"Me? A leader? You're joking right?" Jade asks with a chuckle, she stared at Eric for a moment, then at her boyfriend. He had his arms crossed and a slight smile on his face while looking at Jade, and oddly enough he didn't say a word. "No, I'm not joking. You chose saving the faction system over saving your own parents, you also -instead of quickly killing traitor me- showed me mercy, and not to mention, you -without hesitation- put a gun to a rogue leaders head. You might as well have the word 'reliable' written across your forehead. But that's just what I think, I'll run the scores from all five of you by Max and he'll have the final say." Eric says, Jade's eyes widened in surprise. "Wow Eric, that just might've been the nicest thing you've ever said to me," she paused with a slight quirk. "Too bad that doesn't resolve the fact you're still a manipulative, lying sack of pervy horse shit though." Jade replies standing from her seat, while insulting Eric she hoped to hear that same familiar laugh from Four, surprisingly she didn't.
"Awww, you're too kind. And I'll have you know being one hundred percent honest, just isn't in my DNA. But at the same time I can assure you, I'm not always a manipulative lying sack of horse shit." Eric smiled, Jade rolled her eyes. "You forgot pervy." She fired back, with a disgusted look. "He forgot it on purpose because he's too pathetic to admit it." Four finally speaks up, "Oh and speaking of which," he pauses and steps towards Eric, "if I see you touch her again, I'll show you the exact reason why you were ranked second to me in our class. You only got assigned co-leader of this faction because I didn't want the job. And also, your authority doesn't mean shit to me. I'm not gonna suddenly bow-down and fear you, nor am I gonna let you do whatever the fuck you want." Four says with aggression in his tone, stance, and eyes. Eric scoffed, and crossed his arms. He gestured for Four to come a bit closer with his fingers. Four clenched his jaw and stepped closer to Eric, and as expected the minacious faction leader leaned in near his ear to whisper. "We'll see about that. I tend to get what I want so I suggest you don't get too attached." Eric threatens in a volume Jade couldn't decipher, no matter how hard she was trying to eavesdrop.
Four pulls away and looks at Eric with nothing but malice directed back into the pierced devils glare. He then looked over to his girlfriend, who happened to be a few feet away next to the bulky levered door. He gestured for her to come to him. When she did, he turned to her and before she could process what was happening, his lips were on hers. Four pulled her as close as physically possible. Body to body.
She eventually caught on to what he trying to do and ran her hand up into his hair. Four then pulled away, looked Eric up and down in disgust, and pulled Jade to leave the small white room. And the look on Eric's face was absolutely priceless to Four, and it was a face he surely wasn't going to forget seeing. He opened, and held the door for Jade as they exited together. After the door closed behind them, they walk out of the little waiting room. Jade decides to ask the obvious question while he entwined his hand with hers, "What on earth did Eric say to you in there?" She asks. Four looks at Jade for a moment, "just know it wasn't something I appreciated hearing." He eventually answers with, and Jade decided to leave it alone for now. Soon they were completely alone and quietly walking towards the direction of Four's apartment, Four decided to break the silence by suddenly picking Jade up bridal style.
"What're you-ahh!" Jade nearly shrieked, but she calmed after realizing he was just picking her up. "Whatcha doin?" She casually asks after awhile of being effortlessly carried. All he does is look at her, smile, and shrug as he kicked his apartment door open, and carried her through. "You're acting a bit strange, is there something wrong?" Jade asks as he shuts the door with his foot. He turns and sets her down, she crossed her arms as she stared at him curious and confused. But she nonetheless kept her smile.
He slowly un-crosses her arms and glides his hands onto her shoulders, going underneath her jacket, inevitably making it fall from her arms. His actions, combined with the dreamy way he gazed into her eyes made her knee's weak and her breathing hitch. Once her black leather jacket fell to the ground he placed his hands on either side of her waist, pulling her closer. He gently pressed his forehead against hers while continuing to admire every detail in her hazel eyes. After awhile he pulled away and could see the biggest smile on Jade's face.
"What's all this about?" She asked, referring to why he seemed more affectionate then usual. "While you were under the sim you said, and I quote, 'I can't just waltz right out of here and leave behind the love of my life'." Four says and Jade's cheeks turn red as a wide smile plasters her face. Her eyes fall to the floor, "And not to mention, you... you went back for me, even when I told you not to. That fact alone proves to me what you said in there." Four tapped Jade's right temple, referring to her mind. "Came from in here." He adds, also tapping her chest, right above where her heart was. Her cheeks began to hurt from smiling so hard.
"It's just, ever since you pulled me off that net, I haven't gone a day without thinking of you. And even then, Miles had told me his aptitude test administrator had a number for a name. I knew about you before we even met. I don't know if that makes me some sorta creepy stalker girl but," Jade says, and the two laugh together. Hearing his laugh, and seeing his wide smile warmed her heart. But after their laughter died down, she looked up at him and wrapped her arms around his neck loosely. Her eyes held a glint, it was the type of glint that didn't need explaining. He knew, in that exact moment, that the girl in his arms, had fallen completely in love with him.
"But in all seriousness, I want you to know that I'd do just about anything to keep you happy, and by my side." She tells him, just before impulsively looking down from such a heated moment. She takes in a shaky breath, and builds up the needed courage for what she's about to say next. "And, I-I know it's still pretty early in our relationship but, ..I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you Tobias Eaton." Jade confesses, and her eyes glistened once she looked back up into his, causing his smile to grow. "I've been in love with you Natalie Harris." He happily responds with, as nothing but the sound of her contagious laughter filled the room. "Always gotta one up me huh?" She says, beginning to close the small space between them. He kissed her just as he did for their first kiss. He kissed her so passionately it was as if she was the only girl in the world.
And to Tobias, she was the only girl in the world, in his eyes. He couldn't imagine life without Natalie. Well, he could, but that life was more or less portrayed as a nightmare in his mind, and it was certainly not a life worth thinking of. Later on, Jade and Four head to the training room as planned, where Liam and Lauren had already been waiting. "Took you two long enough." Liam says to them, Jade rolls her eyes at him. "Oh hush, we weren't that long." She says, "And anyways, I don't see Lauren complaining." Jade adds.
"Yeah, we got here like five minutes ago. Mr. Impatient over here thinks you two took a damn decade." Lauren says, causing Liam to huff, "'More like a millennium." He mutters. "You'll get over it." Jade replies nudging him with her elbow. "Yeah, and I suggest you get over it soon because we've got a lot of work to do." Four chimes in, "Four's right, we only have less than several months until the next group of initiates come falling down that hole. And we need to get you both at least half ready to train on your own. Once they're here Four and I will walk you through training them so everything goes smoothly." Lauren explains, "and I'm pretty sure you both already know how different transfers and Dauntless-born are. Some Dauntless-born think just because we grew up here means were ultimately superior to transfers, regardless if they pass the two stages." She finishes. "Luckily, we have transfers like you and as much as I hate to admit it, Peter, to prove that transfers aren't what most Dauntless-born think." Four chimes in looking back at Jade.
Liam nodded, "Yeah, majority of my friends degrade transfers just because of the fact they're coming from another faction. Funny thing about it is, when a transfer or two out ranks them," Liam nudges Jade, referring to herself. "They wanna cry." He adds matter-of-factly, causing Jade to laugh-scoff. "Your friends sound like whiney, arrogant, assholes." She says to him, and Liam stares at her in surprise. But he wasn't surprised by her non-peaceful words, he was surprised at how similar him and Jade thought. "That's exactly what I tell them. But they refuse to listen to me. It's almost to the point they treat me like a transfer just because I'm being honest. And right." Liam says as the group of four walk past two of the five matted arenas.
"That's because most Dauntless-born are stubborn. But it's also because some Dauntless-born forget that transfers are transferring from their old factions for a reason." Four says, "but enough about that. We need to go over the fairly new rules and changes for Initiate training." Four adds, quickly changing the subject. Jade and Liam looked at each other unsure as the four of them walked past the fourth matted arena and stopped at the fifth. "Go on." Jade insisted, even though she wasn't necessarily ready for the surprise information. Four made eye contact with Lauren before looking over to Jade and Liam. "Well for starters, this year, both transfers and Dauntless-born will be trained together, in both the first and second stages of training." Four states looking to the both of them, and their jaws fell to the floor.
The fairly huge room fell silent between the group of four. "Trust me, those were our faces when Eric and Max ran it by us." Lauren says, while Jade and Liam struggled to comprehend what this de-segregation of the two very different adolescent groups meant. Liam crossed his arms, "I mean, it makes sense considering the extra two instructor-trainees to keep from chaos breaking out but," Liam trailed off for a moment, connecting the dots in his mind. "Four instructors training like twenty plus initiates is a little unfair." He adds matter-of-factly. "You're right but," Jade pauses with a quirk, "I think we should be more concerned about how the transfers and Dauntless born are going be amongst one another's presence, and not to mention, how they'll perform against each other." She suggests intuitively.
She notices Four and Lauren look at each other momentarily, she assumed it was out of amazement. She also noticed the searing glare Liam had directed at her. She leans close to Liam, "try quality over quantity next time." She says, knowing all to well her words struck a nerve. He clenched his jaw in order to avoid confrontation, and eventually, he shrugged it off. "That is exactly what we should be focusing on, or more like, what we should try to control for when the time comes. Cause we all know we're gonna have some rivalry between the two groups." Lauren says with slight annoyance at the fact.
"Now let's get started." She says, "Jade you're with me. Liam you're with Four. At first we'll explain how both me and Four used to train initiates and then eventually we'll come together to plan the new training. Understood?" Lauren questions, and she receives nods from both Jade and Liam. Jade went off with Lauren as Four left with Liam, she looked back to watch her boyfriend leave and ended up making eye contact, and exchanging smiles. After that Lauren explained the process of Dauntless-born training, and how advanced it seemed to transfer training. She also explained how the rules have gotten stricter, for the safety of both transfers and Dauntless-born. "I'm gonna assume Eric had nothing to do with this, considering how all these rules go against his love for cruelty." Jade insinuates, "not to mention his 'a brave man never surrenders' bullshit forte." She adds.
"Ahh yes, the almighty pierced and tatted ass-wipe. If he did have something to do with this, I'd die from being so shocked." Lauren replies, and Jade looks up at her with raised eyebrows. She wasn't surprised that she hated Eric, she was exactly just astonished at the amount of people that loathe his entire existence. "You hate him too eh?" Jade asks, "hate isn't a good enough term to use when talking about him. Nor loathe, nor despise, nor revolt, there's not one negative verb that isn't an understatement in my eyes when talking about that man. He's an asshole and I'm pretty positive he'll always be one." Lauren tells her, and her voice softened into sorrow more and more, after each word. It seemed as if there was a secret behind the sudden change of tone, and their was no doubt Jade wanted to know. But since it had been the first day of actually getting acquainted with Lauren, she decided not to potentially cross a line.
"Can't argue with that, Eric's manipulative, careless, deceitful, and unfortunately, perverted. That last one gets on my nerves the most, since I'm basically just an object to that prick. And I can't curb stomp the perv out of him either since he's our god forsaken douche of a faction leader." Jade replies, oddly enough earning a laugh-scoff from Lauren. It was only odd because it was more of a scoff than a laugh. Jade felt the urge to look at Lauren confused. She wanted to try and get clarification on why but, she decided to see if Lauren would come clean about what ever it was on her own. "Other than that, what else has he done to you?" Lauren suddenly asked, for Jade the question was kinda odd but she answered regardless. "He uh, almost convinced me that Four was nothing but a lowlife. He starting saying how Four only plays with girls feelings when me and him first got together. He was trying to mess up my relationship with Four. I only started to believe him because he's obviously been around Four longer than I have, and I didn't really know Eric was known for being the deceitful little shit he is until after the fact." Jade unhesitatingly explained, she figured she'd have to tell Lauren a little something to get her to open up.
They entered the training room in silence, causing Jade to look over at Lauren, waiting for a response. She had her eyebrows furrowed and her eyes held a blank stare in front of her. It was obvious she had something on her mind. "I wasn't going to ask but, it's pretty obvious there's something bothering you about Eric, and this might sound a little too Amity for ya but, if you don't mind, I'm a really good listener. Plus I can keep my mouth shut." Jade offers, making sure not to pry. Lauren just chuckled a bit, right before her expression softened. The two females walked past the row of orange punching dummy's, towards the middle matted arena.
"It's just, ..erm... before you and all the initiates came falling down through that hole, me and Eric were uh... close. Just like you and Four are now." Lauren paused as she watched Jade's eyes widen in surprise. "He broke up with me the third week of your guys first stage of training and for me, that heartbreak came out of absolutely nowhere. I fell in love with every aspect of him, and..." Lauren trailed off for second and swallowed hard. "He just threw me away like I was nothing. And I was left clueless as to why." Lauren explained, and Jade was heart crushed at how cruel that prick of a Dauntless leader treated her. She felt nothing but pure sympathy for Lauren and sheer hatred for him. "But now, after hearing about you from Four, and after actually meeting you face to face, and after hearing all these things about Eric from you, I think I know why he shattered my heart completely." Lauren says sorrowfully, and this time her eyes were glued to the floor and her brown, purple streaked hair covered her face. "Why?" Jade asks through her hand as it laid over her mouth in heart ache.
"He broke my heart because of you." Lauren claims sadly, and the words were like painful little pin prick's to Jades heart. "He's not in love with me anymore because he's in love with you." She clarifies, and the words didn't come out laced with malice, they came out laced in heartbreak and sorrow.