Death Wish

Part 7

(Thought this was a cool image of Ferris in Dauntless. Thank you AI)

It took awhile for me to totally cool down from the fight against Lily. A part of me still wanted to rip the rest of her face off. But after icing my stomach and face and talking with Rency, who was a little high off of pain killers, I began to feel myself again. My face didn't look that bad, I mean the underside of my cheek was bruised pretty good and I had a cut over my left eye, but it wasn't terrible.

Lily on the other hand was practically wrapped in gauze and had been given all kinds of ointment and reconstructive pills to accelerate the healing proccess. Apparently they would have her back good as new in just a couple days. It was a small relief for me because even though Lily had it coming for taunting me, I didn't want to be responsible for hospitalizing someone for the entirety  of initiation.

After rehab, Rency, Matius, Ryan, and Morzov decided to hit the shops. With the interest of spending some free time with my friends and no longer brooding over the match Lily, I tagged along. Thankfully, there were no hard feelings about the fights amongst our little group. No one even mentioned my outburst against Lily.

We checked out a couple different stores and I decided to buy new fitted black shirt with silver stud detailing around the neck line. There were laughs and giggles as our group traveled across the shopping district like a pack of pubescent teens. Training and the fights faded from recent memory as we traversed Dauntless.

As pathetic as it sounds, I had never really had a group of friends before. Aside from Leroy, I didn't have many friends at all. Similar to me, Leroy transferred factions and he was the best part of my life back in Candor.

Granted, I had been sociable with Morsov back when we were Candor, and we would occasionally study English together for Mrs. Stemmen's class, but I would hardly consider him my genuine friend. He was more a solid aquatence that wasn't afraid to greet me in public settings. But quick greetings were the most we normally spoke. Maybe that would change in Dauntless.

Our group came a to a stop infront of a particularl shop with needle imagery in the window.

"Hey! Do you guys want to get a piercing?" Ryan asked looking back at us as he stood next to Rency.

"Oh my gosh yes! We should do it!" Rency said enthusiastically.

Matius nodded excitedly. "Matching piercing anyone? I want one on my nose for sure."

Piercings? Needles? No thanks.

"Y'all have fun," I said, sticking by Morsov who appeared equally disinterested.

"Yea, I think I'd rather get a tattoo or something," Morsov added. "Piercings aren't really my thing."

"Really? I wouldn't want someone inking up my skin just yet," Matius claimed.

"So you would rather get stuck by a needle?" I rebuttled quickly.

"Why don't we just go get tattoos and you guys go get piercings," Morsov offered and I shrugged in agreement.

"Ok cool, we can meet up here later. You two try not to have too much fun," Ryan agreed with a playful smirk.

Morsov went pink and I only laughed at his sheepish reaction. Morsov was pretty cute in a bashful kind of way. And he was tall. Cute nose too.

We made our way to the tattoo parlor with small talk filling the silence. Like I said, we had know each other prior to Dauntless and even bonded over our shared disdain for Candor.

We entered the mostly empty tattoo parlor timidly. One girl with faint blue hair was getting a tattoo on her arm by a large bald man in the corner. However, there was a certain blonde male that had his back turned that looked familiar. He was sitting without a shirt showing off his rippling muscles and numerous tattoos.

It was Eric. Great. 🙃

I tried not to stare but once he noticed we had walked in, that unmistakable smirk appeared. I diverted my eyes and started talking to the lady who worked there. She told us to simply pick out a tattoo that symbolized something to us. Then we could pay for it and have it put on us with a heating technique.

Morsov went across the room to look at a more masculine style tattoo book while I stayed to look at a different book designes for women oe unisex. I really wasn't sure what kind of tattoo I wanted but I figured there had to be at least one I liked in the massive binder.

I was quietly flipping through the array of tattoo pages with interest when Eric stood up from his chair with a fresh tattoo on his back. I looked up as he moved but accidentally let my gaze linger too long.

"See something you like initiate?" Eric asked innocently as I quickly looked down at a pretty tattoo of a cherry blossom stem.

Good lord, his abs were perfect.

"Yeah," I said blankly and he turned with a suprised expresion just before I lifted the tattoo of the blossoms. "I like this tattoo."

A fleeting grin streaked across his features at my casual sass. Eric leaned forward slightly to peer at the tattoo.

"A stick with flowers?" Eric asked, squinting.

I could see Morsov watching us closely from across the parlor. He had a sort of amused, fly on the wall expression as he casually easedropped.

"Exactly," I said before handing it to the tattoo lady.

I pointed to my back shoulder blade when she asked where I wanted it and promptly removed my shirt. I didn't have to look to see that Eric had, at the very least, glanced at me.

As expected, I caught him looking. He played it off though as if he was checking his new tattoo in the mirror.

"Something you like?" I asked casually but my heart was secretly pounding. I was playing a game with a dangerous man and I was enjoying it.

"Wouldn't you like to know," Eric replied knowingly as he put his shirt back on. A certain shiver ran down my spine as he walked past me and out of the parlor.

The lady pressed the tattoo up against my skin and kept it under a strange black rubber like device that was hot to my skin. Morsov walked over, trying not to stare at my half clothed body but politely failed. In his hand he held a tattoo stencil of some sort of strange skull thing with a snake going through one of the skulls eyes.

"You really do have a death wish," Morsov said with a cheese eating grin.

"What? Eric's our trainer. And leader on top of that," I said absently, feigning innocence.

"Yeah and he's also the guy that makes every one here shit bricks," Morsov pointed out. I grinned genuinely at his Candor humor.

"I'm not scared of him," I half lied with a shrug.

Morsov scoffed.

"Even out of Candor you're a bad liar."