Fandom Divergent: Faction Before Blood // RP Thread

[WanderLust.]

Maverick Maddox // 18 // Dauntless Born // Instructor
Interacting With: Bella MWMASkairipa

Despite the fact that Maverick was aware that Bella was lifting up her sleeve, his grey eyes remained focused on her slightly green irises. He didn't react at first, instead he listened with a somber expression. When Maverick had first told Bella of his childhood struggles, he had not been expecting anything from her in return. It had not been an invitation for her to share her own trauma, it had merely been an olive branch extended in peace. A way for him to say he understood what she was going through with out her having to tell him everything. At first he had thought that she had rejected his advances, had wanted nothing to do with him, and now here she was spilling her heart out to him as she sat on his bed. Maverick couldn't help but wonder why. He had seen her with Finn, with Night, it wasn't as if she was in short supply of male attention. Yet Bella had chosen to share this information with him, was this her way of attempting to comfort him? Or was this just an admission of her own? A dizzying swirl of thoughts thundered in Maverick's head and yet he remained eerily silent until she was finished speaking.

It was only then that he looked down at her exposed arm, gently reaching out to take her small hand in his. He ran his thumb gently over the scars that littered her skin and wondered what horrible things her father had done that had caused her to feel that much pain. His stomach churned at the horrible thoughts that began to litter his mind. He knew what it was like to have a father who was more wrath and evil than loving and caring. But Bella already knew that. He could tell her he understood, but she already knew that too. He remained silent, bringing her arm up to his lips as he gently placed them on her skin, as if he could kiss the pain away. He knew he couldn't, that nothing he could do would ever erase the scars Bella's father had left, but he could damn well try. "He can't get to you anymore, Bella." Maverick whispered softly, before finishing "I won't let him." He could see the tears swelling in her eyes and his heart broke for her. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and shelter her from the horrors of the world. He couldn't protect her from everything, but he could try to make her feel safe in this moment, at least.

Maverick rolled back on his bed, pulling Bella with him so that she was laying in front of him, facing him. He gently let his arm drape over her waist as his other hand began to slowly stroke through her fiery locks. If she needed to cry then she could cry. He knew dauntless was a place where tears were not always welcomed, but Maverick was content to lay there and let Bella stain his sheets with her tears if it made her feel better. His hand reached up to gently wipe away any remaining tears, caressing her cheek ever so softly, their faces mere inches apart. He should've seen it coming, he hadn't seen it coming with Poppy but he should've seen it coming with Bella. The red haired girl leaned in, and as much as Maverick knew that he was not supposed to be doing this, he welcomed the kiss. Her lips pressed against his and Maverick kissed her back, his hand on her cheek, pulling her deeper into the kiss until it felt as though they had temporarily melded into one. When he finally pulled away, Bella's tears seemed to have stopped. Maverick gently pressed his forehead against hers, and suddenly realized just how exhausted he was from the day. His head felt heavy against his pillow, his eyes began slowly drifting shut. How late was it? Maverick was barely conscious by the time he uttered the last words he spoke to Bella that night, "I won't let anything happen to you, Bella." and with that, Maverick, carelessly disregarding all of his responsibilities as an instructor, fell asleep, with an initiate in his bed.​

 

[paralyzed]

Night Scott | Abnegation-born, Dauntless initiate.

Interactions: Chris/ Nerdy.


After Bella left, his eyes returned to the buildings he observed moments earlier. What an interesting day it had been, from his fear sim to his conversation with Bella. She was the first person he had actually had a meaningful conversation with in his new faction. Before he never tried to get to know any of the initiates and when the instructors had instructed him he listened but barely ever asked a question in return. Today he experienced what in the moment felt like death itself. But the memories of his fear simulation were already faded and replaced with new ones. To him, today was worth it. And if that indicated anything, it was proof that he needed to get to know his fellow Dauntless. After all, they were his new family and he needed them to be his friends, rather than just acquaintances. Maybe then he would have something to think about besides training and his past in Abnegation. Wondering if today could get any more compelling, his eyesight came to the last place he had seen Bella before she disappeared into the compound. Next thing he knew, his previous question was answered when from out of the place Bella had left, a boy had arrived.

He watched as the boy with a head of blonde stopped and acknowledged Night with a nod accompanied by a ‘Hi.’ Night replied with a “Hey” as he tried to think of who the boy was and the reason for which he had approached him, hoping it was a friendly one. The name Chris came to mind only seconds before Chris confirmed his name. It also seemed he knew Night’s name “Yeah, that’s me.” Night said as he shook the hand Chris had offered him. It seemed Chris’s intentions were friendly after all. “Nice to meet you, Chris.” Had he seen Blair around? The name seemed familiar but he wouldn’t have known if it were her even if he had seen her. Shaking his head he told Chris that he hadn’t. After an awkward moment of silence, Chris asked him if he had been doing anything before he interrupted. “No, I mean not anymore. I was talking to Bella and getting some fresh air, but she had to leave and I think I’ve had enough fresh air for today. Anyways, besides gazing at the buildings around our compound I’ve been doing basically nothing for the past few minutes so I’d probably had gotten bored sooner or later.” Night looked at Chris, he could somewhat recall seeing him with a girl, that was probably Blair. “I mean, I could help you look for her but I don’t know if that would get anywhere. She’s probably just with some friends doing some Dauntless stuff.” He observed Chris, hoping that last sentence didn’t make him worry about his girlfriend.

“Yup, Abnegation-born.” It didn’t surprise Night that Chris knew next to nothing about Abnegation. It was, in his personal opinion the most boring faction. “I could tell you about it but it would probably bore you to death,” Night let out a laugh. Was it really that bad, or was it just different from what he had now? Grey clad Stiffs, that wasn’t the first time he had heard that word. Even though it was usually used as an insult against him, he couldn’t help but admit it was pretty accurate for his former faction. “I can’t blame you, most of the factions seem to represent just one thing, and the thing Abnegation represents translates to stiffness to the people who never got to know someone from there. They're not all the same, but a whole lot of them are pretty stiff.” He recalled the color that his past faction wore. “And all that gray, damn that was bland.” So Chris’s parents were originally from different factions. “Erudite and Dauntless ey? How was that like growing up, and what’s it like having been born in the faction you want to be in?”

 

[MWMASkairipa]

~She was powerful, not because she wasn't scared, but because she went on so strongly, despite the fear~
~Atticus~

Bella Quinn | 16 | Transfer Initiate | Amity
The last thing the small redhead expected was to be pulled onto his bed beside the tall instructor. Initially her eyes widened and she gazed up at him in a slight panic. This was certainly a surprise. But… not an entirely bad one. His arm was warm around her smaller frame, and if she were a cat, she would be purring at the soft feeling of his fingers brushing through her long hair. He had no idea how much something like meant to her. Before she'd met him, her faith in men had been all but nonexistent thanks to her father. He… was nothing like him. While her mind was racing with doubts trying to send her into a tailspin, she let her tears quietly drip down her freckled cheeks. She hadn't told him about her past experiences with her cruel father for any other reason besides that she felt he was a kindred spirit. He understood her, understood her pain, he understood how hard it was to live with the trauma of such events.

Despite what she'd been through, she had learned to appreciate the little things in life, this was a perfect example of that. Before she came here, she never thought she'd get to experience something like this, with anyone. This innocent moment, it brought her hope. The way he looked at her made her heart flutter anytime he glanced her way. She admired how gentle he was, how kind and compassionate he was towards her. She felt bad that she hadn't acknowledged that sooner. But this… this was a nice distraction from everything. The redhead tended to worry about things going on around her, her mind moved too quickly and jumped from fear to fear and thought to thought like a frog to lilypads. She didn't have many opportunities to just slow down and enjoy the moment. He… was helping her do that, maybe more than she realized. Every time she was with him, she felt the concrete walls protecting her heart slowly being chipped away as fear gave way to trust and sharing her struggles with him tonight, and now this, was a step in the right direction.

Her eyes lifted to meet his after he spoke softly to her, a blush blossoming over her cheeks and she did the one thing she never imagined she'd ever experience. She kissed him. He kissed her back. A small hand gripped the shirt on his chest for a moment, allowing herself to be pulled into the small moment of peace she felt while she lied here, allowing to get lost for just a moment, escape for a few minutes. When he pulled away, her eyes met his, smiling a little as he touched his forehead to hers. A soft sigh left her lips, her body visibly relaxing as exhaustion set in. She'd been going non stop for the last few days with the simulations and it was taking its toll on her mind and body. She wasn't really planning to fall asleep here, wrapped in his arms, but she hadn't felt this peaceful in days. It was a welcome change. Did he realize how large of an impact he had had on her? Before him she had never let anyone close for fear she would experience the same pain all over again. Something about him assured her that he was safe, that the words he spoke to her were true. A soft hum left her lips as his last conscious words reached her ears and then she allowed the sound of his heartbeat lull her body into slumber.

//Interactions: Maverick WanderLust. ​

 

[xayah.]

ALEX YOUNG

erudite-born | 16 | erudite prodigy​

The slick and bumpy underground portion of the Dauntless compound only made Alex's visit to the faction even more miserable. His clothes, which had been so meticulously inspected in the morning, were now stained with coffee or mud as the Erudite heir struggled to maintain his balance in the dimly lit underground. Despite his outfit costing what was easily a month's wage for most people, Alex wanted to burn the disgusting garments as soon as possible. Even if they were salvagable, just being in Ferris' vicinity made Alex feel nauseated, and these clothes would just serve as a reminder of that. He made a note to himself to immediately discard and replace the clothes the moment he returned to the safety and comfort of Erudite.
Alex's balancing act came to an end as Ferris led him to a simulation room. He tapped his shoes to splatter globs of mud all over the smooth floor, having no regard for whatever poor soul would clean the mess up, and glanced around the room. It was one thing to read about Dauntless' initiation and another to visit it. An ominous feeling lightly washed over him, and Alex pulled at the collar of his button up just enough to accidentally give Ferris a view of the Visiting Day scar. This triggered a barrage of sarcasm and faux concern from Ferris, something that Alex responded to with a murderous stare. He didn't have the time or patience to respond to the constant onslaught of taunts. The boy already felt somewhat stuffy from his prolonged visit to the hellhole known as Dauntless HQ. Being in a dead man's proximity for anything longer than a minute only intensified his discomfort.
Had Alex not been overwhelmed by his desire to learn more about the chemistry and controls behind the fear simulation, he might have heard the subtle creak of a drawer being opened. A hard, sudden yank of his hair forced a small squeak out of him as it pulled his body away from the control panel and turned him in the direction of his assailant. The glint of a syringe needle caught his eye, but before he could think of a solution, a small pinch in his neck grabbed his attention. It robbed him of his strength, and Alex was forced to endure Ferris' grimy hands lowering him to a chair that must've been sat in by dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of reckless degenerates. His eyes began rapidly fluttering, despite any attempts to remain conscious, and the prodigal light in them began fading into nothing. The last thing he saw was the almost sadistic smirk on Ferris' face, and Alex had only one thought. Bastard.
-----------------------------------
There was little that Alex feared that was substantial enough to cripple him emotionally and mentally. However, the serum always knew just what to target, and Alex found himself outside of his family's manor, Leah by his side. Two small suitcases stood in front of each kid as small drips of rain began falling. Something didn't quite feel right, but Alex was more concerned with his sister. What was happening? How did he get here? As his eyes scanned the area, he saw his parents by the door, staring at him and his sister with shame and disappointment before turning their backs on them. The doors to the manor began slowly closing, and only then did Alex realize what was happening. The boy sprinted as fast as he could but arrived to closed doors and silence. Why? Why were his parents abandoning them? Alex ran back and forth between the servants by the gate, shouting to the brink of tears for a way to get back inside. The servants ignored them, treating them as invisible, and the abandonment caused him to crumple on the ground in agony. He didn't want to exit the manor's gates, but he also didn't want to be stuck in the rain. Conflicted, Alex tightly gripped his sister's hand as he contemplated what to do. He sat on the ground for so long that the light drops eventually soaked the twins' clothes, but Alex was convinced. He had to leave, or he, and Leah, would freeze to death. Trembling heavily, the boy pushed the gate open and pulled his sister along with him.
-----------------------------------
Alex's whole body was wracked with tremors when he came to. His breath was as labored as it was in the fear simulation, and he couldn't calm his heartrate down for once. It was all so vivid, so real. He could still feel a slight dampness on the back of his hand, but truth be told, Alex wasn't sure if it was raindrops or teardrops. However, the moment he heard someone's wretched voice, Alex ceased. His body stabilized, and his face resumed its naturally confident yet calm and calculating appearance. Who did this pathetic, crude orphan think he was messing with? If he thought he could commit a transgression against the Youngs and get away with it, he was sorely mistaken. One glance at Ferris fueled Alex with a rage that he had only felt once. Ironically, it was also towards Ferris for embarrassing his sister in front of everyone in their childhood. Now that they were older though, Alex could act on it. Reason and rational thought went out of the window as he rushed towards that infuriating smirk.
It was clear Alex was more fit than Ferris expected, but the older boy seemed to deliberately be staying on the defensive as if they were playing a game of tag. Alex's only advantage was focus. Ferris' eyes seemed to recoil somewhat in the middle of Alex's assault, and the Erudite heir capitalized on it. He was no longer someone who had to sit by and take Ferris' insults. Alex felt his fist connect once with his assailant's chest as a throbbing sensation lingered behind in his fist. Violence wasn't Alex's forte, and the immediate reversal by Ferris proved it. Unable to comprehend how the situation flipped so quickly, Alex felt himself crash into a row of cabinets, and his fighting drive immediately dried up. Even as he tried to lift himself off the ground and seem indignant, he was too dazed to protest against Ferris. Blood pounded intensely throughout his body, specifically his head, so thoughts were practically impossible. The Erudite heir had just one idea in his head as he recovered on the floor, to get out of this bastard's presence as soon as possible. With a nod of his head and a comb of his hair with his fingers, Alex clenched his jaw and glanced daggers once more at Ferris. This was the last time he was ever going to be bested a dead man. Alex would make sure of that.
The boy sped out of the Dauntless compound as fast as he could. His immaculate appearance this morning had been ruined by a series of unfortunate events. Alex could practically hear his mother scolding him the moment he got home. As he flagged his chauffeur down and entered the vehicle, Alex made sure not to glance at himself in the window or rearview mirror and instead focused on the ring on his hand. A sigh escaped his lips. It was a shame he was unable to see Leah. That might have made this trip to hell worthwhile. At the thought of Leah, Ferris also popped up in Alex's mind. He could only imagine what kind of awful things he was doing to Leah. The older twin was tempted to make a call to longtime contractors that the Young family had employed whenever there were "problems", but he put his phone away. There would be other ways to save Leah without ruining his father's plan. Leaning back into the seat of his ride, Alex closed his eyes and began scheming; he couldn't wait to tell his father what happened.

 

[WanderLust.]

Blair Avalon // 16 // Dauntless Born // Initiate // Divergent
Interacting With: Thorn Sanctuaryforall1

Blair was pulled back into reality by Thorn's comforting words. In a way, it reminded her of Christian, how he was always her rock when it felt like the Earth was crumbling beneath her feet. She tried to calm her breathing, force her heartbeat to return to a normal pace, as she gently nodded at Thorn's words. Blair tended to lose control of herself when she couldn't keep her thoughts in order, and right now they were spinning faster than she could catch them. She could vaguely hear that Thorn was mentioning something about her fear simulation today, and a rock formed in the pit of her stomach. Normally, this wouldn't have been an issue for her to discuss, only, Blair hadn't actually had a fear simulation this morning. Due to Ghost's rather insane and yet incredibly clever antics, the young blonde had wound up taking an aptitude test instead.

Suddenly, she realized that the fork to her left was slowly starting to shake, almost vibrate with energy. She quickly put her hand on it to steady it, she hadn't even realized her powers were beginning to escape her. Although maybe escape wasn't the right word... it implied that she had had them under control to begin with and control was definitely something Blair was lacking at the moment. "Trust me, nothing interesting." She shrugged, suddenly realizing how closed off and cold she had sounded. Guilt instantly flooded through her as she realized that. Thorn had been nothing but nice and genuine with her and now she was shutting him. Was this her fate? Forced to shut everyone and everything out until she could master her powers? Would she ever be able to explain this to Christian? Oh no, she was spiraling again.

"Hey you know... I'm actually not feeling so great." Blair rubbed the back of her neck, obviously squeamish at best, downright suspicious at worst. "I think I'm just gonna head back to the dorms but um... thank you for today... I really needed a friend." Thorn was an unlikely companion, and yet, his presence had allowed her to forget about her divergency for a little while, which was a welcomed notion. As she got up from the table, she took a step towards thorn, gently pressing her lips against the side of his forehead in quick and strictly friendly peck before making her way out of the bar and back into the dark and desolate halls of the night in the dauntless compound. Her arms were firmly wrapped around herself as she walked briskly towards the dorms. She knew she was just being paranoid but she couldn't escape the feeling that she was being followed.

By the time she got close to the dorms, she decided she didn't really want to spend tonight sleeping in a room full of other people. She made a left where she should've made a right and ended up back at her own house instead of the dorms. She needed a decent nights rest tonight. Time to process everything that had happened with Ghost today... and she needed to be up early tomorrow. As her head hit her pillow she couldn't help but think this bed felt too big for just one person, empty with out Christian in it. She snuggled up in her blankets, wishing for a moment that she could disappear. That maybe she would stay sleeping forever, or maybe she would wake up and discover her divergency had only been a bad dream. But such was not the case and the young blonde drifted into a dreamless sleep, tossing and turning all night.​

 

[Sanctuaryforall1]

Randi

Mood: Curious

Location: The Chasm

Interactions: True

The voice sounding behind Randi would have made her jump if she had been more focused on something but instead, she had simply been zoned out. True’s call for her not to jump simply drew the young blonde’s mind back to reality and away from whatever series of rabbit holes she was falling down within her head. Turning her head slightly so she could look at the initiate standing a few feet behind her Randi arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow as she thought about what the short haired young woman had shouted at her.

“The coffee might be cold at this point but I promise you I’m not gonna kill myself over it.” She replied with a lighthearted smirk as she noticed the girl's face turning bright red. She recognized the young woman as a fellow initiate but she wasn’t so sure that she remembered her name or had ever really spoken to her before. It also dawned on her that the girl had definitely been around Dauntless even before initiation yet still Randi knew nothing about her which was odd since Randi usually knew everyone in some sort of way, many in a very intimate way.

Turning back to face The Chasm the young platinum blonde rested her head on the cold bar meant to keep people from slipping under the railing. She took another sip of her drink before swiping her tongue over her lips to lick at the sugary goodness that stuck to them. “Wanna come sit with me to make sure I don’t change my mind?” Randi called out to the girl behind her, not turning to face her but keeping her body language relaxed in order to make the girl more comfortable. “I promise I don’t bite…much…at least not outside the bedroom or the battlefield.” She added with a small chuckle as she left it up to the other to decide if she was joking or not.

With everything that had just happened at the café, Randi knew she was in dire need of a distraction. Talking to this stranger was exactly what the doctor ordered in her mind. As her fingers drummed along the paper mug, she took a moment to scoot over in order to give True room to slip in beside her if the girl wanted. She wasn’t sure how comfortable the young woman would be sitting close to the edge and she wouldn’t judge her if she decided to take a seat further back. Sometimes she found that the call of the void was only comforting to her and it made many others pretty squeamish. The cold gust of air rushing up from The Chasm every once in a while left both a cooling and stinging sensation on her new tattoo which was still very much exposed due to her low-cut jeans and crop top. Taking her eyes off the chasm before her Randi instead let her eyes drift over the lines that made up the dragon and rose now inked into her skin and smiled slightly to herself. "Have any tattoos?" She called out to the girl behind her trying to strike up a conversation.

xuanan

code by Stardust Galaxy

Thorn

Mood: Concerned

Location: Bar (start), Workshop (end)

Interactions: Blair

It was clear that something was weighing heavily on Blair’s mind as she sat across from him. Thorn wished he knew how to help her before for a moment it looked as though she were going to break down but an instant later, she seemed to pull herself back together. She was strong, that was something Thorn could see clearly, even if he was half-blind. But in Blair’s case, it seemed as though she was needing to be strong in order to handle something that Thorn couldn’t see, possibly a demon in her own mind, possibly an issue from today. No matter what it was Thorn wished there was some way that he could help her bear the burden of it because it could be so exhausting to hold one’s self together all alone. While she was still new to him, he hoped that the blonde knew he was more than happy to take some of the weight off of her and he believed with every fiber of his being that he wasn’t the only one.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” Thorn gasped when he heard her announce that she wasn’t feeling good. He instantly felt a stab of guilt at the realization that she must have been feeling poorly for a while now but had only stuck around to indulge him. The thought had him mentally slapping himself upside the head at how selfish he must have been to keep her out when she was already feeling down. “Yeah, you get home, I’ll cover the bill here. Don’t even worry about it.” He told her as he pulled out his wallet and stood up as she got out of her seat just in case she needed any help. “Just make sure you get home safe. Let me know if you need anything.” He told her and wondered for a heartbeat if he should ask her if she needed help getting home but realized that she probably just wanted to be alone. The kiss she gave him on the side of his forehead was a delightful surprise that made him smile. It was nice to know that she felt comfortable enough around him to show him such a friendly sign of affection.

With Blair’s departure, Thorn decided to make his way out of the bar as well. He paid the bill like he said he would and made sure to leave a nice tip for the waiter who had served them. Once he was out on the streets, he made sure to look around in case Blair had collapsed anywhere before setting off along one of the many side paths that made up the alleyways of the Dauntless compound. For a moment he considered stopping by his childhood home to check on things but thought better of it when he realized that around this time his father and uncle would definitely be there. He had no desire to run into either of them and so instead the young man made his way down a familiar street. After a few turns here and there, Thorn found himself unlocking the door to a small workshop and flicking on the lights. Looking around he took in all of his unfinished projects and felt no real motivation to work on them quite yet so instead, he grabbed his apron and tools and went to work on his newest creation. Sketching out the design the young man thought back to the game of poker he and Blair had played and looked at the paper in front of him as his pencil moved to create the image of four aces fanned out. He smiled and began to work on measurements for the gift he planned to make his new friend.

WanderLust.

code by Stardust Galaxy

 

[Aviator]

Ghost // Male // Age 18 // Training Instructor // Erudite to Dauntless​

As Ghost sheathed his knife and stepped away, freeing Poppy from the wall that she had been pinned to a moment ago, the dark-haired initiate fixed him with a slit-eyed look. It was one that wasn’t uncommon for Ghost to receive from Dauntless-borns and promptly reminded him he didn’t belong in their faction, that he was an outsider. A stare of scrutiny that was equal parts trying to take him apart and put him back together like a puzzle, and an automatic dismissal of that puzzle as a waste of time. A judgment being passed. Ghost saw it in Harper’s gaze every time she looked at him and sometimes in Maverick’s, too, albeit usually buried a little deeper. It was a look that predisposed him to give Poppy the doubt of the benefit. A bubble of irritation rose up in Ghost’s chest, but he schooled his features into placidity, the way he would if he were sitting down to a mandatory tea with Dauntless’s leadership panel, when there were other, better things he would rather be doing. He found that shutting down others’ attempts to glean something from his expression often had more effect than anything he could say.
Besides, if anyone had anything to answer to, it was Poppy Lycon. A flash of alarm crossed her features when he asked her motive in following him, even though she must have known the question was inevitable. Yes, she definitely had something to hide. Poppy covered for her momentary lapse in composure with an easy smile and a one-shouldered shrug that suffused the air with the scent of strawberry shampoo, making light of Ghost’s advice. He responded with a single stern nod, aware that she was joking but not reciprocating her humor. If she had seen even half the things that went on in the factionless slum of Baneberry—the gang wars that resulted in children catching stray bullets, the vicious beatings that occurred after both won and lost hands of cards, the squabbles for a moldy scrap of bread that sometimes turned deadly—she would see the lesson to be learned from his criticism and learn it like her life depended on it, because it probably would. Another thug would have slit Poppy’s throat for following him so transparently, no questions asked.
Ghost wondered whether he would have done the same, if the person following him had turned out to be a stranger. It only took a second of hesitation for the tables to turn.
“Then you have a lot of studying and practice ahead of you, Miss Lycon,” he said earnestly. “Might I suggest that you take a look at Cabrera’s The Art of Stealth? And perhaps also Novak’s Whatever It Takes: Thirteen Dirty Tricks to Gain the Upper Hand in Close Combat. Both texts offer some highly strategic insights on sneaking up on opponents and twisting the element of surprise to one’s advantage.” Ghost knew that most Dauntless kids would scoff at the idea of reading a book, but as an instructor, he held out hope that those who strove for achievement wouldn’t be afraid of getting their hands dirty. Poppy responded with a vacant smile that said she was listening without really hearing him, and Ghost repressed a woeful sigh. So much wasted potential in all these kids who wanted to run without learning to walk. Then again, Ghost wondered whether he would have ever bothered with books if he had been born into Dauntless. Would he have fit in with the Dauntless if he’d grown up among them, if Harper and Maverick had been his peers rather than colleagues who only talked when necessary? Or would he still have been the black sheep in spite of his upbringing, much like Charlie? Would Ghost still even be Ghost if such a fundamental piece of his past had—
Poppy’s next words were a blade through the heart. Before Ghost could master himself, he stiffened, going so rigid that his muscles felt ready to split apart from his bones. The breath he choked down seared like a lungful of fire, leaving his insides scorched and weeping bloody tears. The scar on his chest was a throbbing mess of pain after Alex’s fist had connected with it. Ghost pressed an instinctive hand to his newly bruised ribs before they could tumble out of him. He realized his reaction had been external, and his shock warped, a wash of shame cutting through him instead. Poppy was intently watching. Dammit, Jacobi. If you can’t control your own fool self, how do you expect to control anything else? Ghost redirected his anger at himself onto Poppy. How dare she. What entitlement did she think she had to any part of his past? He barely even knew this girl’s name, and hell would freeze over before he told her his. Ghost took a steadying breath, folding his arms tight across his chest, weighing several possible responses in his head. His expression hardened into a scowl. Finally, with his usual cold, controlled fury, he growled, “I do not see how this topic is any of your business, initiate. I advise you to choose your next words carefully.”
Ghost’s mind whipped into a storm. Despite his words, he was trying to see where Poppy was going by bringing up his parents, of all things, and he was ablaze with possibilities. Was she angling for some smart-ass remark on his upbringing, and how his parents had spectacularly failed in that regard? Or had Poppy been talking with some poor fool who’d spilled one of Ghost’s secrets? To his knowledge, only Harper and Leah knew of his identity prior to transferring to Dauntless… and Dante Aiken. Ghost swallowed. Or his initial intuition that a spy had been following him wasn’t wrong, and Poppy was working for one of his father’s many victims who’d been cheated out of all their life savings. Perhaps she was here to settle a debt that was long overdue. The knife stashed up Ghost’s sleeve prickled against his skin, and he flexed his wrist just slightly, ready to draw at a moment’s notice. It was a possibility, if an unlikely one; Poppy’s stealth was a good step down from the average professional’s, but a family contracting their very first hit wouldn’t know that.
He had figured that Leah’s father would have had his own spies looking over Ghost’s shoulder, and the prospect that an initiate might be working for Young had once crossed Ghost’s mind, but he’d never been given any real reason to believe it. Now, however, goosebumps rose on Ghost’s arms at the cold, inescapable logic that such a move would make. He had known that Young was scathingly intelligent, but so was Ghost, and perhaps his hubris had blinded him from seeing just how deadly an opponent Young really was.
Poppy responded to Ghost’s warning with indignation. She blurted something about his living situation with Maverick, and Ghost’s laser focus kicked up another notch. He tilted his head, analyzing Poppy with a cool, clinical detachment but withheld comment. Realizing her mistake too late, a flush crawled up Poppy’s pale throat, but her hand had been shown. She wasn’t supposed to know that Maverick was—hopefully temporarily—rooming with Ghost and Caspian. For the past two weeks, Caspian had been using his medical leave as an excuse to shirk his responsibilities and party with reckless abandon, and Poppy certainly wouldn’t have heard the news from Ghost. That left Maverick. Ghost’s brows drew together as he wondered what other things Maverick had said about him, and how much. He would be sure to check whether the pencil on the ledge atop his mostly closed door was still intact when he got home tonight.
Ghost’s heart tried to leap into his throat again when Poppy elaborated on his mother and father, but this time he was ready for it and forced his heart back inside the walls of his chest. His grip on his crossed arms tightened. There were ice storms warmer than the way Ghost looked at Poppy. It was true that his parents’ names had been circulated generously through high society gossip while they were alive, even before their violent murders and scandalous business practices had been splashed across every front page. But that was six years ago. Ghost had been twelve at the time. If Poppy Lycon with her soft curves and alabaster skin and strawberry-scented hair was able to connect the Holy Ghost with the frightened, broken child of his previous life, then she had a remarkable eye for faces. Too remarkable, probably. There were other forces at play here; Ghost just knew it, even if he didn’t know exactly what or how.
His eyes searched Poppy’s face, trying to detect the lie, the deception, the mockery that he knew he would find. Except, he didn’t. Ghost couldn’t imagine why Poppy wanted to hear his parents’ names, but he found no evidence to support the notion that her interest was anything other than sincere. That only puzzled him further, and in a way it frustrated him more than if she were to taunt him. Taunts were something Ghost was used to and could deal with; one didn’t last long among Erudite’s elite without a thick skin. Throwing Poppy a final withering look, he turned without answering her question. He recovered his usual elegant, kingly bearing as he brushed past her and started down the corridor the way that they had come. No, not kingly. Ghost felt like a god, particularly the wrathful kind who turns mortals into cockroaches with a wave of his hand.
He hadn’t gotten more than a few steps down the hall when he glanced over his shoulder, eyeing Poppy in his peripheral, the popped collar of his coat grazing his jaw. Ghost was met with a challenging stare that looked like a dare, the kind that was lost as soon as it was accepted. He was surprised to feel a warm flicker of what might have been respect. “My mother and father were defined by their choices and actions, not by their identities. I like to think that the same applies to me. Goodbye, Miss Lycon,” he said firmly and stalked away in a sweep of poisonous-green fabric.
As soon as Ghost rounded a corner, he felt his annoyance and confusion deflate into a penetrating, bone-deep exhaustion that could be remedied only with a joint, or several. In the wake of his scuffle with Alex, Ghost’s energy had been on the brink of depletion, and the encounter with Poppy had just expended its dregs. His tolerance for extended socialization operated on a meter, and when it ran out, Ghost dropped off a cliff from which there was no return until he was given adequate time alone with his thoughts to recharge. He had made a promise to Blair Avalon to figure out why Young was hunting Divergents and who was assisting him, and Ghost took his promises seriously. Getting ahold of such classified information wouldn’t be easy, and he had to plot their next moves, to scheme and shuffle cards and pace and curse when his machinations hit a roadblock. And his ability to do those things would be greatly inhibited in the presence of others. The boy who had wept as he helplessly watched his parents die was gone. The Bastard of Baneberry was here to finish what he had started.

* * *​

Texting Maverick Maddox was a necessary evil. It might have been a lie, Ghost’s excuse for bailing on today’s training—that he had a doctor’s appointment—but he wasn’t about to be like Caspian and just decide to take the day off without telling anyone in advance and let the other instructors scramble to try and divide an unexpectedly increased workload among themselves. Ghost gave his number out to as few individuals as possible, but last week he and Maverick had decided to exchange numbers not because they were so chummy with each other, but because as roommates, the occasion might arise in which they would need some means of communication. Like today.
His vision still blurry with sleep, Ghost swung his legs off the side of his bed and shuffled down the semi-dark hallway and into the living room. He was usually the first one awake—and often the last to go to bed, too—but ever since he’d come home last night, the apartment had been strangely quiet, Caspian’s door remaining firmly closed without exception. And what was more, the couch that Maverick had taken to sleeping on for these past two weeks was strangely vacant. Ghost’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as an idea circled in his mind. What if it had never been Caspian occupying that shut-up room? Some part of Ghost would know if Caspian were home. Every move Caspian made seemed to have been calculated in advance to take up as much space as possible, to alert all others within a set radius to his presence, even if it was an activity as innocuous as getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. And after repeated exposure to this phenomenon, Ghost knew the pattern of Caspian’s footsteps, which had been notably absent all night. But what if it had been Maverick all along in his brother’s room? After all, Caspian had tons of friends and romantic conquests, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to spend the night at another’s place and not return until the following day.
Ghost turned all these facts over in his mind as he eyed the lipstick-smudged coffee mug dominating the living room table, and conclusions began coming to him at a rapid rate.
His memory flashed back to yesterday morning, when he had overheard Maverick muttering Bella’s name in his sleep. A hint of an almost-smile played on Ghost’s lips as he tilted his head at the half-full coffee mug. “Well, hello, Isabella Quinn,” he crooned too softly for any ears but his own. As much as the unused cup taking up space on the table bothered him, he let it remain. To move it might alert Maverick that Ghost had caught on to him; not that Ghost immediately intended to do anything with the information, or possibly ever. But it was another weapon in his arsenal, if necessary. Nonetheless, Ghost didn’t like his new roommate inviting guests over without asking for permission. After a few days—enough time for Maverick not to suspect that Ghost knew something—passed, he would be sure to lay some boundaries with Maverick about guests, and remind Maverick that technically he was still one, too. Until Maverick started chipping in with rent, this was still Ghost and Caspian’s apartment, and not even then would Ghost be inclined to agree to a second roommate. There were only two bedrooms here for a reason.
A truly diabolical streak inside Ghost wanted to feign a reason that he might need Caspian’s presence and knock on his former instructor’s closed door, and eagerly wait to see who answered. But Ghost didn’t need to confirm what he already knew. Plus, he had his own agenda to attend to.
Forty-five minutes later, he stood on the rooftop of the compound, where he had promised to meet Blair before training. The early-morning horizon was gold, shimmering between a patchwork of skyscrapers in various states of disrepair, sending wild rays of light scattering across the city. Wind tore through his hair, making his eyes smart as he shucked off his trench coat, folded it, and laid it neaty atop the gravel in the corner of the roof, just beneath the stone ledge that enclosed the perimeter. It was the same coat that Ghost had worn yesterday only reversed, so that instead of green being on the outside, the coat appeared to be midnight black. He adored this duality of the coat, its hidden facet that wasn’t immediately obvious to the eye, a literal trick up the sleeves.
The wind was ruthless, and he weighed down the folded-up coat with his Wicked Sisters, the two pearl-handled pistols that normally sat at his belt, one of which Blair had gotten ahold of yesterday. He wouldn’t be needing them for the upcoming skirmish. Ghost was looking for a challenge, and having his Berettas available would make the road to victory all too easy.
Ghost felt polished, but sharp, like a well-kept knife. For once, he was clean-shaven, and the lack of stubble accentuated his angular jawline. Beneath where his coat had once been, he was as snappily dressed as ever, with freshly-pressed black trousers and a high-necked waistcoat in a cool, subdued shade of gingersnap orange that brought out the auburn glints in his eyes. Ghost didn’t like wearing all black at once. It was too stereotypically Dauntless, and he liked the message that his colorful vest sent: They would never own him.
After a few minutes of pacing, his signature combat boots crunching atop gravel, he heard a slight disturbance from below the trapdoor that opened out into the center of the roof. One set of footsteps beat up the stairs, moving quickly. Blair Avalon was here. Ghost abandoned his pacing and scrambled into hiding behind a chimney, his narrow shoulders squeezing behind it just barely and blocking him from view. There was a drawn-out groan as the trapdoor creaked open, a small stirring of gravel beneath feet, and finally a cheery click! as the door snapped shut. Moving carefully and quietly, Ghost grasped his phone and held it out in front of him, angling the black glass just enough that he could see past the chimney and catch Blair’s silhouetted figure, turning as she scanned the rooftop. Ghost waited until her gaze settled on the folded-up trench coat at the edge of the roof opposite him, and when Blair’s back was fully turned to him, he pocketed his phone and launched his assault.
With Cabrera and Novak's various tactics for sneak attacks in mind, he burst out from behind the chimney with a knife drawn in each hand, bolting across the gravel for Blair. She heard the scrape of gravel underfoot as Ghost rushed toward her and turned, but by then he had already covered most of the distance separating them. Blair’s eyes widened until they all but enveloped her face, and in a single frenzied breath, she shouted over the wind what the hell was Ghost doing, and if he was insane. Ghost outwardly ignored the questions, but as he sped within striking distance of Blair and took a forehand swipe at her with his right knife, he didn’t discount the possibility of his insanity.
Blair gave a yelp and leapt back and out of range for an instant, but by the time Ghost advanced on her again, she had produced her own knife from somewhere. Just one knife against his two, but no longer was Blair unarmed. She planted her feet, her brow forming a determined crease as Ghost readied another strike. Blair parried it narrowly, sloppily, when Ghost’s blade came within a hairbreadth of impaling her in the side. She responded with her own thrust, which Ghost danced away from without bothering to raise his blades. As Blair stumbled with the force of her lunge, Ghost slipped inside her guard, preparing to deal her a backhanded slash across the ribs with his left knife, his heart kicking inside his chest.
But before he could, what felt like a bullet slammed into the side of his neck, small and round and hard. Ghost gasped in surprise. The projectile’s momentum threw him off balance, and as he pitched to the side, trying to recover, a sliver of gravel thunked back to the rooftop, its jagged edge glittering with blood. Pain seeped into him then, as if it had been waiting for an answer to the question of what had hit him before coalescing. A damp, sticky warmth dribbled into the collar of Ghost’s waistcoat as he found his footing and whirled back toward Blair. She stood motionless, staring at him so intensely that her face was white with strain, and with a lurching jolt, Ghost felt himself starting to lift through the air, his boots hovering an inch off the ground, then two.
The memory of Blair throwing him against the wall yesterday in the simulation room raced through his mind. If she tried that today, there was maybe a fifty percent chance that Ghost would clear the stone perimeter around the rooftop and be cleanly launched off the building. He wasn’t willing to take that chance. Twisting in the air, Ghost cocked one arm back and whipped a knife toward Blair. It cut toward her in a deadly spiral, flipping end over end, and just as Ghost had speculated, he dropped back to the ground when Blair’s concentration broke. Perhaps she tried to use her telekinesis to stop the knife, but it was either moving too fast, or the transition from lifting Ghost to halting the knife’s motion was too sudden. Whatever the reason, the knife bit into Blair’s upper arm before ricocheting away.
Ghost felt a dark glimmer of satisfaction as the wound in his neck continued to leak blood. They were even, for the moment, but he wasn’t ready to settle for even. Blair watched him warily, her face shining with sweat as they began circling each other like starving feral cats. In one fluid motion, Ghost bent and scooped up a third knife from his boot and relished the sight of Blair’s face sinking with dread. He had a bunch more knives to go before he was reduced to just one. She pressed her lips into a tight line, and Ghost knew that she was gearing up for another telekinetic attack. As long as Blair stood at a range, she held the advantage. Ghost had better close the distance between them, fast. Just a few more steps… He quickened his pace around the circle, forcing Blair to match him, and Ghost stopped when his shadow stretched out almost directly before him, meaning that Blair was staring straight into the sun.
Even with the ten feet of distance between them, he saw the moment that her pupils constricted to pinpricks. Ghost charged forward, knives out, capitalizing on his opponent’s temporary blindness. Sensing his approach, Blair flung out a fist that should have connected with Ghost’s chest, had he not rolled into a somersault. Ghost came up standing, and moving with staggering grace as if he were made of mist, he nimbly pivoted and kicked in the soft underside of Blair’s knee. A shudder rippled through her slender form before she collapsed, her single knife skittering across the stones. Blair’s hair billowed out around her as she descended, and Ghost let go of one knife, knotting his hand in the buttery-blond curtain. Before Blair's knees even hit the ground, Ghost gave a sharp jerk on her hair, and she screamed as she was thrown onto her back on the gravel. They were fighting by Baneberry rules, which meant none. Ghost had nothing against girls—in fact, just about all his friends were girls—but after his duel with Randi, he wasn’t about to lose to two of them in a less than twenty-four-hour span.
Blair's eyes were alight with enough fear to indicate that she wasn’t sure whether Ghost’s ambush had been a drill, or if he was really trying to kill her. Either way, it was over. She writhed and squirmed on the ground like a frantic insect, trying to lever herself up onto her elbows, but Ghost put a quick end to her struggles with a boot on her throat. Her head thudded back against the gravel with a choked gasp. “You’re dead,” Ghost hissed, his remaining knife poised above Blair’s face. For a prolonged second, he just watched her cough and sputter against the weight on her windpipe, his eyes dispassionate and unapologetic. Payback for yesterday, he thought, remembering the numbing terror he had felt moments before he’d smacked into a wall and been knocked unconscious. “And I’ve barely broken a sweat. I expected better from you, Miss Avalon.” Finally, Ghost removed his foot, grabbed Blair’s wrist in a stern, loveless grasp, and hauled her upright.
Contrary to his words, he was out of breath, and trying to conceal it. A low roar of pain resonated in his ribs from where Alex had punched him, and Ghost coughed into the crook of his elbow, the edges of his vision tinged with black. He passed the back of his hand across his forehead, trying to ignore the dread that was coiling through him. After his collapse in Baneberry had almost cost Leah and him their lives when they were being chased by a factionless gang, Ghost was sure to always carry a pocketful of lull in his coat. He would just rather not have to take it in front of Blair Avalon, especially when she already suspected him as the culprit for her boyfriend’s addiction. Just in case, he walked to the corner of the rooftop where his coat lay and slid it around his shoulders, despite the dazzling heat that the July sun was throwing off. It might have been hot out here, but the interior of the Dauntless compound was a different story, with the air conditioner blasting at a ridiculously arctic setting in the summertime. Ghost always felt like he would freeze without a coat, but maybe that was just a symptom of chronic illness.
The bleeding from the wound that Blair’s pebble had opened in the side of Ghost’s neck had slowed to a thin trickle. While the two of them panted, trying to recover the breath to speak, he retrieved his fallen knives and sheathed them. Finally, Blair broke the silence, asking why the hell Ghost had attacked her. “Well,” he drawled, deliberating how to phrase his next words, “you being a… person of interest to the powers that be, I figure it’s only a matter of time until there’s either an attempt on your life or someone gets an idea to kidnap you and turn you into a lab rat. I’m simply trying to ensure you’re ready for whenever that happens, and the most logical way to do that is to hone your telekinesis. You have a distinct advantage over regular people. Stop being afraid of it and embrace it.” Ghost finished straightening his clothes and finger-combing his hair into perfection, then raised his eyes to Blair’s. He scowled his disapproval. “But you’re going to have to do better than just a pebble. I see that we clearly have a lot of work to do.”

 

[Baratheon]

Finn Day

Finn stepped slowly as he followed Aubrey through the house, his ears seemingly pinpointing on every noise they made. Was anyone home? Were they alone? Thankfully, they seemed to be, but it was still stressful. He wished he could hold Aubrey's hand. He wished he had her confidence; despite all of this being on her, on her family, she radiated precision and determination. Finn was sure if she was nervous at all, it was only because he was.

They neared Charlie's door and the boy took in a deep breath. He had only been in here a few times, when he was younger. He and Aubrey would always rush in to scare Charlie or ask her to judge who had the best fighting moves. For a fleeting moment, Finn smiled. A lot of memories were held here. Then, his smile faded as the memory of what was going on currently hit him. There was no more laughter and energy behind this door. There was only pain, secrets, and heartache. Why wasn't Charlie getting help? The thought of the sweet woman managing this all on her own could cause anyone to rush to her rescue. She didn't deserve this.

Aubrey swung the door open rapidly, nearly causing Finn to have a heart attack. He hadn't realized she was going to do it so quickly! He raced in behind her, only to feel Aubrey suddenly fall beside him. Her hand gripped his shirt, pulling him down rapidly alongside her. The carpet coated their fall, but he immediately sat up and stared wide-eyed at Aubrey. "Are you okay?" He asked, fear in his tone. The girl laughed it off, of course I am! He breathed a sigh of relief, cheeks heating up. Had he really landed on top of her? Oh dear. He adjusted his shirt to lay long and flat against his chest and reached to help his best friend to her feet. However, she had another idea.

Look! Finn's gaze was caught by a spot of blood on the edge of the carpet. "Woah, good eye!" He exclaimed, kneeling to look at the spot closer. "Is it her's?" It felt like the right thing to ask, even if neither of them had any real way of telling.

Aubrey went into full detective mode. She stood and ordered him to begin searching, although nothing inappropriate. He nodded like a faithful dog given a task and began searching behind furniture and amongst some papers Charlie had at her bedside. Nothing of note, some initiate scores and notes on training, but nothing that could be seen as something she was hiding. Finn wondered briefly why she hadn't turned these notes in; his eyes caught on a few that were of his own scores. He quickly shuffled the papers back into a pile, not wanting to look. That was something to deal with at another time. He moved to the other side of the room, seeing a mirror tossed haphazardly to the floor. A small, handheld one. That wasn't like Charlie to throw things. He grabbed it and inspected the piece of metal. There! In the edge, a small crack. So it had fallen or had been thrown with some kind of force. Again, unlike Charlie. The girl was so soft Finn still didn't know how she'd made it through the first round of initiation. But never mind that. He lifted it to show Aubrey, but the girl called him over to see something else. Finn trekked closer to see her holding a torn and bloody shirt. Oh no. That couldn't be from any kind of training session, could it?

Aubrey asked him if he'd seen that on Charlie's shirt before. Hmm, what had she been wearing that day? Finn didn't tend to pay attention to stuff like that. "No, I didn't notice anything. I think she was wearing the shirt, though? So it must have been something that happened recently. I think?" The boy stated, "It looks red, so it's fresher. Why would she keep something like this? Weird." Most of the clothing he tore up, he tossed. Maybe she didn't have a chance to yet?

As Aubrey took a picture, Finn gripped the mirror in his hand. Should he say anything? He was about to when Aubrey shouted again, pulling him towards something else. A dress! How pretty. He barely remembered Aubrey wearing it, but did recall Charlie having it on. She had looked nice- in a completely platonic way, of course- but Aubrey looked so much better in it. She spun around a few times and the boy had to laugh. "Hey, maybe you shouldn't have given that up. You look, uh, really nice in it." Was that a good compliment? Some girls were picky about how boys spoke about their appearance. Plus, he was just a friend. Nothing weird. Their eyes caught in the mirror as Aubrey put the dress down. He almost melted in her wistful, almost loving gaze. She stared at him, and he stared back, vision blurring. He never wanted to look away. She was such a light in his life, a blazing fire that held him back from danger and loneliness and pushed him towards greatness and fun. What would he be without her?

Aubrey came a little closer, softly suggesting they go. She was so close, her breath nearly on his face. She continued to stare, and he stared back. What was this? She wasn't... thinking about him, right? She was awfully close to him, eyes turning from loving to almost nervous. Where was the confidence? She had no reason to shake in his presence unless... did she...?

THE MIRROR. "Look what I found!" The moment was all but slashed to threads as Finn held up the small mirror, the crack on the edge flashing in the light as he waved it about. "It was on the ground and it's broken! Charlie would never leave that like that!" His tone was loud and proud, like he'd found buried treasure, a dopey grin on his face.

TEMPLATE © BOKEH​

 

[Nerdy.]

Charlotte "Charlie" Stark || 20 || Medic || Dauntlessborn

Charlie had appreciated Jaxom walking her home, it was a thoughtful gesture, and not unwarranted for reasons of safety. However most Dauntlessborns would have rathered look brave and the possibility of danger, than to be walked home in the company of a man who would protect them. Charlie was not like that, so she cherished the thoughtfulness that came from Jaxom's insistence to walk her home. At the door she smiled at him fondly, and watched as he bid her goodnight and walked back towards the dorms. She didn't know why, but she trusted Jaxom more than she trusted most of the men in Dauntless. Maybe it was his honesty and candor. Dauntless men didn't have that, they just had bravery, recklessness, a controlling nature and violent tendencies. Jaxom was different. A good friend. Charlie could appreciate that.

As she made her way into the house, she bumped into Aubrey and Finn, they both looked sheepish and guilty, but soon covered it up. They said goodnight, saying that they had been hanging out here for the day to get over their fear simulations, and were just heading back to the dorm. Charlie gave Aubrey her jacket back quickly, slipping out of it and thanking her for letting her borrow it. She asked if their mother was home, Sasha was, but already asleep by this point. So Charlie locked the door after Aubrey and Finn left, and then made herself a cup of tea, going into her room, getting undressed and slipping into bed. She didn't sleep though. Instead she pulled out a book to read, she wasn't tired. Her eyes scanned the text and her mind soaked in the information, the more she knew about everything, medical research, divergency, fear simulations, erudite... The more she could be useful. She sipped her tea slowly, eventually finishing it. it wasn't until very late when she eventually drifted off to sleep, the book falling off her bed.

--

Charlie made herself another tea, early in the morning. She sipped at it as she sat at the table talking with her mother. They had a pleasant conversation and ate a little. Charlie began to have a suspicion that Sasha knew about Finn's divergency, as when she talked about worrying about some of the initiates fear simulations, Sasha had a keen interest in Finn's, and Charlie tried to answer in subtle like ways to see what Sasha knew. They didn't talk about it for very long, but Charlie began to surmise that Sasha must know something. However it didn't matter today. "The kids are having a break from fear simulations, they're doing a free-for-all as a break. I know Aubrey's been struggling, so I'm hoping this helps her feel better about today." Charlie got up, taking her dishes to the sink and washing them quickly. "And since it is a fight today, I'll need to have more medical supplies ready... Especially if it's like the last time." She muttered softly, remembering how Indira had brought a real knife rather than a pain simulating one, and had cut into Blair. She hoped nothing of that sort would happen today, the kids were in enough stress as it was, rather than needing to be fighting with each other. She remembered her own experience, with Indira's older brother no less, and how awful that had been. Not only did she carry emotional scars with her now because of that, but her physical body was marked and weakened because of the way she had been bullied and pummeled from the training. None of the trainers back then had liked her, other than for how she looked, so she had received no special treatment, in fact the trainers had found it entertaining to put her against those who were the most tough and violent, to watch her crash and burn. Yet she made it through, because of Caspian and Alice. Charlie sighed audibly as she thought of those two, how she missed the both of them.

Charlie's hand sub-consciously rose up and rubbed against the tattoo that sat at the base of her neck, which was covered by her hair. A phoenix, in memorial of Alice. She and Caspian both had the tattoos, and she would always remember Alice this way, as a fiery phoenix that rose up higher and higher even in the hardest of times. She should never have died. And Caspian? Well to Charlie he may as well have been dead, he wasn't around anymore, he wasn't an instructor anymore, he just went out, drank, and slept with girls all the time. She missed him dearly. But she had a job to do. She grabbed her jersey, a dark leather one with a fluffy hood, it smelled like Caspian which made sense since he had given it to her a long time ago, and even though she had washed it (very carefully), it still reminded her of him. She slipped it over a long sleeved black shirt and tight dark blue jeggings. She said goodbye to her mother and walked out the door, heading towards the infirmary. It was cold this early in the morning, the sun was just rising so the sky was mostly dark except for the light that highlighted the buildings around her. It was not comforting to walk in such darkness, she heard noises that were normal and they sounded like people following her, but she had heard that so many times that she ignored it, she felt like the cold was unnatural, but it was perfectly normal. She was just paranoid. Her mind told her Jeremy is around every corner even though Charlie knew that was untrue, that feeling always haunted her like a bad smell, and althuogh Ghost had saved her from Jeremy, and she had confidence in Ghost, it was very much a fear that she was still trying to overcome.

She finally made it to the infirmary, and of course, she made herself another tea, this time she decided Jasmine tea would be quite pleasant, and she sipped at it as she tidied the infirmary and got herself a medical bag to have ready for the fight today. She hummed to herself as she did this.

Interacting with: Nobody, free for interactions.

Aubrey Amber Stark || 16 || Initiate || Dauntlessborn

The mirror had both made Aubrey excited for more information on what was happening with Charlie, and also disappointed her inner self for breaking what seemed like a sweet, yet terrifying, moment. She immediately looked at it though. "You're right, Charlie would never do something like this. She would never break something like this, it must have been the person who has been hurting her." Aubrey said, nodding at Finn to show him that she approved of how he had found it. However it was getting late. "We should hurry up and clean up though, make sure she doesn't know we were in here, I'm sure she'll be coming home before too long. Let's get it all back to normal." Aubrey and Finn rushed around making sure the place looked back to normal, and soon enough they exited Charlie's room in the nick of time, as Charlie was just opening the front door. Aubrey slammed Charlie's door a bit too loudly, causing her and Finn to jump, and then they rushed into the dining room in order to not look suspicious, though they both were definitely worried that Charlie had caught them. They smiled sweetly and said to Charlie that they'd just been hanging here "To try and get over the fear simulations... You know, they've been sh*tty, and we wanted a break from the compound." Aubrey said, grabbing Finn's hand in order to sell their difficulty. He squeezed it, either to play along, or because he was nervous, or just because that's what he always did. She didn't know, but she appreciated it. Charlie gave her back her jacket, and Aubrey thanked her, before she and Finn exited as soon as possible in order to get back to the compound.

As they walked they talked for ages, trying to figure out what to do. Who could it be? What men did they know that would do something to Charlie? Or could it be a man who wouldn't do this to Charlie and they were just a good liar? Was it a factionless person? A criminal? An initiate? Someone from another faction? Did they only hurt her or did they do more? Were they threatening her? was she doing anything illegal for them? Their minds and mouths buzzed with theories, and soon they were yawning with tiredness as they reached the compound and walked sluggishly back to the dorms. Both of them tired from the drop of adrenaline once they were finished with the hunt for Charlie's assailant. They got back to the dorm and whispered to each other, saying that tomorrow they'd keep an eye on Charlie. Soon enough though they both got tired, and Aubrey fell asleep head hanging over the bunk, long blonde hair falling over the side like a curtain around Finn's which was under her.

--

Aubrey was lucky she didn't fall out of bed, but due to her uncomfortable position she woke with a smashing headache. She groaned as the pain throbbed and she sat up, immediately regretting that as her body washed with nausea and she fell to her pillow, almost fainting from the blood pouring out of her head down her body. She lay there for a few seconds as the room spun and she breathed in and out, her heart hammering on her chest. As she lay, she thought. It's true. Someone is hurting Charlie. Badly.... Aubrey had seen the evidence, blood, a broken mirror, torn shirts. Someone was actually hurting Charlie more than just a little. In her own room too, it seemed. It was disgusting. She balled her fists, breathing harshly. But Finn and I will get them. They have no chance whatsoever. Aubrey felt like she and Finn could do it, they'd already found so much in just a couple hours, surely they'd manage to do much better as time went on. Today they would keep an eye on Charlie, surely she had to let something slip eventually. Aubrey yawned, finally deciding it was time to face the day, headache and all. At least Ghost had grown out of the need to wake them up with terrifying balloons popping, or a snake beign wrapped around Finn's body. She climbed down, looking at Finn as he slept, and smiling. If she'd had a pen she would have drawn something on him, but she was too tired and full of a headache to do that. She instead just tickled his nose with her hair, causing his nose to wrinkle up in his sleep, and then she skipped away as he sneezed loudly. She wasn't sure who woke up from that, but she was already in the shower, stripping down to wash herself in the cold water, to wake herself up and hopefully get rid of the headache. She had no qualms with showering in a bathroom that was fairly public, it wasn't like she was ashamed of her body. plus, she liked to look in the mirror and admire her tattoos. They looked pretty cool. The one which she had gotten yesterday was a little red, as always, but it would be a neat addition to her amount of tattoos. She finally finished showering, and wrapped a towel around herself, grabbing some clothes to wear and slipping it on. She did keep herself covered but she wasn't trying too hard, so if one was really trying then she was sure they'd see more than they should, but she didn't care. She slipped into some short shorts, and a tight red tank top, but because it was still morning and cold she slipped on a dark brown jacket over top to keep her warm. She yawned and stretched, watching other people as they got up and moved around. She looked around for someone to talk to, or maybe hang out with, before the day would begin. "Anyone want to join me for a run and some stretches? Get our blood pumping before the day begins? If so, join me outside the dorm and try to catch up." She winked at all the boys, playfully flirting with them, even Finn, whom she dared to fake blow a kiss. She laughed cheerily and jogged to the door, waiting outside the room, stretching as she did so in hopes that others would join her.

Interacting with: Finn Baratheon and whoever else would like to

Christian "Chris" Parks || 16 || Initiate || Dauntlessborn

The talk Chris had with Night was pleasant enough. He seemed to agree that his faction was quite stiff and bland, and Chris nodded, that seemed accurate. Night then asked how it was for Chris growing up. "well... my mum died about ten years ago I think, so I don't remember her very well. My dad was also busy, since he's one of the leaders in Dauntless. So I was mostly brought up by my... six older siblings? They all still live here in Dauntless and you've probably seen them around. I doubt you've met my nieces though." He realized he hadn't seen them in a while, and tried to make a mental note to remind himself to go visit them sometime, or ask Oscar and Jacob if they'd be free at some point. "Well, it was just easy, I mean I only chose Dauntless because it was my home, and my family. So it was just an easy decision really. None of the other factions really stood out to me though. Even the one I got my aptitude for... Candor. Not really what I wanted, I'm better at being a Dauntless than anything else. Or so my family says." He glanced at the sky. "it's getting quite dark, we should probably head in. Nice talking to you though." Chris said, grabbing Night by the shoulder in a fond way of saying farewell, before sauntering back inside. He wasn't going to waste time looking for Blair, not that it would be time wasted to do something for his wonderful girlfriend, but to uselessly look for her when he had no point of knowledge on where she was? Now that would be useless indeed. He instead just walked back to his home. He knew he should sleep in the dorm more often, but after talking about his family he felt a little homesick. He arrived home just in time to see dinner was being set up, and Asher ran to give him a hug, pulling him into an embrace then rubbing his knuckles into his head as a tease. Chris grinned, though was, as always, slightly irritated by Asher's insistence to do that to him. He shoved Asher away playfully, and walked to the table. Obadiah sat there, and he raised an eyebrow. Chris ignored it, he didn't want to talk about drugs at the table. Obadiah seemed to get the idea, and Chris sat beside Phillip. The dinner was pleasant, it was nice to see Phillip, Asher and Obadiah. His other siblings all lived elsewhere, so Chris didn't see them as often.

After dinner, Chris walked to his bedroom, but his father called him into his office. Christian sighed, and obediently walked in, closing the door behind him. "Christian, I know you don't want to talk about these things, but you know that you need this... drug... to survive now. I don't want you buying it from unsavoury people and the factionless. I need you to come to me, and me only. I don't want this going out of control." Christian frowned, his eyes darkening and his body stiffening, he didn't like the way his father spoke to him like this, but he knew he was right. He refused to answer, arms folding, but he nodded briskly. Obadiah nodded, and he passed Christian a small amount. "You are not to take any around with you. You are not to tell people about this. If anyone is to have any when you need it, it must be Blair, myself, your brothers should you wish that, or even Aubrey. Not you. I can't trust you with this, you know that don't you?" Chris felt a burst of anger and slammed his fist on the table. Before he could say anything spiteful though he just clamped his jaw shut, breathing harshly through his nose, eyes shut and body shaking. He felt awful, he really needed another dose of the lull. And he had some. He just hated how his dad made him feel about it. "Fine." Chris said through his teeth, looking up at his dad with stormy grey eyes. "Have it your way." He almost spat, before storming out of the office and up the stairs to his room. Slamming his door he looked at the lull like it was poison, well... it sort of was. But eventually the pain in his chest, and the taste in his throat, and the shaking of his body all came together and he took it, to relieve himself of not only the phsyical affliction from his addiction but the anger that was welling against his father. The lull washed through him, and he through the container against the wall as his anger dissipated, and he began to see his room in a new way, colours washing through the air, his blankets felt like quick sand as he fell onto the bed, his head spinning with no thought, just colour. His eyes closed.

--

Chris woke up feeling much better than when he had fallen asleep. He lazily got up, and had a shower. He had sweated a lot in his bed, and it was gross, so he needed to wash that off. He combed his hair back slightly and got dressed, putting on a black t-shirt with a black leather jacket over top, then some dark grey jeans. He looked a lot better today, his face seemed to have colour in it, his eyes were more blue than grey. His mind was clear and his body felt warm and happy. He walked out of his room in a good mood, needing to go see Blair. He walked to a cafe, one of the only ones that were open at this time, and ordered one sweet white chocolate with salted caramel coffee and a decaf black coffee for himself. He also ordered a sweet bagel and a savoury bagel. Then he walked towards the dorms, coffee's and bagels in hand, to see if Blair was there. Aubrey stood out front stretching, and Chris nodded to her. "Hey, is Blair inside?" Aubrey shook her head, saying that Blair hadn't been there all night. Chris nodded, thanking her before he walked towards Blair's house. He hoped she was there, otherwise he would get worried.

He walked to Blair's house quickly, because he was eager to see her, and also because he didn't want the coffee's going cold before he did. Finally reaching her house he knocked on the door, waiting patiently outside. Hoping his girlfriend would appreciate the effort he was trying to make. He hadn't been the best boyfriend every, but he wanted to do special to her as she was the person he loved most. He held his breath as the door began to open, hoping desparately that it was Blair and not one of her siblings.

Interacting with: Night paralyzed and then hopefully Blair WanderLust.

 

[jrink]

When Dante's eyes flickered open once more, the first thing of any note was the chill of the wind, lessened by only the warmth of the red head rested against his shoulder. And the sky above was dark, an all encompassing dark, broken by only the most subtle of the tinges of light slowly growing on the horiz - wait, sky?

Sitting up abruptly as the ache of the cold concrete underneath him alerted him to his location, Dante paused mid motion as Fable let out a sleepy little sound that alerted him that the body pressed against his was hers. That revelation sent a bit of heat to the dark-haired boy's ears (a totally unnecessary reaction he thought, as it wasn't unusual for them to be this close) though he didn't bother with trying to sort out what that meant, not when it was past curfew and they were still here. Would they be caught, would they be going to get in trouble? Pushing away that thought as a more determined one rose to the forefront of his mind - not if they got back before anyone noticed - Dante busied himself with stirring Fable with a light shake of her shoulders.

"We have to go," he murmured, peering at the girl's mismatch eyes as they flickered open, eventually tearing his gaze away to help himself and Fable up (if she needed it). Stretching a bit in efforts to ease the tension he felt in his back muscles, Dante paused as a bit of pain shot from his left ankle. He readjusted his standing pose to put more pressure on the right one and though it didn't do much to ease the pain it was an easy fix for now. He didn't want to think on what that pain, subtle as it was, meant - not right now - so instead Dante reiterated his last sentence though this time the words were softer, "we have to go."

Once the girl had risen to her feet beside him, Dante begin the progression back toward the way they'd came.

Leaping from roof-to-roof the day before had been fun then, even with the near-death scare. But this morning with his stiff muscles from the hard pavement and the ache of his ankle with every leap, it was excruciating. Wincing a bit he built up the speed for yet another jump, Dante froze in his steps, taking hold of the roof parapet as something like a sraping - a familiar scraping - touched over his ears. Was that -?

Ahead, on the next building over (and they'd been so close, Dante realized with a pitter-patter of his heart, so close to getting caught), the roof door swung open and out stepped a figure Dante could definitely say that he did not want to see. Ghost. Dante froze, suspended in his shock, and for a moment he almost felt as if the man had already seen him. But then the man's eyes were darting elsewhere, the dark trench coat (of all the pretentious pieces of clothing the crook could wear-) coming off as he bent towards the pavement to set it down.

With no care for the persistent throb in his ankle, Dante threw himself to the ground and braced his back against the cold brick of the parapet behind him. Shutting his eyes as he put great effort into slowing his frantic breaths, the thought of Fable had his dark eyes flickering open once more a bit wildly. Where was she? The sun was beginning to rise as Dante let his gaze flicker about a bit frantically, only stilling once a dark copper head descended into his vision.

Relief registering in his dark gaze, Dante wordlessly communicated panic towards his best friend with a widening of his eyes. As the girl flattened herself to the ground beside him, Dante scooted a little closer, wanting to whisper but far too nervous about being heard to put his fears into words. Being near her did assuage some of the panic though.

Just as his heart was beginning to slow there was another scrape - was the guy leaving? Dante slid to his knees and peeked a little bit over the parapet wall to check. And promptly was a little disappointed to see (but more than that, curious..?) another of the initiates. It was... Blair, the blonde who was top of the class right now despite her non-intimidating, slender frame. Eyes narrowing a little bit as he resumed his peeking (were they meeting or was this a coincidence?), Dante noted Ghost had descended from his line of sight. Just as Dante was beginning to wonder where the guy had gone, he was back, leaping from behind a chimney to attack the girl. The struggle that ensued seemed a fight to the death made all the more precarious by the knifes Ghost donned and the panicked words Blair was shouting in the man's direction.

Fable tensing from beside him momentarily pulled Dante's eyes away from the situation. From the wild look in her eyes, Dante could tell she was bracing herself to spring from this roof to the next, to put a stop to the situation developing. And while Dante admired his friend's empathy and resolve, a darker, maybe more logical part of him pushed him towards the opposite resolve. He let his hands close over the girl's shoulder, tried to calm her.

"Hey," he murmured, a warning note in his voice. "don't. Seriously, we can't get caught up here. And I'm sure she can take c-"

There was a sound like a gasp - though this noise wasn't of the feminine variety - and Dante broke off to glance towards the altercation once more though he kept his hold on Fable's shoulders. Ghost was... a little taller? It was hard to understand what he was seeing as the guy grew a little taller like he was... floating? Could Ghost fly? Did Ghost have powers?

Shaking his head to clear it of those strange thoughts, Dante glanced back over again and all was right in the world, Ghost was no longer... tall, and the fight had resumed. "You're dead", Ghost was saying, and Blair was no longer in sight, probably on the ground. Just as Dante was numbly wondering whether they were about to witness the death of an initiate by a trainers hand no less - they were to far too intercede, and Dante wasn't sure whether he wanted to risk his or Fable's place on what felt like a bet - the blonde was rising from the ground angrily, exchanging one confusing sentence after the next with the entirely too smug trainer.

Motioning for Fable to listen as well if she wasn't already, Dante leaned forward a bit in efforts to soak in every word.

FILLER DON'T DELETE
FILLER DON'T DELETE
FILLER DON'T DELETE
FILLER DON'T DELETE
FILLER DON'T DELETE
FILLER DON'T DELETE
FILLER DON'T DELETE


{ MOOD }
tired, achy

{ LOCATION }
the roof (whoops)

{ TAGS }
Sanctuaryforall1

Dante Aiken
erudite-born initiate

code by ditto (head empty go bonk)​

 

[paralyzed]

Night Scott | Abnegation-born, Dauntless initiate.


Interactions: Aubrey/ Nerdy.

Night woke up feeling refreshed and ready for the day to come. Rubbing his face with his palm as he sat up brought reality to the front of his mind. Today would be another day of training. Hoping it wouldn’t be another fear sim, he swung his legs off the bed and stood up. He already felt the comfort he got from a good night's rest disintegrate as he looked back at his bed with longing. Night didn’t know what time it was but it felt earlier than he usually started his day. A couple more hours couldn’t hurt anything, he felt the urge to flop back on his bed and fall into a deep sleep. He almost indulged in more sleep when his lazy state was interrupted by a blonde initiate who was inviting her fellow initiates to join her for a run. She looked like she was ready to take on anything the day threw at her, and Night wanted to be more like that. But his bed was right there inviting him to close his eyes and pass out till he had to get up. Night shook his head, laziness wouldn’t get him anywhere other than a free ticket to the factionless. A run would be good for him, besides, he needed to start getting more exercise outside of training.
Once he gets rid of the built-up rheum in his eyes he knew he would be able to fully concentrate on the day ahead. He headed to the bathroom sink, and cupping some water within his hands, splashed it onto his face. The water felt like it was straight from a fresh river or some sort of body of water. Who knew where it actually came from, Night didn’t seem to care as he took multiple gulps of it to refresh his parched mouth. Rubbing the sleepy from the corners of his eyes an eyelash got loose and ended up on his left eyeball. The lash began to irritate it leading to a spread of bloodshot in the shape of multiple small lighting bolts. Trying his hardest to remove it without causing any damage to his eye, it eventually came out only to disappear down the sink below. He looked at himself in the mirror to find that his attempt at protecting his eye had only caused more irritation. Breaking the gaze he had with himself in the mirror, he reached into his bag of clothing. Grabbing black sneakers, he paired a dark gray t-shirt with some black joggers. Wanting no one to see his red eye and ask ‘if he had been crying’ he also searched for a pair of sunglasses. Putting them on, he left the bathroom.

Seeing that the girl wasn’t in the room he hoped she hadn’t left already. It was always nice to have someone to talk to. Plus maybe some more initiates would join in, the more the merrier. Exiting the dorm he found her outside stretching. “Good morning,” realizing he hadn’t tied his sneakers he sat on the floor, his back leaning against the wall. After he finished fixing his shoelaces he looked at Aubrey and extended his hand, “Sorry about that, I’m Night.” After hearing her name he replied with a "Nice to meet you, Aubrey." Straightening his leg he grabbed the top of his shoe trying his best to stretch. He realized he wasn’t as flexible as he expected himself to be, a slight burn behind his knee told him he had stretched that leg enough. “Anyways, I could definitely go for a run right now, better than my original idea of starting the day by sleeping in.” He chuckled, “Seriously though, how do you wake up so early.” He realized if it wasn’t for Aubrey inspiring him to get up he would’ve been sleeping right now instead of getting ready to exercise. “I guess I’m just too used to sleeping in, it was one of the only self-indulgences I had in Abnegation. What about you, did your parents like wake you up with pots and pans every morning, or are you just an early bird?” He stood up and pressed his ankle against the wall, feeling that satisfying burn. After finishing up his ankle mobility stretches he turned to Aubrey. “Hey, got any idea what we’ll be doing for training today?” He asked like a child wondering if they were having cake or pie tonight when in reality he was asking if he would end the day being physically or mentally beaten.

 

[WanderLust.]

Blair Avalon // 16 // Dauntless Born // Initiate // Divergent
Interacting With: Chris Nerdy. Ghost Aviator

Blair had awoken before the sun that morning. As her ocean colored irises fluttered open, darkness was still shrouding the sky, the sun barely beginning to peek over the horizon. She laid there for a moment, immobile, numb, her eyes fixated on the ceiling as she forced herself to take deep breaths. The familiar and constant feeling of anxiety began to chew at her insides as she remembered she was supposed to meet Ghost before training today. After a few moments, the young blonde forced herself to sit up. She swung her feet over the side of her bed and stood up, her head pounding from her telekinetic episode yesterday. Was it always going to be like this? She made her way into the bathroom, splashing some cool water on her face before reaching into the medicine cabinet and grabbing two pills to help with her headache. She washed them down with water from the sink, which was cold and tasted unpleasantly metallic, before grabbing her brush and combing through her long blonde hair. Her locks would stay down today, she simply didn't have the energy to tie up her hair. She lazily pulled on a blue sports bra and black leggings, her usual training gear, and then tossed on a dark jacket over that for good measure. Perhaps if she wore dark enough clothing she would be able to disappear amongst the shadows on her way to meet Ghost. She crept down the stairs of her house, nobody was awake yet besides her, she wondered if her presence would be missed at the dorms, and that was when she heard a knock on the door. Blair tilted her head, who would be showing up at her house this early? Blairs nimble fingers reached for the doorknob and as she turned it she felt stupid for not realizing earlier who was waiting outside.

A familiar blonde face stared back at her, a face that had been the only peace she found in her dreams. Before she knew what she was doing, her small body crashed into Christian's, wrapping her arms around him in a tight embrace. The wave of exhaustion finally overcoming her. She wanted to tell him everything, but she knew he didn't trust Ghost, and Blair couldn't risk pulling Chris into this. Her divergency had already caused enough problems, she wouldn't let this add on to the pile. "Sorry... " she sniffled softly as she pulled away, trying to conceal the fact that tears had pricked at her eyes. "I've just really missed you." A sad smile touched her lips. That was when she realized that Chris was holding what appeared to be breakfast. The blonde girls smile widened as he explained that he had gotten her breakfast and handed her the coffee and bagel. Her heart swelled...and then shattered all over again as she realized she wouldn't be able to enjoy it with him. She had to think of some sort of excuse as to why she had to jet off... and why he couldn't come with her. "Thank you so much Chris... but... " She paused for a moment as she stared into his eyes, she couldn't lie to him... but she also knew she couldn't tell him the whole truth. "I have to run out for a bit... I promise it's nothing to worry about, but someone is ... helping me with my... " she lowered her voice incase any of her family members were lingering, "my divergency... Can I meet you near the chasm before training?" She watched as Chris seemed to process what she had just said, his expression at first unreadable. She could tell he wanted to go with her, to protect her, that he didn't like the idea of her going off alone like this... but she also hoped that he would trust her. When he finally nodded, Blair stood on her tiptoes to plant a soft kiss on his lips. "I love you... I'll see you soon okay?" and with that, Blair began making her way towards the strange meeting place Ghost had suggested, looking over her shoulder every thirty seconds to make sure she wasn't being followed.

*************************************

By the time Blair had finally made her way up the many flights of stairs that led to the rooftop, her exhaustion was finally setting in. She hadn't been paying much attention to the tears that now stained her cheeks. The long walk here had allowed her mind to fixate on everything that had happened with Christian. How she missed him, how she hadn't spent as much time with him as she should have... how he was dying and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Her mind was a mess as she pushed the door to the roof open, squinting as the bright light of the sun crept over the building, nearly blinding her. She blinked as her vision slowly came back into focus, pulling herself up and onto the gravelly roof, Blair let the door shut softly, inwardly cringing at how noisy it was. She tried to examine her surroundings as a deadly silence ensued, had she arrived before Ghost? She took a few steps forward, only to see the faint outline of what must have been a jacket laying on the ground. So Ghost was here. But if that was the case then where was he? Then the unsettling sound of gravel shifting beneath hurried feet caused the blonde to whip her head around. A silent and yet frenzied Ghost was quite literally charging at her with a knife in each hand, it felt like time was moving in slow motion as her mind slowly shifted from confusion to downright terror. "What the hell are you doing?!' She finally blurted out, stumbling backwards. But her question went unanswered, and instead she was forced to dodge one of Ghost's swipes, his blade just narrowly missing Blair's skin as she yelped in surprise. If she hadn't been fearing for her life before she was now.

Frantically, she reached down towards her ankle, she always kept a small dagger strapped against her boot just in case, but she knew it wasn't a fair match for Ghost's two blades. Regardless, Blair tried to regain her bearings as her silent opponent seemed to be analyzing her every movement. She had never fought an instructor before, and if she had had to pick an instruct to spar with, Ghost would've been her last choice. But a choice was something Blair didn't have in this moment. She felt the gravel under her feet shift as she lunged forward, attempting to shift to a more offensive method of fighting. She was smaller than Ghost, not by much, but still smaller. She would need to throw her weight into this if she had any hope of actually overcoming him. As she attempted to strike her opponents shoulder, he danced out of her reach, causing her to stumble to the ground. Blair landed on her back, effectively knocking the wind out of herself before her head cracked against the hard rocks beneath her. She let out a groan of pain before attempting to scramble back to her feet. How had she overcome Ghost last time? Of course... the telekinetic outburst that had been the reason for her pounding headache this morning. She couldn't do that again, she didn't want to do that again, but as she saw Ghost readying for another attack she began to feel her options dwindling. The fall she had taken and the consequent blow to the head had left her too dizzy to attempt to physically fight him off. This was her best option... right?

Usually, it only happened when she was upset, or angry, she had never used this ability out of fear before. Come on, Blair, Focus. She fixated her gaze on Ghost's lingering form, trying to imagine what she wanted to happen, trying to will the rock on the ground to do what she wanted to do. Her eyes never left Ghost, and when the stone finally began to rise, it all happened so quickly she questioned if she had done it with her mind or if she had actually just picked up the damn thing and thrown it at him. But she knew she hadn't moved. The jagged rock had collided with her opponents neck, and seeing him stumble from his injury gave her a flicker of satisfaction. Why had he attacked her? Had this all been some sort of rouse? Had he tricked her? Had he actually just been planning on killing her this whole time... ridding the world of one more pesky little divergent? She hadn't even realized that her mental spiral was having real world effects. By the time she was pulled back to reality, Ghost was hovering a few inches off the ground. For whatever reason, this sight caused Blair to recoil. She didn't like the image of her instructor being strung up like a puppet with invisible string, and it made her stomach churn knowing that it was her own doing. Her head reeled as she tried to turn off whatever force she had been subconsciously using to do it in the first place, but her trance was broken for her as she felt the cold metal of one go Ghost's blades slice through her jacket and cut into the flesh of her arm. She gasped at the sudden pain, and immediately felt the exhaustion of using her powers set in. Her head was pounding was she stared back at the phantom who had now joined her in a deadly dance, both of them walking in circles which only served to make the blonde dizzier.

Ghost's intentions for this attack were still completely unclear to Blair, which meant she had to assume that he would use deadly force if given the opportunity. Her vision was already blurry, but as their deadly dance continued Blair found herself staring almost directly into the rising sun, Ghost's form a mere silhouette that was moving too quickly for her to comprehend. She shut her eyes, relying on her instincts so as not to further blind herself. Her fist jutted out into the space where Ghost should have been, but as usual, Ghost was not where he was supposed to be, and she stumbled forward when her throw did not connect with him the way she had planned. She felt a pressure behind her knee and suddenly she was crashing towards the ground, the world spinning around her as she clutched onto her knife with her left hand. Blair was not left handed, but she had been forced to keep the blade in her left hand when she attempted to punch Ghost with her right. A cry of pain ripped from her lips as she felt a hand knotted in her hair, holding her up, dragging her until finally she was thrown back onto the gravel, her head once again colliding with the jagged stones with a sickening crunch. The boot crushing her throat was just the cherry on top for her perfect morning. She wheezed painfully, her hands reaching up to claw at Ghost's ankle in an attempt to remove the pressure from her windpipe. He really was going to kill her. As the world around her began to darken, her vision deciding that colors were no longer necessary, Blair was feebly scrambling to find her knife which had fallen to the ground before she had. When her fingers finally found the blade, she latched onto it. She was seconds away from impaling Ghost's foot with her knife when he spoke for the first time. You're dead.

When he finally removed his boot Blair tried to suck in as much air as she could, the oh so familiar sensation of drowning was too close for comfort as she coughed and sputtered, trying to make sense of what had just happened. As Ghost continued his ramblings, Blair barely even registered a single word he was saying. She was too consumed with anger to bother listening to him brag. This had all been a fucking test? Blair rose unceremoniously to her feet, her eyes still red from her earlier shed tears, her face pale from using her powers, her arm covered in blood from her wound. She stared back at Ghost, a combination of confusion and rage burning behind her blue eyes. "Would you mind telling me what the hell the point of this was?" She snarled, her exhaustion had reached the point where she was no longer able to conceal her emotions. In fact, she was just about ready to collapse when Ghost explained himself. A very unorthodox method of training her, but he had a point. Blair had stopped herself from using her powers to their full extent. She knew just as well as Ghost that if she had wanted to, she could've just thrown him off the roof so why hadn't she? Obviously the fall would've been fatal, and if not, close to it. Why had she hesitated? Why hadn't she thrown Ghost to his death when she thought that he was trying to kill her? She realized her answer silently, having no intentions of admitting it to Ghost. She had never actually believed that Ghost was going to kill her, for some reason, she had refused to truly believe that he would turn on her like that. And so... she had refused to use deadly force on Ghost. Granted, her intuition had been right. If she had failed to make such an assumption perhaps she would have one less ally and one less instructor right now. She knew Ghost still certainly wasn't harmless, in fact, he was quite dangerous, and she appreciated that. But a part of her was glad that she could still trust him... for the most part. She rolled her eyes at his closing line, a humorless laugh escaping her lips "Right, you know the whole Mr. Miyagi thing really works for you. You should try it more often." She grumbled, pulling off her jacket to examine her wound.

Maverick Maddox // 18 // Dauntless Born // Instructor
Interacting with: Bella MWMASkairipa (Poppy Mentioned) Wolfiee

Maverick awoke to the sound of his phone buzzing on the night stand. His eyes blinking awake as the sunlight hit his eyes. He took in a deep breath, slowly glancing around the room before abruptly sitting upright. He was not alone. Of course he wasn't, he had fallen asleep with Bella in his bed last night. He ran his fingers through his dark hair as his eyes lingered on Bella's sleeping form. She was curled up next to him, her fiery red hair just slightly covering her face, sleeping peacefully. She looked just as beautiful now as she had the first time he had a seen her. He reached for his phone to see what time it was, and let out a sigh of relief when he realized he wasn't running late. In fact, they were still a bit early. Placated, her checked his messages, seeing Poppy's name he opened the text and read it quickly. Poppy was going to the meeting with her father today? And why was she worried about Ghost? Maverick wasn't aware that Poppy had ever spent any time with Ghost? He paused before texting back "Good Luck." A plan was already beginning to form in his mind but he couldn't let Poppy know about it, he would play it off like he didn't care. Besides, at this current moment, he had more pressing matters to attend to. His eyes returned to Bella's sleeping form, she looked so peaceful it almost pained him to wake her up, but he had to at some point.

"Bella..." he spoke softly, his fingers lightly brushing her hair out of her face as her eyes blinked awake "Hey... Good morning" he smiled gently, hoping she wasn't too freaked out that she was waking up in a bed that was not her own. "We have to get ready for training." He explained softly before rolling out of bed and grabbing a fresh t-shirt from one of the dressers. He turned away from the bed as he changed, pulling the shirt he had slept in off only to replace it with a clean shirt, this one grey as opposed to the black one he had fallen asleep in. When he turned back to face the door Maverick's stomach churned as he realized there was a very real possibility Ghost was currently in the apartment. He froze for a moment before lowering his voice "Stay here for a minute... I'm gonna make sure the coast is clear." He winked playfully before inching the door open and shutting it quickly behind him. Caspian still wasn't home... no surprise there. But as usual, Ghost's bedroom door remained eternally shut and probably locked although Maverick had never bothered to find out. There was only one sure fire way to test whether or not his phantom of a roommate was home. "Hey Ghost... I'm gonna shower, mind if I borrow your towel?" He waited for a moment, then another, but Ghost's bedroom door remained shut, and the astonishing lack of response was all Maverick needed to know. They were alone in the apartment... for now.

He quickly walked back into the bedroom where Bella seemed to have gotten ready for the day. "Hey um, nobody's here so we should be safe." He grinned, "But we better get moving if you want to get to training on time" He watched as Bella tilted her head, wondering why he has said 'you' and not 'we'. "I won't be joining you today, unfortunately. There's something important that I've got to do..." he trailed off. He couldn't tell Bella where he was going or what he was doing "But I can walk you to the dorms." he suggested softly. Bella seemed to agree with this idea, and Maverick nodded as he led the way out of the bedroom and towards the front door, he peered through one of the windows to ensure that nobody outside would witness an initiate leaving the residence of an instructor. Thankfully, it was still too early for most of dauntless to be out and about yet. "Come on" he motioned for her to follow him as they began to descend the long flight of stairs down from the apartment. The first part of the walk was eerily quiet, Maverick had made the walk to the dorms hundreds of times, but never with an initiate. "Hey um.... about last night..." he paused, Bella seemed like she was about to say something, but Maverick spoke before she could. "I just wanted you to know that um... I don't regret anything." His grey eyes peered back at her as his confession lingered in the air. He jumped slightly at the sound of voices that interrupted whatever moment Bella and him had been having. Before Bella had time to respond a group of initiates rounded the corner and Maverick stiffened. "You should get back to the dorms... I'll see you soon." he assured her, before turning on his heel and headed in the opposite direction. He had to find Poppy.​

 

[Aviator]

Ghost // Male // Age 18 // Training Instructor // Erudite to Dauntless
​

Ghost’s chest felt like a massive stone was pressing down on it, cutting off his oxygen. His skirmish with Blair hadn’t taken more than two minutes, but long-term usage of lull gradually sapped one's strength and stamina until the eleven flights of stairs to his apartment from the simulation rooms were enough to leave him feeling drained and shaky-legged. It wasn’t the first time that he felt thankful for having a brain and a pretty face, to account for his hopeless ineptitude as an athlete. His lungs seemed to sprout hands that were desperately reaching out for air, clawing at it, but Ghost did his best to ignore them and continued breathing through his nose, not wanting Blair to see the toll that their fight had taken on him and give her something to boast about. Her quip caused a small derisive noise to escape his throat, and he was grateful for the distraction from his ailing condition. The corners of his lips raised the slightest bit. “You sure you’re in a position to talk? You look like Cinderella after the clock struck twelve,” he said airily, one meaningful eyebrow arched at Blair’s dishevelment: flushed skin, wild eyes, and even wilder hair. That last part Ghost figured he was mostly responsible for, when he had seized her hair as leverage to throw her to the ground.
He watched as Blair removed her jacket to examine the wound that his thrown knife had left in her arm, pronating the arm to get a better look. A smear of crimson blurred where the laceration started and ended. Blair poked at the cut with a tentative finger and winced, her recoil instantaneous. Ghost hadn’t taken pleasure in hurting her, but he didn’t feel particularly remorseful about it, either. If he had wanted to really hurt her, he would have, and better she took damage from his knife than an actual assassin’s. He was training Blair to master her preternatural gift and thereby thwart the possibility of an ambush, and such injuries were a constant variable of training. What didn’t break her would only harden her, as was the story of Ghost’s life. He cleared his throat. “May I?” he asked, gesturing to her wounded arm.
The surprise on Blair’s face was evident when she looked up, meeting his eyes. A two-count passed where they mutely stared at one another, a burst of electricity charged the air, and Ghost got the strange impression that he was asking for something much greater than permission to just examine her arm. Behind Blair, the metal and glass-studded skyline seemed to fall away, and he was caught in a moment of surreal clarity that he knew he would remember for however long he lived. A contract between him and this girl was in the making, something that would forever bind their souls together and seal their shared fate. What with the unspeakably dangerous secrets between them, they weren’t just playing with fire but tempting it, challenging it, and if one of them was consumed, the other would inevitably follow.
Finally, Blair extended her arm to him. Ghost powered past the small bead of nausea that rose in his throat at the thought of direct physical contact with another person and gently curled his fingers around her slim wrist. Her skin was smooth and moist with sweat, and Ghost could feel the small spike in her pulse the moment that he drew nearer and turned her arm to get a better look at it. He lifted a brow at that observation but didn’t comment. It would be a lie to say that Blair’s perception of him as a threat did nothing to stroke his ego, but Ghost figured that in the long run it would pose an obstacle to their new partnership. Make her less inclined to trust him when it mattered. He turned his attention to the angry red slash on her upper arm, which fortunately didn’t appear to be bleeding freely anymore. “You’ll be fine,” he said after a moment. Ghost wasn’t professionally qualified to give his opinion on the matter, but he spoke with the authority of one who had received similar and worse injuries many times over. “I’m clearly no medic, but it looks to be just a graze, so I doubt you’ll need stitches. Just make sure to disinfect it.” He looked at Blair, and at this proximity, the green flecks in her eyes were strikingly visible and the sun turned her hair to liquid gold.
His examination over, Ghost released Blair’s arm and retreated two quick steps. He noticed how Blair’s shoulders loosened when he moved away, and part of Ghost couldn’t help feeling a similar sentiment. He might have thrown in his lot with her when they’d formed a pact to take down the culprits behind the Divergent disappearances, but Blair Avalon was still little more than a stranger to him. Ghost folded his arms as a cold wind gusted across the rooftop and parted his anthracite hair. He turned away slightly, staring out over the urban wasteland of buildings in various states of disrepair as he tried to figure out the best way to segue into what he had really called Blair here to talk about. Seeing no reason to beat around the bush, Ghost prefaced his proposal with “About our mutual goal. You’re not going to like my suggestion for a first step, but I need you to think about it logically, and with your own interests in mind. Can you do that for me?” Ghost waited until Blair nodded to go on.
His plan was wild and crazy and unlikely, but so was every other idea that had changed the course of history. Playing it safe would get you by, but it would never get you far. As a result of his condition, the sands in the hourglass of Ghost’s life were streaming through with dizzying speed, and he didn’t have time to play it safe. Still, just thinking about the plan sent a frisson of adrenaline through him, and he started pacing across the rooftop without fully realizing that he was doing it. “To get to the bottom of this, we’re going to have to start at the top. If anyone knows anything about this plot to round up Divergents, it’ll be the higher-ups and the shot-callers. The people who make the rules but also have the power to break them when it's beneficial. Fortunately, your dalliance with the Parks boy affords us a unique opportunity to get close to one of these individuals.” Ghost paused and cut a look at Blair. She wore the expression of one who’s walking through a haunted house and knows a jump scare is coming soon, but unsure of which corner it will be around.
“I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that you’re on at least somewhat familiar terms with Obadiah Parks via his son. As Dauntless leader, Parks likely holds a wealth of information, and it’s all ours for the taking,” Ghost said. He resumed his pacing, back and forth, like a fox caught in a box trap. “So. Like the lovely femme fatale you have the potential to become, you’re going to make up some excuse to lure Parks to a remote location, where we’ll ambush him, inject him with truth serum, and interrogate him as to everything he knows about the cover-up. The clean up is easy; afterward, we’ll just hit him with a dose of memory serum, and he won’t remember a damned thing. Plus we’ll be wearing masks to conceal our identities during the interrogation. I’ve never used memory serum on anyone before, and there’s a possibility that his memories might return if he repeatedly sees your face at later dates, so I don’t want to take any chances. With the new information we’ll learn, we will decide our next courses of action from there. What do you think?” Ghost swiveled toward Blair with perfect calm, as if he were asking for a glass of water.
Blair stared, and stared, and stared some more. Finally, the quiet of the moment shattered when she erupted into a storm of questions and objections, hurling them at Ghost almost too fast for him to keep up. At some point during the detailing of his plan, he had pulled a deck of playing cards from a pocket. These ones were metallic gold foil, with a glossy sheen that threw off flashes of light. He shifted them between his hands, cutting and flourishing them into increasingly complex configurations, occasionally making one vanish and then reappear out of thin air. Ghost’s composure was perpetual and ironclad. He didn’t have a nervous tic, but this idiosyncrasy was the closest he came. Manipulating the cards mimicked the smooth cadence of thoughts that he needed to attain for each step of his plans to slide neatly into place. His mind had its own masterfully moving fingers, and the cards lured them out.
Ghost stretched his hands into a wide diagonal arc, and the cards sprang between them with a furious snap, slapping into his bottom palm. Blair’s various accusations were rapidly depleting his patience. “I already told you once that you wouldn’t like it, but you have to set your personal feelings about Obadiah Parks aside and look at this objectively. Your life is on the line here, and probably mine too for even having this conversation with you. Parks’s opinion of you might be all fine and dandy now, but would you ever trust him with the secret of your Divergence? No, you wouldn’t, and rightfully so, because the second that he knew what you were, you’ll no longer be his son’s girlfriend, but the monster that parents tell their kids will come for them if they don’t behave. Hell, your relationship with Christian might put even more of a target on your back, because do you think that the leader of Dauntless would ever consent to having a Divergent for a daughter-in-law? Listen to me when I tell you that—”
But Blair was done listening and had started shouting to be heard over both Ghost and the howling wind. Losing his train of thought amid the cacophony of noise, he broke off with a low growl. A prickle of anger raced through his blood. In one sweep, he gathered up his playing cards and shoved them into the box, his hands shaking too much to continue doing tricks. The moment that there was a break in Blair’s words, Ghost jumped right back into the argument. “Miss Avalon. This is a man who would kill you to secure his position without a second thought. Why do you feel so obligated to defend him? I welcome you to try to come up with a better plan, but with our very limited knowledge and sources right now, I assure you that you won’t find a better solution. I’ve thought long and hard about this. Besides, Parks won’t remember any of it, and with truth serum, it’s not like we’ll have to torture him to get the information out of him.”
Blair looked at Ghost as if a forked tongue had just flickered out from between his lips. Too late, he realized that talking so casually about torturing her boyfriend’s father was the absolute last way to get Blair to trust him. Ghost fell silent and rested his forehead against his palm in disbelief at his own foolishness. He wasn’t entirely oblivious to the art of charm, but it was never something that had come to him naturally, and his aggravation with Blair had driven him to undiluted honesty. He chewed over his next words like a tough piece of meat, changing tactics. “Look, Blair,” he said eventually, trying not to let his internal weariness creep into his voice. “You wanted my help, and this is the best I can do. Take it or leave it. But don’t call this plan impossible. We can do it. I can do it, but I need you to draw Parks out alone and into the open.” Ghost crossed his arms and lifted his chin resolutely, eyes blazing. “Nothing is impossible until people limit their thinking and make it so. Don’t turn into one of them.”
Sighing in defeat, he turned away, arranging his wind-tossed hair into some semblance of order. “The sooner we act, the better,” he said as he started toward the trapdoor that led down from the roof. “Take some time to think about it if you want, but don’t take too long. I’ll pick you for simulations during training tomorrow, and you’d better have your mind made up by then.” He threw Blair a fierce look, daring her to challenge him, and crouched to pull open the door set into the roof. It swung open to reveal a short flight of rickety wooden stairs leading to a stuffy annex filled with crates and dusty with disuse. Ghost almost enjoyed Blair Avalon’s company when she wasn’t being a pain in the ass, but unfortunately this was one of those times. “Wait ten minutes before you follow down. It’ll look suspicious if we leave the roof together, and you’d still be early for training. In the meantime, I suggest you weigh your options and figure out your priorities, because you can’t have it all.”
Without waiting for a reply, he slunk down the stairs and pulled the small square door shut behind him. Contrary to what he might have implied, he wouldn’t be attending training today, because Ghost had his own priorities in order. He hadn’t once yet mentioned Jiao-Long Young’s name to Blair, or that he had hired Ghost to turn over the identities of the Divergent initiates to him for reasons unknown. That was mostly because Ghost still had yet to figure out what role Young’s daughter had to play in this grand conspiracy, and he knew her too well to think her innocent. With any luck his meeting with Leah today would reveal some answers.

* * *​

Ghost was seldom in a hurry and tried to never move faster than his ability to study and analyze his surroundings. Yet he found his legs carrying him to the simulation rooms in large, brisk strides, as if aware of the multiple layers of anguish that awaited him there and wanting to be done with them as soon as possible. As much as he wanted to see Leah succeed amid her new faction, that wasn’t the only reason he had agreed to give her a tutorial of Phase Three training, the phase which was weighted heaviest. His ulterior motive was a sneaky one, and Ghost might have felt ashamed if it wasn’t necessary. The extra care and attention he paid Leah Young was going to earn her trust, and if Ghost pressed with a light hand, perhaps she would be willing to divulge some information on her father’s doings. So not only was he tutoring Leah, but he would also be working to make good on his promise to Blair during the same interval of time. It was doubly efficient, and Ghost liked that very much.
What he wasn’t so sure of was whether he had been brave or masochistic to agree to reenter his fearscape with Leah Young watching. He knew that some of the Dauntless made a routine of going into their fear landscapes long after they had passed the final test of initiation, hoping that repeated exposure to the same fears would eventually conquer them. Apparently, sometimes it worked… and sometimes just led to a lifetime of emotional scarring. But Ghost, with minimal love for his second faction, hadn’t once explored his fear landscape ever since he had graduated at the top of his class. He liked to tell himself that it would have been a moot point when he was already the highest-ranked initiate, but Ghost knew his reasoning went far beyond that.
His heart was thundering in his chest long before he reached the simulation rooms, and Ghost had decided to skip his morning cup of coffee. Already his senses were in overdrive, and caffeine was the last thing he needed prior to being injected with fear serum. The rocky cavern floor shifted to smooth checkered tile when he rounded a corner, came up a small passage, and spilled out into the waiting room where, just yesterday, so many initiates had counted the minutes until they’d been thrust into a living, personalized nightmare. Standing in their shoes for the first time in two years, Ghost gave an apprehensive shiver.
After showing Alex Young out yesterday, Ghost had deliberately left Maverick’s testing room unlocked, figuring that on the chance Leah arrived before him, it would look suspicious if she was just loitering alone in the waiting room. When he twisted the door handle and let himself in, he found her already occupying one of the two chairs in the center of the room. Ghost repressed an anxious twitch when he noticed that she had left the initiates’ reclining leather chair for him, since it would be his fearscape they were entering. Leah raised her eyes to his, and he was slammed with deja vu so hard that his breath stuttered. Her regal posture and bottomless dark eyes were uncannily similar to her brother’s. Ghost wondered whether they had always borne such a strong resemblance, and it had taken his life spiraling out of control and the Youngs haunting his every waking moment for him to notice it.
The silence was a dark highway stretching infinitely into the distance, and Ghost couldn’t see what lay ahead or how to veer away if it was something sinister. He shifted his weight, uncomfortable and uncertain. “Um… I would like to briefly talk before we get started, if that’s okay with you?” He almost cringed at how timid that sounded. Hadn’t the Holy Ghost just a few minutes ago outsmarted a telekinetic opponent and outlined an audacious plan to get answers from the most powerful man in Dauntless? Nerves crowded his throat, and he automatically moved one hand to fiddle with his hair, caught himself halfway, and clasped his hands behind his back to keep from doing it again. Maybe he did have a nervous tic after all, because from his expression, he might have been facing a firing squad.
Ghost had asked Leah a question, but he barreled on before she could answer, before he could lose his remaining sliver of courage. “I know I have a lot to apologize for, and I could probably stand here all day and it still wouldn’t be enough.” The memory of his most recent transgression against Leah, when he had told Randi and Jaxom that she had been the one to initiate the kiss they’d glimpsed when they had walked into the barracks, flashed through his mind. “But I don’t want you to just take me at my word, because words are cheap. If you’ll let me, I’m going to try to make it up to you. That being said, I…” Ghost swallowed thickly. “I was wrong to kiss you. It’s no excuse for playing you like that, but I’ve never been in a romantic relationship before, and I’m not ready to start now. I love you, Leah, and I always will—even if I have an ass-backwards way of showing it. I just don’t think I’m in love with you.”
Years ago in Erudite, when the inevitability of Ghost and Leah’s future marriage had been common knowledge, both their families had prioritized the construction of the strongest house in all five factions. And in line with that tradition, Ghost had invited Leah to this rendezvous with the intent of honing her fearscape performance and strengthening her foothold in a faction where nothing was guaranteed. Their union had always been about business, career, ambition. Not love, or children, or growing old together. His bond with Leah existed on an intellectual level, but when you loved someone for their mind—and Leah’s was a gorgeously intelligent mind—that didn’t mean you had their heart as well. Sometimes Ghost wondered whether Charlie really had his, as he might have led her to believe.
Moving to the chair across from Leah, he sat down heavily. The leather was cold and wrinkly and meant to accommodate someone a whole head taller than Ghost, and it all but swallowed him up. A short girl’s feet wouldn’t have even touched the ground when she sat back. “So, I guess what I’m getting at is… can we just be friends?” He watched attentively as Leah’s expression flickered, but with what, he wasn’t sure. Trying to read and speculate others’ emotions had never been his forte, so Ghost had spent years numbing himself to how they felt in reaction to him. Managing his own emotions was enough trouble. Nonetheless, he couldn’t remember ever seeking another’s approval as direly as he did right now. Ghost hoped that Leah would forgive him, but he didn’t dare believe. The girl had enough venom to kill a scorpion, and that was when she was being civil.
If he was to ever win over Leah’s trust and persuade her to squeal on her father’s unscrupulous business practices, he needed her to believe him. Because the fastest way to strike down an enemy was to use their loved ones against them.

 

[Sanctuaryforall1]

Randi

Mood: Cheerful

Location: Near The Chasm

Interactions: Poppy

Yesterday had been a long day but that wasn’t really a surprise due to all that had occurred. Randi had stayed by The Chasm for a surprising number of hours, long after her coffee was gone, and well into the night and early morning. It might surprise some but The Chasm was one of the few places she could sit and just be, she didn’t need to be moving constantly, it was where she organized her thoughts and found a sort of Zen. It wasn’t until the early morning hours that Randi had managed to find her way back home and crawled into bed. Her pillow still smelled slightly of the young man who had been lying there at the start of the day and for a few seconds she let her mind travel back to when she woke up that morning with Jax beside her, it was nice.

Sleep had come easily enough for the young blonde as she stripped and cuddled under her blankets. It seemed like one moment she was putting her head on her pillow and the next it was morning and her phone was buzzing on the mattress beside her. Jade eyes drifted to the screen and the time and text blinked in her direction like an alarm going off. Yawning for a moment and allowing herself a nice stretch the young woman sat up and felt a slight sting on her side from her tattoo which caused her to smile. Turning her attention back to her phone she opened the screen and read the message from Poppy.

“Got it bb!” She shot back with her thumb moving rapidly across the glass screen.

Getting to her feet Randi opened her closet door and looked through her outfits for the day. She settled on a black and gray camo crop top t-shirt with high-waisted ripped jeans and combat boots. Her hair was braided in two chunks crossing behind her head before coming to rest over her shoulders within a matter of minutes. As soon as she had tied the last hairband, she was out the door and with her usual flare, she slid down the railing into the back of her uncle’s weapon shop where the man was already getting ready to open for the day. “Peace out old man!” She called to him with a smirk which earned her a paper ball getting thrown at her.

“Don’t call me old.” Her uncle barked back playfully as she closed the door.

Walking down the street was an act she did almost thoughtlessly. She knew exactly where Poppy was talking about and it would take her no time at all to get there. At least not with the shortcuts she knew since she grew up in these parts. Soon enough she was turning the corner and with a smile, she spotted Poppy waiting for her. “Hey babe! You look sexy but then again that’s no real surprise.” She purred to her best friend as she gave her a side hug.

Wolfiee

code by Stardust Galaxy

Fable

Mood: Cautious

Location: Roof

Interactions: Dante

The ground beneath her was less than comfortable but to her side was something warm that she instinctually curled into further. These are the first wisps of thoughts and actions she remembers as she remains mostly asleep. What eventually rouses her from her dreamworld is the warmth at her side shifting away as it begins to move. Fable let out a sleepy moan as her wordless attempt to make the warmth return to her. It is when the being continues to move that the young red head is pulled out of sleep further.

Multicolored eyes flicker open and for a moment they are tired and confused. The situation doesn’t make sense due to the fact that Dante is beside her (not an uncommon sight but still not one she is used to waking up next to) as well as the fact that she can see the sky right behind him. This is enough to wake her up much quicker than she normally would find herself doing. She pulls away from her best friend and instantly misses his warmth and touch the moment she does. Stop it! That’s pathetic! He is your best friend so knock it off! She screams at herself internally. Her freckled features are flushed slightly red despite her best efforts the fight off a blush as she leans back on her hands in order to get a better look around as well as hide her face from Dante.

“We stayed here all night.” She whispers to Dante before mentally facepalming as she realizes that he already knew that. “Hopefully no one noticed.” She breathes as she gets to her feet as quietly as she can. She nods her head in agreement with her fellow initiates words and recognizes how badly the two of them need to get out of this situation.

“Lead the way.” She adds quietly. Following his every footstep with the silence of a timid mouse, the young flame-haired female began to sneak her way down from the roof at her friend’s side.

Without hesitation the girl with hair the color of flames followed her best friend across the many roofs they had raced across the day before. It seemed like so far compared to yesterday and Fable could tell that Dante was having a bit of a hard time with his ankle. She wanted to check it out and maybe get it wrapped before training started, honestly she should have gotten him to take care of it the night before, but it was too late now. As her lips parted for her to remind him to get it looked at she was stopped by the sound of a door a rooftop over banging open. Instantly survival instincts kicked in as she slammed herself against the raised wall of the rooftop, doing her best to keep herself hidden as she tried to quickly tuck her orange hair into the hood of her jacket. It was hard to do it without being seen but with the sun rising she had to try or risk her hair lighting up her location like a flare.

As she did her best to hide herself she caught sight of Dante doing the same and managed to crawl on her belly over to him and his clearer view of the situation. Mismatched eyes watched as Blair entered the scene and for a moment Fable was confused as to why the blonde was there as well. Her confusion faded and was replaced with alarm when Ghost attacked the high-ranking initiate with what looked like the intent to kill. In an instant Fable had her muscles bunched and was ready to spring into action but was stopped when the weight of the boy beside her fell on her shoulders. "Let me go!" Fable hissed to him quietly as she struggled to help the girl a rooftop away. "He's trying to kill her!" She whispered furiously as she was stopped by Dante.

Blue and green eyes widened further when the scene before them changed once more. In a heartbeat, Fable watched as Ghost rose from the ground as though the hand of heaven were plucking him off the earth. It was clear he was not in control of this and Fable could clearly hear the death threats he was throwing at Blair. "What the hell is happening?" She muttered as quietly as she could as the events played out.

jrink

code by Stardust Galaxy

 

[Baratheon]

Finn Day

Aubrey's approval of his find made his heart soar. He liked feeling important, like he had done something well. Perhaps it was the curse of being the youngest child, but everything he did was typically overshadowed. Someone else had always already done whatever it was he was trying to accomplish. So to have his best friend's happiness directed at something he was responsible for was the best to the teen. Finn gave a smile, but it dropped quickly as Aubrey mentioned they should clean up. If Charlie were to come through the door right now... Finn felt he would die on the spot of embarrassment. He jumped in fear as they raced out, slamming the door behind them, and stood quietly as Aubrey made up a story to tell her sister. Thankfully, the older woman seemed to buy it and moved on without questioning them.

They were safe! "Hey, maybe we should go incognito more often. We're pretty good at it," Finn laughed as they headed back to the compound. Aubrey couldn't help but agree. The conversation soon turned back to Charlie's mysterious assailant, though, and the mood darkened. Who was it?

He was too tired to think. The teens reached the dorm and after a quick goodnight, each laid in their own bed. Finn stayed awake for a little longer, watching as Aubrey fell into an uncomfortable-looking position to sleep. How did she manage that? He laughed. Resisting the urge to play with her beautiful, hanging hair, the boy turned away and closed his eyes.

---------------------------------------------------

He awoke with a loud sneeze, something tickling his nose. Huh? Finn reacted quickly, but not fast enough, as Aubrey was already waltzing away, proud of herself. He shook his head and stretched. What would today hold? He still felt tired, both physically and mentally, from their adventures yesterday. He didn't feel like a shower, either, so the boy simply changed into some athletic wear and put on some deodorant. He'd shower after the horrors of whatever Ghost had planned, later. Finn was standing and making his bed when Aubrey charged out suddenly, challenging whoever dared to a race. She even blew him a kiss, which he fake-caught with a grin on his face.

"Count me in," He called back. After slipping on his shoes, he took off after her. Several other initiates had taken the challenge as well. For once, happiness seemed to be the main mood of the room. Not fear, or anger, or confusion, or inflated egos. Just kids. Kids happy to be together, to finally be finding a family amongst the chaos of initiation, to be strong and to challenge one another, and to grow. Finn basked in the moment, a smile on his own face. They would make it through this. Dauntless wasn't ready for the next generation.

Another initiate caught his eye, talking to Aubrey. Finn gave a small frown. He recognized the other young man, but not enough to casually wander over. After a moment's pause, he decided to anyways. To only introduce himself, of course. Not to make sure he wasn't, uh, coming onto Aubrey or anything. Of course not. Only to say hi. Only.

"Hey! I'm Finn, nice to meet you, uh... Sorry," He gave a small grin, making sure he was standing facing both of them at the same time, in the middle. Just in case. "I don't know your name. But I bet I can outrun you! I'm pretty fast, you can ask Aubrey here." Nevermind he was shorter than Night by far, Finn was not about to let himself seem weak or slow.

// Nerdy. paralyzed

TEMPLATE © BOKEH




TEMPLATE © BOKEH​

 

[xayah.]

LEAH YOUNG

erudite to dauntless | 16 | initiate
​

Peering one last time at the small scrap of paper that contained her plan for the day, Leah crumpled it in one swift motion before getting ready. The hustle and bustle of the initiate barracks was more than enough to snuff out the noise, but it wasn't like any sort of distraction was needed for the scheming she was doing. Even though they were on phase two of initiation, the Erudite transfer was still an acquaintance to many, much less a friend. Her presence was barely felt in comparison to people like Finn and Aubrey, and at times, it was apparent that some people only realized Leah hadn't thrown herself off the edge of the Chasm when her name showed up during the occassional initiate ranking report. Not that being unknown was necessarily a bad thing, though. The swift change of pace from being scrutinized for every single action in Erudite to enjoying the peace and quiet that came with being unknown in Dauntless was more than welcomed.
While the other initiates juggled dressing and talking, Leah quickly changed into what was basically her everyday attire in Dauntless at this point: a form-fitting black tank top and ankle length leggings. That was another plus. There was no need to maintain appearances which not only saved time but energy as well. That didn't mean the subconscious desire to look her best had faded, though. Desire was truthfully too strong of a word. It was more of a nagging that manifested as the sound of her mother's voice. However, like all children, ignoring your parents seemed to get easier with age, and the once completely submissive Erudite princess was now no exception. Speaking of appearances, Leah patted down her shirt to smooth out any wrinkles before realizing she filled it out more than before. Her lean but flimsy body was now toned and firmer, serving as a testament to her slow transformation into a member of Dauntless. It was... disconcerting, to say the least, and something about the minor realization plagued Leah as she headed out of the barracks.
Thankfully, she could be plagued in peace. With only the greatest overachievers heading out earlier than her, and no one trailing, Leah took a detour to the rooms where the fear simulations were. She lightly fiddled the handles to check for any resistance before finding the one left open. Two chairs lay vacant, and as Leah entered and occupied the one furthest from the door, a creeping suspicion found its way into her thoughts. It wasn't a new one. Leah had actually thought of it when she was originally writing on the tiny scrap of paper. Ferris was not the type to just provide aid, especially not to someone he had such a tumultuous relationship with. Even though the two of them had kissed, something that was unimaginable to Leah if it hadn't actually happened, and he had somehow gained the ability to apologize, only an idiot would believe Ferris was capable of doing something completely out of good will. Well... maybe for Charlie. Something almost... teasing found its way on Leah's face at the thought of a lovesick Ferris as she continued to figure out what his secret motive was, but it disappeared just as soon as it appeared.
At the sound of the door opening, she turned to find the man of the hour in somewhat of an awkward stance as if he was treading on thin ice with her. He was, but that was besides the point. Something about the way he looked at her seemed different than the uncomfortableness she experienced when he was injecting the simulation serum into her. That was less than a day ago. The rapid change raised Leah's suspicions even more, but she remained stoic as Ferris launched into a flurry of words. Even though she was one of Erudite's prodigal children, only half of what he said was comprehended. It was moments like these that Leah pondered whether or not Dauntless was truly dumbing her down. Love? Repentance? Ferris had a lot to make up for, both of them could agree on that, but did he think he was scorning her as a lover? She truthfully hadn't been expecting anything to blossom out of things done in the heat of the moment, but something about his words reminded Leah about how he humiliated her as a child by reading the most vulnerable of her thoughts out loud to a dinner party. Alex had solidified his hate for the person who was now sitting across from her on that day and told his sister to do the same. Instead, the little girl had only felt her feelings falter for a few days before rebounding in strength and being content was just remaining as his friend. Somehow the tables had turned, and now Ferris was the one trying to salvage their relationship. Leah felt her face involuntarily contort, something she thought had been trained out of her long ago, into a mix of emotions that she couldn't quite categorize. Anger? Laughter? Humiliation? Whatever it was, she suppressed it for later.
Sweeping her hair to the right and exposing part of her neck, Leah resumed her unfazed resting face, sparing Ferris only a quick glance, before answering him in a tone similar to it, "You'll have to work your way back into my good graces, first. It's not out of the question, though." Whatever flickered across Ferris' face, be it elation, relief, or disappointment, Leah paid little attention to. She would consider this the first of his apologetic actions even if his purpose behind doing them was suspect. Closing her eyes, the pinch of the needle was all too familiar at this point, and Leah willingly allowed herself to be dragged into nothingness without a thought.
When she opened her eyes, Leah found herself in a home of some sort. It didn't seem to be Dauntless although the decoration policy of the faction wasn't all that clear to her in the first place. Wherever she was, Ferris was also there for some reason. Soon after realizing his presence, the sound of a voice, female and strangely familiar albeit muffled, seemed to draw the pair nearer and nearer. Leah took the first steps before Ferris, not even consulting him on whether or not they should approach, but after getting a bit closer to the source of the sound, it was clear who it was. Every bit of Leah's body stilled as she caught sight of a familiar face with a not so familiar gleam on the ring finger of her left hand. Seeing Charlie Stark happily married to who Leah assumed was Ferris was a bit awkward. There had never been a time in Leah's life when she wished to disappear so quickly, but this was it. This was that moment.

 

[Aviator]

Ghost // Male // Age 18 // Training Instructor // Erudite to Dauntless​

Relief rose through Ghost when Leah declared that friendship was still a possibility for them, albeit one which he would have to work for. Leah could hold grudges until the end of time, and Ghost hadn’t expected a free pass; in fact, if she had forgiven him too easily, he would have suspected something. Really, the actual outcome was probably the best-case scenario, and Ghost was not one to shy away from work. He had been working tirelessly for the past six years, ever since his parents had died and his inheritance was snatched out from under him, leaving him a virtually penniless orphan. In the grand scheme of things, what was a little extra effort? He held Leah’s gaze and nodded once, his face set. “I won’t let you down,” he said, meaning it. Ghost wasn’t about to give Leah further reason to regret trusting him, not after he’d come within an inch of destroying a bond that had withstood years apart.
With one of his problems dispelled, there was no barrier standing between Ghost and the second part of his mission in meeting her today. His reason for having chosen a simulation room, of all places, as their rendezvous. Dread boiled up his throat, but he swallowed it down. Assuming that his fear landscape hadn’t changed since he had last traversed it as an initiate, Ghost knew exactly which fears he would face and the best strategies to combat them. He was as mentally prepared as he would ever be, and it was an infinitely better position than that in which Leah would find herself when she experienced her own fearscape for the first time. But Ghost wasn’t familiar with her particular series of simulations. If he was going to walk her through one and demonstrate time-saving techniques, it only made sense to choose a fearscape to which he had the answers.
He twisted in his seat to reach the computer on the table beside Leah and him, clicking through a settings page and entering a few keystrokes. Ghost had never been directly invited into another person’s fearscape before, let alone introduced someone else to his own, but the settings page seemed simple enough. How hard could it really be? “Now, the trick is,” he said as he finished with the computer and stood to prepare a pair of syringes, “to not succumb to despair. Don’t let yourself think that your situation is hopeless and you’ll never escape, or that the universe is out to get you, or some fatalistic shit like that.” That was the major rule Ghost played by when he approached a card table. It was the players who got so flustered by their losses that they failed to see the value in a potentially winning hand who suffered most. Perhaps it was an idealistic outlook, but Ghost had known bleak cynicism before and never wanted to go back. Wallowing over past mistakes wouldn’t change the future; learning from them did.
“Think of it as a logic puzzle; you should be good at those,” he continued as he passed Leah a syringe, trusting her to inject herself. The way he understood it, they would each have to inject themselves at the same time to both manifest in his fear landscape. “To each fear there will be a solution or a way out, though it might not be an easy one. Just keep looking until you find it, and always remember that it’s just a simulation. Sometimes it’s really easy—and I mean really easy—to forget when you’re living your worst fears in such vivid detail, but that’s the major difference between Phases Two and Three. Use it to your advantage. Whatever you see, it’s crucial not to let your emotions distract you from what needs to be done to overcome each fear as quickly as possible.” A lurch of apprehension cut through Ghost when he realized he had run out of things to say, guidance to give. It was time to do or die. Despite his confident words, internally he was scrambling for a sense of control. If he could control his fearscape, then he could beat it. Or so he liked to think.
It was like peering through a keyhole into a room you wanted to break into. You could see some of what was going on, but there might be a nasty surprise waiting in the part of the room you couldn’t see, Ghost mused as he lowered himself into his chair again. He schooled his angular features into a look of fierce determination. As he had said, whatever obstacles he encountered would be a simulation; no matter how realistic, they couldn’t measure up to half of the realities he’d encountered in Baneberry. “See you on the other side,” he offered to Leah, and before he could rethink his decision, Ghost was plunging the needle into his neck, ignoring the accompanying tingle of pain.
The world dissolved into shapes and streaks of color that ran into each other like a painting left out in the rain. Ripples spread outward until they resolved into a new image. Ghost was no longer in the simulation room, but standing on the corner of a city block, a sunny day beaming blissfully around him as if in defiance of the inevitable horror. Twenty yards up ahead was a parking lot sparsely populated with cars but nearly barren of people. All except for one. Standing at the driver’s-side door of a parked Ferrari with glossy pecan paint was a man with his back to Ghost. He was slim and just a smidge below average height, with thinning red hair and dressed in a jacketless suit and slacks.
Ghost whirled to his left, lips parted to speak, but no one was there. Unable to remember what he had been about to say and to whom, he closed his mouth and brushed a hand through his hair. He had been sure that he had felt the phantom of another’s presence beside him, but when he turned to look there was only empty air. Must be the simulation making me jumpy, he surmised. Ghost raised his eyes to the man at the Ferrari, who appeared to be in the act of fumbling for his keys. Then Ghost’s gaze fell on a dark square of leather resting beside the red-haired man’s foot: a wallet that he must have dropped. Before moving, Ghost scanned the bright and deserted city block again but found no other indications of where he might go or what he might do. Eager to get his fearscape over with as soon as possible, he started toward the man in the suit, ignoring the way that his chest tightened. At first glance, this particular fear—whatever it would turn out to be—did not resemble any of those that Ghost had encountered in a previous fearscape. He didn’t know what to expect, and that unnerved him, because it meant he couldn’t prepare himself.
He started toward the man who had dropped his wallet, moving at a brisk pace. “Sir?” Ghost called as he approached, not wanting to sneak up on the man by surprise. Ghost knew how risky a strategy that was, if the other person’s paranoia and reflexes were honed to razor points like his own. Better to announce his presence while he still could. “Think you dropped your wallet, sir,” he said just as the man got the driver’s door open. Bounding up to the man and the Ferrari, Ghost sidestepped the door, bent, and scooped up the wallet off the ground with the spryness of youth. He held it out to the man, who finally turned around with a whiff of cigar smoke.
Ghost had been expecting a jump scare, but nothing of this magnitude. Seeing the man’s face hit him in the chest, hard and deep, like a flight of arrows. Averill Jacobi took a calm puff of his luxury cigar and looked over his son with open scorn, his gaze so heavy that Ghost had to confirm with his own eyes that there was no physical touch. “I see that my problems are suddenly much worse than a lost wallet,” Averill said in a poisonous voice as he snatched the wallet from Ghost’s hand. “And so the prodigal son returns. Who taught you honesty, boy? Because you never heeded any of the lessons that I tried to impose on you.”
Ghost was still reeling and stared mutely, unsure what he would say even if he could. Finally, after a pause, he managed, “Father, I—”
Averill’s sneer turned into a scoff. He threw the cigar he was holding onto the ground and extinguished it beneath a loafer polished to a mirror shine. “Don’t call me that. I wouldn’t be your father if I could help it. You, boy, are an abomination to me and to all of Erudite society, not that I expect you to care.” He punctuated the accusation with a slam of the car door, and without it standing between his son and himself, Averill advanced a step toward Ghost.
Ghost just stared, unable to fathom that the father whom he had watched die six years ago was standing before him, and that he hadn’t appeared to age a day in all this time. It also struck Ghost that Averill was speaking of himself in the present tense, as if had been alive and kicking somewhere far away from Ghost until now. Averill’s words banged like firecrackers in his head, loud and bright and terribly real. “I know that I wasn’t the easiest kid to raise,” Ghost began meekly, licking his lips, “but I tried so hard to make up for it when I avenged Mother’s and your—”
“What right have you to speak of her?” Averill interrupted, blazing with fury. His eyes were as hard and flat as sapphires. “Do you know how that woman sobbed when she tried to bear me two additional heirs and couldn’t? Do you know why she and I pushed so desperately for another child? Because you, boy, are a failure. Completely and utterly. You bring disgrace to this family and undermine everything I’ve worked for with your blatant lack of respect for rules and figures of authority.”
It was true that Averill had been an extraordinarily hard worker ever since his youth. He had been born into a middle-class Abnegation family, and his fortune—even if obtained through illegal means—had been entirely self-made. While Ghost mostly believed that his father hadn’t deserved the horrible death he’d gotten at the point of an assassin’s machete, he recognized that Averill’s diligence was one of the man’s few positive attributes. It seemed like that which he so utterly lacked in charm he tried to make up for with sheer competence, as if there were no such thing as individuals; just cogs in a machine owned and operated by Averill.
Logically, Ghost knew that his father was very flawed. But this didn’t guard against the unshakeable feeling that every one of Averill’s criticisms rang true, and it made him wonder if Averill really had been a bad father, or if it was just a reaction to Ghost being a bad child. Despair settled heavily on his shoulders. “Father, I know you had high hopes for me that I didn’t live up to, but please forgive me. I’ve learned from my mistakes. I know better now,” he pleaded, a note of desperation in his voice.
Averill pressed his lips together and didn’t immediately reply. Ghost knew that he was holding back his thoughts for one reason or another, weighing potential responses. Averill was a utilitarian to the extreme, and that extended to language, never saying more than he felt was necessary. “Forgive you?” he breathed at last, incredulous. “The ungrateful brat who blew my legacy to smithereens? You insist on defying that which is expected of you, and I know that your small rebellions are just a petty tactic to get attention, but that’s because you’ve never had to work a day in your life. You refuse to understand how institutions and chains of command and delicate balances of power work, and if you can’t do that for me, then I don’t see why you deserve a place in this family.”
A knot of tension built in Ghost’s throat, making it hard to speak around. “I’m sorry, Father, really I am, but just because I don’t fit the traditional image of success doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways—”
Ghost cut off as a backhand whipped him squarely across the face with such force that it spun him halfway around, and he fell back against the car. A white-hot immensity of sensation burned through his cheek, flaring up behind his eyelids. Ghost blinked at his father, dazed and stupid with shock and pain. He could count on one hand the number of times that Averill had ever struck him, and after a certain age he had stopped altogether, as if realizing that Ghost was a broken mess that no amount of punishment—corporeal or otherwise—could fix. Averill had stopped hitting Ghost because he’d given up on him, and after that Averill had resorted to ignoring him as much as possible and leaving him in the charge of various nannies.
“You don’t need redemption, child. What you need is a leash because you are wildly out of control,” Averill seethed, a vein standing out in his neck. “You and that damn mother of yours, God rest her soul.” He looked away as he said this last part, speaking in an undertone as if it were meant for his own ears alone.
Ghost felt his fear melt away, until only anger crackled inside him. “You would talk about your own wife like that?”
Averill glared, as if his son were throwing around unfounded accusations. A beat passed, and then: “Don’t pretend as if you haven’t thought that your own friends and confidants would be better off if they were a little more susceptible to your control.”
It was a good argument, and Ghost didn’t have a counter. He supposed he could have replied that his friends and confidants weren’t his wife, but it sounded petty even in his head. Yet, Ghost’s rage showed no sign of ebbing, so he channeled it elsewhere. “You find all these faults in me and tell me what a failure I am, Father, but do you ever introspect? Do you ever turn those powers of analysis on yourself? Because not only are you an absent father but an unfaithful husband. You’ve been cheating on Mother for years, and I know it. It’s one thing not to love me, but are you capable of love at all?” It was a well-known secret that Averill’s first, second, and third loves were money, prestige, and obnoxiously expensive luxury cars.
“Why, you…!” Averill turned white as a sheet as he drew to a temporary loss of words. “I hope I live to see you dead, boy. I would rather quietly take my business down with me than know you’ll drive it into the ground the second I’m gone, you impudent fool.”
It didn’t escape Ghost that his father hadn’t once called him by his given name, and he wondered whether the cause for that was his own consciousness no longer identifying with it, or if Averill really viewed him as less than human, a mistake that should have been corrected long ago. Whatever the reason, Ghost pushed away from the Ferrari and took a step toward his father, chin tipped up. If they stood side by side, they would have been within an inch of each other’s heights. “I don’t need you to measure my success or lack thereof, because it takes more than just age and empty status to impress me. If I make it to the top, then it’ll be on my terms, dammit, and no one else’s. To hell with your rules and protocol.”
Inexplicably, despite the fact that his father was long dead and gone, Ghost had forgotten that he was in a fear landscape until the scene shifted. Suddenly he was back in the simulation room, blinking awake in the chair in which he had fallen asleep. Only, he wasn’t alone. Leaning against the table on which the computer stood was Blair, and light gleamed off the sharp tip of the syringe that she brandished in one hand. Ghost noticed it was empty… but if that were the case, shouldn’t he already be in the middle of a simulation? The powerful hallucinogens in fear serum went to work in seconds.
Blair noticed that he was awake and tilted her golden head at him. With a careless flick of her wrist, she discarded the empty syringe on the table, where it bounced several times before rolling to the floor, but she didn’t seem to care. “Feeling chatty yet?” she prompted, arching an eyebrow.
Ghost scowled in confusion. “Chatty?” he repeated, feeling like the outsider to an inside joke. “What do you—” He tried to rise from the chair but barely got more than a few inches when there was an ominous metallic rattle and he slammed back down with a jolt. At first, Ghost assumed that Blair was using her telekinesis on him, but then twin cramps lanced through his arms, and he couldn’t move them from where they had been secured around the back of the chair. “The hell is this?” Ghost hissed, straining at his bonds, fear steadily pumping through him. His wrists were lashed tightly together, and all he managed was to rattle the chain.
Blair gave a high-pitched titter of laughter, watching Ghost struggle. “Oh, Ghostly. Has anyone ever told you how much you scowl? It’s somehow adorable and infuriating at the same time!” She rested one hand on her chin and looked up at the ceiling as she pretended to think. “And pathetic, too. Definitely that.”
“Stop with the games and release me at once.”
“So serious,” Blair said, pouting her lips and deepening her voice in imitation of Ghost.
“Miss Avalon—”
“Because commands from a guy chained to a chair are so compelling. I think you’re missing the power dynamic here, Ghostly.” Blair gave a coquettish roll of her eyes. “From now on, I’ll be asking the questions and making the demands, and you’ll get to learn what it feels like to be at someone else’s mercy. As you may have already figured out, it wasn’t fear serum that I injected you with, as entertaining as seeing what goes on inside your head might be.”
She smiled wickedly, pausing as if to wait for Ghost’s reply. When he said nothing, she continued, cheery as ever, “What’s that? You’re eager to get to the questions? Excellent! I couldn’t agree more.” Blair tossed her hair back and out of her face and reclaimed her seat on the table across from Ghost, whose mind was whirling with questions and not liking any of the potential answers that he found. “Question one!” Blair chirped, licking her lips as if numerous delicacies were arrayed before her and she didn’t know which to eat first. “You were from Erudite before coming to Dauntless right? I mean, you’re such an intelligence snob, how could you not? Anyway, why did you leave Erudite?”
Even before Blair had finished speaking, Ghost found himself yelping, “Yes!” in response to her first question, and gasped. His eyes flared wide, and realization struck a big bell of terror in his chest. In the moments that it had taken Blair to finish asking her barrage of questions, he had clamped his lips shut, biting down as if meaning to never speak again. Ghost didn’t need to hear subsequent questions to know that they would all be painful or humiliating or both, and that he would be compelled against his will to answer them.
The pain was an avalanche, initially starting out as tiny particles but snowballing and picking up speed until it roared in his ears, drenched his senses, and sent silver crystals spinning through his vision. Ghost was faintly conscious of Blair chastising him for hurting himself unnecessarily, but the sound of her voice was drowned out by his rampant heartbeat. His teeth sank into his lip until he tasted metal. Finally, when Ghost thought that any more pain would drive him insane, he opened his mouth for a gasp of air but words came out instead. “Because I couldn’t take it there any longer! That damn faction was slowly killing me day by day and I had to get out, go somewhere I could start fresh, not have people always staring at me with disdain and pity! They all knew me and judged me.” He was nearly choking on his words by the end, unable to draw breath until he had finished speaking. Ghost slumped forward in his chair, bangs hanging over his face, panting like he had been running for his life. He might have fallen to the floor and onto his face, if not for the chains clanging against the back of the chair and holding him fast.
Ghost realized his response would have sounded relatively vague to someone who had no understanding of his addiction or of the way Erudite had practically disowned him after the revelation of his father’s crimes, but the Blair of his cognition either didn’t notice or care, because she did not continue down that line of inquiry. Instead, she just nodded, as if she had the full picture of his life story before her and understood it. Then, without preface, she blurted, “Do you like boys? It’s something my friends and I have all been wondering, and we’ve taken bets, you see.” Against all odds, Blair gave a girlish flush. “No offense or anything, you just don’t seem very… well…” She broke off, collapsing into a fit of giggles.
He was caught so off guard by the question that he momentarily paused his perusal of the length and thickness of the chain binding his hands. Annoyance prickled through him at the way Blair had trailed off and her possible implications, and Ghost seriously wanted her to finish that sentence. However, as Blair had already pointed out, she was the one asking the questions, and when his lips parted, it was to answer only. “No, I like…” Ghost gritted his teeth, but it was futile. “Older women! Intelligent ones.” He was horrified to hear himself say it.
At that, Blair burst into laughter. “Somehow, that’s even better than what I pictured you would say.” Her eyes glittered with malice as what looked like a horrible new idea occurred to her. “So, if you like older women,” she purred as she sashayed up to his chair, “does that mean you have no interest in me?” Without breaking stride, Blair swung one leg over Ghost’s lap and perched there, causing the wooden chair to creak beneath their combined weight. She leaned close, wrapping an arm around his narrow shoulders for support, and when Ghost tried to look anywhere but at her, she slid two fingers under his chin and tilted his face up.
Ghost had perceived Blair’s question as rhetorical—of course he had no interest in her—but the truth serum didn’t seem to think so. “I don’t, and I really wish you wouldn’t do… this.” He shut his eyes tight and tried to squirm away from the warm puffs of breath stirring his hair. Not only did Ghost fear the possibility of Blair making an amorous advance on him, but he didn’t want her to catch him probing the chain’s various links. This was so much harder without being able to see what he was doing. Just a little more, and…
“Aw, you’re no fun,” Blair whined, but she obediently clambered off his lap. The chair creaked again and Ghost’s abundant relief mingled with a burst of pain in the thigh on which the bulk of her weight had been balanced. “Next question! Confession time: What’s your biggest regret, Ghostly? I know it’s hard to choose, what with you being, well, you, but try to narrow it down to just one, m‘kay?”
Blair wasn’t wrong. Ghost did have countless regrets, but he tried not to be so transparent with them. He paused, and this time it wasn’t because he was trying to fight a hopeless battle against the truth serum, but because he needed to think. “That I never said goodbye,” he said softly, and Ghost felt a vital piece of his soul break to admit the truth out loud for Blair to hear. For himself to hear. He didn’t specify to whom he hadn’t said goodbye, and yet the truth serum allowed him to speak ambiguously. Perhaps because it knew that he was undecided, since there had been more than one person he had up and left. First there was Leah, whom Ghost had left to think that he had perhaps died alongside his parents in the home invasion that had changed everything, and then there was Margot, whom he’d never told in advance that he was transferring to Dauntless, and he had never contacted her since.
His interrogator gave an uncharacteristically grave nod, as if sympathizing with Ghost. Blair opened her mouth to respond, but he was out of his chair before his chains hit the floor. Ghost stashed the lockpicks back up his sleeve and exchanged them for a pearl-handled Wicked Sister. Leading with his shoulder, he charged forward and crashed into Blair, who toppled flat on her back against the table with a surprised yelp, her yellow hair fanning out around her in a bed of straw. Ghost wasted no time and scrambled atop her. He hit the tabletop hard with his knees, flicked the safety off the pistol, and twisted the barrel up underneath her chin. “A word of advice? Next time disarm your captive first, and if he knows magic tricks, then you can still bank on him getting free.” Blair bucked and thrashed against Ghost, trying to throw him off, but he dug in harder with the Beretta and thumbed back the hammer. Blair whimpered in fright and stilled. “Not another word or movement, or the custodians will have one hell of a mess to clean up. I don’t care who you are or what crazy shit you can do with your mind, Blair Avalon. You don’t drug me, and you don’t ask me questions while I’m in chains.”
Blair’s weeping, cowering form disintegrated into shadows, as did the table beneath her. Ghost started to reel back in bewilderment before remembering that none of the interrogation had actually happened anywhere outside his mind. Frustration snapped in him like a muscle pulled taut. Really, he was handling this new and horrifying fearscape like an amateur initiate and not an instructor who had graduated top of his class. He had to stop letting his emotions get the better of him and focus on overcoming each simulation right off the bat.
But the thought melted from his mind almost as suddenly as it had come when Ghost fell through where the table should have been and crashed to his knees on an unforgiving hardwood floor. Pain throbbed as he slowly climbed to his feet, fighting off a swirl of dizziness. It took him a handful of seconds to recognize his surroundings; he was inside his apartment, but an infinitely more souped-up version of it. Ghost eyed the impressionist watercolors lining the walls with a liking that perhaps indicated he had been the one to pick them out and hang them there. The edges of the living room were overflowing with potted plants of a variety of species: geraniums, ferns, African violets, infusing the air with a floral smell. The room had been repainted a tasteful shade of apricot, and replacing the cracked wooden coffee table was a luxurious dining room table in mottled marble. All in all, the place had a certain cold beauty and pristine cleanliness that would have been impossible to achieve with Caspian and Maverick still residing there. Ghost quietly congratulated himself on his interior decorating skills. He had really outdone himself.
His quiet reflection was disrupted by a flurry of footsteps that he didn’t recognize. Materializing in the kitchen doorway was a small girl of about seven years old with mocha hair pulled into twin braids and dark eyes that gleamed with intelligence. An expression of delight transformed her face when her gaze fell on Ghost. She pivoted on the balls of her feet and called into the kitchen, “Daddy’s home!”
Ghost had received many shocks over the duration of his fearscape so far, but this one took the cake. Unquestionably.
He stood frozen as the girl with the braids lunged forward and tackled Ghost around the waist with a hug so fierce that she almost swept him off his feet despite her diminutive size. Neurons fired through Ghost’s brain at lightning speed as he tried to formulate an explanation for his present predicament… if it could even be called that? Wasn’t this supposed to be yet another fear simulation? If so, where was the jump scare? Sure, the declaration of the girl hugging him in a death grip was deeply unsettling, but he didn’t find it as terrifying or soul-crushing as the previous scenarios had been. But he couldn’t let his guard down. The world operated with a sort of interior logic, and if he didn’t understand something, then it was because he lacked enough information and not because the world had suddenly ceased functioning on a coherent level. If Ghost didn’t fear this particular simulation yet, he would as it evolved, he was sure.
“Why aren’t you hugging me back?”
A voice as high and clear and sweet as a bell jolted him out of the maze of his thoughts. Unsure how to react to the young girl’s prompt, Ghost’s muscles momentarily seized, and then he settled for awkwardly patting her on the head like he would a dog. The girl didn’t seem to mind, and if anything she nestled closer to him. Inexplicably, despite having never seen her before, Ghost knew deep in his heart that he would die for this little girl in an instant.
“Sweetie, would you help me set the table? Dinner’s ready!” chirped a pleasant voice from the kitchen that sounded strangely familiar. The door to the kitchen swelled outward to admit a thin woman in her early thirties with soft features, tan skin, and long ringlets of dark hair that tumbled down her back.
The passage of time had produced faint smile lines around the edges of her mouth, but otherwise Charlotte Stark looked remarkably the same. Ghost suddenly wondered how different his own appearance would look in this futuristic rendition of reality, but regrettably there were no mirrors in the vicinity. A familiar sapphire ring glittered on Charlie’s third finger, and its meaning hit Ghost like a fast one-two sequence of punches, threatening to drop him. The young girl moved aside as Charlie closed in on Ghost and planted a quick kiss on his lips. “How was work today? Is something the matter? You look frightened.”
Ghost blinked. It took him a few seconds to deduce the meaning of her words, and then another few to formulate a response. “N-nothing at all. In fact, things have never been better.” He forced a small smile, deciding to play along for the time being. Ghost knew this simulation wasn’t real, but he was intensely curious to see where it would go and wasn’t ready to emerge from it just yet, like a really good dream.
Charlie seemed satisfied with his answer, because she exclaimed, “That’s great to hear! Why don’t you sit down? You must have worked very hard today. I’ll have the table set in just a few—”
“Daddy, show me another magic trick!” cried the small girl with braids, whom Ghost was slowly coming to accept as his and Charlie’s daughter.
Charlie glanced in her direction. “Please lower your voice, dear. I just finished putting your sisters to bed.”
If possible, Ghost turned a shade whiter with further shock. His thoughts whipped into a hurricane. Your sisters? Implying there’s more than one other...? Good God, how many kids do I have! And are they all girls? But he immediately decided that he would rather have girls than boys, anyway.
A new thought occurred to him involving the making of those children, and when he looked at Charlie again, blood rushed to his face so quickly that he grabbed the back of a chair to keep himself upright. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, considering the fact that Charlie’s ring probably indicated marriage, but it did. Holy shit.
Charlie swiveled toward him. “Stay right there. We’ll be back.”
After blow after blow of knowledge that imploded his world each time over, Ghost was admittedly not in a high-operating state of mind. However, there was some strange note to Charlie’s voice that made his eyes cut to her suspiciously as she vanished behind the kitchen door, taking their daughter with her. Instead of gradually fading, their voices abruptly disappeared into silence the moment they were out of sight. Ghost’s stomach lurched. Somehow, he knew what he would find even before he pushed through the door after them, his heart breaking into a dash inside his chest. Or maybe just breaking.
Charlie and the girl were gone. Just, gone. There were no other doors they could have walked out of, and the windows were narrow and sealed with unbroken screens. It was improbable, but Ghost even scanned the floor and ceiling for seams that might have indicated a hidden panel, and found none. They had truly vanished. As Ghost stood there, alone and abandoned and steeped in regret, intrinsically knowing that he had done something to drive Charlie and their daughter away, his father’s words jangled in his head like an out-of-tune piano. About how Ghost was a failure, and how he would take control of those close to him, if given his way. He desperately wanted to call Charlie back and ask if that much was true of him.
The scene changed, and Ghost let it slip away, filled with a sudden apathy as to what version of hell he was walking into next. The room that constructed itself around him was semi dark, permeated only by the blue evening light filtering through one window. Gleaming in the faint illumination was a large porcelain sink with plush hand towels to either side, and against the opposite wall was a bathtub. An unmoving shadow sat in the bathtub with its head lolling back over the rim. Ghost squinted and was able to discern Leah Young’s profile, her pointed chin and gently sloping nose tipped toward the ceiling. Ghost had thought that Charlie’s abandonment couldn’t have broken him more, and as he rushed forward to Leah’s side, he understood how foolishly, naively wrong he had been to think that, like he had been tempting the spirits of bad luck and they had risen to his challenge.
Instead of water, the tub was brimming with a dark pool of blood so deep that only the tops of Leah’s bare shoulders were exposed. Moonlight flashed as Ghost approached, and he glanced at the foot of the tub to find a knife edged with black liquid. One of Leah’s wrists was draped over the rim of the tub at just the right angle for the blade to have slipped from her fingers. Upon closer examination, Ghost saw that a gaping mouth had been opened in her wrist close to where it connected with her hand.
He dropped to his knees beside the tub, not caring that excess splashes of blood were soaking into his pants. “No, please,” he begged, reaching a frantic hand to shake Leah from her stupor. “I can’t lose anyone else!” Tracks of wetness on his cheeks told Ghost that he was openly crying.
As if in answer to his prayer, Leah’s eyes opened halfway, and she rolled them downward to regard him from where her head was canted over the side of the bathtub. The fingers of the hand that must have dropped the knife—the hand closer to Ghost—twitched slightly. “Get back.” Leah somehow managed to snap it despite her voice being a thin rasp. “Stay away from me, you monster…” she whispered on an exhale.
“Leah, why?” Ghost sobbed, equal parts having to know her reason and not wanting to pay attention to the chorus of horror that sang through his blood when she’d called him a monster.
With what looked like a herculean effort, Leah angled her head toward him. “Because of you. You did this to me. You broke… my…” Her body shuddered and her voice died and the light behind her eyes flickered out like a snuffed candle.
Ghost knew the exact moment of her passing because he felt despair bury a knife in his heart when it happened. Barely able to fathom the idea of Leah’s death, let alone that he had caused it, he snatched up the knife at his knees on a whim. He pulled back the sleeve of his coat and pressed the razor tip against the inside of his wrist, where a dot of liquid darkness appeared. Was this what Leah would have wanted? Was this her dying wish? Did she really hate Ghost so much that she had wanted to overwhelm him with enough grief to take his own life? If her act of killing herself was, in part, supposed to have been a final manipulation, then it was working. The dot of blood swelled into a rivulet as Ghost’s knife hand trembled.
But if there really is an afterlife, do you actually think that she would have wanted you to follow her there? Thinking about Leah in the past tense sent a whole new kind of agony blazing through Ghost. Tears continued dripping unchecked off the edges of his jaw. Somewhere and somehow, he knew that this was not his time to die. Maybe because of what the voice had said about Leah not wanting Ghost to follow her into the next life. Maybe because he was too much a coward to actually slash his wrist and do the deed. Or maybe because Ghost was accustomed to loss and strong enough to realize that he couldn’t let others’ actions—no matter how drastic—sway him off his own course when he had fought so hard and for so long. Whatever his reason, he let the knife tumble from his grasp and shuffled out the door of the bathroom, leaving Leah Young’s corpse saturating in her own blood.
Blasts of light sliced through the darkness, nearly blinding Ghost. A new wave of tears welled in his eyes as he tried to turn his head away from the searing brightness—only to find that he couldn’t move any part of his body more than an inch in any direction. Panic surged through him, and Ghost flailed blindly, but he was completely immobilized. He still couldn’t see, so he strained his other senses for information. A flush of coldness seeping through flimsy fabric told him that he was lying on his back on a stainless-steel operating table, and he was wearing a thin and airy hospital gown. The sharp tang of antiseptic in the air reinforced the impression that he was in some kind of medical ward. The second hand of a nearby clock ticked along in awful bursts of noise, like it was eagerly counting down to the end of something.
“You’re awake,” noted a voice, sweet as lemonade. Ghost’s stomach clenched just hearing it. “Hurry up, now—time is wasting, and I’m on a tight schedule. Lots of other patients to see to.”
Patients? That single word nearly stopped Ghost’s heart. Usually, he was insatiably curious and no idea was too trivial or ridiculous for his contemplation, but Ghost had never craved ignorance so much as in this moment, here and now. He genuinely did not want to know what he was a patient in this hospital for, and why he was being seen to.
The clock continued thundering alongside his pulse. Footsteps moved to the side of the operating table that he lay on, and Ghost felt a pinching sensation in his right wrist. Fighting past the dazzling light and the moisture still leaking from the corners of his eyes, he cracked one lid open, following the figure’s motion as it moved around to the foot of the table and tightened the straps on both of Ghost’s ankles. It strolled closer to adjust the restraint on his left wrist, before finally coming to hover directly over him to get at the strap pinning Ghost’s forehead down. Alex Young grinned down at him with a smile that could have made angels weep.
A machine blipped out a shrill series of notes as it detected the rapid elevation in Ghost’s heart rate. Knowing that it would do him no good, he tried wrenching at the straps yet again and barely managed to arch his back. His wrists burned as material cut into them, and suddenly Ghost dearly wished that he had slashed them with Leah’s knife when he’d had the chance and ended this new nightmare before it was born.
“You flatter me, Ferris.” Alex’s smile stretched wider, yet his gaze was sharp and calculating, as if Ghost were a haunch of roast meat he was prepared to carve. “To think that I could stir such a reaction from you.” With one blue latex glove, Alex booped him on the nose.
“Let me go.” It was a simultaneous command, plea, and prayer, and Ghost was dismayed to hear his teeth chattering. The shrieking heart monitor pitched an octave higher.
Alex briefly retreated out of view. “Now, why would I ever do that?” he asked slowly, as if Ghost were a child making an unreasonable request. There was a squeal of wheels, and when Alex returned to loom over Ghost, it was with the accompaniment of a cart filled with surgical tools. “You have yet to receive your treatment.”
Alex must have detected that Ghost’s mouth was too dry to ask the obvious question, so he continued as if Ghost had indeed asked. “Why, you’re here for a lobotomy, of course!” Alex sang. “It’s the only rehabilitation of criminals that works one hundred percent of the time, after all.”
A twist of nausea came over Ghost so strongly that the edges of the world turned black. “What?” he demanded, though he had heard Alex perfectly clearly the first time. Too clearly.
“A lobotomy. It’s a procedure that turns lunatics and cold-blooded killers into vegetables, thereby curing them, after a fashion.” Ghost still couldn’t see straight, but he heard a tinkle of metal that meant Alex was rifling through his cart of surgical tools. On the wall above Alex, the clock banged out the seconds as loud as gunshots.
Ghost’s extremities were ice cold and shaking. “N-no. That’s not r-r-right. Why m-me?”
“Didn’t I just say?” Alex’s voice was suddenly sharp and snapping and thick with condescension. “Oh, that’s right, you’re the kind who needs everything spelled out for you. Really, your mind is dull enough even without the lobotomy that I don’t understand why you’re so opposed to it. It’s not like you’ll really be missing anything. Anyway, the lobotomy is your just punishment, of course.” Alex’s expression was mangled in an ugly sneer when he whirled back to Ghost. “For having killed my sister.”
It was true, then. Ghost had been the driving force behind Leah’s suicide. He might have sunk into sorrow if his fear weren’t so terribly abundant, his every nerve ending alive with it. Ghost knew that he was no saint and had probably done a hell of a lot more bad than good in his life. Still, relegation to an unthinking zombie was something he wouldn’t have wished on his worst enemy. He wholeheartedly believed in fates worse than death, and this was at the top of the list. Ghost had been a gifted learner for as long as he could remember. He existed on a mental plane that most people never achieved; strategy and cunning and philosophy were his lifeblood. To be deprived of those faculties wouldn’t just mean forfeiture of life, but forfeiture of his very soul. Ghost would take a slow and painful death from lull withdrawal over a lobotomy any day.
Running on instinct, he flexed one of his wrists as far as the strap would allow, logically knowing that he was wearing a hospital gown in place of the coat with a hidden pocket for his lockpicks, but terror had scrambled Ghost’s mind to uselessness. Alex stopped tinkering with the metal instruments and looked up at the sound of Ghost fidgeting. “Looking for something?” he asked with a hint of a sly smile. “If you think escaping me will be as easy as picking a lock, then you’re sorely mistaken. Intellectually speaking, I’m a cut above that Avalon girl.” It was as if he had been reading Ghost’s mind.
“Alex, please, please don’t do this.”
“Would you rather I kill you instead?”
“Yes.” Ghost had never said anything in his life with more raw honesty.
Alex pretended to think. “Well,” he finally drawled, “as much a waste of life as you are, Ferris, at least no one can call you indecisive. But your rehabilitation isn’t up to me. Sorry.” Alex’s voice dripped with sarcasm in a way that declared him anything but sorry.
Ghost was acutely aware of the clock draining away his last minutes as an autonomous and mentally capable individual. Feeling as helpless as a fly trussed in a spiderweb, he sagged slightly in his bonds and played his last card. “Alex. I am begging you. You’ve beaten me, okay? You’ve won. I’ll do anything you want. Just, please, don’t do this!” The words tasted like poison on Ghost’s tongue, heresy to every stand and act of defiance he had ever made, and it took everything he had not to choke on them.
He had closed his eyes as he spoke, but at the sound of Alex pivoting toward him in interest, they flicked open again. A slow, sadistic look of triumph spread across Alex’s face, and it was perhaps the ugliest thing Ghost had ever seen. “I like it when you beg. Do it again, and I’ll consider.”
Ghost opened his mouth to comply, but the spark of hope that had ignited in his chest was crushed by something else. Something bitterly cold and comfortable in its familiar weight. It was the fury that had been Ghost’s lifelong companion and motivator, the source of his strength, but even the word that word “fury” felt inadequate to describe the way his insides were grating against each other. The Holy Ghost was not a pet who performed tricks on command, and he most certainly did not grovel at his opponents’ feet when beaten.
Maybe Alex would have kept his word and seriously considered releasing Ghost if he begged again. Maybe it was just a ploy to break Ghost’s spirit before breaking his mind as well. He would never know, because instead of obeying, his lips curled into a snarl and his voice was a feral growl when he told Alex, “Go fuck yourself.” Ghost would have punctuated this statement with a mouthful of spittle in Alex’s face, if it weren’t for the strap across his forehead keeping him from getting the momentum he needed.
Alex cocked an eyebrow, his stare cold and vicious. “Is that your final answer?” he asked, as if Ghost were a contestant on a gameshow with his continued sanity being the grand prize on the line.
“You and your family,” Ghost started, his voice quivering with rage, “and all of your aristocratic kind are so out of touch with reality that it makes me sick. You are the blight on society that exploits everyone beneath you just so that you don’t have to get your hands dirty. You treat the less fortunate as your doormat, and you use the Factionless as an example to threaten everyone with the consequences of not obeying your every whim. Greed is your god, and you’ll justify any obscene trampling of another’s rights if it’s in the name of self-gain. But the thing is, you somehow think that the weak deserve to be where they are, and that it’s the sacrosanct right of the strong to rule over them, and that’s what makes me so glad that Erudite tossed me out on my ass years ago. I’ll never be like you.”
Alex tilted his head at Ghost, as if to silently ask whether he was done yet. For an extended moment, neither said anything. Just locked eyes and stared frost and curses and knives at each other. Finally, Alex broke the silence and said, “You know, for a common criminal, you’re awfully self-righteous. I think I shall take much pleasure in what is to come.”
“I may be a criminal,” Ghost retorted, baring his teeth, “but not a goddamn thing about me is common.”
“Maybe so. I’m not about to adulterate my psyche trying to deduce a criminal’s twisted ethics. That’s why you’re being lobotomized, after all. Speaking of which!” Alex jovially clapped his gloved hands together. “I think we’ve had more than enough chit-chat. Let’s get on with the procedure, shall we?” Alex was decisive in his selection of what looked like an icepick and hammer from the array of silver tools before him. “Typically, lobotomies are performed after the patient has been rendered unconscious from anesthesia or electroshock. As exciting as it would be to shock Ferris Jacobi to high heaven and back, I think I would rather you stay awake for the procedure so that you can watch it all in real time. It’d be such a shame to deprive you of a front-row seat, wouldn’t you agree?”
Instead of answering, Ghost surveyed the room once again. On a subconscious level, he knew this was just a simulation, but he also knew that if he didn’t stop Alex from performing the lobotomy, his real self might actually have a fright-induced heart attack, and that was a risk he didn’t want to take. And, if this was all just a simulation, the next logical step would be to assume that there had to be a way to shut it down; a solution that would end this living hell. He just had to find the missing puzzle piece and shove it into place.
And he would have to do it very quickly. Because Alex had stepped to a stove in one corner of the room and was currently sterilizing the icepick in preparation of inserting it into Ghost’s brain and wreaking all kinds of havoc. Adrenaline shot through Ghost’s veins, transforming each tick of the clock into a small explosion. He was out of time.
Ghost’s roving gaze stopped dead. Time. He looked back at the clock. The clock that had stood out to him ever since he had awoken to a sensory overload of lights and sound. That had to be the answer. Or did it? There was no time to hesitate.
But what to do? Physically manipulating the clock was impossible when Ghost couldn’t even move to wipe the sweat plastering the hospital gown to his body. In a final push, he jerked against his restraints with all his strength, grunting with effort, but they refused to budge. Hope and hopelessness warred inside him. Ghost knew that if he were a Divergent like Blair, he could alter the simulation with just his mind, practicality be damned. But Ghost wasn’t Blair, and he was limited to the constraints of physical reality.
For some reason, his mind flashed back to when Alex had asked him if he would rather die than be lobotomized. What if the solution to the simulation wasn’t breaking free and escaping after all? Perhaps it was simply to thwart the lobotomy by any means necessary. Even death.
When Ghost looked at the clock again, he saw it for what it really was. A bomb, and a voice-activated one, because how else was he supposed to detonate it? He just had to figure out the voice key, the word or phrase needed to activate it. Ghost frantically reviewed any possible clues.
His rampaging thoughts were interrupted when Alex returned to the operating table, molten-red rod in hand. A blue surgical mask had been pulled up over his mouth and nose, muffling his words when he spoke. “You’ve had this coming for a long time, Ferris. Perhaps you were right when you said that the strong believe they deserve to oppress the weak, because I can’t help but feel that this is poetic justice.”
A scream tore out of Ghost as Alex touched the scorching tip of the icepick to the delicate area between the ridge of Ghost’s eyebrow and the underlying socket. Miraculously, an urgent thought broke through the surface of his agony. What if something to do with Alex was somehow the activation key? Specifically Ghost’s relationship to him? That only seemed appropriate, considering that Alex was the insurmountable opponent whom Ghost had to overcome. Ah, what was it that Alex always called him? Ghost racked his brain while he still had one.
In his right hand, Alex drew back the hammer and prepared to strike.
And Ghost knew the answer. A split second before the hammer would have connected with the pick, he shouted, “Dead man walking!” It was both a battle cry and a last-ditch call for divine intervention.
The clock leapt upward and outward from the wall, exploding into a thousand shades of red and orange. Suddenly the world was unbearably loud and hot. And then everything burned to a tiny cinder and winked out.

 

[Nerdy.]

Charlotte "Charlie" Stark || 20 || Medic || Dauntlessborn

The gentle medic had spent a lot of time in the infirmary and now she was unsure of what the time was, she put down her umpteenth cup of tea and placed it near the sink, momentarily weighing up whether she would wash it now or leave it for later. Deciding that she would be embarrassed and also mad at herself if she left it, Charlie placed the used cups in the sink, filled it with hot water and dishwashing liquid and quickly washed the dishes, immediately feeling a sense of pride and accomplishment from that small achievement. She placed the dishes next to the sink to allow them to drip dry, before draining the sink. She glanced over at where the vase that had once held those beautiful roses from Ghost stood, the roses had died by now, but after throwing the roses out (once they were completely dead that was) she had filled the vase with some wildflowers she had picked from her walk to home and back. They kept the infirmary smelling fresh, but she wished dearly that she still had that beautiful bouquet of roses. The fact that Ghost had gone and picked them for her, and surprised her with them, had melted her heart, and she felt giddy just thinking about that moment. However since then he had been in such an interesting mood with her, one minute shyly affectionate, another moment aloof, another moment confident and dare she say flirty, and then the next moment it was like he couldn't look at her.
Charlie had never met a man quite as confusing as Ghost, but also she had never met a man as brilliant as him either. She sighed, taking a deep breath of the wildflowers before grabbing her portable med bag and pulling it over her shoulders. They had training today, so she would head to the training room. She would stop by the dorms to find out whether the kids had been notified of what they were doing today.

Walking down the hallways of Dauntless was both nostalgic and brought back traumatic memories, she looked at the walls with a fond security and an impending doom. How difficult it was to separate the good and the bad from this place, she wondered if she would feel this if she had gone to Amity like she had desired, this enmity of home and hell. In Amity, would she have been able to live in a place that seemed heavenly but was also not her home? Without her mother and her sister... with no memories of her father and her bestfriends? She chewed on her bottom lip as she thought about it, she couldn't decide for herself which one felt like a better place. Plus... If she had gone to Amity, she would have never met Ghost, and that thought made her heart skip. She glanced down at her wrists, where her thumb gently slid over the tattoos that resided upon them. One wrist showing a barren tree, dark, gloomy, dead looking; the other showed that same tree blooming with beautiful pink cherry blossoms. She smiled, from a dark place to a beautiful place, her life had been just that. She had had a father, then he had died, she had been safe from harm, then Jeremy had walked into her life, she got through initiation, but Alice didn't, Jeremy had stopped coming back, but then he did again, she met Ghost who saved her from Jeremy but tore at her emotions... Now she had to watch her sister go through initiation and suffer with all that she was suffering with. Charlie shivered, pulling the leather jacket around her even tighter.

She walked towards the dorms, and noticed the Aubrey and a few others stood outside, namely Night and Finn so far. She waved, watching at who waved back. "Hey guys, good to see you're keeping up with training. Today we are going to be in the training hall rather than the simulation rooms, so make sure you're there on time." She grinned at Aubrey and her friends. "Good luck on your race, don't waste all your energy though." She waved again as she walked away, heading towards the training room, she wondered who would be there already. Ghost? Harper? Maverick? Caspian maybe?

Interacted with: Night paralyzed Finn Baratheon
Open for Interactions:

Aubrey Amber Stark || 16 || Initiate || Dauntlessborn

Aubrey looked at Night as he walked out, she had not associated with him much, so she didn't know him at all. He was nice looking, although he was a Stiff, but he had gotten this far and seemed to be doing well. She continued stretching as he came out and started speaking, and she listened carefully, curious to what he was saying. He introduced himself although Aubrey knew who he was because she was just that kind of nosy... "I'm Aubrey." She stated, "And I guess I have always liked getting up early, unless its the weekend... but I want to start my day off with excitement and energy and training." She laughed and her eyes lit up as Night talked about his faction and how sleeping in was one of the only self indulgences he had. "Abnegation sounds so dull... no offence... but no junk food? no cakes and sweets? no self-indulgences? I bet they have no alcohol do they? What a bore! How could one have fun there? I bet you're glad to be here, Dauntless is amazing.... And no my parents didn't have to get me up early, my dad used to get up early naturally and the rest of us just followed suit, after he died I think I would sleep in just so I didn't have to get up and remember that he wasn't there, but after that I focused on training, and would get up to go for a run, sometimes with Charlie when she wasn't busy." Aubrey chattered on, smiling at Finn as he came out. She was about to answer Night's question about training, basically by announcing she had no idea, but at that point Charlie walked by, waving and telling them that they needed to go to the training room today. Aubrey waved as Charlie walked on, and turned back to Night and Finn. "Well! Seems like we're not gonna have the stupid simulations today! At least I hope not. Training will be so much better. And hey..." She pointed at Finn and stuck her tongue out. "Even if you beat Night, I'm beating the both of you, and whoever else is going to run with me, because I'm starting now! Hurry up!" She laughed and started off with a jog, as those who were slow to getting up joined them groggily, Finn right beside her and Night close by.

Aubrey took a familiar route that she loved, it started off by running the opposite direction from training, the pit, and all of that, and instead took a back exit to the outside area. She kept up a steady pace, slowly getting faster as they got into wider and wider areas. Her legs burned with that wonderful feel of using them and she felt powerful as she ran with her hair flying out behind her majestically. The smells of the morning air and occasional breakfast smells wafted around, filling her even more with energy. "Alright boys, lets see what you've got." Aubrey stated, and as soon as her feet hit the grass when they entered a large clearing that once looked like some park or sporting area, she boosted off, tearing ahead of the boys. She laughed, her voice waving through the air into their ears. She knew they would catch up but she loved doing that to them, it was fun. She had that urge to look back, to see what they were doing and how far they were, but the competitive nature inside of her forced her to continue looking straight, and she set her jaw firmly, legs hammering across the ground, arms swinging rhythmically. She was going to beat everyone. Her strides were long, her breath came out in even beats, her focus was on what was in front of her, not behind. She would beat everyone, even in a silly race.

Christian "Chris" Parks || 16 || Initiate || Dauntlessborn

Chris just be waiting for Blair lol, also I have no energy to write it up for him yet.

 

[MWMASkairipa]

“She was powerful, not because she wasn’t scared, but because she went on so strongly, despite the fear” - Atticus

Spoiler: OUTFIT

The small redhead barely remembered drifting off, but the next time she opened her eyes, it was morning, and her sapphire hues rested upon the man before her. At first she was confused as her mind worked to rid the sleepy fog that had settled over her. This wasn’t the dorms, obviously. Her expression changed to a bit of panic as she lifted her head and gazed around, a hand clutching the blankets for a few moments. Right… she’d gone to talk to him, she cut her elbow and they came back here and fell asleep. Had anyone come home and seen them? Had Ghost seen them? Gosh, she couldn’t imagine trying to explain that to an intellectual like Ghost. She was already a terrible liar. There would be no way she’d be able to keep up a charade if anyone asked, especially not the perceptive instructor.

She moved to sit up, rubbing sleep from her eyes, only to glance up and watch as he pulled his shirt off and changed it out for another one. Her cheeks flushed pink, and she forced her gaze away, instead fiddling with a loose thread on her pants. Everything that had transpired last night… it would never leave her. She would never forget this. He accepted her, empathized with her when her own father had seen her as little more than a toy than his own daughter. Did Maverick have any idea what he was doing to her? Doing for her?

Her eyes tracked his movement, smiling a little as he winked before disappearing out of the room to confirm they were truly alone. When he returned, she noted he said she would be returning to the dorms, as if he wouldn’t be at training later. His important task probably had something to do with Poppy, if she had to guess. She agreed though and followed him quietly back to the dorms. The small girl had been chewing her lip nearly the whole walk back. She didn’t regret last night. It was a night she wouldn’t soon forget. She hadn’t been that vulnerable in front of someone in ages and it meant more than words could describe that he didn’t run away. She needed him to know that she appreciated his kindness towards her thus far since her arrival in Dauntless. Just as she was about to speak, Maverick beat her to it and the pleasant surprise written on her face was accompanied by the slightest sparkle in her eyes. Blushing, her slender fingers brushed some ginger curls from her eyes, soft lips turning upwards in a small, shy smile. “I-I don’t regret it either…” She wasn’t sure if he heard her, he was already walking away, she hoped he did.

The redhead entered the dorms and quickly washed up, changing into something a little more daring today. Her chosen attire consisted of a cropped tank, black jeans, combat boots and a leather vest. To complete it, she tied a black bandana around her head to keep any loose strands from getting in her face. Normally she would have cowered and hidden the jagged scars covering her forearms, but after last night, she was feeling confident, like maybe her scars didn't have to be a burden that she bore alone. She was in a new faction now, she had a chance to start over. With that finished, she shoved her hands in her pockets and started down the hall to face whatever challenges were thrown at her today.

//Interactions: Maverick WanderLust. , Open​

 

[paralyzed]

Night Scott | Abnegation-born, Dauntless initiate.


Interactions: Aubrey/ Nerdy. | Finn/ Baratheon
Open



Hearing Aubrey talk about how boring his former faction must have been made him realize everything his younger self had missed out on. “Yeah, Abnegation was pretty dull, I’m glad I’m here now though.” After hearing that Aubrey’s father had died he felt rather bad for her, but at least she seemed to be doing pretty good now. “Well, sorry about your dad,” he said looking down at his sneakers. He knew he missed his parents a lot, but at least he would have the chance of seeing them ever so often in the future. He wondered how they must’ve felt about his transfer, they always taught him to follow his heart, but would they still consider him to be their child after doing something like that. Or would he be dead to them? His focus was diverted to the initiate who had just come out and stood between him and Aubrey. “Night Scott,” he said to Finn, putting his hand out to shake. “Nice meeting you.” Hearing what Finn had to say about outrunning him he grinned. “We’ll have to see about that.” Truthfully he had no idea how fast Finn or Aubrey would be and whether he would be able to keep up with them or would get completely left in the dust. He certainly wanted to not only keep up with them but beat them. But it was just a friendly race, right? no need to beat himself up over it if he did lose. The dauntless medic, Charlie, walked past and waved to the group of initiates to which Night replied with a slight wave he didn’t know if she saw or not. The message that she conveyed was that today’s agony would take place in the training room. “Yeah, I always prefer training, at least it will give me something I can actually use. What's being forced to go through a weird-ass fear that’s most likely never going to come true do for us.” On the one hand, he understood the point of going through that kind of fear, dauntless was all about being, well, dauntless. Fearless and the only way to do that would be eliminating anything he feared, by experiencing it so many times that it became dull and feel stupid to fear. But on the other hand, why.

His attention turned to Aubrey who claimed she would beat both of the boys, before starting to jog away, Finn following. Night joined in but he had nearly forgotten about the shades he put on earlier to cover his sore eye which had most likely cleared up by now. Night took the sunglasses off his face while jogging after them, realizing it may be fatal for his eyesight if he took a fall, and placed them in his pocket. Feeling the blinding sensation from how bright the morning was his eyes squinted involuntarily. After reaching the clearing of grass, his eyes starting to adjust, he noticed Aubrey’s speed greatly increase from a jog to a quick sprint. The distance between them ever so expanding. If Night wanted to have a chance at winning he would need to use all the strength and speed he had. Pushing his feet into the ground, repelling himself forward, he slowly but surely closed the distance between them.

 

[Baratheon]

Finn Day

Charlie's sudden appearance made Finn jump, but he quickly hid the motion into several quick jumps, as if warming up for the run. He gave a smile to Aubrey's older sister, but his eyes narrowed at the same time. They flickered up and down her face and body; not in a sinister way, but definitely an observant one. Were there more bruises? Did she seem hurt or weak? Favoring any limbs? Like a wolf searching for the weakest part of the herd to attack, Finn's gaze took in everything about Charlie in an instant. Her gait, her tone, the exposed skin. The results? Nothing. Charlie seemed as, well, regular as she always was. Finn couldn't help but frown. Although it was probably better nothing else had happened since yesterday, he was still eager to find more clues. If only they could straight-up ask her about it. His gaze flickered over to Aubrey and he noticed she had the same observant look on her sister. Their eyes met and he gave a tiny shrug. Nothing for now.

The young woman wished them luck and went about on her own business. Finn turned back to Night and Aubrey with a far more lighthearted look in his eyes. "It'd take a lot more than a race to use up all my energy. You can ask Aubrey," He said casually, taking a look around to see who else had since joined them. Not many. Aubrey offered him a challenge, tongue out and all, and he matched her playful expression. "You're on!"

They took off, feet pounding on the ground beneath them. A few Dauntless had to jump out of the way of the speeding, laughing teenagers as they made their way through the Pit and finally outside. Although he had always been a Dauntless, Fin found he was getting stronger and stronger through initiation then he ever had before. He had been quite acrobatic before, and relied much more on his agility than anything else. Now, he was focused more on strength. He was still quick and limber in his movements, but he could run farther, jump higher, lift more than he had been able to before. He didn't get tired as often and his body seemed to yearn for the excitement of exercise. Despite the constant pressure from training, his mind felt sharper. He felt like his thoughts moved quickly, but clearly. He was in shape both mentally and physically. Finn took a look around, breaths coming quickly but controlled. Everyone else here was probably the same way. Would his growth be enough to fit into Dauntless? Could his strength, his bravery, hide his secret forever? The boy shook his head to clear it of the suddenly-darkening thoughts. He would be fine.

Aubrey's voice suddenly caught his attention and he slowed a bit in surprise. Before he realized what was happening, she had taken off, nothing but red hair on the horizon. "Hey!" He gasped out in surprise. With a quick look at Night he narrowed his eyes and grinned. "Guess we're on!" Finn picked up the pace as well, lowering his head and charging forward. Could he beat Aubrey? That was, honestly, a solid maybe. She had the advantage already and was just as physically fit as he. Finn found, however, with a couple sharp sprints, he was almost at her heels once again. "Boo!" He shouted, reaching, stretching out with his hand to snag the back of her collar.

Luck was not on his side today.

Finn's hand had just danced across the cloth of Aubrey's top when his foot slammed into an upturned piece of concrete. He'd been so focused on her back that he hadn't seen the large and very obvious obstruction in his path, one Aubrey had gracefully leaped over. Finn let out a sorry-sounding yelp of surprise as he went tumbling forward. His speed meant he rolled quite a few times before coming to a halt on the open ground. There, he laid still for a few moments. If one looked closely, they would see him shaking lightly, breaths hitched and sudden. What was he doing? Laughing. What an idiot! The teen thought to himself. And in front of Night, too. Oh well. Whether or not Aubrey came back, he had obviously lost this race. The painful stings on his knees, elbows, and- was that his eyebrow?- would remind him of this royal screw-up for some time. Ow...

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Harper Day

Harper had gotten to the training room early that morning to get in some cardio before the initiates showed up. If she had had modern science, the young woman would have known that working out for more than a solid hour and a half could actually be detrimental. But she didn't, and so she spent most of her time not teaching in there. Her sword lay propped against the wall, forgotten as she continued her set of burpees. It wasn't until the door opened and Charlie stepped in that Harper took notice of her surroundings rather than the exercise before her. Was it time for the initiates already? "Hey, what's up?" She greeted the beautiful Stark girl casually. She raised a gloved hand in a wave. the other going to wipe the sweat from her forehead. "Ready for today?"

As Charlie answered, Harper began to pack up her used equipment and strap her weapon back on her waist. Out of anyone in Dauntless, and besides her idiot little brother, Harper trusted Charlie the most. She would never admit it, but she felt at ease around the other young woman. Perhaps it was the old crush she'd once had, or the other woman's calming, kind demeanor that made her so welcoming. Or maybe it was because Charlie had listened where others had written off Harper as an forceful, cold-hearted loner. Whatever it was, she would defend Charlie without a second thought.

"I haven't seen Ghost around much lately. Other than strictly for initiation events. I know his job is pretty much only to lead initiation, but I wonder what he gets up to now since I don't see him training in here much anymore? Probably off moping or bothering teenagers somewhere, huh?" Harper's normally reserved tone was a little looser today as she spoke with Charlie, hoping to get a laugh out of the other woman. "You train much anymore either, Charlie? I'm down for a workout buddy." As long as that buddy was no one other than her, of course.

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[WanderLust.]

Blair Avalon // 16 // Dauntless Born // Initiate // Divergent
Interacting With: Ghost Aviator Christian Nerdy.

Blair ignored Ghost’s comment as she began examining her wound with a frown. She had been in many a skirmish before, and had certainly had worse wounds than this, but it still hurt. She watched as a drop of crimson began to drip down her arm, her eyes only snapping away when Ghost’s voice cut through her mildly annoyed silence. Blair was sure that her pupils must have shrunk down to the size of pin pricks as she closely examined the dark-haired male with a cocked eyebrow. How many times had Charlie asked to inspect her various injuries? How many times had Christian patched her up himself? And yet here she was, fairly certain that if she let Ghost anywhere near her in her state of vulnerability, she might suffer the consequences. She mulled it over in the silence, Ghost had already had a chance to kill her today, if he had wanted her dead, she would be dead. Reluctantly, the blonde stretched out her arm so that Ghost could get a better look. Her gaze remained fixated on him as he closed the distance between them, prepared to yank her arm out of his grasp if he did anything unexpected. She briefly remembered the aptitude test he had subjected her to, the way she had chosen to save his life rather than let him fall to his death. She had looked back on that decision multiple times since the test and often found herself questioning it. If she trusted Ghost so much in her head… then why was she so fully prepared to defend herself from murder right now?

When he proclaimed that she was fine, Blair let out a breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding. Not because she feared her scratch was a serious risk, but because his proximity had caused her such unease. That was something she was going to have to get used to if she planned on maintaining this alliance with Ghost. She quickly pulled her jacket back on, combing her fingers through her hair in an attempt to tame the wild mess of blonde that Ghost had created during their skirmish. Why did everything feel so awkward with him? Even now, she felt as though their alliance was hanging by one tiny thread that was ready to break at any moment. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as he began speaking again, explaining that she wouldn’t like his proposal. He was probably right, Blair and Ghost, while sharing a mutual interest, definitely had different ideas of how to approach their mutual enemies. She sat in silence as he continued to speak, not uttering a sound until he mentioned Chris. The sour memory of Christian’s inevitable death resurfacing, relighting a passionate distaste for Ghost that she hadn’t quite addressed yet. In her head, he was still partly responsible for her boyfriend’s looming mortality, but she hadn’t allowed herself to linger on this thought. Christian’s condition still made her stomach churn, she simply refused to accept it as truth.

At the mention of Obadiah, Blair stiffened like a wooden board. The last time she had seen Christian’s father, he had asked her to figure out who was responsible for what had happened to Chris. Blair had figured it out, it had been Ghost… but she had never reported this back to Obadiah. Ghost began to reveal his plan like a spool of tangled thread, a parade of red flags marched before Blair’s eyes as she tried to contemplate how Ghost thought they could possibly pull this off. “I’m not…” she shook her head, trying to form some sort of coherent sentence that would convey her incredible disdain for this plan. She wasn’t a femme fatal, or at least, she didn’t want to be. “We can’t just kidnap Obadiah Parks… where are you even getting these serums from?” her head spun as she tried to come up with any excuse she could think of, any reason not to go through with this. Her relationship with Christian had already been strained lately, she didn’t dare do anything else that could hurt Chris. “And what if this memory serum doesn’t work? What if we get caught and Obadiah figures out what I am? Have you totally and completely lost your mind?” She snarled lowly.

Ghost’s response hit her like a slap in the face. Monster. She had been called it a hundred times, by one of the few people who actually knew about her secret. Ajax, her brother, who had walked her home the day of her aptitude test, never let her forget what she was. An abomination. A threat to society. A monster. She almost flinched at the words, but Ghost was right. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe that Obadiah would ever tolerate her if he knew the truth about her divergency. But as Ghost continued to lay it on her, all the detailed ways in which he was right, Blair snapped. “I will never be his daughter-in-law! I will never get to marry Christian. He’s dying.” Blair’s voice cracked with the sickening threat of unspilled tears. “He is dying because of the crap you gave him. I told Obadiah I would figure out who did this to Christian and I did… I can’t do this to them.” Blair remained stoically silent as Ghost tried to defend his plan, to reason with her, shifting tactics ever so often to see if there was some way to convince Blair to go through with this. He was right, there was no rational reason she should be sticking her neck out for a man that would kill her if he had the chance. Perhaps it was the amity in her that so harshly disagreed with the brutality as deceptiveness that this plan required. She hadn’t even realized the single tear that had slipped down her cheek during her outburst.

They stared at each other a moment longer, one too stubborn to give in, the other too stuck to move. When Ghost finally resigned, his stare felt like acid on Blair’s skin. She would have her mind made up by tomorrow, perhaps when she was not so drained, and her emotions weren’t so raw. But for now, she had had just about enough of Ghost and his insanity. By the time he instructed her to wait ten minutes before descending from the roof, Blair had already slumped down to a seated position on the ground. She didn’t acknowledge his instructions, but she would follow them. Once the door thumped shut behind him, ten minutes seemed to take ten decades. The sun began to peak up over the buildings, bringing with it the hope of a new day. Blair enjoyed the warmth of the sun kissing her cheeks for just a moment longer before she dragged herself up off the ground and headed towards the door, thankfully it was a lot easier to descend the stairs than it had been to climb them. As she made her way towards the chasm, she found herself walking faster, feeling lighter. She was headed towards safety now, towards friends and solace. Most importantly… she was returning to the warmth of Christian. Her boots thudded softly against the ground as she approached, seeing his tall figure in the distance. He turned at the sound of her footsteps, and the second their eyes met a smile broke out across her lips. “Hey…” she grinned, practically running the final ten feet towards him as she wrapped her arms around the blonde. Her fingers laced into his hair as she pulled him into a deep kiss, “I missed you…” she mumbled softly, pressing her forehead against his. They still had a half hour before training began, and she was intent on spending every second with him.​

 

[Sanctuaryforall1]

Thorn

Mood: Tired

Location: Training Center

Interactions: Charlie

Last night had been anything but pleasant after he returned home. He dared to risk a visit to his parent's house to check on his mother and at first, things had gone well. When Thorn got to the door he saw no sign of his father and uncle being home. In his arms the boy carried bags of groceries and supplies he figured his mom might have not had time to go get herself. His suspicions of his dad and uncle being gone were confirmed when his mother opened the door and was happy to see him rather than whispering for him to leave before something happens. It was nice to spend a bit of time with her, he made them tea, they spoke, he listened, but most importantly he made sure she was okay. Despite everything that she was never able to protect him from Thorn still loved his mother because he knew she was as trapped as he once had been. Now he was out on his own and wanted her to join him even if he was living in his workshop with very little space, it was far better than being with his father and uncle.

The mother and son were so focused on their conversation that Thorn missed the telling sign that the two alpha males were home until it was too late and the door was slamming open. Both his uncle and his father smelled strongly of liquor which burned his nose as he did his best to make his way past without an issue. That apparently was a big mistake. The moment Thorn went for the door, despite his polite nod and his attempts at a silent exit with his mother's hand in his, his father's weight threw him backward. With his head hitting the wall behind him with extreme force Thorn found himself dazed for a moment which was long enough for his father to press his drunken weight against the young boy's throat with his arm. The old man began raging drunkenly at Thorn while his uncle pulled his screaming mother away and held her apart from the fight. Thorn had struggled to breathe for a moment as his fuzzy mind tried to process the situation. Once he was aware of what was happening the young boy reached forward and forced his father's weight off of him enough for him to duck away as he gasped for air. The drunken man aimed to place a blow with his fist against Thorn's head but missed as Thorn dodged and used his force against him in order to direct him into the countertop.

The scuffle continued for a few minutes with Thorn taking several hits but dodging a good amount more even when his uncle entered the fray and tried to take him down as well. It was more than clear that his father and uncle didn't take kindly to him returning home and trying to convince his mother to leave again. Honestly, Thorn didn't mind taking the beating because it meant the two drunks would be too worn out to try going after his mother once they were finished with him. Eventually, though Thorn managed to get the two drunks to stumble into each other and knock each other out as they conked heads with a solid thud. With a bleeding lip, bruised throat, cut arm, and black eye Thorn once again tried to persuade his mother to come with him but just as she always was the woman was too afraid to leave.

Now as Thorn awoke the next morning with his body reminding him of the beating he had taken the young boy walked over to the mirror and looked at his reflection. His throat was deeply bruised as was his jaw, lip, eye, and several spots on his body. He had wrapped his bleeding arm the night before and carefully changed the bandages as he applied ointment to his split lip. It didn't do much to help and the moment he made any sort of movement with his mouth his lip split open again. With a sigh, the initiate looked away from the mirror and decided to get himself ready for the day. He slowly and with waves of pain flooding his body managed to get a black t-shirt and jeans on as well as some classic dauntless boots.

As he exited his workshop Thorn made sure to carefully package a project he had finished the day before and put it into his pocket. With that the beaten and bruised young man made his way to the training center. He walked the halls and kept his hands in his pockets as he did his best to avoid eye contact with everyone as he found himself searching for a specific trainer who had been kind and inspired something he had been working on the past several days. Finally as he peaked into on of the rooms in the training facility he managed to spot Charlie. "Hey Charlie!" He called out and sped up slightly to catch up with her. "Wait up if you don't mind!" He added and smiled, forgetting his split lip, as he drew closer. "I made you something. Not to be weird or anything but you just inspired the work so...now that it's done it belongs to you." He informed her as he held out the little bundle that inside held a beautiful metal tree necklace which he had made by hand.

Nerdy.

code by Stardust Galaxy

 

[jrink]

The first couple of words uttered from Ghost were a bit difficult to hear due to both Dante's placement and the sudden whistle of the wind. Though he itched to crane his neck further, get closer somehow, the fear of being spotted kept Dante rooted to place as he waited for the wind to quiet down, listened carefully. Finally the two's voices begin to more comprehensibly reach his ears, Dante pushing away a bit about a pebble as it didn't seem noteworthy at the moment. Nor did their conversation on Blair's injuries, medics, the works.

Half rolling his eyes as it didn't seem the aftermath to the two's violent little... dalliance had any interesting information to offer besides the fact that it called into question the nature of their relationship (but wait, wasn't Blair always spotted on the arm of another blonde guy?), Dante was about to disengage and just focus on not being seen when something about a mutual goal slipped from Ghost's lips.

What followed was a string of insane sentences Dante almost couldn't believe he'd been fortunate to overhear. A bit about Divergents (and that was a word he hadn't heard in a long time...), some Parks boy, truth serum, memory serum and most shockingly of all a roughly outlined plan to kidnap an Obadiah Parks. That name was a familiar one though Dante couldn't place it at the moment, not when so much more information was rushing in just as he was beginning to make sense of the smaller details. As Ghosts voice finally came to a stop and a silence followed, Dante let his eyes trace over Fable's a bit incredulously, his mind sticking to this kidnap plan Ghost had thrown off so... crassly, as if this scheme was just a small part of the stuff he planned on the daily. This kind of unlawfulness shouldn't been as shocking as it was to hear for Dante. After all Ghost had probably (over the years following his burglarizing of Dante's house) been building to bigger more elaborate ruses and schemes, just the kind of unlawfulness that the Dauntless were normally dispatched to put a stop too. Chuckling softly into the palm of his hand at the irony of it all, Dante forced himself to tune back into the continuing conversation.

It seemed Blair had only rage to respond with to Ghost's plan, most of which got caught in the sudden roar of the wind. Dante shielded his eyes a bit through the worst of it as he waited for it to pass in order to better continue his easy listening. And then their voices were ringing clear again with another mention of Divergence, though this time it was in reference to Blair.

Wait. Was the girl a... Was she a... Divergent?

He'd heard the word only a couple of times in the past, by his parents in furtive conversation they didn't seem to mind him hearing to small details of. While the word had seemed harmless enough in the open air, when his parents had elaborated on it a bit, clarified it to mean... terrible things for Chicago's future, for all of them, it hadn't seemed so harmless. And if society were to continue developing as it was meant too, his father had roughly said, these Divergents needed to be sussed out and removed. They were an infection that needed to be contained, a sore one couldn't simply just place a bandaid over. So wasn't it Ghost's obligation as a trainer to report it? Dante's eyes crept over what he could see of Blair's face once more, though this time something like revulsion sank into his pale features.

Clearing his expression hurriedly as the two's conversation finally came to a close and they each made their respective exits, it was only once the door was shutting with an audible creak behind Blair that Dante found he could breathe fully. Fable's expression, as he turned to behold it, was just as incredulous as his likely still was, familiar mismatched eyes wide as if she too didn't quite know what to do with the wealth they'd been given. But he, Dante quickly found, was quickly coming up with an idea.

"We can use this Fable," the words rushed out hastily as he reached forward without thinking to take his best friend's hands between his own. "he's a trainer and he's foolish enough... No," and a bit of still unreleased vehemence towards the man crept into Dante's voice. "he's stupid to not report her. We can take them both down, guarantee us a spot in the faction with this kind of knowledge."

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{ MOOD }
nervous, listening

{ LOCATION }
still the roof

{ TAGS }
Sanctuaryforall1

Dante Aiken
erudite-born initiate

code by ditto (head empty go bonk)​

 

[Wolfiee]

Poppy

Poppy grinned flashing pearly white teeth as Randi compliment her and gave her a side hug. “I mean I know I always look sexy and so do you that’s why we get all the men, women you name it.”she said with a warm laugh. This was the good ole Poppy outgoing, friendly, and badass no one could match her when she was being true to herself. “So you ready to go scoop up the love birds?”she asked clearly meaning Blair and Chris. When Randi gave her a look like duh of course she retaliate by sticking her tongue out at the gorgeous blonde. “Alright alright yeah it was a dumb question now let’s go!”she said happily before heading off towards where they usually met up with the two. It took them about ten minutes to find them where they both saw them giving one another warm passionate gazes. A feeling stirred in Poppy though she brushed it aside before wolf whistling at the two.”Ooh lala maybe you two should get a room.”she teased them receiving a grin but a blush from Blair then a smirk from Chris. “So we came to pick you guys up we were thinking it would be nice to have it like old times just the four of us together.”she said with a soft playful smile.

It didn’t take long before the four of them were off again joking, laughing, and jostling one another as they made their way towards their destination. However it seemed something had drawn them towards the chasm maybe it was fate or just the world playing a cruel joke on them either way the sight before them all was something they’d not soon forget. There lying upon the ground like a marionette with its strings cut was Ben a initiate like themselves. Poppy wasn’t sure who let out which sounds a gasp, cussing, intake of breath, and a scream seemed to happen all at once. She was even sure which sound had come from herself all she knew was the angle of Ben’s body made the contents of her stomach fight their way back up trying to come back up. Now death wasn’t something uncommon in dauntless or any where for that matter however this sight was. A suicide was something no one wanted to see or talk about it was a almost taboo subject it certainly was always a hard one to grasp. She didn’t know Ben well however seeing him like this sure as hell wasn’t easy. Poppy stumbled back was this a sign it certainly didn’t make her already worried mind any more at easy about the meeting to take place with her father later.

The look on Randi’s face though is was killed Poppy the most. It was an almost guilty look but why would Randi feel guilty about Ben’s death. Then it hit her the chasm was a place Randi loved to sit at and look out. Had her friend been here yesterday maybe even around the same time Ben had been here? Poppy pale and slightly shaken gripped Randi’s hand tightly to comfort while also receiving some comfort herself. A flash of movement let her see Chris taken Blair and holding her tightly against his chest the two of them looking just as shaken. A flash of red in the distance also caught her attention for a brief moment but her gaze was still fixed on Randi.

Ooc: Sorry it’s not the greatest! I wanted to make sure I didn’t power play to much but also wanted to try and get them all to the body that way the plots could continue. My next post is gonna introduce Nikolai soo I am looking forward to that!

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