The Soldier - Chapter 13
Pairing: Eric & OC
Fandom: Divergent
Rating: Explicit, Minors DNI
A/N: I'm back after seven years! Enjoy!
Occasional screams echo down the damp tunnel outside the simulation room. The initiates sit and wait in the dimly lit hallway; most stare at the wall or at the floor. I flex my toes in the shoes I borrowed from Jenna, trying to get the blood flowing to my cramped pinky toe. Across from me, I hear Calvin’s leg shaking the bench, rusted metal screws creaking with the movement. Jenna punches him in the leg, and his leg stops. He mouths at her, “Ow,” and rubs his thigh.
The simulation room door opens, and Four calls in the next initiate. Calvin lets out a small sigh as the door slams shut, resting back against the wall. “At least this is the last one.” He smiles at me, and I smile back, though half my foot stings with pins and needles. I hope I’m called next.
An hour later, the tunnel is half empty. I’ve abandoned my shoes and my stomach growls, unsatisfied with half a blueberry muffin. “OH GOD NOOO!!” Jenna screams from the opposite side of the door. She’s only been in there for two minutes. I eat the other half of the blueberry muffin, smushed from the inside of my jacket pocket. I lick the paper liner clean while pain builds behind my left eyebrow, a headache from the lack of caffeine. I blush recalling the reason why I wasn’t able to drink my coffee this morning, my lips still feel a little puffy. I can still taste his mouth on my tongue.
The door opens again, and now it is Eric who is calling out a name; I’m not sure which. Our eyes lock when he glances up from the clipboard; his lips are a little puffy, too. He looks down at my shoes, raising his eyebrows slightly and stretching his piercings. Calvin stands, and I watch him walk into the room and lie on the metal chair before the door closes. It’s quiet again, except for the occasional swear word. Calvin isn’t a screamer.
—
My stomach growls again with hunger. He’s been in there for too long, twice as long as usual. Each passing minute kills my hope that we’ll pass stage 2 together. I sniff, raise my eyes to the ceiling, and rapidly blink back the forming tears. I alternate between chewing on my fingernails and digging them into my palms, leaving small crescent indents in my skin.
I’m quick. The moment the door opens and Eric calls my name, I rush past him and grab Calvin by the elbow before he can leave through a door on the opposite wall. I press my lips against his ear as I pull him into a tight hug and whisper.
“Find Addie.”
He pulls back and looks at me, sad and confused, with tear-stained cheeks and puffy red eyes. He manages to lift one corner of his mouth into a smile. “Goodbye, Apple.” He pats my hand and slips through my grasp. Both doors to the simulation room slam closed, and now we’re alone together. I stand there for a minute, trying to stay numb, dabbing my eyes with my sleeve to stop the tears from escaping. Now’s not the time.
I turn to face Eric. He sits on a stool, arranging a tray with a syringe, a vial of clear liquid, and an antiseptic wipe. A nearby monitor hums with static. What simulation did Calvin suffer through? What did Eric see on the screen?
“Come, take a seat.” He says, and I obey, lying down and staring up at the ceiling light. The light burns into my retinas. The chair is still warm from the previous occupant, my friend. A tear rolls down my cheek and into my ear, clogging it. I shake my head once to unclog it, and Eric approaches with the antiseptic wipe. He leans over me, pushing hair away from my neck and wiping a few fallen tears away from my ear. The cloth is wet and cold against my skin.
He uncaps the syringe, stabs the seal of the vial, and pulls on the plunger. He catches me staring at his hands and smiles amusingly. “I see you’ve left behind another pair of shoes.” He gestures down to my socks. I forgot Jenna’s shoes in the hallway. She’s going to kill me if I lose them. I laugh and cry at the same time in one long exhale as he tilts my head to the side, giving him better access to my neck. He pulls a few loose strands of hair back, and his fingers hesitate at the nape of my neck.
“If it helps,” he says, “Calvin was one of the bravest initiates I’ve seen this year.”
“It does. Thank you.” I reply, closing my eyes and wincing as the needle enters my neck and he pushes the plunger down. I swear I hear him apologize before I fade away.
—
I wake up and I’m in my bed. It’s the middle of the night, I’m cozy under a giant comforter, and I’m not alone. I’m not alone. I can hear him, them, breathing in the dark. Slow, eager gasps that hover over my head, rasping close to my ears, giggling under my bed, from under my blanket. I feel their bodies against me, pressing and shifting. They pull the covers away and move me into His lap.
He sits in a chair in the corner while the rest of them hiss and contort, wrapping themselves around the chair’s legs. They jeer at me over His shoulder through the slats in the wood. My legs go numb, my feet jerk with pins and needles. He grasps one bare foot by the ankle, and with His other hand, violently tickles the bottom. I shriek, cry, struggle, and laugh. The other men reach up and pull my hair, exposing my neck to His beak.
In a single peck, He rips out my esophagus, and I watch Him gulp down the bloody organ. Blood dribbles out of both sides of my mouth. He licks my face clean before pecking again and tearing away half my tongue, shattering several teeth in the process. Teeth fragments fall and slide down my throat, then spill out onto my chest. He grabs my other foot and goes back to tickling. I can’t breathe. I can only blink at Him until I finally leave my body. My vision fades to black as I slip away.
—
“Olivia!”
Hands shake my shoulders roughly. I gasp as my eyes open and Eric exhales. “Fuck, you stopped breathing for a minute.”
I blink into the fluorescent lights, sit up, and swing my legs over the side of the chair. My foot bumps one of Jenna’s shoes, and I slide my feet into them without thinking. I need to get out of this chair. I try to stand. He steadies me and tells me to breathe, gently pushing me back on the chair. I try to catch my breath, and he presses two fingers under my jaw to feel my heartbeat. My heart beats faster under his touch as I inhale the scent of his soap. The smell reminds me of his kitchen counter and how tight his hands were on my body.
“You okay now?” he asks. I nod, and he removes his hand from my throat, sitting back in his chair. I can finally breathe again after several deep breaths.
“Will this count against my time?” My voice is raspy. I must have screamed a lot. I clear my throat, smooth my clothes, and pat down my hair. Sweat glistens on my forehead. One of my hands feels warmer than the other.
Eric writes on the clipboard, “No,” he says, “The timer stops when the monitor stops displaying your fear simulation.” He covers his mouth to yawn. The skin between his knuckles has small crescent indentations similar to the ones on my palms.
“Were you holding my hand?”
“This was your fastest time, congrats.” He ignores my question, rising from his seat, and I follow. He pauses at the door after he opens it. “Phase three is in two days. Try to get some rest before then.”
I hesitate beneath the doorframe, looking up at him. “How are you resting tonight?”
Our breath syncs for a moment while we share the same air, and he smiles. “I’ll be at Venom. It’s a bar on the fifth floor.”
—
Calvin and Skyars’ belongings are gone, and their beds stripped bare by the time I wander back to the dorms. Jenna sits on an empty mattress, reading a book and halfway through a bottle of red wine. I sit on my bed across from her, and she offers the bottle without looking up. The tartness lingers on my tongue long after we finish the bottle, and I try to lure Jenna up to the fifth floor with the promise of buying our first round of drinks. She agrees on the condition that I wear one of her dresses and she gets to do my makeup.
In the bar, we stand at the counter, and I tug on the edge of my dress and rub my eye until Jenna tells me to leave it alone. I’m going to stretch out her second-favorite dress and ruin my perfect eyeliner. I laugh, and she smacks my hand away when I reach up to scratch my eyelid again. It’s early, barely dinnertime, and the bar is mostly empty except for drunk initiates singing a song about their dearly departed friend, Skylar. They could only manage a few lines before they ran out of rhymes and started wrestling until someone got hurt.
We dance with some Dauntless-born initiates, Henry and Jaz, and we take shots until we can’t dance anymore. We argue about who will score higher on the simulations now that our two groups are competing against each other, and place bets on our rankings. Jaz has to run naked through the Pit if she’s in the bottom 5.
Jenna goes to the bathroom with our new friends while I sit at the bar, nursing a water and a plate of nachos. She returns 30 minutes later with rosy cheeks, dilated pupils, and an inside-out dress. She kisses me on the mouth and says, “This is the best night of my life.” My lips tingle afterward, and she tells me it’s a physical manifestation of the universe’s love. The fifth time I glance over my shoulder, Jenna asks who I was looking for. I say nobody, she orders us another round of shots.
The next time Jenna gets invited to the bathroom, I join her. The four of us cram into the largest stall, and I watch, amused, as they take turns snorting white powder out of a little bag with a spoon. When it’s my turn, I politely decline, but I allow Jenna to rub some onto my gums. The tingling rush of euphoria makes me laugh out loud. Jenna kisses my nose. Henry declares we need to dance, and Jaz grabs Jenna’s hand, pulling her out of the stall. She laughs, agrees, and tugs me along with them.
After a few songs, I lean against the wall to catch my breath and watch Jenna dance between them. Through the bright, flashing lights and the fog machine haze, I can barely see how her hands linger on Jaz’s waist while Henry kisses her neck. I think about what Calvin would say if he were here. Someone lights a cigarette near me, and I take a step closer, enjoying the smell. He offers me the pack and I take one, putting it between my lips as his familiar hands flick the lighter on. Large fans over the dance floor make the flame stutter, and we both cup our hands over it to shelter the light.
I inhale, the smoke warm in my mouth and in my lungs. “You kept me waiting,” I accuse, coughing on the first exhale.
The cigarette between his lips tilts up slightly as he smiles, “Did I? You seemed busy.” He nods towards my friends, where Henry whispers in Jenna’s ear before the three of them trail off to the bathroom again.
I laugh and say, “I was busy, they’re a lot of fun.” He studies my face through the haze, taking in my bright eyes and flushed cheeks. I can’t stop smiling.
“I bet,” he says, “Henry’s father always has the best drugs.”
He stuffs the cigarette pack into his pocket. “Can I show you something?”
“Tell me what it is first,” I say.
“Dancing juice.”
That’s good enough for me. He offers his hand, and I don’t hesitate before taking it. His hand is warm as he leads me along the wall to a black door sunken into the paneling. He pushes it open, revealing a long hallway lined with black carpeting, black-and-silver wallpaper, and silver light fixtures. The door clicks behind us, and I almost ask him if we’re even allowed to be back here.
He opens the third door on the left and puts a hand on the small of my back as I step into a small but tastefully decorated room. It smells faintly of cigar smoke and disinfectant, and is furnished with black leather couches, a fireplace, and a stocked liquor cart. Eric reaches up into the fireplace and pulls down a dark brown box wrapped in a green silk ribbon.
“Where are we?” I ask, hovering between sitting and standing.
“Henry’s dad’s office. Usually, only Amity sex workers are allowed inside. We’re lucky the old man wanted to have sex in an open field this weekend.” He winks and opens the box, revealing a dark brown bottle with a half-filled liquid sloshing inside.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s alcohol. Kind of.” Eric grabs a pair of glasses from the bar cart and pours just enough to coat the bottom of each glass. He hands me one, settles onto the couch, and raises his glass for a toast. I perch on the armrest closest to him, laughing as I clink my glass against his. I don’t notice my dress riding up as I sniff the drink. He downs his in a single gulp.
His face scrunches as he swallows, coughing afterward to clear his throat. “It’s delicious,” he tells me. I laugh and sniff my drink again. He raises his eyebrows, daring me. I plug my nose and swallow it fast, shuddering from the bitter burn down my throat. His eyes flick to my exposed upper thigh.
“So delicious,” I confirm. He laughs, really laughs, and suddenly I don’t want to leave this room. I step out of my stilettos, and he sets our empty glasses on the bar stand.
“What’s your last name?” I ask, and he laughs again.
I think he tells me, but I’m too distracted by our fingers linking together and resting on my leg. I smile as a finger caresses the soft skin of my thigh, and I spread my legs apart to see where his hands touch my body. My fingernails fit perfectly into the crescent-moon indents on the back of his hand. They’re deeper than the ones on my palms. I lift his hand to my mouth and kiss the indent with the widest mark, the one in the middle of his hand where my thumb nearly broke the skin. My lips trail softly over the rest of his knuckles, and I smile at him.
“Sorry about that,” I whisper, and kiss the mark again, my lips linger against his warm hand. His eyes beg me to keep touching him, wavering between restraint and desperation. He shifts in his seat, and I feel powerful, knowing I control what happens next. His eyes are blown wide, and his lips part as I take his thumb in my mouth, wrapping my lips around the tip and sucking gently. He asks me a question, and the room glows with a warm light; I start to melt into the couch. I fall from the armrest onto his lap, catching myself on his shoulders as his hands steady my waist. My legs straddle him, and I giggle into his neck. He smells like cigarettes. “I’m feeling it, too,” he sighs, rubbing the fabric of my dress between my fingers and breathing deeply.
I kiss the side of his neck while my fingers fiddle with the buttons of his shirt, undoing them slowly and kissing the skin of his exposed chest. His chest hair is soft against my lips. He startles when my lips make contact with his nipple, he takes my chin in his hand and brings it close to his. He kisses me like he’s answering a question, and I moan as his other hand moves to the small of my back, pulling me close to grind against the bulge forming in his pants. His tongue enters my mouth, and I suck on it, tasting the bitter dance juice. It’s even better than this morning, if that’s possible. I rub myself against his clothed erection, gasping at the friction through my thin underwear.
Out of breath and gasping for air, I pull back just far enough to yank the dress over my head and toss it into the corner. My hands slide behind my back to unclasp my bra, but his hand covers mine, holding me against him, chest to chest, hot breath in my ear.
“We don’t have to do this,” he whispers, groaning when I roll against him again.
“I want to.” I gasp as he presses into my bundle of nerves again. “Can we? Please?” I bury my face against his neck, grinding slow circles in his lap. His mouth moves from my ear to my throat, licking a hot, wet stripe from my collarbone up to my jaw. He releases my hands and drops them to my hips, helping guide my movements.
“God, just like that,” he moans as I finally unclasp my bra and fling it into the same corner. He isn’t gentle when he takes my nipple into his mouth. I gasp as he sucks hard, his teeth scraping in a deliciously sharp way. I tug off his unbuttoned shirt, telling him it’s not fair that he’s still mostly clothed.
When I undo his pants button and start to pull down the zipper, he stops me and waits for me to meet his stare, giving me another silent chance to back out. Instead, I push him against the couch, my tongue wetting my lips as I free him. He’s bigger than I expected, heavy with a thick pink head that drips with precum. I smear it with my thumb, tracking the vein along his length, and I’m rewarded with a low moan. We take turns biting each other’s lips. His hands roam, grabbing and squeezing my ass and rolling my nipples between his fingers. My eyes roll back when his fingers drift down my stomach and press against the front of my underwear, rubbing slow circles while I grind my soaked underwear against the base of his cock.
“Fuck. Right there,” I gasp against his lips, my hips bucking into his touch. He holds me still with one hand while the other pushes my underwear aside, the pad of his thumb circling faster, harder, until I’m panting. He dips lower, pressing two fingers against my opening to gather my wetness, and dragging them back up to tease my throbbing clit.
“Does that feel good?” He asks, and I tell him it does. My legs shake, the pleasure building until it’s unbearable.
“You’re going to make me cum,” I warn, breathless. My vision blurs as his fingers speed up, and I cum hard. The pleasure is white-hot and overwhelming as I rut against his fingers and clench around nothing. “Fuck, you’re so wet,” his voice is thick. I can only moan and slump against his chest, shivering as his fingers start to move again until I catch his wrist and stop him. Too sensitive to take more.
“Good girl,” he coos in my ear, bringing his fingers to his mouth to taste me. I try to catch my breath while he uses the saliva to stroke himself slowly, fisting his dick while his leaky tip oozes precum.
“Can I help?” I ask softly. He nods with hooded eyes and quickens his pace as my middle finger gathers precum from his slit. “Just look at me with those pretty eyes, doll,” he replies, and I maintain eye contact as I suck him off my finger.
I whine, “You taste good. Can I have more?” He tells me he’s close while my other hand wanders to his balls, touching them gently with my fingers. I feel them tense up as Eric squeezes his eyes shut, throwing his head back and moaning.
“Oh fuck—“ His orgasm is explosive, and he spills onto his stomach, cum dripping down his clenched hand as he milks every drop out. I drop to my knees and taste him again until his hand and body are clean. He watches, breathing hard, and hisses when my lips wrap around the tip of his semi-hard cock. “You’re going to kill me,” he moans and tucks himself back in his pants, pulling me back onto his lap and against his mouth.
“I don’t think that was dancing juice,” I mutter against his lips. He laughs, and I nestle my head against his shoulder. We sit like this for a few minutes and catch our breath before he stands and sets me on my feet. The room spins, and I cling to his arm until I feel the ground steady beneath me.
