Already There

“You’re worthless.”

My eyes flew to Eric and I almost flinched at the deep rooted anger burning behind the blue of his eyes. “You think just because your brother did so well here, that you can too? Well, you’re fucking wrong and you don’t belong here, Kaya. Four can’t save you.”

“You think just because you’re a leader that you intimidate me?” I scoffed humorlessly. “Well, you’re fucking wrong, Eric. You’re nothing more than a heartless asshole who takes pleasure in other peoples pain – you’re no true leader like Four. You’ll never be half the man he is, and you can sit your ass the fuck down if you think I’m going to let you bully me out of Dauntless.”

The air was so tense, so silent, you could have heard a feather drop. The other initiates looked at me with wide eyes filled to the brim with horror and shock, while steam was practically rolling off Eric’s skin. My eyes narrowed angrily at him. “Besides,” I spat. “Bullying is a sign of cowardice. Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t belong here.”

With my words still hanging delicately in the air, I turned on my heel and exited. I knew I had all but sealed my fate, but I was so tired of being pushed infinitely harder than any other initiate by Eric. I didn’t want anyone to go easy on me because of my elder brother – I just didn’t want any kind of special treatment, period.

My wandering feet took me to the sparring area and I pulled a pair of fresh black wraps from the storage. I perched cross-legged on the end of a bench and took my time, meticulously wrapping my wrist, knuckles, and palm. I wiggled my hands and made a hard fist, testing out the wrap, and once satisfied I leapt from my position. I padded quietly to the nearest heavy bag and wasted no time before striking it.
There was no telling how long I spent there, relentlessly battering the bag jab after hook after strike. It had to of been at least a couple hours judging by the sweat that poured down my body and the dull ache beginning to form on my knuckles.

“I heard what happened earlier.”

I let out a high pitched curse as I swung around, fists raised, to come face to face with my brother. I slumped against the heavy bag and took a moment to catch my breath. There was a tiny smirk that flickered across his face upon scaring me, but it melted away just as quickly as it had appeared.

“Mouthing off like that could get you killed, Kaya,” said Four, taking several long strides to close the distance between us. I eyed him closely, taking note of his clenched jaw and soft eyes. “You’re lucky your little stunt impressed Eric just enough that he didn’t retaliate - but he’s pissed.”

“I don’t care, I’m sick of his shit,” I grumbled.

“He’s doing his job.”

“No, Tobie, he’s fucking not,” I snapped, crossing my arms across my chest. “He pushes me ten times harder than anyone else, it’s like he’s got some kind of grudge against me or something. It’s bullshit. Yeah, he flips his lid on anyone who fucks up – but I haven’t, okay? If I had, then I would understand, but this is beyond ‘his job’. I didn’t come here after you for any kind of special treatment or anything, you know that, and I’ve said from day fucking one that I was going to join Dauntless – but I didn’t sign up to be someone’s emotional punching bag.”

“Just watch yourself,” he sighed, shoulders sagging as though I’d drained all his energy. I gave a solemn nod and we stood in silence for a few moments, staring at each other. Four was the first to break it, though. “I am glad you decided to join, and I’m proud for how well you’ve done so far. I just don’t want to see you get seriously injured, and I’m afraid if you keep pushing Eric then you will.”

“I’ll be fine – I’m your sister, remember? You were at the very top during your initiation, and guess what? I am too. Stop worrying.”

Four rolled his sapphire eyes and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me in for a hug and ruffling my russet hair. “I know. I love ya, kid.”

---

Bruises littered my knuckles from my brutal session with the punching bag, but I didn’t let that have any effect on my training. Eric had backed off ever so slightly, but he still pressed me harder than others. He didn’t taunt me anymore, just gave his orders and silently watched with his brooding eyes. At times, the intensity of which he watched me was unnerving but usually it motivated me to push past any pain and excel beyond his expectation. I could feel my brothers approval radiating in waves off of him anytime we were around each other during my training.

He never said anything though, but he really didn’t have to.

It was late in the evening when Eric approached me, his face a perfect mask of indifference. “Come,” he said in a low, yet commanding, voice. “We need to talk.”

I resisted the urge to groan or whine in protest – it had been a particularly grueling and long day; all I wanted to do was fall onto my cot and sleep. Eric had given me no choice in the matter, and though I could technically flat out disobey him I was slightly curious as to what we had to talk about. So I followed behind him, munching on an apple I’d snatched off the dinner table on the way out. After roughly five minutes of silently walking, I wasn’t exactly sure where Eric was leading us to and had briefly considered he may be taking me somewhere remote to kill me.

We had assented a particularly steep and winding staircase that led to a dimly lit corridor that only increased my belief. Eric turned down one of the hallways and gracefully leapt through the mid-sized staircase taking three steps at a time. There was a door at the top, and he pulled out a key ring from one of his trouser pockets. The lock gave a sharp staccato click and Eric slowly turned the knob, pushing it open just enough for us to step through.

The site before me took my breath away.

We were at what had to be the highest building for miles in every direction, overlooking the city and fields with a bird’s eye view. The rooftop was flat, like most in Dauntless were, and around ten yards long and wide. Eric walked to the farthest edge and leaned against the concrete wall – it was nearly as tall as I was, but came to just under Erics’ shoulders. I stood beside him and we watched the sun finish sinking beyond our horizon in silence, soon being purged into a quiet darkness.

It was then that he spoke.

“I don’t know what to do with you.” My eyes flew wide open and my eyebrows pulled together in confusion. I waited for him to finish, but when he said nothing more after a few moments and didn’t even turn his head away from the city to look at me, I took the bait.

“What do you mean?”

He was silent for several beats longer and I could feel the apprehension rising in my chest. He sighed and turned around, leaning his back against the cement. His eyes slowly took in my body, starting from the tips of my toes up to my forest green eyes. When our eyes met, I saw the spark ignite in his piercing, icy blues that seemed to glow in the darkness.

That was the first moment I’d ever seen Eric so completely void of anything menacing, of all anger, of all frustration. I understood then; I understood that this must be the Eric who Four and all their other friends saw daily, and I understood that Four hadn’t been exaggerating when he said the amount of women who threw themselves at Eric was utterly suffocating. I couldn’t blame them.

He truly was striking in all the right ways. He had a strong jawline, the clearest blue eyes I’d ever seen that reminded me vaguely of icicles deep within winter, a rock hard physique with muscles that flexed each time he inhaled or exhaled. His lips were a soft looking pale pink that I had to tear my gaze away from, flickering then from his two eyebrow studs down to his neck tattoos that disappeared underneath his red cotton t-shirt stretched tight along his chest and shoulders but blowing freely with the wind around his abdomen. His forearms were littered with maze-like tattoos that my fingertips ached to trace.

I mentally slapped myself for getting so far lost. I raised my eyes to Erics’, and found his entire expression had remained impassive.

“You infuriate me,” he said, eyes narrowing. “So much, that I sometimes question if there’s any end in sight. It’s exhausting being that angry for so long.”

“Excuse me?” I gasped, feeling my own anger begin to bubble up inside of me. “I’ve not done a single thing to you, Eric. I don’t know what the fuck your problem is.”

A smirk appeared then, and he chuckled as though he’d been privy to some kind of private joke. “Tell me something, Kaya. Why is it that people always squeeze puppies?”

I was flabbergasted, to say the very least. I knew the shock was plastered across my face as obvious as throwing an open bucket of paint at a stark white canvas, and again there was that smirk of his. I fumbled with my words for a moment before sputtering out, “because they’re cute.”

“Precisely,” he said, still as calm as ever. “It’s been proven that a certain level of cute inspires and provokes aggression. It’s generally liked to how we, as humans, deal with such high levels of positive emotion and inversely turn it into some sort of harmless negative pitch, or sometimes that aggression is triggered upon someone seeing a photograph of a fuzzy little animal and knowing that, ‘hey, that’s only a picture’ so you can’t take care of it like you’d want.”

My head cocked to the side in confusion and I waited for him to continue.

“My buddy has a little sister, and one day she found a cat walking around here. She held it so tightly because she wanted to protect the thing, but in the end… she got hurt. The cat got pissed and scratched her.”

“Eric… I don’t understand,” I confessed. He turned his face back towards the city then, causing dark shadows to fall upon his cheeks and eyes. Eric took a deep breath and ran a hand through his short hair.

“That’s why I push you so hard.”

“What?”

He didn’t respond, just watched me cautiously. My mind was reeling then, and suddenly his words and analogies began to fall into place. Eric, he was his friends little sister and I was the cat. The more I thought through his words, the angrier I got.

“It’s not my fucking fault you can’t control your goddam self,” I nearly shouted. “That’s no excuse for you to treat me like utter shit, to say I’m worthless and don’t belong here, to push me until it’s all I can do to walk to barracks and collapse without even eating dinner. There’s no way you can justify making someone fight me until there’s blood spattered over the mats and I can barely stand on my own two feet, for making me beat someone within an inch of their life.”

I shook my head in disgust. “You’re fucked up, Eric.”

I turned to leave then, but I hadn’t even taken a step before his quick reflexes got the best of me. He had an iron grip on my wrist when he spun me around, and there he was – right in my face, with blazing wildfire eyes again. I internally sighed – at least angry Eric was familiar territory.

“You don’t like it, you can leave then,” he growled. “Leave, and stop fucking with my head.”

“I didn’t do anything!” I shouted and yanked my wrist free from his grasp so that I could deliver a hard shove to his chest. Of course he didn’t move, it didn’t even phase him.

“You don’t have to!” he shouted back, then swore as he took a quick step back and swiftly threw his fist into the concrete wall with another curse tumbling from his lips. Eric was breathing quickly, and he took a moment to compose himself before turning back to me. This time, he was back to calm and clear. “Kaya, I’m just – I guess I’m trying to say… I’m sorry, okay? You’re so…” he trailed off with his eyebrows furrowed, like he was deep in thought. His hand reached out towards my face and I instinctively flinched away, braced for impact with my eyes screwed shut. When nothing happened, I peered through my lashes up at him and felt my heart being wrung dry. He bit down on his bottom lip and shook his head with sad eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, looking down for a moment before back up at him.

“You’re just so god damned adorable, I don’t know what to do,” he exclaimed with a hint of frustration beginning to seep back into his posture.

I scoffed, “Wrong. I’m not cute, or adorable. I’m R-rated sexy.”

Eric instantly grinned down at me, showing off his dimples, and gave a light chuckle. “Maybe.”

I offered a nervous smile, relaxing immediately when he playfully winked. “So,” I said, taking a shaky breath. “Does this mean you’ll lighten up on me?”

“You’ve only got a week left of training, Kaya… I think you can handle one more week.”

“But – “ I started to protest, but stopped when his eyebrows shot upward, eyes twinkling.

“You’ll be fine,” he chuckled.

“I’d better get something in return for dealing with all your shit,” I muttered, and when Erics’ laughter boomed around me I couldn’t help but relax a little more and grin back at him.

“You asked for it, Miss R-Rated-Sexy,” he said, then took a step closer. Cautiously, he stretched his hand toward me again – this time, I allowed his rough and calloused palm to slide along my jaw before cupping my neck, his thumb brushing along my cheek while his long fingers tangled in my dark hair. I allowed my eye lids to flutter closed for a couple seconds, relishing the feel of his thumb running slowly along my skin.

When they opened again, I was met by Erics’ striking blues. They were clear as the morning sky and I found myself being drawn in more with each second that ticked by. Before I really knew what was happening, our eyes had closed and his lips brushed hesitantly over mine. The second time it happened, I was ready and when I felt his lips against my own, I applied just enough pressure in response. That was all it took for his other hand to meet my hip and then his arm curl around my waist. The hand holding my neck had moved to angle my head just how he wanted, to give him the perfect angle when his tongue entered my mouth.

His mouth muffled my soft moans of appreciation and I slid my hands up his toned arms, one hooking around his neck while the other stayed on his chest. I was amazed with the gentleness that Eric exerted when touching me, when running his hands along my body only for them both to return to my face and stroke my cheeks. I was amazed with the tenderness in which he kissed me; it was almost like he was afraid I would crumble in his hands.

But most of all, I was amazed that he pulled away when I tried to bump things up a notch. He shook his head slightly, brushing a stray lock of hair from my eyes.

“No,” he murmured, almost as if it was more to himself than it was to me. “I don’t want this to be like that.”

“Why?” I whispered. “What do you mean?”

“Well, first off,” Eric began, sliding his rough hands down my body to rest at my hips. “You still have a week before you’re officially one of us. It will be the most grueling week of your life, and I don’t want to make that worse because I can promise you this: I will be a jackass. I don’t want to sleep with you, and turn around tomorrow and act like I loathe the air you breathe. Second of all,” he paused here to fidget and looked away. “If we get to that point, I want it to mean something. I don’t want it to be rushed, emotion charged, meaningless sex on a rooftop. I actually want to get to know you, Kaya.”

As soon as he finished speaking, I wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I could and buried my face in his chest. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for going off on you, and for being such a bitch, and for completely misjudging you.”

He hummed, holding me tightly to his body. “No, babe. I’m sorry. I can’t wait till all this is over and done with, and you’re officially Dauntless.”

“Do you really think I’ll make it?” I muttered into the soft cloth of his t-shirt. Eric laughed and the sound rumbled low in his chest against my ear.

“I’d say you’re pretty much already there.”

I smiled when I felt his lips press softly against my temple. “Thanks, Eric.”