Innocence Lost

Chapter 17 (Our first encounter)

Mature Content . . .

When we reached Erudite headquarters there were so many people there, mostly with their clothing all tattered and covered in soot. I brought Kylie over to one of the desks.

"Sit her down here" I asked Damon.

He picks her up and places her on the desk. I inspect her ankle and it looks pretty swollen.

"I'll go look for a doctor" Damon rushes off.

I sit next to Kylie and she leans against me with her head on my shoulder. I shut my eyes, I'm exhausted and need sleep.

"Initiate!" My eyes pop open and Eric is standing a few feet in front of us.

"Get your ass here, now!" He ordered.

Yeah, he definitely was pissed. The sound of Eric's voice was not a pleasant one and I could tell Kylie was scared by the way her body stiffened next to me.

"I'll be right back, okay" I say I'm my soothing voice.

She nods. I walked over to him and he grabs my arm roughly, leading me away from the crowd. Shit, I don't want to be near him when he's like this. I need to come up with a story to cover our asses.

"Yes," I said in a whisper.

I have my head down, I can't look him in the eyes.

"What do you think you are doing here?" Eric asks amazingly calm.

Wow, this might be the calm before the storm.

"I missed my sister, I came to see her" I answer briefly.

"You missed you sister" he repeated in a mocking tone.

Of course he would mock something like that, his heart is probably black as coal. He takes a step towards me "Look at me, Kate"

I slowly look up and he's analyzing my face, looking me in the eyes. He's trying to see if I'm lying, I heard he's good at figuring people out.

"And Damon, why is he with you?" He asks sternly.

"I ran into him on my way out"

"And what made you think it was okay to leave Dauntless without a supervised Dauntless member?" He says angrily.

I stood there, not knowing what to say. He saw the panic in my eyes and was about to speak, he's caught me.

"They were with me" A woman's voice said.

I turn around to Tori standing behind us with Damon. My heart dropped.

"They were with you?" he asked blatantly. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"Kate asked me after she got her tattoo if I would take her. We got separated after the explosions at the apartment building" she explained.

He looks between the three of us, obviously not believing the story.

"What about Damon? He has no reason to be here" Eric said glaring at the boy.

Damon spoke up "I just wanted out of Dauntless for a bit. I saw Kate and Tori leaving so I asked if I could tag along"

He scratches his chin, looking me in the eyes again. He definitely doesn't believe the story

"Okay. Fine. Tori, go help out since your here, we can use a extra hand" Eric said nonchalantly.

"Yes sir" she gives me a stern look before walking away.

"You two" he points to Damon and I "We leave in ten minutes, be ready" he warns.