Courage (Divergent)

Promise

"Myla!"

"Griffin?"

Myla stopped as she watched Griffin jog up to her from the other end of the corridor. He stopped in directly in front of her, bending down to rest his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath. He looked like he had just run the length of the compound (they did that one, do not recommend). It wasn't all that common to see him out of breath. He was one of the most physically fit people she knew. But then again, he was wearing a thick, long-sleeved shirt which probably didn't help the situation.

"Everything ok?" Myla asked, a little concern lacing her voice. She placed the large stack of papers she had been holding on the floor beside her before gently patting him on the back. She had been on her way back to the control room when she had been stopped. Griffin held up a hand.

"Give me a second. Why is this place so big?" he said panting heavily. After a minute he straightened back up. "Visiting Day is tomorrow?"

"You ran through the compound to tell me about Visiting Day? Sorry to break it to you, but I know".

"No, well yes, but that's not all. We know that you'd rather not be here with all the families around. We were planning to escape for a bit".

"No-one came from there this year" she replied. "Trust me, you would have heard about it if there had been".

"True. The offer still stands though. It gets too crowded".

"I need to double check if I have the day off, but sure! Why not? I'll let you know as soon as I do" she chirped. It had been a while since she had hung out with her friends properly. It would be like the old days.

"Good! I'm pretty sure Sky would have kidnapped you regardless" he said causing them both to laugh. He looked down at the stack on the floor. "Do you want me to carry those for you?".

"Please. I feel like my arm's going to fall off!"

A steady stream of Dauntless exited the training room a couple of hours later. The final fights for the first stage had finished for both the Dauntless-born and transfers. Some walked with smiles on their faces whilst others adorned bloody noses and bruises beginning to form. Myla had missed the fights on purpose, waiting until they were over to come down. She didn't want to watch. Every time she thought back to her own, she winced.

Three days before her final fight Myla had been paired up with one of the male initiates. He had decided that knocking her to the ground wasn't enough and stomped on her ankle. Luckily for her it hadn't broken, only dislocated, but her future in Dauntless was dubious for a short while. However, she went on and won her final fight. Although, fighting on a recently dislocated ankle was not fun. Subconsciously her limp became a little more noticeable as she walked to the training room.

Once the crowd had disappeared, Myla pushed open the doors. Eric and Four were stood at the ranking board and looked up as the sound of the door closing echoed across the room.

"Unless you want to clean up blood, you're free to go. There's nothing for you to do" Eric said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. We need to take the board to Max as soon as we've finalised the rankings".

"Mind if I wait here then?" she asked. "It's quiet". Eric nodded his head and the two immediately went back to their discussion.