Dauntless Born

Chapter 6 Apartment Watch

I go up to the conference room on the 10th floor. I was expecting Max to yell at me about the out burst at school. But I was met with Max and Lauren. I raised an eyebrow some. We need help calibrating the tests. I smirked and opened the first lap top. With in the next ten minutes I made sure the tests were set up and calibrated correctly. They just watched me and blinked slowly as I finished all of them in under twenty minutes. Yeah everything's fine. I said standing up and walking away. I glanced back and the way Max is squinting tells me I shouldn't have done it that quickly.

I shove that thought away and walk back down and stopped in front of the parlor. I look over inside. Kids, teens, and adults alike are in there, getting tatted and pierced. I had only been in a handful of times, to watch Amar get tatted and pierced. I would also occasionally go in and watch Tori draw up concepts. It interested me. I found myself pushing the door open. Hey Kacie! I frowned over and saw Mark, he was a piercer here. I waved as he walked over. What're you doing here. I looked up at him and got a smirk.

***

I walked out my ears still felt hot from the recent trauma it went through. I hadn't ever gotten a piercing. So I started with my first hole for my ears. It didn't hurt. My hair was now pulled back to keep it out of the way. I looked down at the bag that held the solution and a couple sets of earrings so I could change them out when I was able to. Piercings had always interested me. A little more so than the black or colored ink that stretched out on peoples skin, but something about the metal, a foreign object just in your body seemed strange.

I found myself just standing over the chasm. I looked down and over, my arms wrapped around the railing. I looked down. I looked over as a couple of kids came running up laughing. Hector, Shauna's little brother ran right at me, before slapping me on the arm. I frowned over at him. We're gonna sneak off to the old board walk, you wanna go? I frowned some looking towards the glass room. I wanted to wait for Four, or go do homework. But I nodded. yeah, sure. I said and held my bag up. let me drop this and go get a jacket real quick. Alright!

It didn't take me long to throw my belongings on my bed, grab my jacket, and run back to the back exit of Dauntless. When I get there, they're standing and talking. I walked over to the tracks and stood there, bouncing on my toes, ready to start running for the train. 

There were a couple things in Dauntless I would never be able to leave behind or break the habit for. One of them, was catching the train. I don't know what it was about the train, but it felt freeing. I loved the feeling I got when the horn would blow, my heart rate would pick up just a little bit, the bounce that I always had, became lighter as readied myself to start running after it. I'd get goose bumps as the train thundered down the rails. We chased after the train. I was in front, Hector was behind me, Owen and Michael were neck and neck with each other, and Tara was behind them.

We threw ourselves onto the train. The four of them laughed and I just sat there, my legs hanging out of the open car door. They were laughing and horsing around and I hadn't yet let myself relax into their rhythm. I hadn't done anything really fun off property, since Amar. I hadn't been down at the board walk since the night before my twelfth birthday. They were playing two truths and a lie. Kace, you wanna play? Owen asked and Hector shook his head. Dude, don't push her. I smirked some. Out of everyone here, I was closer to Hector, so he knew I was acting and acting well.

We jumped off the train, this part actually had me slightly laughing. It was always funny seeing how people landed, and if they recovered or not. I always landed in a tuck and roll, which I could recover from very quickly. We didn't really have a plan, we just did a bunch of shit that kids do. We climbed on stuff, broke into the fun house they had set up, which apparently wasn't supposed to be there long, but everything fell before it left.