Hell Bound (Eric Divergent Love Story)

Chapter 9: The Plan

Eric's quiet through dinner. He's too busy writing up a progress report for the transfers to even pay attention to me. I should've been doing the same thing, but I left it up to Lauren since she volunteered to do it, and I trusted her to do so.

"I can't rely on him to get shit done." Eric mutters when I ask why he hadn't had Four do it.

"Where's Charlie in the rankings?"

"She's just cutting it." He slides the chart in front of me. My eyes trace down to her name and find that she's ranked 14 out of 19.The stiff is even doing better than her. If she doesn't do well within the next few days, she'll be cut.

"Does she know?"

He rolls his eyes. "What am I doing right now? The fucking progress report. None of them have seen it yet."

"Okay, no need to be so rude." I mutter.

"Don't ask stupid questions."

"Is something bothering you?" I ask him. Since our conversation began he hasn't looked me in the eyes once. "You've been pretty snide with me ever since I sat down."

"I've just got a lot of shit to do." He replies, annoyance in his tone. "And if you're so worried about Charlie, then you might want to swallow your pride and help her out. If she doesn't bump up the rankings soon, she's gonna end up factionless."

"What's her problem?"

"She can't fight, she can't throw knives, she can't do shit." He grabs the progress report and lays it out in front of him. "The only reason she's not last is because she can take a hit."

"Yeah, well, years of practice." I shrug, and he gives me an unamused look. "I'll stop by and watch her. Maybe I'll see what I can do."

This conversation feels like it's going no where, so I stand and grab my things. I'm about to turn and walk out, but Eric's hand roughly grabs onto my wrist and stops me.

"Where are you going?"

I shake off his grip and think, quickly. I have to make up an excuse so that I can meet up with Four without Eric suspecting anything. He seemed pretty emursed in the rankings, so maybe he'd just head back to his office for a while and program it into the database to show the initiates tomorrow.

What would he believe most?

"I'm going to look at some tattoos. I've been dying to get a new one." I lie with a smile.

He rolls his eyes. "You could find some paperwork to do, you know, like a useful leader."

"That's for Mal and Leon to do. As of right now, my only concern is the initiates." I peck his check, then turn and leave him to his work.

There's still time to kill, so I head to the tattoo parlor. In any case, if Eric were to wander down here, someone could vouch for me and say that I actually did stop by. And to be honest, I really was looking for a new tattoo.

I make my way inside, weaving in and out of the crowd. Finally making it to the wall of art, I search the panels.

The neck tattoo that Eric has matches Max and Leon, the men of leadership. It's a tradition, apparently, a mark of importance. If you aren't leadership, you aren't allowed to have such ink.

Mal and I don't have tattoos to match, or even tattoos that represent the women of leadership. I guess there was never one assigned, and we were too lazy to draw one up. Perhaps I would've gotten one to match her before, but now that I see her intentions for the war, I won't even think about it.

So what could I get?

Eric's arms were covered in tattoos designed like a maze - one of his fears. On one arm, he had the Dauntless seal stitched in the middle of the maze, on the other, the Erudite stitched in the middle as well. His tattoos held a purpose. They brought his fear to light, making him unafraid.