Destined to be Dauntless

Chapter Twenty Four

By the following day the news that one of the new initiates only had four fears had spread throughout the compound, George and the rest of the Dauntless born starting to calling Tobias, Four instead of his name.

He'd protested at first, but when he saw how Eric bristled every time someone called him that he decided just to accept it.

By the end of the week and to Eric's chagrin even Izzy was using Four's new name something that bothered him more than he expected it to, especially considering she didn't seem to notice.

Eric was wrong in that respect Izzy, could see more than he realised, she could tell it bothered him. She could tell Four was embracing it just to piss off Eric but she held her tongue, they needed to learn to co-exist by themselves or not at all she couldn't force it.

Despite it now being over a week since she and Eric had crossed that barrier in the tent, they'd still not discussed it and since that first day of fear training, they'd not even touched let alone kissed. Since returning to Dauntless things had returned to how they were before, though now Eric and Dane were part of their group.

Dane and Len had become tight quite quickly, especially now Edgar had decided his old friends weren't worth his time, but while Eric was being much less of an ass than they were used to, he was still not embracing the group in the same way, remaining rather taciturn when they were all together. It wasn't lost on Izzy that he kept glaring at her and Tobias when he thought she wasn't looking having caught him on more than one occasion. She wondered if seeing their friendship up close was bothering him more than he was willing to admit, but he denied it when she tried to broach the subject with him mid-week, his only response to scoff and pull his arm from her grasp and disappear into the nearest corridor.

If she was honest with herself, it was Four that was holding her back from Eric, she knew he didn't trust him and he'd commented more than once that she was different around Eric which bothered her more than she wanted to admit. On top of that every day she was entering her fear landscape and being made to choose between them, this was one fear she didn't seem to be able to fix as it didn't seem to matter who she chose or if she didn't choose at all it always ended badly.

Honestly the whole situation was a mess but right now she needed to concentrate on getting through initiation, no longer caring if she got into Leadership just wanting a high enough spot to be able to pick her specialism.

On the last day of fear training, they were to be assessed on how well they worked through their fear landscape and how quickly they were able to extract themselves, the results would contribute to their final rankings to be announced that evening. The board had been ominously blank all week but last time they'd seen it Eric was top, Four second and Izzy fourth behind Henry frustratingly. Amar had been working with them all week guiding them and making suggestions which sometimes helped and sometimes didn't. Nothing he suggested seemed to be able to prevent Mara from screaming her head off when confronted by a room full of spiders. It would of course affect her final ranking but at the same time they knew she was never going to be confronted by a room full of tarantulas on duty, so it wouldn't be marked down as harshly as say am unconquered fear of enclosed spaces which was possible.

Izzy had been able to find the Dauntless way through all her fears by the end of the week, her time now under fifteen minutes to get in and out. It would be shorter, but she just couldn't resolve having to choose between Eric and Four. The correct answer was not to choose but that rubbed right up against her fear of abandonment, so she'd end up stuck in a loop at the end if she wasn't careful, but she couldn't figure out why if she was choosing right.

Four had excelled under Amar's guidance, he now had his time down to under ten minutes, the majority of his time spent on the last two fears. He always emerged from the training room sweaty and pale but hadn't broken down since the first time, it helped that he knew what to expect now.