Ambivalence [p.h.] - EDITING

chapter 10 || i am not spending the rest of my life watching a fence all day

The important thing was that I was on, and could then watch the other initiates struggle and hiss while wiping away the excess blood from the cut on my pants. Molly and Drew stumbled on closely after me, and in a similar fashion too. Then there was Peter — Peter, who not only landed unscathed, but wore his lazy grin and nonchalance while doing it.  Al was more or less in the same boat, but was carrying Tris on with him, who winced every time there was a bump.  Broken rib, probably.

And then, as I internally groaned, Tris stared at Peter right in the eyes with the cockiest, most resentful sneer I had ever seen

"Feeling okay there?" Peter taunts from in front of me.  Feigned sympathy writhes in his voice.  I almost felt bad for Tris.  Almost.  "Or are you a little... Stiff?" 

While I was grateful to whatever deity there is above for the fact that the joke could have gone a lot worse, I wondered what my life had come to when one of my best friends chortled at his own overused Abnegation pun. Molly wheezed and Drew was practically suffocating too, which left me, the only sane person in our little tribe, to roll my eyes. 

"We are all awed by your incredible wit," Will deadpanned.  Maybe it was an Erudite thing.

"Yeah, are you sure you don't belong with Erudite, Peter?" Christina added.  "I hear they don't object to sissies." 

"Then why are you here?" Careful to speak under my breath — now was not the time for making more enemies —  I continued. "Oh wait.  Erudite is for smart people, not smart mouths."  Drew and Peter snorted while Molly clutched her gut, keeling over from laughter.  The other four exchanged glances, not quite sure what was going on (but to be fair, I didn't know what was going either. It wasn't that funny).

"Am I going to have to listen to your bickering all the way to the fence?" All eight of us dropped silent as the grave when Four snapped at us, looking either at him or at our feet until he finally turned back to the opening of the car to look outside. 

Nobody dared to speak for the rest of the train ride, and rightfully so; Four could be as scary as Eric when he was angry — Eric, whose wrath we surely would have met had he been on the train.  Where was he? Eric never passed on an opportunity to torture us. I figured he could have been with the Dauntless-borns, but there was no way he would have chosen them instead of making Christina hang off the side of the train.  Mumbling to Peter that I would be back, I shuffled towards our instructor, hoping this wouldn't backfire.

"Four?" He turns his head over his shoulder to face me.  His hard gaze felt like a laser on mine. It was like he was burning a hole into my forehead. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea—

"What?"  Four raised his eyebrows and turned his chest to face me, leaning on the wall of the car.

"Uh...where is... I was just wondering where—" I sighed, mentally slapping myself in the face for stumbling on my words. "Where's Eric?"  Four gnaws on his lip, squinting his eyes but still keeping them on me — except for a split second, when he was distracted by the other initiates behind me, and then they were back. If I didn't know any better, I could have sworn I saw the beginning of a smirk.  

"Probably doing leader stuff.  Why do you ask?" 

"I – uh... I thought he'd come on the field trip.  He is overseeing our training, isn't he?"  Four blinked.

"Yes," he replied. "I'm sure he will be waiting for you when you get back. Anything else?"

I shook my head. Four nodded and peered outside of the car again. Then, he leaned back in, turning to the other 9 initiates and pointing to the exit.