Those Five Words

39.

Chapter 39

Four POV

It has been five days since the attack on Tris and they have been the best days of my life. Tris has basically moved in with me. Peter hasn't been found and I am not letting her stay in the dormitory until he is. I was hoping to ask her to move in with me once initiation was over anyway so it has happened just a few days earlier than I had hoped. I still need to ask her to officially move in but I haven't found the right time or the guts to do it. What if she says no?

I had the five transfers that are left moved into the Dauntless-borns dormitory. They have enough room in there and it seemed a better idea to have them all together in case there are problems with Peter returning. I doubt there will be, Peter is a coward and he won't attack anyone on his own. But there have been enough attacks, so I am feeling better that all the initiates are together. Christina and Will are the only two transfers happy with the arrangement and that is because they had already made friends with Uriah, Marlene and Lynn.

I have been working from home and just hanging out with Tris. We have a steady stream of visitors now that Tris is staying here. I've never had this many people in my apartment and the first couple of days was uncomfortable but now I am enjoying it. Especially when I get to hear Tris laughing. It's like music to my ears.

We are sitting on the couch, I am just finishing up a report and she is reading a book. She stops reading and puts the book on the coffee table and says, "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, anything," I say.

"How did you get the name Four? I mean I know you have four fears but you had that name before you went through your fear landscape didn't you?" she asks.

"Yeah. When I first got here I was home schooled so they could catch me up on everything I had missed while I was in the hospital. Plus they didn't want anyone to recognise me at school. So I used to explore Dauntless when I had free time. There are so many hidden places here and as a kid I loved the freedom to just go where I wanted within the compound of course."

"Anyway there was a new group of initiates going through their fear landscapes and because I was small no one took any notice that I was there. So Max saw me and I thought I was going to be in so much trouble. I mean it wasn't long after, well it wasn't long after, Marcus would beat me for breathing wrong and so I thought Max would be really upset and hit me too. But Max was never like that. All the crazy stunts Zeke and I got up to and he never once raised his hand to me."

"I was expecting him to start yelling or something but he didn't, he explained what the initiates were doing and explained the whole concept of fears to me. So I told him I was only going to have four fears. And so he decided that he was going to call me Four from then on and that is when I knew I was safe. I knew that I wouldn't have to worry about Marcus anymore even though I still have even now nightmares about Marcus, at least when I was awake I had Max to protect me. So that is when I asked him if I could call him dad. Evelyn hated it, she wouldn't call me Four but she also didn't let my secret out either thank goodness"

"I remember when initiation started and they made us go through our fear landscape as soon as we got here. I was so sick with worry that I would have more than four fears and then I would just look like a complete idiot. Even though it was only my family who knew how I got the nickname in the first place. So when I only had four fears it was a big relief. I went home to see dad as soon as I could to see him and tell him that I had been right. It was a pretty awesome moment."