The loud clanking of pots and pans colliding together sounds around the room a few minutes after my head touches the pillow, or at least that's what it seems like.

"Rise and shine," Four's voice calls out. "You need to be dressed and on the train in fifteen minutes."

He turns and exits the room.

I groan and sit up, groggily rubbing the sleep from my eyes. After I returned from the roof earlier, Tera found me and dragged me to the Pit, where they were having a karaoke contest. That wasn't too bad, because most of the people singing had decent voices.

After the karaoke contest, which we did not win by the way, was a cake eating contest. Don't get me wrong, the cake was delicious, but too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. It was definitely a bad thing. Needless to say, I regurgitated most of the cake I had inhaled less than thirty minutes later. All the singing and cake eating really did a number on me.

I grouchily get up and change out of my night clothes into a black tee shirt and jeans. I slip on some socks and lace up my boots, ready for whatever it is that Four has planned.

"Ready?" Tera says, coming up to stand next to me. I nod.

We leave the training room side by side and make our way outside to wait for the train. As soon as we step outside the summer night breeze nips at my bare arms and I shiver.

A figure stands near the railroad tracks with their hands shoved in the pockets of their pants. The moonlight gives off enough light for me to see that the figure is Eric.

The scene from the roof flashes in my mind and makes my cheeks heat up despite the cool air. What happened on the roof earlier has had me flustered ever since we departed. The way he gently held my chin and leaned in close made the butterflies in my stomach go wild.

"Man, it is chilly out here," Tera says, rubbing her arms.

Eric turns his head slightly and I avert my gaze to my boots to keep from making eye contact. Thankfully, it is dark enough that there is no way Eric and Tera can see the color that has painted my cheeks.

"Yeah, it is." I rub my arms to keep warm and listen for the sound of the train.

I hear footsteps coming up behind us and I turn to see some Dauntless born initiates walking this way, Raiden being one of them. He catches my eye and makes his way over to us.

"Hey, buddies," he says with a cheerful grin on his face. He ruffles our hair, making our bed head look even worse.

"Hey." I swat at his hand and he retracts it, feigning a hurt look. "How and why are you so peppy?"

"What's there to not be peppy about?" he says, a lopsided grin on his face. "I am about to go on an adventure with a couple of my pals. And it's a nice night to be outside. The stars are twinkling, the moon is out, and the air is so fresh. Gotta love it."

I look up at the sky and take a deep breath. "You're right. It is a nice and lovely night to be out, but I'm still tired."

"What did you do to make you so tired, huh?" Raiden nudges me in the side, a playful grin still present on his face.

"Somebody forced me to enter a karaoke contest with her," I say, pointing at Tera. "Ugh, it was super embarrassing. My ego is going to need some time to recover after that beating. And then she entered us into a cake eating contest, which did not end well. I will save you the gory details."

"Sounds like you two had an awesome day," Raiden says with a wink.

"Oh, it was a blast," Tera says, "except for when Sally Sunshine over here puked her cake-filled guts up."

"Oh, shut up," I say, nudging her. "I wouldn't have puked my guts up if you would've just left my name off that list."

"Meh." She shrugs and a smirk forms on her face. "You had fun and you know it."

"Oh, definitely," I say sarcastically. "It was super fun hovering over the toilet for twenty minutes with liquids and chunks shooting out of my mouth and nose."

Raiden and Tera hunch over, the shoulders shaking from their laughter and I shake my head, a small grin on my face.

Feeling eyes on me, I glance up and my eyes lock on Eric's. His mouth turns up at the corners, indicating that he indeed heard a piece, if not all, of our conversation.

Great, I am never living this down.

***

"Quiet," Four calls out, successfully silencing everyone. He smirks slightly before backing up and leaning against the wall of the train cart.

"All right, initiates," Eric says with a smirk. "It's time for a little Dauntless tradition. Capture the flag, paintball war style."

"You will be split into two teams. As the title suggests, your goal is to capture the other team's flag, while still guarding yours," Four says. "Each of you will get a paintball gun, and if you get shot, you are out. If you get out you cannot shoot anyone else, and your hands cannot touch the other team's flag."

"Everyone understand?" Eric says, his eyes surveying the room. "Good, Four and I are captains."

"You pick first."

"Well, all right." Eric's eyes scan over each and every one of us, his eyes lingering on me a couple seconds longer than anyone else. "Oliver."

Oliver moves to stand next to Eric and I focus my gaze on my shoes. I totally don't care that I wasn't his first pick.

"I pick Rori," Four says.

I stand behind Four, leaning against the wall. I sneak a look at Eric to see his posture is rigid and his fists are clenched at his side.

"Reid."

"Tera," Four says.

Tera rushes over and gives me a side hug and I chuckle. I am so glad to have her on my team.

"Raiden."

Raiden makes eye contact with us, his bottom lip puckering as he walks past us to stand next to Eric.

"Finn."

Finn stands on the other side of Tera, grinning at us. We've gotten fairly close to him the last couple of days, her more than me. He's actually a really cool guy, and it's odd how it took me leaving Amity to find that out, considering he's from there. I guess it's because I am actually trying to make friends, instead of shutting everyone and everything out.

Eric and Four wait until everyone is on a team before distributing the guns. After evaluating both teams, I cannot help but notice that Eric's team is bigger than ours. He picked taller and bulkier initiates, whereas Four chose shorter and smaller people.

Smart move, Four. Eric clearly did not think this through, so he probably wasn't an Erudite transfer. He was probably a Dauntless born, if I had to guess.

Eric jumps off the train and his team follows after him.

"Let's go," Four says, once we are a safe enough distance away from the opposing team. He jumps off the train and lands on his feet with no trouble.

We all pile off the train and follow Four to an old carousel. We're at an old carnival site, which used to be a popular tourist attraction years ago, back before the war. I learned about carnivals from a book I checked out of the library a while back. None of these rides look like they've been powered up in years, which sucks because some of them look fun.

Four takes a seat on the carousel and stares at the gun in his hand. I walk up to him and he lifts his head.

"So what's the plan, Four?"

"Whatever you decide," he says. "I can go along with the plan, but I'm not supposed to make it."

"Okay." I nod. "We need to hide our flag and then find out where they are hiding theirs."

I turn back toward the group and include myself in the circle.

"Anybody have a plan?" Tera says.

"We need to hide our flag," I say. "And then some of us need to go and search for theirs."

"Who made you the boss?" Jillian says, glaring at me.

"Do you have a better plan?" I snap back at her. Her mouth shuts, opens, and shuts again. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

"How should we go about getting their flag?" Finn directs his question to me.

"We should split into three groups," I say, everyone's eyes on me. "Group One is going to guard the flag. Groups Two and Three are going flag hunting."

"Why do we need two groups to find their flag?" Tera says.

"One group is going to distract while the other is going to find the flag," I say. "Does that sound like a decent plan?"

"Sounds good to me," Four says, wedging his way into the circle next to me. "All right, split everyone into groups."

We only have eleven people on our team, including Four. There were fourteen Dauntless borns and seven of us transfers, so the teams are small.

"Okay, you three are going to be in Group Two," I say, pointing at a trio of Dauntless borns. "Sorry, I don't know your names."

"I'm Marnie," says a tall blonde. She points to the girls on her right. "And this is Hally and Izzy."

"You three will distract the opposing team while Group Three gets their flag. Is that okay?" Marnie, Hally, and Izzy nod.

"Group One will be Jillian, Tera, and you two girls." I point to some more Dauntless borns. "Sorry, I don't know your names either."

"I'm Genna," the short brunette says. She points to the red head next to her and says, "This is Kara."

"Oh, cute names," I say. Four clears his throat. "Okay, Group Three is going to be Four, Finn, and me. We're going after the flag."

"Sounds like a plan," Four says.

"All right, Group One, go find a good spot to hide the flag," I say. Four hands Tera the flag and she stuffs it under her shirt before they all hurry away from the group.

"Group Two, you can start making a little bit of noise once you see the other team. Hopefully that will help lure them away from us," I say. "And if you see the flag but do not see us, by all means, go get that flag."

Marnie, Hally, and Izzy run toward the direction I told them to. I focus my gaze on Four and Finn.

"Ready to capture that flag?" Four says, positioning his gun.

"Oh, you bet your paintballs I am."

A/N: Hey, initiates! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and if you did please vote and comment! :)