Cold Hearts | Tobias Eaton

°14°

THE PHRASE "do whatever you like" sticks in my mind. At home, I could never do what I wanted, not even for an evening. I had to think of other people's needs first. I don't even know what I like to do.

"You are only permitted to leave the compound when accompanied by a Dauntless," Eric adds. "Behind this door is the room where you will be sleeping for the next few weeks. You will notice that there are ten beds and only nine of you. We anticipated that a higher proportion of you would make it this far."

"But we started with twelve," protests Christina. Now I see why Beatrice is her friend - they can't keep their mouths shut.

"There is always at least one transfer who doesn't make it to the compound," says Eric, picking at his cuticles. He shrugs. "Anyway, in the first stage of initiation, we keep transfers and Dauntless-born initiates separate, but that doesn't mean you are evaluated separately. At the end of initiation, your rankings will be determined in comparison with the Dauntless-born initiates. And they are better than you are already. So I expect—"

"Rankings?" asks the mousy-haired Erudite girl to my right. "Why are we ranked?"

Eric smiles, and in the blue light, his smile looks wicked, like it was cut into his face with a knife.

"Your ranking serves two purposes," he says. "The first is that it determines the order in which you will select a job after initiation. There are only a few desirable positions available."

I think I would love to be the one to make the delicious food in the canteen.

"The second purpose," he says, "is that only the top ten initiates are made members."

Or maybe I won't be in the canteen.

Maybe I will collect trash with Jin-Soo. It also an option.

We all stand still as statues. And then Christina says, "What?"

"There are eleven Dauntless-borns, and nine of you," Eric continues. "Four initiates will be cut at the end of stage one. The remainder will be cut after the final test."

That means that even if we make it through each stage of initiation, six initiates will not be members. I see Jin-Soo look at me from the corner of my eye, so I look at her back. She  moves her hands as if to tell me "We're going to be trash buddies, right?" And I answer her the same way. "Yeah dude, trash buddies all the way."

My odds, as one of the smallest initiate, as the one of the Abnegation transfers, are not that good. But thanks to the good genes my parents left me - at least something - my odds are better than expected.

"What do we do if we're cut?" Peter says.

"You leave the Dauntless compound," says Eric indifferently, "and live factionless."

I will be a member. I will. 

You know how the Amity stuff in school said: "Life is your creation,"

"But that's...not fair!" the broad-shouldered Candor girl, Molly, says. Even though she sounds angry, she looks terrified. "If we had known—"

"Are you saying that if you had known this before the Choosing Ceremony, you wouldn't have chosen Dauntless?" Eric snaps. "Because if that's the case, you should get out now. If you are really one of us, it won't matter to you that you might fail. And if it does, you are a coward." I chose dauntless because I wanted to protect my sister; does that mean I should be out?

Eric pushes the door to the dormitory open.

"You chose us," he says. "Now we have to choose you."

I lie in bed and listen to nine people breathing. What an awful sound.

I have never slept in the same room as a boy before, but here I have no other option, unless I want to sleep in the hallway. Everyone else changed into the clothes the Dauntless provided for us, and so did I, but Beatrice still sleeps in her Abnegation clothes, which I bet still smell like soap and fresh air, like home. - just like my clothes did.

I used to have my own room. I could see the front lawn from the window, and beyond it, the foggy skyline. I am used to sleeping in silence.

I hear some sob. I look around and see Beatrice. She can't cry, not here. She has to calm down.

"Beatrice? I say, I hear she stopped sobbing, "are you alright?"

"You weren't supposed to choose Dauntless."

"What?

"You should have chosen Candor. You shouldn't come here just to be with me."

Now it's me who feels a few tears roll down. " What are you implying?"

"You can act as you belong here, but deep down you know you don't."

My hands shake a little and the tears starts to blur my vision. I won't cry for someone as her. In fact, I won't even look at her. Because even Jin-Soo, who I know so little, feels more like a sister than Beatrice ever did.

A strangled sound interrupts the breathing, followed by a heavy sob. Bed springs squeal as a large body turns, and a pillow muffles the sobs, but not enough. They come from the bunk next to mine—they belong to a Candor boy, Al, the largest and broadest of all the initiates. He is the last person I expected to break down.

I swallow hard.

If your mother knew what was going between Beatrice and me, whose side would she pick?

Al sobs again. I almost feel the sound grate in my own throat.

Maybe my problem isn't that Beatrice doesn't want me her. My problem might be that even if I leave, I wouldn't belong to any faction, I would lose more that I gained.

The thought makes me grit my teeth. I gather the pillow around my ears to block out Al's crying, and fall asleep with a circle of moisture pressed to my cheek.