XXIX

"Steal me, deal me, anyway you heal me

Maim me, tame me, you can never change me

Love me, like me, come ahead and fight me

Please me, tease me, go ahead and leave me" 

"I Think I'm Paranoid" -Garbage

All of the initiates, both Dauntless-born and transfers, found themselves on the train, heading to the dark, unused sections of the faction. Harper hadn't had any experience with the game, but she understood the basics of it. When Eric handed her one of the guns, it felt heavy in her hands, but she stood tall and did not waver under the pressure that Eric was putting on her. Everything felt relatively normal with him again, she was able to diffuse the tension between them and almost entirely between him and Tobias.

He was in a playful, albeit cocky, mood and that was the mood that suited Eric best. She was glad that they were doing something to both even out the playing field and to show the initiates that the faction wasn't all seriousness.

"Harper, you're team captain." Eric grinned, "You can pick first."

Harper had no doubt in her mind who she was going to choose first. "Tobias."

Eric raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. He had seen something growing between Harper and Tobias, but he was not jealous in one way, but was in another. He knew that she was not romantically interested in Tobias Eaton, even though he was much closer to her age than he was. That was not something he had ever worried about with Harper, the both of them were far too attracted to each other to bother with others. But there was something Eric knew Harper identified with Tobias, they were similar in ways that Eric didn't want to think about. This kid was going to be the pulling factor in Harper's decision, and Eric knew that if he wanted Harper to see his way of things, he would have to get Tobias to stay away. He had an idea, but it wouldn't be able to come into play until the initiation was complete, and that might be too late.

Eric made his first pick, and they went back and forth until there was no one left to choose from. Then Eric explained the guns, "These bullets will not harm you, not really. They trigger the neurons in your body to feel the pain of a real bullet. We might be playing a game, but take this as a learning lesson on how you will react when shot at."

"No head shots." Harper added, not knowing if that was a rule, but she certainly wasn't allowing initiates to give each other brain damage.

The train shook slightly as it turned, and Harper glanced at Eric, reaching over and grabbing hold of one of the poles to steady herself. The gun was strapped around her back, and she walked over to Eric. The initiates were all tittering and talking, some nervous, some excited. Those were two emotions that seemed to go hand in hand in Dauntless, Harper had noticed since she had been here.

"How come we never played this when I was an initiate?" Harper asked him.

"Carson hates it," he told her. "She's never been a fun person."

"Don't be too hard on her." Harper adored Carson. "She was a good trainer."

"You took her down on your first fight."

Harper almost said she had been trained to fight by her father, but she held her tongue just in time. "Like I said, she was a good trainer."

Eric smirked at that, and the glanced out the windows. His booming voice filled the train car, "This is it!"

Everyone filed at the doors and jumped out, handfuls at a time. When it was just Eric and Harper left on the train, she kissed his cheek. "Good luck."

They jumped out and landed on the broken up concrete that had moss and weeds sprouting up from the cracks. It was desolate out here, aside from the small group of excited initiates. The air was crisp, the moon was bright and shone down on everything. It was a good night for this, and Harper quickly gathered the people she had chosen. She had wanted to pick every single one of the transfers, but knew that the Dauntless-born would be able to help better than anyone else, and she was also new to this. Some team captain.

When they were far away from Eric's team, Harper stood among her team and glanced around. She could hardly even get a word in about team work and beating Eric before the kids all starting planning it out, what they wanted to do, where they wanted to hide the bright, luminescent flag. Somewhere high up would be harder for the other team to get, but easier for them to spot. It had to be visible to some extent, and it had to be easily protected but hard to reach. Tobias was the one who decided that they should put it in a building that was broken down, one that would be hard to get up, with a narrow stairwell that would be easy to block off. They all took off, deciding who would protect it and who would start looking for the other teams flag.

It was amazing how quickly they worked together to win a silly game, but Harper was seeing the benefit to such things. She wished she had gotten to do this, and maybe been on Eric's team when she was an initiate. She wasn't the most competitive person, but she could see a fire burning in the eyes of these teenagers, their desire to win would drive them to success. She hoped, at least, because she wanted to see Eric defeated. A part of her knew that he might be a sore loser, but she would deal with that if it happened. Or maybe, she'd go out with Eliza and Carson to celebrate, letting Eric brood. She smirked, and listened to the plan.

She took a recon group to find the others flag, while a small group stayed behind to guard the flag. Tobias was right beside her as the walked carefully along the edges of the dark buildings; she couldn't help but think what people used to do in them. Lived there? Worked there? What was the world like before the factions? They never said, no one ever talked about it, but they didn't deny that it used to be different. Harper had never been curious before; Erudite was so perfected that there were no empty buildings like Dauntless had. But Dauntless was on the edge of the factions, and there had been no reason to tear down these buildings and use it for anything other than fun and games. That was one of the best things about Dauntless. Amity had a bit of fun, but they did a lot of hard work. Abnegation had no fun whatsoever, and Erudite was all about learning. Candor was too honest for games like this, and so Dauntless held the reputation for the most fun faction, but it came at the price of possibly dying to protect people.

But tonight was for fun.

"Look," Tobias said in a whisper, and their group stopped, huddled around, and looked up to where he was pointing. It was about fifteen floors up, right dead center of a building. The building was crumbled on one side, and Harper knew that they had chosen that one because it was impenetrable from that side. Or at least, that was what the team thought.

Harper looked at her group. "Mina, do you think you could get through that side, over the rubble?"

She nodded. "Why me?"

"You're the smallest, the lightest." Harper knew that risking her teammates safety could get her in trouble. But this was a world of risks. "And they'll be focused on us as we go up the stairs."

"All of us?" Tobias seemed skeptical.

"Maybe one more person should go with Mina." Harper reconsidered.

"It should be you," Tobias suggested, "you're small too."

She nodded. "Good call. Plus, I've had more experience with guns than you lot have."

And so it was decided. Tobias lead the remainder of the group to the stairs, where they would willingly expose themselves and get themselves trapped and likely shot at, all so Mina and Harper could sneak their way to the flag. Silently, with Mina two steps behind her, Harper walked towards the rubble. The pieces were larger than they seemed when they had been a distance away, but it meant that things would be less likely to move. Mina followed behind Harper, because Harper was there to protect her. She would take the bullets if she had to, and hopefully Mina could get through. With that said, she hoped that no one would even see them. As they were about half way up to their destination, gunshots were heard, and Harper knew that their time was running out. Now that the other team had spotted their group, they might begin to suspect that because only about half of them were there, that the other half was trying a different route to their flag.

"Go, take this floor." Harper said. Mina climbed through the rubble to the unsteady eighth floor and Harper grabbed her hand to pull herself up. They were above where the gunshots had been heard, so the stairs were probably clear, and they were going to get to the fifteenth floor a lot faster by taking the stairs than by traversing rubble that could tip and send them to their deaths. Harper opened the stairwell door and looked up it; it was pitch black, so she looked through her scope. So far, it was clear, so she entered, and pulled a cinderblock to prevent anyone from coming in easily, or leaving.

Staying ahead of Mina, Harper looked through her scope the entire way. It didn't give her a very vast amount of sight, but it was the best she could do as the stairwell was pitch black. She counted the levels until they reached the fifteenth floor and she pressed her ear to the door. If there was anyone on the other side, they were being silent. She turned the handle, and found it was not locked, and when she peered out, she still saw no one. Turning back to look at Mina, she held out her hand and mouthed "Wait".

Pushing the door halfway open, she stepped out and did a quick look around. The moon was out and she was able to see, as the windows and open part of the building allowed the glow in. She was about to turn back to Mina to tell her that it was safe, but she felt the muzzle of a gun pressed to the back of her head, and she knew that she had been caught. Her heart pounded even though she knew it wasn't a real gun; whoever was standing behind her knew that head shots were not allowed and were following the rules, but they had Harper stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"Bang," Eric said with a viciously playful tone to his voice that made Harper shudder.

"You wouldn't shoot me." She smirked, she remained exactly where she was, as still as a stone. She had a plan.

"How do you-" Eric was cut off when Harper brought her arm back and knocked his hand from its place, and she gripped his wrist, bringing her left hand to his chest in a forceful punch that did more damage to her hand than to him. He was grinning, but his movements were predictable to Harper now. He went to sweep out her legs from underneath her, but she jumped over his kick and wrapped her arms around his waist and pushed him against the wall. He hardly moved, but it was enough for her to bend his wrist enough for him to drop the gun. She kicked it away and then yelled, "Mina! Go!"

Eric realized what Harper was doing, not having expected another person to be with her, and gasped slightly. He fought to get Harper off of him, but she clung onto him as if her life depended on it. He shook her off at last and bent down to grab his gun that had hit the concrete flooring. Harper wrapped a leg around his shoulder and tightened her thigh around his neck. The weight of her was enough to force him to the ground, but he grabbed her by the waist and shoved her off of him, and by now he was grinning wildly.

"You've improved," he said as he grabbed his gun.

Harper was scrambling off of the ground, her gun in her hand. It was a standoff now. "I learned all your moves."

"Oh yeah?"

"You're hardly any different between fighting and in bed; all force." She winked and then she shot him in the leg.

Eric groaned in pain, but fired back at her. It got her in the stomach and she keeled over, laughing and crying all at once. As much as this was painful, it was truly a ton of fun being against Eric. She pulled the dart from her body, but the pain still lingered, and would for about half an hour. She dove behind a flipped over table that had been charred, probably a fire that damaged the building, a bomb, maybe. She could hear Eric walking, but he was no longer going for her. He was going for Mina. Harper groaned, she was in so much pain, but she looked over the desk to spot Eric. A gunshot came in her direction and she ducked to avoid it, then she got up again and shot Eric in the back. He stumbled slightly, and Harper rushed towards him. He brought the gun underneath his keeled over stomach, and shot her, this time she got it in the leg and collapsed. She fired once more and Eric dropped, and she crawled over in absolute agony and clutched onto his leg so that he couldn't move any further. In the distance, the far side of the room, Mina had grabbed hold of the flag, and was holding it up in triumph and success.

"Oh thank you." Harper let go of Eric and let herself go limp on the ground. She touched where her stomach felt as though it had been shot, and closed her eyes, breathing in relief. When she opened them, Eric was beside her, his face contorted in pain but he was still able to offer her a smile. He leaned over and kissed her.

"Well played, Von Treese," he said, authentically.