Everlong (Peter Hayes from Divergent)

Chapter 3: Black Eye

            It was late at night and not many hours remained until the sun began its journey above the city for the day. I stood at a punching bag in the training room, curling my fists and assaulting it with as much strength as I could put behind my small frame. My muscles ached from the effort and my body was covered in a thick layer of sweat. It felt good to be this out of breath.

"What are you doing here, Squealer?"

The voice makes me jump out of my skin, startling me thoroughly out of the zone I created for myself by myself here. Peter. I didn't realize how stealthy he could be when he wanted to, practically appearing out of thin air mere inches away from my ear. I don't answer him and continue hitting the punching bag as if he never said anything in the first place.

"Not talking to big bad Peter?" He asks, still standing behind me. I don't need to see his shit eating grin to know that there is one.

No answer. Not even a glance in his direction. I won't give him the satisfaction right now.

His hands wrap hard around my waist, forcefully lifting me off the ground and twisting my torso painfully so I'm facing him before dropping me back on my feet in front of him. It's unnerving to be manhandled by him but also exhilarating in a fucked up, distorted way that seems to be the norm here. In Erudite, physical contact wasn't favored, mainly because most of us were too busy with our noses in books, our eyes on a screen, or our bodies in a lab. There was just never any time for it. But here, in Dauntless, there's no shortage of it. It's exciting, new, and utterly terrifying.

"Look at me."

A shudder rushes through me and the hair on my arm sticks up straight and I drag out the seconds as long as I can before I have to do what he says. There is something so contradicting about him, the way he looks like the heavens created him to save the world yet he acts like he's out to destroy it. It's a battle between what's on the inside and what's on the outside and looks are entirely too deceiving here.

I meet his eyes, trying to sculpt my expression to look as though I'm a hardened, angry fighter with nothing to lose. By the look on his face and the way he lifts his eyebrows, I can tell that I'm really not convincing.

"What are you doing here?" he repeats his question.

Being under his gaze is like having my wrists trapped in handcuffs. His eyes are green and they are far too pretty to belong to someone so cruel. My Erudite instincts are telling me to run as fast as I can but my Dauntless tendencies are telling me to stand there and fight my way through this.

"Practicing." I wince at the break in my voice. It makes me look weak.

"What was that?" Peter said with a condescending tone, bending down toward me like he was talking to a child. "I couldn't hear you through your squeaking."

I look away and suddenly become entirely too interested with the blood splatter on the floor next to us. My breath hitches in my throat and I force it out, focusing only on my breathing. I didn't think things would be this hard.

"Say it again."

"I'm practicing." I say, louder than before.

"And you think hitting a bag is gonna help you at all? Maybe if you hit it hard enough, it'll beat the shit out of you and suddenly you'll stop being a weak little mouse who can't even look me in the eye when I'm talking to her?" As he speaks, his voice gets louder and angrier. Every syllable is a fresh, raw slap to the face and his laughter, booming and echoing around the room, is the last nail on the coffin.