulder due to Eric gripping me so tightly.
"What is the point of this?" I ask through gritted teeth.
"Leave my compound."
"No."
Eric gets right up in my face. "You need to leave."
"Not a chance. I am not intimidated by you." I sternly stare into his hateful eyes.
Eric shoves me up against the compound wall. Eric grabs my throat and lifts me off my feet. I instantly wrap my hands around his hand to make it to where he cannot choke me out.
"I'm the Dauntless leader, I remind you. You will obey by my rules, not your own. So, next time you feel like challenging me. Think again, sweetheart because I will make you suffer for it. Understood?" He finally lets go of me, I focus on catching my breath.
I do not say anything back to him until he punches me in the gut.
"Was that necessary?" I spat out.
"I asked you a question." Eric stares me down, I make direct eye contact, and he instantly back hands me hard enough to result in me hitting the ground. "You are beneath me, you do not get to look me in the eye."
"I am not beneath you. Making eye contact is a sign of respect, it shows you have my attention. Stop being a ruthless dictator and you might actually learn a thing or two from me." I maintain eye contact with Eric the whole time and manage to sit up.
Eric squats down to be at eye level and quickly latches onto my throat. "There is nothing of importance that I could learn from an initiate who is going to end up factionless. Make eye contact with those people Maylyn, see who kills you first."
With that Eric releases my throat, stands up, and starts walking away from me.
"You are a coward!" I shout without thinking, almost instinctively cringing at my actions.
"Excuse me?" Eric snaps his attention back to me. "What did you just say to me?"
I gulp, "You are a being a coward. I know you like me. You are punishing me instead of accepting it. You know it would be a weakness if anyone found out."
"Why would I like a pathetic, disgraceful initiate like you? If I were to like an initiate, your twin would be a better choice. At least she is Dauntless material." I bite back my hate of being compared to my twin.
"You are deflecting." I stand up and dust off my jeans. "I knew from the hug that you like me. If you are not afraid, why not admit it?"
"You don't know shit about me, Maylyn. You need to quit with this nonsense."
"Make me," I challenge Eric and watch as his fist balls up. "I will not bow down to a coward. Admit to it and just maybe, you will walk away from this conversation as a better person."
Much to my surprise, Eric grabs both sides of my face and kisses me.
"Happy now?" He abruptly pulls away from me and slams his knee into my stomach causing me to double over. "If you tell anyone, I will kill you."
Eric proceeds to walk away, leaving me to catch my breath. I can say more but I think I have done enough for today. I do not think my body can handle anymore of his hits.
-/-
"Maylyn." I feel a tap on my shoulder.
I swivel around and am met with a pair of dark blue eyes staring at me. "Yes, Four?"
"Zeke told me you agreed, follow me." I follow Four from the cafeteria to the training arena. Four leads me to a table that has a few knives and two guns on it.
"Now, as you can probably tell, I will be training you for this mission. I am a trainer, Zeke is not. I want to assure this will go off without a hitch and no one will die. Which weapon do you feel most comfortable with, a knife or a gun?"
"Neither. I have had zero practice with both." I inform him, Four looks a little agitated by this answer but quickly focuses.
"That's fine, let's start with a gun. You are from Erudite, you should have some type of knowledge on how to handle weapons appropriately, correct?" I nod my head and he continues, "I want you to pick up the gun and aim it at the target but do not shoot."
I do as instructed and Four quickly fixes my stance. "Always try for good form when shooting. In tense situations, it may be harder to do this but it is pretty crucial to hitting the target. Now watch as I load and unload the gun."
Four takes the gun from me and pops out the cartridge. Four tells me what he is doing as he is doing it. He then positions himself in front of the target. Boom, boom, boom. The sound of the gun going off is enough to make my ear ring.
"When you take the right stance, scope in the target, and shoot. You should always hit the target."
I look where his shots landed on the target and realize there is one hole, the bullseye.
"I have to admit, that is impressive. How did you learn to shoot a gun?"
"Through a lot of training." Four curtly answers, "Your turn, I want you to offload all the bullets."
I hesitate before taking the stance I was shown. I try to line up my shot but do not understand how to make it align with the target.
"Close your left eye," Four instructs. "Then with your right eye line up the two white lines with the red dot in the center, then shot."
I do exactly what I am told to with lining my shot up and proceed to fire all six rounds. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. I jolt a little with the first two but soon get a firmer grip on the handle of the firearm.
Shooting a gun makes me feel powerful and gives me a sense of total control. This is a weird sensation.
Four grabs the paper and shows me exactly where I hit. Five out of the six actually hit the target but none of the shots landed in the same spot. There is one bullet hole in the forehead, another to the left side of the mouth, and the other three came close to hitting the center of the target.
"Did you even watch me as I shot?" I remain silent. "Are you incompetent as well?"
Is he purposely trying to anger me?
"No, I am not incompetent. I am trying, show me again. I will get it this time."
"Reload your gun. You do know how to do that, right?" Four taunts me and I respond with an eye roll.
I walk over the barrel of gun shells and count out six of them. I slowly reload the magazine while maintaining eye contact with Four. I smirk as I see him get a little aggravated.
Four replaces the target paper and reloads his gun. "Show me how it is done, Four."
"Always keep your arms out straight, do not lock your elbows, shoulders squared, scope in the target, and shoot." Four starts shooting off round after round. All six once again went through the same hole. "Do not let the recoil mess up your aim."
I did follow all of his instructions, yet somehow, I still have two shots that do not hit in the same spot as the rest.
"Don't lock your elbows!" Four shouts me.
"They were not locked!" I frustratedly shout back. My elbows are not locked and my stance is flawless. I mimicked Four exactly, I should not be missing.
"Do you know what locked elbows look like then?"
I feel my face start to burn as anger seems through. I begrudgingly walk to the barrel of bullets and quickly reload my gun. I walk up to the paper target, rip it down, and put up a new one. While repositioning myself in front of the target, I take the proper stance, make sure my elbows are slightly bent, and rapid fire.
I stand back and smirk at Four. All six make it into the same red circle on the target.
I do a sarcastic curtesy to Four.
Bullseye! I knew I could do it.
In complete silence, Four reloads his gun and puts up a new paper. He takes his stance in front of the target but he faces me instead of the target board. Four locks glares with me and fires off his six rounds. I gawk at his perfect execution, perfect bullseye. Without even looking at the paper, Four smirks and bows. I need to become that good.
"Don't get cocky just yet, Maylyn. You still have a lot to learn." Four states and takes the papers off of the board. "Get a knife."
I quickly do as he says, while grabbing a blade for Four as well. Four nods a thank you and then shows me how to properly throw a knife
*45 minutes later*
"Can we stop now?" I beg Four to give me a break.
My arm is exhausted. I do not know why he keeps making me throw the damn knife, I have hit the target at least eighty times. My highest streak in a row was thirty-five!
"When you hit the target every single time, then we can stop. There is no room for error. You need to do better and I know you can."
"I understand that but can we please work on something else for a little bit, like fighting? Can you please teach me how to fight?"
"Are you really going to give up that easily?" Four challenges me while crossing his arms.
"I am not giving up, I will never give up. I will learn how to throw a knife to your expectation. Even if you want me to throw it another hundred times, I will. I would just like to change my focus right now."
Four's silence is making me want to retract my previous statement. I sigh and walk over to grab another knife to begin throwing again.
Right as I grip the handle of the blade, Four begins to talks, "Okay, first thing about fighting is never underestimate your opponent."
My hand quickly releases the handle leaving the knife on the table.
Thank God.
"Okay," I give Four my full attention.
"Number two, find out a way of fighting that will cause you less pain and them more." I shoot Four a questioning look and he clarifies, "Your best bet would utilizing your elbows and knees, have no built up muscle and you don't know how to forcefully strike someone. You have to punch them repetitively before they go down. Another thing you need to acknowledge before I can teach you anything about fighting is your lack of selfishness."
A look of bewilderment stretches across my face.
"Maylyn, I watch how you fight every time you get in the arena. You fight like your only need in the world is to protect everyone but yourself. That is a great trait if you were in Abnegation but you are not and you need to stop thinking that way. It will get you killed and you are useless if you are dead."
I know he is not wrong but what do I do with that knowledge? I choose Dauntless not Abnegation. How does one choose to become selfish?
"What can I do then? I have never been selfish, how do I change that now?" I ask Four.
"The day you choose Dauntless, you made a selfish decision." It is as if a train hit me when Four spoke those words. I choose my own desires over the faction I was born into. I always told myself it was because of Brooklyn but she did not slice my hand for me in the Choosing Ceremony. "Now that you recognize that you are capable of being selfish, fight like it. Fight like you deserve to live. Come hit me with your best shot."
I hesitate, I feel trapped in my thoughts.
Elbow and knees, those are my strengths. If I rush at Four, he will take me down like he has previously. If I come swinging my elbow at him or if I knee him in the stomach, Four expect it and block. How do I hit him if I know he knows what I am going to do?
Four playfully flicks my forehead, I shoot him a glare. "Stop thinking like an Erudite. If you stand there thinking about what you should do, your opponent will murder you."
"Then what do I do?"
"Stop thinking, stop asking questions, start doing, just hit me." Exerting all of my force, I punch Four's chest. Right away, it is obvious this has little impact on him. "Now put your body weight behind it."
I quickly throw another punch at Four's chest, this time throwing my weight behind the hit. Once again, this has no impact.
"Maylyn, you are thinking too much about it. Hold on." Four goes to the back room and brings a punching dummy over to me. "I think you are scared to harm another person, is that it?"
"I would not say scared. I did harm Faith in the battle."
"I'll rephrase, you are scared to harm someone when there is nothing provoking you. Beating Faith was to ensure you would say here and you only fought me because I made you mad. Not everyone you have to fight, will make you mad. And if you have to think it through fully about if someone deserves to be fought, it will only happen once because before you get halfway through making that decision they will kill you."
Four is right once again. If I waste crucial time deciding if someone deserves to be hit, they will kill me. Just because I am making the choice to be reasonable, does not mean they will.
"Okay, I am ready." I state and land an impactful hit with my elbow to Four's lower stomach.