Free Four - Tobias tells the Divergent Knife-Throwing Scene

It’s a shame Eric also notices.

“How slow are you, Candor? Do you need glasses? Should I move the target closer to you?” he says, his voice strained.

Al the Sledgehammer has unexpectedly soft insides. The taunting pierces them. When he throws again, the knife sails into a wall.

“What was that, initiate?” Eric says.

“It—it slipped.”

“Well, I think you should go get it.”

The initiates stop throwing.

“Did I tell you to stop?” Eric says, his pierced eyebrows raised.

This is not good.

“Go get it?” says Al. “But everyone’s still throwing.”

“And?”

“And I don’t want to get hit.”

“I think you can trust your fellow initiates to aim better than you. Go get your knife.”

“No.”

The Sledgehammer strikes again, I think. The response is stubborn but there is no strategy in it. Still, it takes more bravery for Al to say no than for Eric to force him to get a knife to the back of the head, which is something Eric will never understand.

“Why not? Are you afraid?”

“Of getting stabbed by an airborne knife?” says Al. “Yes, I am!”

My body gets heavy as Eric raises his voice. “Everyone stop!”

The first time I met Eric he wore blue and his hair was parted down the side. He was trembling as he approached Amar to receive the injection of fear-landscape serum into his neck. During his fear landscape, he never moved an inch; he just stood still, screaming into clenched teeth, and somehow maneuvered his heartbeat down to an acceptable level using his breath. I didn’t know it was possible to conquer fear in your body before you did it in your mind. That was when I knew I should be wary of him.

“Clear out of the ring,” Eric says. Then, to Al: “All except you. Stand in front of the target.”

Al, gulping, lumbers over to the target. I pull away from the wall. I know what Eric will do. And it will probably end with a lost eye or a pierced throat; with horror, as every fight I’ve witnessed has, each one driving me further and further from the faction I chose as a haven.

Without looking at me, Eric says, “Hey, Four. Give me a hand here, huh?”

Part of me feels relief. At least I know that if I am throwing the knives instead of Eric, Al is less likely to get injured. But I also can’t be this cruel, and I can’t be the one who does Eric’s dirty work.

I try to act casual, scratching my eyebrow with a knife point, but I don’t feel casual. I feel like someone is pressing me into a mold that does not fit my body, forcing me into the wrong shape.

Eric says, “You’re going to stand there as he throws those knives until you learn not to flinch.”

My chest feels tight. I want to save Al, but the more I defy Eric, the more determined he will be to put me in my place. I decide to pretend that I am bored by the whole thing.

“Is this really necessary?”

“I have the authority here, remember?” Eric says. “Here, and everywhere else.”

I can feel blood creeping into my face as I stare at him, and he stares back at me. Max asked me to be a faction leader and I should have said yes; I would have, if I had known that I would prevent things like this, things like dangling initiates over the chasm and forcing them to beat each other senseless.

I realize that I have been squeezing the knives so tightly that the handles have left impressions in my palms. I have to do what Eric says. My only other choice is leaving the room, and if I leave, Eric will throw the knives himself, which I can’t allow. I turn toward Al.

And then she says—I know it’s her because her voice is low, for a girl’s, and careful—“Stop it.”

I don’t want Eric to turn on her instead. I glare at her as if that will make her think twice. I know it won’t. I’m not stupid.

“Any idiot can stand in front of a target,” Tris says. “It doesn’t prove anything except that you’re bullying him. Which, as I recall, is a sign of cowardice.”

Dauntless brutes—bullies, Lower Level children—that is what we are, beneath the tattoos and the piercings and the dark clothing.

Maybe I am stupid. I have to stop thinking of her this way.

“Then it should be easy for you,” Eric says, pushing his hair back so it curls around his ear. “If you’re willing to take his place.”

And then his eyes shift to mine, just for a second. It’s like he knows, he knows I have a thing for her, so he’s going to force me to throw knives at her. For an instant—no, longer than an instant—I think about throwing a knife at him instead. I could hit him in the arm, or the leg, no harm done....

“There goes your pretty face,” Peter says, across the room. “Oh, wait. You don’t have one.”

I barely register the comment. I am too busy watching her.

She stands with her back to the board. The top of her head skims the bottom of the target center. She tips her chin up and looks at me with that Abnegation stubbornness I know so well. She may have left them, but they are what’s making her strong.

I can’t tell her it will be okay, not with Eric here, but I can try to make her strong.

“If you flinch, Al takes your place. Understand?” I say.

Eric stands a little too close, tapping his foot on the floor. I have to get this right. I can’t throw the knife to the edge of the board, because he knows I can hit the center. But a clumsy throw, an inch in either direction, and I could hurt her. There goes your pretty face.

But Peter’s right, she’s not pretty, that word is too small. She is not like the girls I used to stare at, all bend and curve and softness. She is small but strong, and her bright eyes demand attention. Looking at her is like waking up.

I throw the knife, keeping my eyes on hers. It sticks in the board near her cheek. My hands shake with relief. Her eyes close, so I know I need to remind her again of her selflessness.

“You about done, Stiff?” I say.

Stiff. That’s why you’re strong, get it?

She looks angry. “No.”

Why on earth would she get it? She can’t read minds, for God’s sake.

“Eyes open, then,” I say, tapping the skin between my eyebrows. I don’t really need her eyes to be on mine, but I feel better when they are. I breathe the dust-sweat-metal smell and pass a knife from my left hand to my right. Eric inches closer.