Danger is Near

Chapter 5

It felt as if I was floating in the air of a storm. That's how surprisingly long it took to reach the net at the bottom. My breath was taken from me for a moment, as I hit the net and sprang back up into the air.

After I stopped bouncing around on the net I lay there stunned. Wow, that was actually quite fun.

I was breathing quite heavily. I began to laugh to myself. In a way I was proud of myself for doing that.

I sat up a bit, taking a scope of the dark expanse. I couldn't really see much, only the clouds and sky above. As I was taking in my surroundings I was yanked to the side of the net and into the arms of a young man. I looked up at him, a bit shocked. He set me down and asked me what my name was.

"Eliza" I responded.

"Second jumper! Eliza!" he shouted out to someone in the darkness.

"Go and wait with the first jumper." he commanded.

I walked towards the girl who jumped before me.

"Hey first jumper. I'm second jumper" I joked.

She kind of just looked at me strangely. "Sorry, stupid joke".

"My name is Eliza, what's yours?" I asked her.

"Tris" she replied, "It used to be Beatrice, but I hated that name".

Tris and I talked, while more and more people were taking their turns jumping. I liked this girl, but really, I didn't care about what she was saying, I was just waiting for my friends.

Even though I had already jumped I could still feel a rush surging through me, and I couldn't help but wander if I truly belonged to Dauntless.

I lay my eyes on the net, just waiting for someone familiar to land on it. And within a few seconds I saw Matisse. I smiled. She looked really scared and shocked. I watched her converse with the young man, then he shouted out "10th Jumper, Matisse".

"That's one of my best friends Matisse. We're both Amity transfers, she's really nice" I explained to Tris, as Matisse walked over to the group of jumpers.

"Hey" Matisse said softly. I could tell she was still in shock.

"Matisse, this is Tris, she was the first jumper" I explained to her.

"Yeah first jumper. Girl you have a lot of balls" Matisse said to Tris.

As Matisse finished we heard a scream coming closer to us. I looked towards the net to see Jem the Candor girl.

"11th Jumper, Jem!"

As Jem walked towards us, someone else landed in the net. It was Tess.

"12th Jumper, Tess!"

We all watched as Tess strutted towards us.

As we all waited and chatted, I began to worry about Amy. She still hadn't jumped and I thought she would of been one of the first jumpers, seeing as she wasn't afraid of heights.

"What if something bad has happened to Amy?" I whispered to Matisse.

"Oh my gosh. Don't worry Lize, she's not in any danger." Matisse replied. As if I was stupid for thinking Amy was in any sort of trouble.

Matisse was right. She wasn't.

"14th Jumper, Amy!"

I walked over to Amy and hugged her.

As we all waited around for the last few jumpers, we talked about our old factions and friends.

A Candor girl walked over to the growing group of jumpers and Jem shouted out her name.

"Christina!"

Her steps became quicker as she headed over to Jem, hugging her.

"I never want to do that again." she said to all of us.

We all introduce ourselves, including the Stiff, Tris.

I'm so glad I've made friends, I would never want to go through all this alone.

"Dauntless born go with Lauren, Transfers stay with me!" a voice cut through the chatter.

"Most of the time I work in intelligence but during your training I'll be your instructor." he continued.

"My names Four" he finished.

It goes silent for a bit before Christina speaks up. "Four like the number?" she said mockingly.

"Exactly like the number" Four answered confidently.

"What, one, two, three were taken" Christina joked, looking around at everyone with a grin on her small face. I instantly liked this girl.

The mood was lifted by Christina's joke, but it quickly changed. It went quiet and Four was glaring at Christina. He began walking towards her. "What's your name?" he said quietly.

"Christina", she replied. You could tell she regretted what she had said before from the tone of her voice. It was less confident and shaky.

"Well. Christina," Four started. "The first lesson you learn from me, if you wanna survive here, is to keep your mouth shut." he slowly arced up at the end, sounding more and more dangerous.

I know now, this guy was someone not to mess with.

"Do you understand?" he asked quietly. Christina nodded her head sorrily.

"Good" he finished.

"Follow me" he then said, moving on.

We all followed him down a dark hallway.

I squeezed through the crowd to Christina. I wanted to make her feel better.

"That was hilarious, you go girl" I whispered so Four couldn't hear me.

"Haha, yeah. But now I know never to do that again..." she returned.

As we walked, following Four in silence, I looked down a dimly lit hallway. I heard voices and saw three people whispering to each other, like they were talking about something that needed to be kept a secret.

I noticed that one of them was Eric. I walked a little slower, to see if I could catch what they are saying. Crap. The three of them turned around, looking towards me. I whipped my head forward, I didn't want it to look like I was eavesdropping. Even though thats what I was trying to do. Few! I don't think they noticed. They turn their heads and began to walk further down the hallway, away from us.

Our group continued to follow Four around, he was showing us everything, The Chasm, The Pit and areas we weren't allowed to go. He also showed us the Dauntless leaders quarters, where all their apartments are. We finished our "tour" up at our dorm rooms.

"This is were you'll be living for these next few weeks" he said.

He left us saying "get changed and be in the pit in ten minutes".

He left and we all looked at our surroundings. This place was stingy and I did not like it one bit. The showers were out in the open and so were the toilets. Ugh, great. I thought.

"Well this looks just glorious," Tess said. Disgusted as she looked at the sinks. "They're all dirty and disgusting".

I picked out a bed and the others did so as well. We took over the back, left corner of the dorm. I jumped onto my bed and lied down, testing it out. "Just great!" I said sarcastically. "The beds are uncomfortable".

We all looked around and sighed.

"C'mon guys don't look so miserable. Lets get ready and head down to the Pit" Jem piped in cheerfully.