Tobias drags me out of the infirmary at the end of the day. I have a splitting headache, and my stomach is still queasy, but he insists that I have to attend the initiation celebration; apparently the other transfers convinced the Dauntless to hold off on the party until I was well enough to attend. It’s a nice gesture, even if I don’t really want to go. I tell my brother that if I’m going anywhere other than back to bed then I want a shower, a toothbrush, and a change of clothes.
None of the other transfers are in the room we once shared; now that we’re fully fledged members of Dauntless, we’ll be assigned more private and personal quarters after job selection. I grab my toothbrush and my towel and head towards the bathroom. My brother follows me and sits outside the shower stall while I wash my hair, talking about nonsense and gossip.
“People won bets on you, you know?” he asks as I pull on my pants behind the shower curtain.
“Really?”
“Yeah. A lot of people thought you’d washout or quit before Stage One was up. The few who thought you wouldn’t won pretty big. And then when you came out of Stage Two, they won even bigger. And then, well, now you’re first in your class. They’re pretty happy.”
“And what did you win?” I ask.
“Oh I can’t bet on the initiates,” he says innocently, “on account of having inside information.”
“Yeah, right,” I laugh. “You better be sharing the prize since I’m the one who did all the work.”
“You’ve got double water rations for the next six months,” he grins.
“I knew there was a reason I kept you around!”
***
When Tobias and I wander into the Pit, it seems like the party has already begun, like the Dauntless couldn’t wait any longer. There’s nothing but noise, noise, noise echoing against the walls and down the tunnels, but it’s happy noise. My brother guides me through the crowd, who seems determined to stop me every few feet for congratulations and drink offers. I smile and keep moving. There’s a table in the center of the mass where the other initiates, Dauntless born and transfer alike, are seated.
Az spots me first and waves me over, cheering and sloshing drink out of her bottle. The others join in and soon enough I’m smiling like an idiot as the whole of Dauntless cheers for us. My brother puts a drink in my hand and ushers me over to the table. Az and Harper have both passed, along with Alice, Tamsin, and Connor, but I don’t see Jack or James amongst us. I can’t say it’s too much of a shock.
I watch as Tamsin downs the rest of the drink in her hand, smashes the bottle on the ground, and hauls herself onto the table. Her boots thud as she stomps them on the table top to get everyone’s attention. Slowly, everyone quiets, though a constant murmur buzzes through the crowd. Everyone is looking at her.
Alice hands her another bottle, and Tamsin raises it in the air, “To Olivia!”
“Olivia!” Dauntless cheers, and I feel the blush creeping up my face. The people that can see me laugh.
Tamsin raises her bottle again, and everyone falls quiet.
“To Dauntless!” she cheers, and this time I join in.
***
I’m walking through the tunnels with the same beer bottle in my hand. I’m not drunk, but I’ve never indulged in any kind of alcohol before, so I suppose I’m feeling the effects a little more than someone who has. My head is a little fuzzy, but my vision isn’t doubled and I can remember everything that’s gone on tonight, so I assume I’m not too bad off. I know that when I left the party, the rest of the new members, and my brother, were well on their way to being hammered.
With everyone in the Pit celebrating, the rest of the compound is eerily vacant. The only thing I can hear are the echoes of my bootsteps and a dull thud thud thud coming from…. coming the initiates’ training room. I stop at the door, tilting my head because I hadn’t thought that I was headed in this direction, but most of the tunnels still look the same to me. I place my hand on the frame and crack the door open.
Eric is on a mat, beating the hell out of a punching bag. He’s lost his shirt and shoes, and has wrapped thick bandages around his knuckles. He’s been moving long enough to work up a film of sweat, and well, I’m not blind. He may not be one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, but he is one of the most attractive, and besides a general negative attitude, he hasn’t given me any reason not to like him. I watch him rear back and throw most of his body weight into the next punch, following through so that the bag swings backward. He catches it before it crashes back into him and calls out,
“Stop hiding.”
I startle and nearly drop the bottle in my hands, but manage to push open the door and step in relatively calmly. He’s not paying attention to who’s at the door, merely resituating the strips over his knuckles, but when he looks up, he doesn’t seem surprised that it’s me. My eyes meet his for the briefest moment before he turns his back and reinitiates his attack on the bag. I watch the muscles of his back pull and shift under his skin for a long moment before he says anything else.
“Done with the party already?”
“Not really my scene,” I say quietly.
He hums. I set my bottle on the floor and perch on the edge of the mat. The floor is cold when my fingers ghost across it, so I cross them and tuck my fingertips into my armpits. My hair floats down into my eyes and I reach up to brush it away. I close my eyes and listen to the steady rhythm of Eric’s workout, and I doze into a comfortable space.
***
“Olivia.”
“Olivia.”
“Olivia.”
I swat at the hands that continue to thump me with a pillow. The attack continues until I roll over and manage to kick Az in the knee. She giggles and jumps on me, rolling us both around until we tumble off of the bed and start laughing hysterically. When we’ve both settled down and have caught our breath, Az sits up and straddles my legs.
“I’m so hung over,” she says.
“I’m… I’m,” I laugh, then look around the room. “Where am I?”
“You’re in our room,” she laughs.
“But I didn’t…” I sit up and push her off of me. “I didn’t walk here.”
“No,” Az says, jumping to her feet and holding both of her hands out to me, “you didn’t.”
I take her hands and pull myself to my feet. The room around us is spacious for two people, and equipped with two beds, two dressers, and two closets. There’s a rug on the floor between the two beds printed with grey zig zags. There’s no sign of a private bathroom, but I guess we can’t get everything from the start.
“How did I get here?”
Az giggles and does this little dance that, if she were three, I would assume meant she had to pee.
“I’m not in the mood for mystery,” I whine as my pulse begins to pound behind my eyes. Maybe combining alcohol with a sim serum allergen wasn’t the best idea.
“I am a full blown member of Dauntless,” Az sings, “and so are you!”
“Azalea!” I snap.
She puts her hands over her mouth and laughs.
“How did I get here?”
“Eric brought you,” she says slyly.
“What?” I ask. “I haven’t seen Eric since the beginning of the last stage when he…”
“When he what?” Az asks and I can tell she wants every juicy detail she thinks I’m keeping from her.
“He was the one who injected me with the simulation serum. And then I was in the infirmary, then Four and I were at the party…”
“Eric wasn’t at the party,”Az says. “At least, I don’t think so.”
“No,” I agree, sitting back on my bed. “He was in the training room. I went for a walk when the party got too loud, and I found him. I guess I fell asleep when I sat down.”
“You stayed to watch him work out? Olivia, for shame!”
“What?”
“Look,” Az says, sitting down on the bed opposite mine, “Eric scares the shit out of me. He’s big and he could tear me in half, and he’s never been very nice, but I’m not blind. The man’s far prettier than any of the boys we had in Amity.”
I can’t help a giggle escaping my mouth.
“I had the same thought last night.”
When Az and I are finally able to stop mooning over Eric and the fact that he actually bothered to move me from the training room last night, we decide to clean ourselves up and try to scrounge up some breakfast, never mind that it’s already half past eleven in the morning; I can’t imagine that anyone who didn’t have a pre-assigned duty being up before noon. Az shows me to the bathroom we share with several other women, and mentions that she went ahead and moved all of my things from our old room.
“Did you get my book?” I ask as I start up the shower.
“What book?” she asks.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say thinly. “I’ll look around.”
The commissary is suspiciously quiet when we get there, even though most of the tables are full. No one talks louder than a whisper so Az and I gather what food we can carry, which happens to be a few apples, a bunch of grapes, and a banana, and head out into the Pit where the people who didn’t party as hard are a little more lively. Everyone seems to recognize us, tossing congratulations and good wishes our way.
As Az and I walk around, stretching our legs without any real destination in mind, I begin to tell her of the first time my brother and I nearly got into serious trouble together. It had been my second year of school, Four’s third, and there had been a younger Erudite girl who didn’t like leaving her mother behind. She had been picked on by a boy in my year and when I told my brother, he insisted that we needed to stand up for her. The tale ends with the bully’s older brother, older than both Four and me, getting involved, and scolding his kid brother before dragging him home to his parents.
It’s when I’m nearing the end of my story, after we’ve finished off all of our food, and I’m waving my hands around to try and get my point across that Az grabs ahold of my arm, turning it this way and that. It takes me a moment to realize that she’s examining the new bracelet on my wrist.
“Where did you get this?” she asks. “I want one!”
“Um,” I stutter, and I can feel my face heating up. “Someone left it for me the night I was in the infirmary. I don’t know who.”
“And you’re just telling me now?” she squeals and hauls my wrist in for another close look. “This looks like it cost quite a few points. Who do we know that has a few to spare? There’s your brother, but he would have told you it was from him. I’d buy something like this, but I think I used all of this month’s points and most of next month’s getting drunk last night. Harper’s out. Connor’s out.”
“Why is Connor eve considered?” I interrupt.
“Olivia,” she says slowly. “Have you never noticed the way that boy looks at you?”
“No,” I say flatly. “I’ve been a bit too busy fighting for my life.”
“He thinks the moon shines out your ass, by the way he was talking last night,” she smirks.
“Who’s got a crush on Olivia?”
Az and I both startle and squeal. Cate has managed to sneak up behind us. He looks rough, hair all over the place and skin sallow, but I assume that means she enjoyed herself last night. Her clothes aren’t clean, and she still smells like beer, but she’s wide awake like she has been for hours.
“We don’t know,” Az says, “but look! He gave her a present!”
Az shoves my wrist under Cate’s nose and the older blonde takes a moment to study it.
“Very nice,” she says. “This is a Nobel Red gem, not very common. You are one lucky lady.”
When Az raises her eyebrows, Cate says,
“I had a friend who transferred to Erudite. Books about mining and gemstones were her favorites. She once took me through each shop that sells pretty baubles to identify each type of stone.”
“Books on…” I blink. “Shit, Az, my book!”
“What? Olivia, where are you going?”
***
I’ve looked under each mattress, pillow, and dresser, in every set of sheets and each drawer, and I cannot find my mother’s book. I’m panicking a little, kicking myself for forgetting to look for it. There’s nothing left of the initiates in the room, so I set about putting everything in its place before sinking onto the bed that used to be mine.
“This is useless,” I whisper to myself. “No one knew it was here, so there’s no telling who found it.”
“Found what?”
I look up. Tobias is standing in the doorway watching me.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Someone came to tell me that my little sister was tearing up the initiates’ bunkroom. What did you find?”
“It’s what I didn’t find,” I say hauling myself off of the bed and towards Tobias. “I brought mom’s book with me. I left it under the mattress, but Az moved my stuff, and I don’t know where it’s gone.”
“You mean this book?” he asks, holding up a green and orange battered paperback.
“Shit, Tobias,” I say, snatching it from his hands and holding it to my chest. “Where the hell did you get this?”
“Eric gave it to me,” he says flatly.
“Where did Eric get…”
“He said you asked him to pass it on.”
“Asshole,” I say without any real push behind it. “I asked him to make sure you got it if I didn’t pass initiation.”
“I dare you to call him that to his face,” my brother smirks.
“I think I have,” I say, lacing Tobias’s fingers through mine and tugging him away from the door. “Come on. I want to spend more time with my brother before I have to pick a job tomorrow.”
“I want cake,” he says and I laugh.