Heartless

Chapter 1: The Choosing

I watched sadly as the happy carefree Amity walk to the awaiting faded orange delivery truck that will take them to the Hub for the choosing ceremony, I bet that most of them would end up back here this evening.

It seemed like a whole lifetime since I stepped up to those bowls and dropped my blood on the coals, offering myself to Dauntless; in reality it was only a year ago

Evie cooed for my attention, star fishing her hands near my face.

My beautiful baby girl.

"It's okay I'm here," I assured her and picked up the bottle of breastmilk from the picnic table behind me, I stroked her blonde hair and she gazed up at me with her dark blue eyes with bright interest, some may even say Erudite interest. Just like her father.

She looked exactly like Eric, except for her deep blue eyes, which she inherited from me.

Evie was born just over a four months ago, she was born seven weeks and three days early. The sickening dread that settled in my stomach while I sat by her incubator, not knowing whether she would survive the first few weeks, clinging onto Tobi's hand like my lifeline, was something I never wanted to ever feel again.

I named her Evie a abbreviation of my mothers name Evelyn. She was a fighter like my mother.

I gently pressed the teat to her small lips and she latched on and sucked greedily, "you hungry then, lil' munchkin." I laughed.

Lola walked over and sat next to me "work starts is fifteen minutes." She smiled, partly with sadness, she understood the worry over relinquishing control of your newborn.

Sighing, I nodded "are you okay to look after for a couple of hours?" I asked.

Lola brushed me off with an easygoing smile.

Once Evie had filled her small stomach with the contents of the bottle, I replaced it on the table, and spread a muslin square over my shoulder. Lola began to tell me about her day, from the moment she woke up due to her five year old son Bryn bouncing on the bed as I carefully burped Evie.

Afterwards I pressed a kiss to Evie's forehead before passing her over.

Lola was my only friend here, she transferred from Dauntless six years ago, she was the only person in Amity I could stand to even be near for about six months.

Most of the Amity kept away, scared of my 'Dauntless' attitude: my hostile temper and fighting nature- they always had a look in their eyes- maybe they thought I was a slut for getting pregnant, or actually actually being Dauntless or  my ability to use sarcasm at every moment but I 'unsettled them' as Johanna put it. But Lola and I, we both bonded instantly, she knew exactly what I was going through because she too was only seventeen when she gave birth to Bryn, becoming a single parent, his father had already moved on with another woman and wouldn't accept him as his son.

Grabbing a woven basket and a pair of small shears, I headed out into the orchards, I liked to keep busy physically at Amity, sometimes it was out in the fields and orchards and other times it's doing the washing or cooking, it was a nice variety, but it still wasn't tattooing or working out at the gym- it was the closest resemblance of life at Dauntless- which was the only thread I was managing to cling to.

The majority of Amity work in little huddles, chatting among themselves, I on the other hand, liked the comfortable silence, I was more productive.

I hummed as I worked, it helped the time pass, and keep my mind off of Evie, I couldn't wait to get back and hold her. The scent of sickly sweet apples hung in the air, a change, albeit not a welcome one, to the cool air of the underground Dauntless compound, sometimes the fresh air was suffocating.