DAUNTLESS (Divergent sequil, no war)

chapter 12

I leave Tobias quite late and crawl into my oversized bed. It has been a long day but I can't sleep. I toss and turn worrying about my conversation with Eric. I don't know why I worry about it. I normally have a very good sense of a person's character, and Eric has always pure off where as Tobais has never been anything but honest to me. Apart form not telling my about Eric visiting, but he gave me his reasons.

I toss and turn all night, but by the time morning comes I know that I trust Tobias rather than Eric.

A knock on my door makes me get out of bed. I pull on a dress, it's a little too low cut for my liking but I have no say in which clothes I buy, Christina decides every item I ever get. I run down the stairs but get a bit tangled in the curtain, Tobais is standing with my door open peering in.

"I know it's hard to kick old habits, so leaving your door unlocked isn't totally unforgettable seeing as you come from Abnegation, but do you really think it's a good idea to leave it wide open all night?"

"It was open?" I ask, "I know I closed it last night because I thought Eric was coming down the corridor and I couldn't be bothered with him." I narrow my eyebrows... "is it broken?" We test the door but it seems to work fine. "That's a bit creepy," I admit, shivering.

"Creepy" he agrees.

He takes my hand and leads me down to the dining room. All of the tables have been pushed to the sides and they are lined with paintball guns and boxes of paintballs. "what's happening?"

"It's celebration time, yesterdays fight was just the start. This," he points at all the guns "This is the real celebration." only a few people are in the room when we get there, everyone has been given the day off work so we can all play. Eric comes in, looking a little better than yesterday and he takes a gun and slings it over his shoulder, buy this time the room is full. Eric stands on one of the tables and shouts,

"RIGHT, EVERYONE KNOWS THE RULES. WE WILL HAVE FOUR TEAMS, MYSELF, FOUR, TORI AND TRIS WILL BE TEAM CAPTAINS. THERE WILL BE NO ALLIANCES, AND TRAITORS FROM ANY TEAM WILL BE DISQUALIFIED, ANY ALLIED TEAMS WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. EVERYONE WHO REGISTERED TO PLAY WAS GIVEN A NUMBER, NUMBER ONES ARE WITH TRIS. GET A GUN AND ONE BOX PER PERSON. YOUR TRAIN LEAVES IN THREE MINUITS." I already have my gun so I turn and run for the stairs not waiting to say buy to Tobias. He will understand. Someone hand a me a bright blue flag, I bunch it up inside my hand. I should not be wearing a dress!

I don't know why no one told me about this, but I don't have time to think about that now. I sprint up the stairs and onto the roof, Uriah and Zeke are already up there with some others who I don't know.

"You alright boss?" I nod and start loading my gun.

"We will win this." I hand him the flag and when he narrows his eyebrows I simply explain by saying "no pockets, no one told me." He takes the flag and pushes it into the side pocket of his trousers.

The roof soon fills. The train comes along, all of the carts are open, I grab onto the handle of the first cart and pull myself in then help others as the train moves along the track.

"So what are the boundaries?" I ask Zeke who stands next to me.

"Aren't you supposed to be the captain?" a girl with pink hair and a nose ring asks.

"Yeah, but I only found out we were even playing 5 minutes ago, I spent most of yesterday in a medically induced coma." she curls her lip but says nothing else.

"Remind me to not piss you off." Zeke half laughs. "But we have the hole city, any where inside the fence, it would be best to avoid faction areas, we would make a scene and would be easy to find."

"We also need to avoid Abnegation, or any where too close to it" I add.

"Why?" someone asks

"Because all three team leaders know I'm from Abnegation and so know that I know the area,"

"Where are we going to go then?" I don't know who asks, I can't see everyone.

"The fairground" Zeke says,

"No, that's where Uriah took our team last year, Four was our captain." Zeke turns to Uriah,

"You stole my spot?" he looks sheepish but says nothing.

"I've got an idea." I didn't know why I didn't think if it earlier. We manage to pass the word down the train using the intercom system that I didn't even know that we had. The train slows slightly and everyone in the last carriage jumps out. A bit further along the people in the next carriage jump and so on until only this first cart still had people in.

It's a slightly different version to normal, the team who can get the most opposition flags back to there team base by the end of the night wins. Zeke explains the other rules to me, you are aloud no guards within the compound, if you are shot you must surrender any flags that you have on you and anyone who has a flag in there possession must make it visible.

We jump off in the middle of a random set of factionless ruins with no large or obvious buildings. We pick a building and enter it. Fortunately it's empty. There are a large number of us and so I send one group out to defend the surrounding streets under the instruction to stay low and not draw attention to our position.

I lead a group up the stairs, Zeke and Uriah are close behind me along with the girl with pink hair and and 3 others. The floor boards creak as we make our way through the upstairs rooms. An old wire bed frame sits in one of the rooms. Zeke and Uriah shift the bed along and I pry up one of the floor boards then place the flag under it. I close it up and they place the bed on top of it again.

"You lot can go out if you want, but I'm gonna stay and keep guard."

"How do we know you won't betray us to Four?" The girl with the bright pink hair snarls. "We all know you're screwing him" I resist the urge to smack her head off a wall.

"I'll stay with her," Uriah says, "and don't worry Mel, I'll kill her if she tries to hand us over." He smiles at me and pushes my shoulder. He doesn't say it seriously, but it's enough to keep her happy. They all leave and I go over to the window to watch them spill onto the streets.

"You know I trust you don't you?" Uriah asks, "I just didn't want to leave you on your own, you're not looking too great." I probably don't. I haven't slept and I've only recently woken up from a coma,

"Yeah, I'm fine though, you can go if you want to, I don't think they will find us. Is there a time limit on this thing?"

"We all have to be back before midnight or the team is disqualified."

"Okay, I wonder how the others are doing." They all split up along the track, hiding on either side of it so they could follow other teams to their chosen hiding points and then attack them and steal the flag. Zeke seemed to think that our team was strong enough to pull it of, we only have a handful of younger ones who haven't played before and we made sure that at least one member of each team had a walkie talkie, some people had been smart enough to bring them, but we decided to not use them unless it was necessary as the other teams may have had the same idea and could listen in. That idea could also play to our advantage. Uriah holds our teams walkie talkie in his hand and is pressing the buttons, flicking through the stations.

"We got anything yet?" It buzzes a bit and a crackling noise escapes. A voice comes through its faint but unmistakable. It's Tobias.

"Be careful everyone, there grading the lines, watch your backs and good luck to you all"

HOW ON EARTH DID HE KNOW THAT?