Starting Over

Chapter 25

"Four, Candor or Dauntless?" Uriah asks. Tobias chooses Dauntless. "I dare you to throw knives at Tris!"

He looks at me like he's asking for my permission. I shrug and stand up to follow him to the training room. When we get there he grabs three knives and I stand in front of the target. I smile at him, daring him to throw them.

"Oh! I forgot!" Uriah exclaims. "You're not allowed to flinch, Tris. If you do then Four has to take off two articles of clothing and you have to take off one. Last chance to back out!"

"Uriah, unlike you I'm not a Pansycake and I don't back down from simple dares," I say as I stare at Tobias.

"Simple dares?" Uriah exclaims. "I spent days trying to think up a good dare!"

Christina starts laughing at him.
"They've done this before, you idiot!"

"What? When?" He's in a rage now and it's pretty funny.

"Can we talk about this later? It's hard to stand still when I'm laughing," I say.

Uriah finally shuts up and Tobias throws the first knife. I hear it whir past me and feel the target behind me vibrate as it hits it. That one was a few inches above my head. The next one goes off to my left, about an inch away from my elbow. The next knife nicks my ear and I feel it turn warm as it bleeds. I touch up to feel it and notice it hit the same spot as before. I turn around and pull the knives out of the target before I walk over to Tobias.

"You hit the same spot as last time!"

"That was what I was aiming for, and I don't miss."

I laugh at him. He frowns and touches the cut on my ear.

"Tris, did that hurt?" Uriah asks.

"No, why?" I hear him mumble something about Pansycakes. "Hey, what was that?" I ask.

"I said I wanted to call you a Pansycake!"

Tobias laughs at him. "Do you think you could stand there without flinching and willingly let me nick your ear and then not complain about it? I don't think so you little Pansycake!" Uriah starts to pout.

I take Tobias' face in my hands and kiss him. He pulls me toward him and I wrap my hands in his hair.

"Gross! That is not okay!" Uriah screeches like a little girl. I laugh and kiss Tobias a little more before I pull away and we walk back to Uriah's apartment.

"Did he really do it?" Zeke asks Uriah as we come back in the room. I show him my ear in response. "Shit! Did you really have to maim her, Four?"

"He did not maim me!" I tell Zeke as I sit down next to Tobias and lean my head on his shoulder. Of course I don't get to stay like that for long because Christina insists that I need a bandage immediately so I walk to the bathroom with her and let her clean my ear. She says that if it's not taken care of then it might scar. Considering that I have a small scar from last time I think it's too late for that, but oh well.

When I come back Tobias is just giving Zeke his dare: to run into the pit while eating toothpaste out of the tube.

"Ugh!" Zeke wails as he goes to get the toothpaste. Shauna, Uriah, Tobias, and I follow him. When he gets close to the pit he takes the cap off the toothpaste and takes off running. When he gets to the pit he starts squeezing the toothpaste in his mouth and shouting at the same time. People start to stare at him and a few people gag when he swallows a big glob of toothpaste. He doesn't stop until the whole tube is gone. He calmly walks back over to us like nothing happened.

"You need more toothpaste," he tells Uriah as he hands him the flat, empty tube.

"Did you really have to use all of it?" Uriah groans.