Rat (A Divergent Prequel and Eric Love Story)

Chapter 6- First Kiss

Jeanine held me down, laughing wildly, evilly. It was so much different than her regular dainty chuckle that was often fake. My back was burning, as well as the rest of my body.

She released me, and I watched as she threw her head back to laugh again, blood dripping from her hands. It spilt to the floor, forming a pool of crimson at her feet. Was that blood from... me?

I gazed down quickly at my body. Not a shred of clothing covered my body, only my worst nightmare. The word ‘rat’ covered my body from head to toe. Down my arms, across my chest; the red words shown everywhere. I touched a ‘rat’ covered hand to my cheek, feeling the cuts there as well.

I let out a scream, but nothing had sounded. I could only hear the throbbing in my head and Jeanine’s shrill laugh, singing “Rat, Rat, Rat!” over and over.

My body began to shake as two hands grasped tight on my shoulders, jarring me awake. I screamed loudly at my attacker, and threw my fist forward. I felt my knuckles collide with a nose, as I threw myself on the other side of the bed. “Goddammit!” I heard a familiar voice shout.

My “attacker” pulled a string from the ceiling, causing the room to be filled with light. Eric stood over the bed like a giant. Still in his clothes from earlier, he clutched his nose.

“What’s going on?” I asked, scrambling over to see what had happened.

“Well,” Eric started, annoyance clear in his tone. “I was being nice and letting you use my bed even though I’ve been back from my meeting for hours, and you started screaming like a madman. So, I tried to gently wake you up and apparently you saw fit to punch me!”

“I’m so sorry, Eric! I was having a nightmare and you scared me!” I tried to apologize.

“Don’t be. That was a pretty good punch.” He smiled.

“Well, thanks for letting me sleep, but I should probably be getting to dinner.” I said, walking past Eric, making my way out of the door.

Eric laughed. “Good luck with that. It’s 6am. I’ll be waking the initiates in about 2 hours.”

I spun around and looked at Eric. Had I really slept all-day? Now that I think about it, I was feeling pretty nice. My eyes didn’t feel heavy and I was actually wide awake for the first time in years.

Eric laughed once more and sat down on the couch, where a pillow and a blanket lay as if they had been recently slept on. Something in my mind clicked. Eric actually let me have his bed and slept on the couch so I could sleep well for once. “Told you my bed was comfy,” he laughed.

Eric had been so menacing when I met him. Now, he actually looked kind of, well, happy.

“Yeah well, I kind of regret it now that I’ve realized that I slept where you’ve done the dirty.”