The Man Behind the Fire || Divergent Fanfic

Ch. 5 | Meeting His Eyes

          "Adeline, Adeline wake up," my mother shakes me. I jolt awake in my bed. "They're coming for you."
          "Mother, who, who is coming for me?" I ask. Shaking.
          "The council.." she whispers. "You're a divergent." I throw back my covers and run out've my room. I run down the stairs, headed for the door. Guards bust through.
          "There she is! Divergent!" They yell. I trip in my steps and turn to run, they grab my ankle. They pull me back and put me in handcuffs. Ordering each other they drag me outside in front of my neighbors. I scream but no one listens. They force me to kneel and cock back their guns.
          "All divergent must be eliminated in order to keep the peace of the system," the guard says. Placed to my forehead, tears pouring down my face, I hear a bang.

          I wake up in a cold sweat to the sound of what seems like a pipe banging. It's Four.
          "I want everyone in the pit, 2 minutes," he says. His voice sounds like he just woke up, or had a long night. Raspy and tired. I quickly get up, undress and redress. Most of the boys are glancing out of the sides of their eyes, I choose to ignore it. I pull my boots on and my hair back into a ponytail quickly. Riley and I jog to the pit. Eric and him are gathered at the front. They begin to explain our first session of training.
          "You will be ranked based on your performance, whoever is below the line at the end of training, will be cut," Eric says deviously. Riley and I exchange looks.
          "Cut?" A voice peeps up from the back. "What do you mean cut? No one told us that?" Eric looks furious.
          "Why, would you have chosen differently? Because if that's the case you might as well get out now. Everyone report with Four. No further questions..." he shoots Four a glare.
          We report to what appears to be a training arena. Punching bags, and a fighting ring. We gather and Eric has an evil smirk across his face.
          "Let's start things off the traditional shall we Four?" He asks. That name sends chills through my body.
          "You want to scare them off already?" Four follows up. Eric shrugs.
          "First jumper, last jumper, in the ring." My heart skips a beat. That's me. I walk over and remove my shoes. My heart is pounding. I've obviously never fought before, but given my intellect I would say I have enough to put on a decent show for awhile. The other Erudite girl walks up to the ring. Her, out of all people, Jess. Now this would make Erudite history.
          "What are the rules?" I ask. Eric is about to get a kick out of this I can tell.
          "You fight until one of you cannot continue," he says.
          "Or one of you concedes," Four pipes in. Eric glares again.
          "According to the old rules, new rule says no one concedes. Now fight." I really hope he is not about to witness me getting the shit beaten out of me. I make my stance and take a deep breath. I really don't want to hurt her, despite I don't like her. Her face is blank but I can see the fear in her eyes. We're about the same weight, I just have a little bit of height on her, this could be an equal fight. I tread towards her, she backs away. I drop my arms and back away, she gets a burst of energy and comes running towards me to grab me. I bring my knee up and get her in the abdomen and she drops to the ground. On my knees I begin to punch her repeatedly as she lets out screams. I stand and look at Eric, who gives me the eye to finish her off. I don't want to knock her out, but it's not worth losing points...she's bleeding already, breathing with her eyes closed.
          "I'm sorry," I whisper and put my heel to the side of her head. She's out cold. Eric claps. Four just stands there. I can't read his body language.
          "Given your skinny build and quiet intentions I didn't know if you had it in you. Points for bravery and stamina, but don't think I didn't hear you apologize." Eric holds a finger at me. My faint smile fades. That was definitely what I would consider a 'fuck up' on my part. Again, Four shows no emotion.
          I walk towards the punching bags where some others were. I take turns with different approaches beating the bag from what I assumed would be correct. I see a shadow come up behind me and I start to sweat. What if it's him. I continue beating the bag, my hands hurt. I must've thrown a wrong punch on Jess because I could feel it in my right wrist. I feel a grip on my shoulder, cold fingers, a strong hand. I turn quickly to see it's him. My heart stops. Those brown with a hint of green eyes seem to see right through me, piercing into my soul. They calmed me, yet flared every nerve in my body at the same time. He speaks.
          "You're weak. You have no muscle, you might have one your first fight but your body language scared her first. It could have gone either way," he says. I turn back to beat the bag.
          "That's nice to know," I exclaim rather cold.
          "You're not going to win, not like that. And you won't always get lucky," he continues. I don't reply. "Keep tension here," he grabs my waist. I stop and meet those eyes again. He grabs my arm. "I watch you angle your wrist as you hit her," he looks back up at me and then returns to my wrist. "You're going to want to wrap that or you're just going to hurt yourself further." He pulls tape from his pocket and hands it to me. "Watch my hands," he demonstrates a punch and hits the bag hard. "Straight on, no angle." I nod my head in response and thank him. He meets my eyes once again and walks away. I can feel the trace of his hands still on my body. I continue hitting until the time is called, I didn't wrap my wrists.
          I regretted that later.

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(A/N: my apologies for being MIA, to my readers of this story, I'm hoping to be pushing out more chapters I hope you all will enjoy. Voting and comments are appreciated and always read. Xoxo, you'll hear from me soon.)