Fractured | Tobias Eaton ✓

22 | Thanks so Much, Sir

We make it back to the dorms before anyone else and I hand Four his jacket through the dorm door before closing it on him. I rush to find my spare cap and sigh in relief when I find it's where I last put it. I don't bother with a scarf since I've already ruined two since I got here.

I exit the dorm and make a beeline for the bathroom to wash out the cut. "Rita, what are you doing, come on." I groan when Four calls my name, accidentally flexing my hand in the process.

"Such a shallow cut and it hurts so bad," I gasp.

"It's like a paper cut in between your fingers," He says.

There's some truth behind his statement, I've had plenty of paper cuts in my time–well wounds in general. It's hard not to get hurt on everything when it's all either broken down from the passage of time or just plain dangerous. Any building has the chance of going crashing, we were lucky enough to find the building we did.

I don't even know the way to the infirmary, when I walked Russ to it, I won't lie–I was following his lead. I'd been too spooked by the pit to pay attention to the rest of the tour that first day. "I doubt they'll do much for me, probably just slap a bandaid on it and send me on my way."

"You're just lucky it didn't cut any deeper." I shut up because I know he's right, "Hey, Kelly can you help my initiate out? Cut herself while talking back–think it was karma." Four seems at ease with her, I smile at the difference in personality, finding it funny.

"Sure thing, Four." Kelly gives the poor man a weird look. She leads me over to the counter and winces at the slice in my hand, "Jeez, what'd you do to her Four?"

I laugh, "I think it was more Eric's fault than anything." The look Kelly gives Four is full of understanding. It makes me chuckle and then wince as she dabs it with peroxide. "Do I need stitches?"

Kelly shakes her head, "It's nowhere near deep enough, just gotta keep it covered and change these daily. It should heal in about three days. Just a big paper cut."

"That's what I said," Four says.

"Thank you," Kelly gives me a few days worth of bandages and I leave the infirmary trying to ignore the dull pain in my hand. "Never heard you talk so much before," I say to Four as he leads me out. "Not willingly at least."

Four shakes his head at me. "Please stop wasting this opportunity and make people like you. Initiation is the first step to surviving here, if you want to thrive you need some allies–friends are better, but you're kind of unlikable."

"Wow, thanks so much, sir." I turn away from him and begin walking toward the dorms.

"Dorms are the other way, Rita."

"Whatever," I mumble but I turn the other way.

—

Russ lucked out, he's set to fight Peter today and I'm painfully jealous. My face is still recovering from the bruises Molly so graciously gifted me but I'd like nothing more than to beat Peter. I've won every fight so far–including the one against Four. But I think I owe half of my win against the instructor to dumb luck.

Tris is going up against Molly, I think she'll do fine. Christina versus Al, we all know who's going to win with Al's streak of losing. Myra loses to Will a few minutes in, but I'm surprised how long she lasts. I get Edward and this might be the first time I'm actually nervous.

Christina said he's been studying combat since he was 10–apparently, Edward and Russ are childhood best friends and would fight each other to put their knowledge to use. I'm one of the last people to fight and I try not to gnaw my fingertips off while I wait.