Dinner that night is more talkative than the day before. My brother sits with us, if front of me and beside Harper, and steals food off of my tray when he thinks I’m not looking. None of us are in good moods, but we aren’t quite as shell shocked as we were; Alice and Tamsin even sit with us, though they give Four funny looks when he slides his bowl of banana pudding onto my tray. I retaliate by letting him have my portion of chocolate cake.
“I have decided,” Az says to the table, setting her fork on her tray, “that I want another tattoo.”
“It’s been two days,” I tell her. “And your first one is infected.”
“Irritated,” she says. “Not infected. I want another one.”
“What do you want?” Alice asks.
“I have no idea. Who else has got one?”
Alice, Tamsin, and Az all raise their hands.
“You have one,” Az says, pointing at Four. “What is it?”
“It’s a big fat sign that reads ‘fuck off’.”
“Never mind,” she says, and I kick my brother under table.
“Stop kicking me,” he hisses.
“Then stop being an asshole,” I hiss back. I like that my brother and I no longer have to think about each other’s feelings before we say anything. I like being able to speak my mind without someone fussing at me for being selfish; I can be as selfish as I want now.
“I’d stop being an asshole if you’d stop kicking me.”
“Liar. You’d keep pushing until I punched you again.”
“You punch like a girl,” he sneers.
“Of course I do,” I say smiling. “Seemed pretty effective to me.”
He rolls his eyes and dumps a piece of chocolate cake in my pudding.
***
I feel like I can’t breathe. I try to open my mouth, bring the air back into my lungs, something, but I just can’t. It’s dark, and hot, and when I feel a hand grab my wrist as I flail, I realize this isn’t a dream. The hand over my face moves and I can finally breathe through my nose, but I can’t make a sound, can’t call for help, if any would even come. I don’t know who’s here with me, but unless they have more than two hands, there are at least two of them.
It starts like a quiet whisper in my ear, and grows louder like an enormous crowd cheering, more and more and more people chanting. I don’t realize where we’re headed until one of the men’s feet steps on metal grating, and I hear it rock and sway under his weight. We’re headed for the chasm.
No one will think it’s murder, a voice in my head whispers, Eric has caught you out here twice. He’ll just think you really were suicidal, that you just went ahead and jumped. And these two will get away with it. No one will care about the death of another initiate, especially a transfer.
I scurry away, and yank whatever is in my mouth out, intending to be able to bit whatever comes at me next. I put my back to the tunnel wall and fling my hair out of my face. The man stalking in my direction is bigger than I thought he was, and when his nose crinkles, I know who it is. This is the same man and his friend that pushed me on the stairs when I had Adele with me.
The two men that threw me over scramble away from the edge until one of them realizes that I haven’t fallen into the water. The friend growls and stalks towards me and begins to pry my fingers from the bar. I do what I can to stop him, but it’s honestly not much. I’m too busy watching my fingers slip from the bar, too worried thinking about what’s going to happen next, and I don’t see someone punch the other one in the face. The one prying my fingers from their hold is shoved away, and two hands are grabbing my arms and pulling me up.
“I’m going to take her to the infirmary. You going to handle them?”
“Yeah,” he says darkly. “I’ll handle them.”
His voice sends a cold spark down my spine.
***
I come out of the simulation hazy; the room is swimming, and my pulse is still racing, but Eric is a stationary figure at my side. I’m not nauseous, even though I know that the two men that threw me over are dead, that Eric is probably the one who killed them, and it doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it would.
“I’m not sorry they’re dead,” I tell him in the quiet of the room. The metal chair has warmed to my body temperature, and I flex my fingers over the arm rests to keep from reaching out, reaching for something.
“Who told you they were dead?” he asks.
“Some of the other initiates,” I tell him. “They heard about what happened. Don’t know how.”
“Goddamn gossips,” he hisses. “You weren’t supposed to know.”
“Why?” I ask. “Did you think I would ask for mercy upon them? Ask for the minimum punishment?”
“It doesn’t matter. It was Max’s decision.”
“I wouldn’t have. They tried to kill me; you and my brother are the only reason that didn’t happen. I can’t say I’m glad they’re dead, or that I would have returned the favor to them, but I’m not sorry for it.”
“I can’t say any of us are,” he says.
***
The room I share with the other transfers is empty when I walk in. I don’t know where the others are. I crouch down by the bottom of the mattress and wiggle my hand between the fabric and the bedframe. The spine of the book I snuck into the compound of Choosing Day is stiff from a week and a half’s worth of stillness, but in no worse condition that when I arrived. The cover is green, like the grass at the edge of the fence, and blank of words. There is no title, and no accredited author; I don’t even know if my mother knew who the book was written by. The pages are yellowing with age, frayed around the edges, but still secure in their binding; I imagine that the black ink on each page is as dark and purposeful as the day it was printed. This is my favorite book.
I crawl into my bed, prop my pillow against the wall, and pull the sheets over my legs.
***
The next four days repeat the same cycle: simulation, lunch, free time, dinner, sleep. I see Marcus twice more in training, along with being run over by a train, and being tossed over the chasm. I don’t see my brother in the simulation again. Eric is there each day, living through the fears in my head and walking me through my after thoughts. He’s never unkind about it, though he isn’t very pleasant either. Eric is a quiet place in the tumulus sea that is training; he will not sugar coat something, nor will he outright lie.
On the morning of our first day off after Stage Two, I return to the training room after being tugged around by Az after breakfast to find several of the other initiates crowed around the chalkboard. Harper is standing in the middle of them, head bent low as he whispers to Alice.
“Harper,” Az says quietly, tapping him on the shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“Change in ranks,” Alice says.
“I thought no one else was getting cut until after stage three!”
“Eric said it was a progress report,” Harper says. “I don’t think anyone’s being cut.”
Az pushes by them so she can stand in front of the board; I follow her. Az has been moved to third on the list.
My name is first.
***
“Is it really so surprising?” Fanny asks as I bounce Adele on my hip.
The initiates have the next seven days off to relax and recuperate before Stage Three begins. I’m spending more time with the infants and Fanny than I am with the other initiates.
“Sort of,” I say. “I don’t really think I’m all that good at facing my fears.”
“It’s not about how good you are at facing your fears. It’s about how much better you are at facing your fears than everyone else. Besides, just because you’re in first place now, doesn’t mean you will be at the end of stage three.”
“You always make me feel better, Fanny,” I say dryly. “Like a snake bite, or a burn.”
“I do my best.”
***
“I don’t know what to do with myself,” I say as Az throws herself down on my bed. It’s our second night off and neither of us have the slightest inclination of how to keep ourselves occupied. “I’m not bored, but…”
“But we don’t have anything to do either.”
“Right. Where’s Harper? I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”
“Me either. Who knows what he’s gotten into?”
“We could go down to the commissary and have an early dinner,” I suggest.
“We could throw you off the chasm and see if you live again,” she counters.
“Touché.”
“We could always jump the train lines?”
“Can’t leave the territory without a Dauntless member.”
“We’ll take your brother.”
“He’s working a double shift in the technology labs.”
“Cate?”
“I don’t know what her other job is, but every time I’ve seen her not training us she’s been drunk. Probably not a good idea to take her rail jumping if she is.”
“We could always take Eric.”
I push myself up onto my elbows so I can see her face.
“You don’t like Eric,” I tell her. “He scares the hell out of you.”
“You like him,” she says without looking at me. “He doesn’t scare you.”
“Are you kidding me? Every time I open my mouth I’m afraid he’ll take my head off.”
“So he’s not the one who went rail jumping with you the day after those two other Dauntless attacked you?”
“How do you know about that?”
“So it was him.”
“I needed to clear my head,” I say, sitting up fully so she has to look at me. “I didn’t want to be around my brother and I didn’t want anyone else to know. He was the only choice.”
“And he agreed,” she says. “Sounds like he likes you too.”
***
Az and I find Harper in the Pit. He, Tamsin, and Alice are all sitting at a small table in a dark corner, passing around a bottle that smells like alcohol even though it’s nowhere near my nose. None of them are as drunk as they could be, I suppose, but they aren’t particularly sober either. Harper makes room for Az to sit in his chair and leaves the last seat for me. He hands Az the bottle and she takes a delicate sip, coughing at the sting running down her throat.
“Your turn,” she says, waving the bottle in my direction.
Alcohol isn’t something I’ve ever wanted to experience. The Abnegation don’t drink, consider it poisoning others through your acts, but it was always in my house. It and Marcus, well, it was never pretty.
“Thanks.”
I take the bottle from her and tip it up, covering the spout with my finger so all I get is the salty taste of sweat from my hands and the sear of a few drops on my tongue.
“Check it out,” Alice says. “Abnegation knows how to loosen up.”
“Pretty sure,” Harper pauses, “pretty sure she’s not Abnegation.”
“Definitely not Abnegation,” Tamsin agrees.
“To giving up where we’re from,” Az says, hoisting the bottle in the air, “and finding somewhere new.”
We all pretend to clink imaginary glasses together and drink. The bottle gets passed around a few more times, but I only take enough to taste.
***
I leave the four of them in the Pit once they’re all drunk enough for the conversation to slide into rather salacious territory and Alice starts talking about my brother. I shudder at the thought of a few things she’d mentioned before I was too far away to hear. There’s nothing I want to hear less.
I decide to make my way up, out of the pit and into the large glass walled room above. The stairs up are rickety and creak under my feet. The glass ceiling turns into the floor and my first step onto it is a bit nerve wrecking; I can see several stories below me to the roughly carved floor of the Pit and I have to convince myself that my next step won’t be to my death. The sun has set outside, but through the glass walls and dim lighting I can see the stars and the moon in the sky and the abandoned buildings crumbling around the territory. I never would have noticed Dauntless Headquarters here if I had just been passing by.
There are clusters of more Dauntless gathered on the glass floor. Some are just talking, but others seem to be taking part in one activity or another: fighting with blunted staffs, keeping a ball away from another team, spontaneous foot races. A dull shout echoes through the open space and when I look up two men are balanced on a tight rope; another man stands at one end of the rope, shaking it with his foot and laughing when the other two struggle for balance.
I stuff my hands in my pockets and wander around the edge of the room until I meet a tunnel that leads somewhere else. I turn down it, content to wander and stretch my legs. There are several door along the way, and, by the labels next to the door frames, I seem to have wandered into the heart of Dauntless control. As I reach the half-way point down the hall, a door swings open and a man and a woman exit, nearly knocking me off my feet, though they take no notice and continue on their way. Before the door closes, I glimpse the back of a familiar dark head.
After the two Dauntless have walked far enough away, and I’m sure no one else is coming down the hall, I crack open the door and slip inside. The wall opposite the door is full of monitors, and each of the displays flickers between pictures. It isn’t until one of the larger screens displays a shot of the Pit that I recognize that the footage must be from security cameras.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” my brother says.
“I figured,” I say, dropping down three steps so we’re on the same level. “So this is what you do, huh?”
“I’m pretty much a glorified security guard,” he admits. “But I like it. It’s quiet.”
“I think I got enough quiet in Abnegation,” I tell him.
“Our lives were anything but quiet.”
I sit down on the arm of his chair and he wraps his arm around my waist. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to just sit with my brother.
“I used to feel like I was living in a graveyard,” I whisper. “It was always so quiet, even when he was home. I felt like everything was going to shatter if I said a word. Everyone knew what was going on, but no one would say anything. Even me. I didn’t say anything and I should have.”
“I didn’t say anything either,” he whispers back, “and I left you there with him.”
“I wanted you to go,” I tell him. “I wanted you out of there so badly I couldn’t take it.”
“Big, brave Olivia,” he laughs/sobs. “Always looking out for others.”
***
When my brother’s shift in the control room is over, we leave together, his arm around my shoulders and mine around his waist. He takes us through a different set of tunnels and not back through the glass room or the Pit. We don’t talk about much, and we avoid the subject of training until he asks about my simulations.
“I’ve seen Marcus a few times,” I admit. “I’ve been hit by a train once, and thrown over the edge and into the chasm three times.”
“Marcus is in mine, too,” he tells me.
I tighten my arm around his waist.
“What about Eric?” he asks slowly.
“What about Eric?”
“He’s not being nasty? He’s not really known for his sweet disposition.”
“Eric is,” I pause to think, “well, he’s a dick, but he doesn’t sugar coat anything and he doesn’t mock me for my fears, so he hasn’t been too big of a dick.”
“That’s surprising. He’s usually a really, really big dick.”
***
Tobias leaves me in the commissary and heads for his room, intent on a full ten hours of sleep before his next shift in the control room. It’s just after the busiest meal time, so most of the food available has been picked at, but I manage to scrape together two apples and a bunch of grapes. None of the initiates are within sight, so I pick an empty table in the corner away from the left over hustle and bustle and take a seat. I crunch on the apples slowly, taking my time because it’s not like I have anywhere else to be. After a few moments of just drowning in the white noise of the room, I pluck all of my grapes from their stems and begin to arrange them in shapes.
“Didn’t anyone teach you not to play with your food?”
I look up, startled. Eric is standing on the other side of my table, hand in one pocket and the other holding an apple of his own.
“Sure,” I say. “But I don’t see my father around, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
I duck my head again and rearrange my fruit again.
“So,” he says, sinking into the seat across from mine, “have an idea of whether or not you’ll pass initiation yet?”
“Depends,” I say, shaping my grapes into an arrow and eating one, “on whether those scores are real, or if this is some kind of psych out. Put the losers in the top and the winners in the bottom. Either way, someone’s likely to slip, out of confidence or desperation, one.”
“Again: Erudite.”
“I still wish people would stop telling me that.”
“Then stop thinking out loud.”
“I wasn’t thinking out loud. You asked me a question, and I answered it.”
“A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would have sufficed.”
I flick a grape at him. He snags it from the table and pops it into his mouth.
“What’s stage three?” I ask.
“Can’t tell you that yet. Wouldn’t be fair.”
“Since when do you care what’s fair or not?” I ask. “It wasn’t fair when the first four initiates were cut, and it won’t be fair when the rest are. It isn’t fair that we have to face our worst fears, though I do recognize the practicality of it. It isn’t fair that two men think they can kill an initiate and get away with it. Life isn’t fair. If it was, I would have had a gun in my hand and left a bullet in Marcus’s head on Visiting Day.”
I’m surprisingly calm. Nothing I’ve said isn’t true, but none of those thoughts spark my anger like they usually do. My heart isn’t racing, and my breath isn’t uneven. I look up at Eric and find him watching me, slowly turning the stem on his apple until it breaks off.
“You’re right,” he says lowly. “I don’t care what’s fair and what’s not. I couldn’t give a damn if we picked initiates at random so long as they were good at what we told them to do. But you,” he looks me in the eye, “I want to see if you can make it. I want to see if you’ll keep standing or if you’ll crumple like a wet paper bag. Every time I think you’re going to give in, you don’t, you push back, you win. I want to know if you’re brave, or if you’re just acting like it.”
I stand from the table, chair sliding across the floor almost noiselessly. He watches me rise, doesn’t look away from my face.
“I don’t have an answer for you,” I tell him, “because I don’t think I know either.”
***
Author's Note:
Okay, so I know this took me a really long time to finish, and I'm sorry for that. But here it is, Chapter 10.
I don't know how long it'll take me to get any more chapters out, hopefully not more than a week, but if it does, please bear with me. Who knew a public library would get busy in tax season?