Fourtris Now and Forever: Divergent No War

| c h a p t e r 63 |

Sometimes, if you want someone to take you seriously, you need to put yourself out there. In this case, 'out there' quantifies as fighting my boyfriend that no one knows is my boyfriend. I don't want to. I don't want to put him in a position where he hurts me, because I know it will break him if he does.  I know he would think he is Marcus if he does. And it hurts to accept this challenge. It will hurt even more than the bruises I will certainly come away from it with.

His eyes pierce through me, begging that I will rescind the word of consent I just gave. He doesn't want to, but I know that Madison will never take me seriously unless I do.

I walk up to him, discreetly holding his forearm as I whisper, "It's okay."

"I don't think I can do it, Tris," he murmurs. "What if I hurt you?"

"We'll stop before things get too serious. Don't worry. It'll be fine," I reassure him.

He nods, unsure. Then, I walk up into the ring. Fierce memories barrage me of the times I've spent up here, writhing in pain as Peter punched me and Molly kicked me. I remember the rage that went through me as I blindly kicked my opponent.

Madison leans forward eagerly, probably anticipating me getting my ass kicked. It's likely but I won't go down without a fight.

"Go!" Madison yells. I send her a sour glance before raising my arms protectively. Tobias, too, raises his, but less unsure of himself. Not that anyone else would notice the regret swimming in his eyes.

I look down at Jenna as she ruefully shakes her head. She's right: it's ridiculous but I can't do anything to stop it. Events in action are hard to stop without making a fool of oneself.

I step closer to Tobias, and he falters in his steps toward me. For the first moment, I wonder if he is even capable of raising his fist to me was against anyone else, he'd already have attacked. So to initiate this, I have to strike first. I raise my leg lightning fast and kick his thigh. He sends a rather slow punch just left of my head and I duck out of the way.

He knew I would be fast enough to get out of it. I go for a punch to his neck, jabbing my fist outward. His hand darts out, his fingers wrapping around my wrist. With his hand in charge of my arm, he twists me into a lock with my arm behind my back. I scream shortly as I feel a twinge of pain radiating from my shoulder blade. I stomp on his toes and send an elbow to his shoulder, then expertly escape his grasp.

Slightly agitated, I lunge for him. He sidesteps at the last moment and I land with a thud to the ground. From there, he pins me on the ground. I writhe away from him, flailing my back out of his grasp. He is quick to recover though. We're both on our feet in less than a millisecond.

I send a series of punches which he is fast to sidestep. But exposing the rest of my body was my demise. He swept my leg out from under me and I heard a satisfying crack as I thudded to the ground.

"Shit," I groaned in pain, tears collecting in the corner of my vision. A radiating pain comes from my knee. Only then did Tobias notice he went too far with that sweep. When he did it, the force of it caused my unprepared knee to buckle just the wrong way. The fall didn't help as I ungracefully fell on my side.

He helps me up with his hand and I pretend like it was nothing. "That's a fight," I say to the initiates.

Tobias, however, sees through my tough-girl façade. He sees the pain in my eyes. I look down at my knee, trying to be strong but it's already swollen and bruised. It can't be good.

"I'm going to get Uriah and Lauren. The rest of your fights will be supervised by them," he says making a rash decision as he sees my stance slightly falter as I try to put weight on my knee but fail.