Stay Away | Eric Coulter [1]

prologue

    "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" Every yell was punctuated with a jump on the edge of Vanessa's bed and she groans, covering her face with a pillow.

Tobias was lucky that their father was still deep in a drunken sleep. Otherwise, she had no doubt they would be in for a beating of a lifetime.

"Go the hell away, Tobias."

Vanessa didn't need to look at her brother's face to know that he was staring at her wide-eyed, about to make a big deal out of nothing-

"You cursed!" There it is.

Any hope that Tobias would leave her alone after that was dashed as he gripped her by the shoulders, shaking her awake vigorously as if he was tossing one of those pre-packaged salads with the ridiculously small portion sizes that she'd once seen an Erudite having.

"Wake! Up!"

"Alright, I'm up!"

The Eaton siblings froze as they heard their father shifting in the living room and the room grows so silent you could hear a pin drop.

As soon as the deep snores picked back up, they each let out an audible sigh in relief.

"Come on, V. Don't you know what day it is?" Tobias asks. Though he's careful to keep his voice significantly lower now, nothing could conceal Tobias's excitement.

Tobias lets out yet another sigh, this time in exasperation at the look of utter confusion on his little sister's face, his shoulder drooping in disappointment.

"How could you forget? It's your birthday..."

Vanessa shakes her head, "Does it matter? I'm not in the mood for this."

Tobias falls onto the bed beside her with a whine. "You're no fun."

Throwing her brother a sidelong glance, she rolls her eyes. "We're not supposed to be having fun." Vanessa states, "It's frowned upon."

"Don't be a party pooper, V." Tobias pouts, "Besides, since when did you care about the rules?"

"We aren't allowed to celebrate but we can go to the wall! We always go to the wall on our birthdays! It's not like we've ever been caught." Tobias pushes on when met with his sister's silence, "It's tradition, V. We can't break tradition."

Slapping his palms together, Tobias begs, determined to break his sister's resolve. "Please! Please! Please, V! We have to go."

"Fine," Vanessa finally relents, throwing her covers off of her body. "Let's hurry before Dad wakes up."

It wasn't long before the two found themselves staring up at the intimidating-looking wall.

"Ouch! You're stepping on my face!" Tobias complains from beneath Vanessa.

Neither of the Eaton kids thought they'll find themselves in a predicament that had Vanessa standing on her brother's shoulders and hanging off the side of the wall. Vanessa, however, had no qualms about blaming this one on Tobias's poor planning.

"This was your idea, idiot." She grumbled in reply.

"You're the idiot." Tobias's voice sounded muffled by the shoe in his face. Unsurprisingly, that still doesn't deter him from talking.

To be fair to Tobias, there used to be a ladder by the wall, but it has since been removed for reasons. So, 'the brilliant Tobias', as he'd called himself (Vanessa disagreed with that statement wholeheartedly), came up with an idea- one which required his sister to climb onto his back to get herself up the wall.

Getting up there wasn't going to be an easy feat even with the boost from the empty crates and rope they'd found lying around nearby, but Tobias reckoned that it would be worth the effort. Up there, they could see everything. As for the looming question of how they were supposed to get themselves down...he was sure they'd figure it out when the time comes.

"Hurry up, V!" Tobias yells, barely able to continue balancing on the tips of his toes.

"Alright! I got it!" Finally, Vanessa manages to hoist herself onto the narrow ledge, quickly tying one end of the rope they'd procured to a metal rail on the side of the wall and tossing the other down to her brother.

The wind stirred her hair, blowing the dark brown strands across her face. Even while bent over to lend her brother a hand, standing at the top of the wall felt absolutely liberating.

Vanessa thought her brother made it up the rope pretty quickly, scrawny arms and all. When he nears the top, she reaches a hand down to help him the rest of the way.

"Reach further, Toby. Just a little more."

He does exactly as she'd asked, clasping his sister's hand in his slightly bigger one, using it to pull himself up.

It all felt like it happened in slow motion as he watched Vanessa lose her footing, letting out a piercing scream as her feet slipped out from under her.

"V!" Tobias yelled as he dangled helplessly from the rope, watching her small body crash into the pile of crates beneath them.

His stomach twisted with dread as he looks down at his sister's motionless body lying in the heap of broken wood, feeling like he might throw up.

A trickle of relief fills his chest as he notices her chest rising and falling. She's alive. That's a good sign, right?

"Hang on, V. I'm coming. I'm coming." Tobias gabbled on in panic, sliding down the rope as quickly as he could, ignoring the way the friction chafes away at the skin of his palms.

As soon as his feet hit the ground, he crouches down by his sister's side, taking in the large gash across her left brow as he hauled her tiny frame to his chest.

"I'm here, V. It's going to be okay. I'll get help. You'll be fine."

With strength Tobias didn't even know he possessed, he heaved Vanessa's body onto his back and carries her back the way they came.

"Help! Help me, please!" Tobias's desperate cries for help echoes through the empty field in a secluded corner just outside the Abnegation sector.

Tobias wasn't sure how long he'd been walking, but by the time a couple of Dauntless guards stumbled upon the Eaton siblings while on their routine patrol, Tobias's legs felt as if they were about to give up on him and his voice was coarse from screaming.

This was positively one of the worst days in Tobias's life and the worst part was that he knew it wasn't over.

Their father, Marcus, had been called to pick them up. Though the doctors promised that other than the stitches that she had to get and the mild concussion that she was suffering from, she would be fine with a little bit of rest. But judging by how Marcus's face was red with carefully restrained anger, rest wasn't in order for the younger Eaton.

That night, no matter how Tobias insisted that the blame laid on his shoulders and that it wasn't Vanessa's fault since he'd been the one to convince her to go, their father wasn't having it.

It was as if his rage had blinded him and the Eaton siblings knew that there was no reasoning with their father when he was in this state.

Regardless of her injuries, Marcus made sure that both siblings knew never to embarrass him the way they did again.

Even though the Eaton kids had deemed it their favourite place, neither one of them ever returned to the wall.