Dauntless- A fanfic of Divergent

Chapter 6- Knives

Shauna pulls me along with her to lunch. She is without a doubt my best friend so far. Her and Zeke. My mind lingers on the latter, as it seems to do quite often lately. But why? What is so special about him? My thoughts are cut short when, speak of the devil (or think), Zeke claps his hands over my eyes. I can tell its him simply by his skin tone, since it is so in-between, so I elbow him in the stomach.

He groans and doubles over. Opps. I must have aimed lower than I meant to. I burst out laughing, and half of the initiates join me. I feel kinda bad, but it is pretty funny. I offer him a hand, and he pulls himself up. “Sorry!” I say, still laughing, but slightly flustered. “You’re taller than I thought.” He shakes his head, chuckling. His face is bright red. Then I scream as he grabs me around the waist and flings me over his shoulder fireman style. He barrels through the other initiates, who are now laughing at me. It’s fun, I have to admit, being carried around at a sprint. He finally sets me down near a table. We are both laughing so hard we can’t breathe. But I didn’t want it end.

The next day, I carefully examine the knives we are handed. It is sharp, and precisely balanced for throwing. “Time for our second weapon. I hope you are all excited.” Four says. It is sarcasm, obviously, because not one of us is unscathed from yesterday. Personally, my fingers want to fall off and I got a bit careless with a machine gun. I tried to cover up the scratch with what little makeup I bought, but it didn’t do much, so I gave up. “Four, if you would demonstrate.” Cunningham says. He nods, a few knives already in hand. In a few quick movements, 2 knives are embedded in the target, and another in the wall next to Tyson’s head. I get the slight feeling Four does not like him.

Taking a knife in my right hand, I see the relatively close target. We are going one by one, so the pressure is on. I try to relax, as Four proved helps me a lot. I sight the target, unconsciously doing calculations, as my Erudite brain is trained to do. Do I have my hand position right? What about my feet? Yes, and yes. Stop stalling, I tell myself, and let the knife fly. It spins toward the target, blade over handle. It hits the center…and then bounces off. I give an exasperated sigh. Really? Dead center, and it bounces off. Just…really. I see Tyson suppressing a laugh. Four glares at him. “Cal, what happened?” he asks. “I think I focused too hard.” He nods “Ok. Fix it next time. More power. Next!” I return to the group, a bit embarrassed. At least it had good aim. But I wonder how that even happened. Tyson strolls up next. He looks awfully confident. Apparently Sara think so too. She nudges me a puffs out her chest, mimicking him mockingly. I let out a small snicker, which earns a nice, long glare, from Tyson’s croonie, Jake. Great, just great. I almost miss it when Tyson’s knife flies right past the target and clatter to the floor.

I clap my hand over my mouth, trying to hold back my laugh. I see other duck their heads, even turn around, trying to do the same. Four is going to have a ball with this. He asks the same question he asked me. “Tyson, what happened?” Tyson shrugs. “Must have been the knife. Unbalanced.” He says, trying to blow it off. Four raises an eyebrow, amused “Is that so? Sara, come here.” She looks at me, then walks forward. “Throw that knife.” She goes and picks it up, sets her shoulders, and hurls it toward the target. It buries itself in the red circle. She smirks, and puts her hands on her hips, smiling at Four. My eyes widen. That was her first time throwing a knife? I have some competition.

Four continues. “Cal, come throw this knife.” When I retrieve it, he whispers “Don’t miss”. I give a slight nod, and let my body take over. Once again, the knife flips toward the target. And sticks. Very close to the center.

A warm feeling spreads in my chest. I look at Four, who keeps a straight face, but I see a glint in his eye. He turns to Tyson “Unbalanced you say?” He gulps. I can’t help but grin a little. Bad idea. Tyson’s eyes turn from embarrassment to anger very fast. Not just angry, furious. “So tell me Tyson, how these two small girls can hit the center of that target very easily?” He glares at Four, then a me, and storms out of the room. Cunningham finally speaks up “And that is how not to handle criticism.”