Drown [Eric Coulter] Divergent

Part XXVI

XXVI

"Crush and filled with all I found

Underneath and inside

Just to come around

More, give me more, give me more"

"If I Had a Heart" -Fever Ray

A year had passed since Harper grabbed that knife, and dragged it across her palm with her heart beating so fast, all eyes on her. She felt the blood bead out of the open wound, and she walked over to the bowl that had fire inside of it; then she had let her blood fall into the flames of Dauntless, choosing to be one of them. Today, Harper was one of them. Every single day she woke up knowing that she belonged, knowing that she fit in. Today, however, she knew that she was going to start making changes in people's lives, and it brought her a lot of excitement. Carson would still be there, overlooking the training for obvious reasons, but Harper didn't doubt her ability to train people. She was good with people, but could be firm when she had to be.

She was standing in the bottom of that hole she had jumped down a year ago, and she could only see the bright blue sky above her. While she had wanted to be up top, scanning her initiates, her trainees, it was Eric's job to introduce them to the faction, to let them begin to fear what was ahead of them. It would then be Harper's job to let them know that Dauntless wasn't filled with assholes like Eric -she loved him, don't get her wrong- and that it was a faction of brave, selfless people who would die to protect the innocent.

Of course, Harper had never told Eric that she loved him. There was a part of her that felt he might abuse that knowledge, that hold on her, and get her to tell him everything. So she chose to withhold that bit of information, she was allowed to show him that she loved him through their time spent together, but she never allowed herself to say it. It seemed simpler to understand the feeling she had, but not to speak it. Speaking it made it real in a different sort of way, a fourth dimension, and it didn't make her feel safe if anyone knew. They had remained a complete secret for the year that they had been together, and somehow expressing that she loved him felt as though it would be breaking that secret, an expectation that they would have to go public. She liked the simplicity of their relationship, and telling him that she loved him felt... wrong.

Or at least that was what it was supposed to be. Not much had been heard about Jeanine's little massacre, and Harper had mostly put it out of her mind by this point. She had truly enjoyed the last ten months without too much stress, and today she had it put completely out of her mind because she had bigger things to focus on. Carson had trained her well in the arts of, well, training people for one, her people skills had improved. She had mastered fighting, shooting, throwing knives, sprinting, everything. And the most important thing that Carson had taught her was how to identify Divergents, and how to protect them from people like Eric. Carson still didn't know of Eric's involvement, but she had suspected it for a long time now.

"Here they come," Carson said, planting a gloved hand over Harper's shoulder.

Harper glanced up at the hole above them, and saw someone standing on the edge. The first jumper hesitated for no more than a few seconds, and then he jumped. No scream came from his lips, that was a good sign, and when he landed in the net, Harper saw that he was wearing all black. Dauntless born, as usual. She walked over to the net and smiled at them, "Good job, kid."