Even though every iniciate was feeling the weight of the 2nd phase of training, the Dauntless borns were dealing with the pressure a lot better than the transfers. Lilith had been trying to get Christina and Nate out of the dorm when they had some free time and, while Nate was easily bribed with the promise of sparring together, Christina usually stayed in her bed, hugging a pillow to her chest and not saying a word. Lilith had never seen her friend act that way before, and it scared her. 

She found herself hanging around Siobhan, Rita and the rest of the Dauntless borns nearly every day after their simulations, creating mischief around the compound and sneaking around through different rooms at night. Siobhan had recovered from her funk as soon as she'd started going on the escapades with her friends, and Lilith enjoyed seeing her so happy. It had been a while since the brown haired girl had been herself.

Seeing as there wasn't a need for someone to oversee the current phase of their initiation, Lilith had been seeing a lot less of Eric. The only times she managed to catch a glimpse of him were when she was sitting in the dining hall with her friends, having some meals as they each processed what they had been put through, that day. The leader barely glanced in their direction as he moved to the seat to the right of Max, leaving his former spot next to Granger void. Lilith hadn't asked, but she could see in Granger's face that Eric's distant behavior was taking a toll on him.

"How the hell did the Stiff get first place?" Lynn's voice cut off her train of thought.

There was no answer from the other dauntless borns, and the brunette raised her head, her eyes widening as she saw the other girl looking at her over her shoulder. Lilith shrugged, looking back down at her boots, "Don't ask me. I have no idea."

"You didn't ask?" Lynn's eyebrows were up to her forehead.

"I kind of figured she didn't want to talk about the rankings, after Peter got in her face about them," Lilith replied, "I did talk to her a few days back, though. She said she was having as much trouble with the simulations as we are."

"And you believe her?" Marlene questioned, a twinkle of curiosity in her eyes.

Lilith hesitated for a few seconds, remembering how the former Abnegation's behavior had given her the feeling that she was hiding something. Even though she had kept an eye on the blonde girl, and talked to her regularly after they'd been on the roof together, she hadn't managed to get any more information about Tris' experience with the simulations. Her friends were all looking back at her by the time she responded, "She didn't give me a reason not to."

"Well, maybe she's just good at this type of thing," Rita shrugged, as she finished putting her hair up in a ponytail, "She didn't really stand out in physical training, so maybe she's really good at the psychological stuff instead. She has to compensate somehow, right?"

"Speak of the devil," Siobhan mumbled, gesturing with her chin to where Tris was sitting, further down the hallway.

The words had barely left her mouth when Uriah advanced towards the blonde, forcing the rest of the girls to speed up to catch up to the dark skinned boy. Lilith wasn't sure of how much Tris wanted to be disturbed, after the confrontation with Peter and the way the other transfers had reacted to her ranking. Everyone was surprised that she had climbed the spots all the way to the top, and most of them had shown envy. The brunette hadn't cared an awful lot, seeing as she'd kept her position in third place. Initiation wasn't over yet, and she still had time to reach the first spot, fair and square.

"Tris!" the boy called out, and Tris finally glanced up at them. Uriah crouched down to her level, the girls coming to a stop behind him. Lilith gave her fellow transfer a smile when their eyes met, and Tris returned it weakly, before looking  at Uriah again, "I heard you got ranked first."

The blonde's lips twisted into an uncharacteristic smirk, "So you just wanted to congratulate me? Well, thanks."

"Someone should," Rita spoke up, folding her arms over her chest, "Lilith told us the rest of your friends weren't so congratulatory, because their ranks weren't as high."

"Which reminds me," Lilith cut off her friends, giving Tris a grin, "Congrats. I didn't get a chance to tell you, before Peter was... well, Peter."

A chuckle left the girl's mouth, "Thanks, Lilith."

"Now quit moping and come with us," Uriah nodded towards the other end of the hallway, "I'm going to shoot a muffin off Marlene's head."

Tris let out a laugh as she pushed herself off the floor, dusting her hands on her dark pants as she joined the group. Lynn had given her a somewhat suspicious look, before turning to continue to follow Uriah down the corridor, but the rest of the girls stuck with the blonde. It had taken a week for Lynn to fully accept Lilith into their group, and the brunette assumed that it would take her even longer to give a chance to Tris. The girl seemed to notice Lynn's atitude as well, chewing on her lip as she looked away from her.

Thankfully, Marlene was quick in disrupting the silence, "Why aren't you out celebrating? You're pratically guaranteed a top ten spot if you keep it up."

"She's too Dauntless for the other transfers," Uriah smirked, before glancing over his shoulder at Lilith, "With the exception of you, obviously."

"Gee, thanks."

"Still too Abnegation to celebrate," Lynn muttered.

"Oh, Lynn, just shut it," Siobhan spoke up, making the other girl shrug.

"So, I bet you're wondering why the hell Uriah is going to shoot a muffin off Marlene's head," Lilith gave Tris a half smile, and the blonde's cheeks flushed as she nodded, "In this group, everything comes from bets. It's interesting, really."

Tris furrowed her eyebrows, "What kind of bet is this?"

"Marlene bet Uriah he didn't have good enough aim to hit a small object from... a hundred feet away, right?" Rita replied.

Uriah nodded, "Yeah, and I bet her she didn't have the guts to stand there as I tried," a chuckle left his lips, "It works out well, really."

The rest of their walk was filled with mindless chatter, and Lilith did her best to get Tris involved with the dauntless borns as much as possible. Even if she had Nate and sometimes Christina, the company of the other initiates had provided her a safe haven and, after everyone's reaction to the blonde's excellent results so far, Lilith assumed that Tris probably needed some sense of security. If she could help her get it, she would.

Rita and the two transfers were laughing at one of Siobhan's awful jokes when they finally reached their destination, the room where they had learned how to operate with fire arms during the first phase of their training process. Lilith hadn't stepped in it since they'd moved on from that part of their iniciation, and she felt like a different person. Whether that was good or bad, she wasn't quite sure. Her mind wandered to the very first day, when Eric had helped her figure out how to aim better, and her lips twisted into a smile. She wouldn't say she missed Eric, not in a million years, but she did miss having banter with him. 

"They just keep these lying around?" Tris asked, stopping by the table where the guns were.

"Hell yeah," Lilith's lips spread into a grin, as she jogged towards the table and picked up a rifle. From what Siobhan had told from previous times she'd been in there with her friends, none of those guns were actually loaded, but the terror in Tris' face as Lilith waved the rifle around was priceless. Shaking her head, Lilith aimed at one of the targets, speaking before she pulled the trigger, "Shame they're not loaded."

"You still shouldn't be messing around," Rita scolded her, pulling the weapon from her hands and placing it back on the pile.

"Okay, Marlene," Uriah looked back at the girls, as he grabbed a gun he had stuck under the waistband of his jeans. Lilith wasn't sure of where he'd gotten it from, but she supposed it didn't matter. The boy's eyes were on Marlene as he nodded towards the other side of the room, "Go stand in front of a target."

As Marlene happily made her way to the wall of targets, Tris approached Uriah with a concerned look on her face, "You aren't seriously gonna shoot at her, are you?"

"It's not a real gun," Lynn was the one to reply, taking a seat on the floor next to where Lilith had plopped down. After a few seconds, Tris followed their example, and the three girls watched as Marlene picked a target. Lynn didn't look away from her friend as she continued, "It's got plastic pellets in it. The worst it'll do is sting her face, maybe give her a welt. What do you think we are, stupid?"

"Wait!" Marlene yelled, just as Uriah had started aiming at the muffin. She had a goofy grin on her lips as she grabbed the snack from the top of her head, biting into it before putting it back. Her mouth was filled with food as she gave the boy a thumbs up, standing perfectly still as she waited for him to shoot.

"I take it your ranks were good," Tris said to Lynn, hugging her knees up to her chest.

"Uriah's second. I'm first. Marlene is fourth," her eyes drifted to where Siobhan and Rita were chatting, near the table with the guns, "Rita is fifth. Siobhan is seventh."

Uriah snorted, "You're only first by a hair," he then proceeded to pull the trigger, and Lilith watched as the pellet knocked off the muffin from the blonde girl's head, her lips spreading into a grin as she looked at the now destroyed cake at her feet.

"We both win!" she shouted, making everyone in the group laugh.

"Do you miss your old factions?" Lynn suddenly questioned, turning to face the two transfers.

Lilith was the first one to reply, shaking her head, "No. I miss my family, sometimes, but definitely not Candor," she paused, shrugging her shoulders, "I've wanted to come here ever since I can remember myself. Candor is..." the brunette had some trouble finding the right words, "it's not exactly what it's supposed to be. But even if it was, it wouldn't change anything, for me."

"Tris?"

The blonde was silent for a few more seconds, "Sometimes. It was calmer. Not as exhausting."

Lynn raised a thick eyebrow, "Initiation's supposed to wear us down to we really are. That's what Eric says, anways."

Lilith couldn't hold back a scoff, "Of course he does. I wouldn't expect anything different from that... idiot."

Arms suddenly wrapped themselves around her shoulders from behind, and the brunette jumped, before she recognized Siobhan's black painted nails. The other girl was laughing as she hugged her from behind, using one of her hands to pat her head, "You say that, and yet you look at him like he's the smartest person in the room."

Lilith could feel her cheeks heating up almost instantly, and she pulled herself away from her friend's grip, quickly getting to her feet, "The fact that you would think such a thing of me is extremely offensive," she replied, making the other girl giggle. Rolling her eyes, she left the girls behind and walked towards Uriah, who was practicing his shooting on the targets, "Mind if I get a turn?"

The boy grinned, "Go for it. I was trying to get three perfect shots in a row, if you're up for the challenge."

"You're on."

The next few minutes were spent with friendly competition between the two iniciates, each of them trying to outdo the other. Lilith soon forgot about Eric's twisted views of Dauntless and the weight of the 2nd phase as she laughed with Uriah and Marlene, the rest of the group cheering for them in the background. She was in the process of attempting to get her sixth perfect shot in a row when the door to the training room opened, and it distracted Lilith enough for her to miss. Furrowing her eyebrows, she looked to the newcomers, her eyes widening as she spotted Four, Zeke, and a girl their age she had yet to meet.

"I thought I heard something in here," Four spoke up, looking through all of them.

"Turns out it's my idiot brother," Zeke shook his head as he watched Lilith hand the gun back to Uriah, who immediately put it back under the waistband of his pants. Zeke's eyes then moved to her, and they twinkled mischieviously, "You're not supposed to be in here after hours. Careful, or Four will tell Eric, and then you'll be as good as scalped."

Lilith rolled her eyes as they walked out of the room, slipping between Lynn and Rita as they exited onto the corridor. Lynn looked up at Four once she was outside, furrowing her eyebrows as she voiced her suspicions that the instructor wouldn't really run to Eric to tell them about their escapade. Four confirmed that he wouldn't, which didn't surprise Lilith in the slightest, as she fell in step with Uriah and Zeke.

"Party pooper," she mumbled, and the offended look Zeke gave her was enough to make her laugh once more.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

The first Lilith noticed, as soon as she woke up the next morning, was that the dorm was emptier than it was supposed to. Tris wasn't anywhere near her bed or in the bathroom, and her sheets had been tossed aside like she'd gotten up and not came back, for some reason. The brunette would have shrugged it off, had it not been for the absence of Drew and Al as well. Theories began forming in her mind, and her eyes drifted to where Peter was pulling his shirt over his head. Drew never left his side, so the fact that he wasn't in the dorm was odd.

However, Lilith couldn't exactly go up to Peter and ask if he'd been assaulting the other iniciates in the darkness of the night, not unless she wanted everyone to find out about their confrontation on the street, outside the compound. As much as it had been awful to keep it a secret, she knew that Eric was right and that the fact that she had broken the rules of her new faction could push her to the factionless part of town. She was scratching the spot where the gash from the rock Peter had hit her with previously was as she sat at one of the tables in the dining hall with Nate, Christina and Will, not paying attention to their chatter as she grabbed an apple.

She was brought back to reality when Nate latched onto her wrist from the other side of the table, his eyes fixated on the door. Lilith put her apple down, glancing over her shoulder at whatever had the boy so mesmerized, and her own jaw dropped as she spotted Tris limping to their table, her head down as she advanced slowly. There was a dark bruise on her cheek and a bump near her hairline, and Lilith felt herself growing furious when the blonde put a hand over her ribs. Her suspicions had been confirmed.

Her fists were clenched as her eyes drifted from where Tris had sat down, right next to Will, to the table where Eric was sitting with Max. The former abnegation girl's entrance had gone mostly unnoticed by the leaders, with the exception of Eric himself. Dark circles were under present under his eyes once again, and he looked exhausted as he met her gaze her furrowed eyebrows. Lilith's jaw clenched as she kept eye contact, and the leader discreetly shook his head at her, warning her not to do anything stupid. She took a deep breath as she looked away from him, her gaze moving to Tris.

Will was the first one to speak, "What happened?"

Tris glanced over her shoulder to where Peter was eating his breakfast with Molly, not acknowledging them in the slightest. Fury crossed the girl's face before she turned back to them, one of her hands over her ribs as she reached for a piece of toast. Even after Nate had pushed the platter closer to her, Tris winced as she grabbed her food, "Peter, Drew, and..." she paused, rubbing the sore spot in her body, "And Al."

"For fuck's sake," Lilith muttered, as a shocked Oh god left Christina's mouth.

"Are you alright?" Uriah questioned, speaking for the first time since he had sat at their table, after Tris had arrived. The rest of his group had stayed behind at the table next to them, most of them having gone back to their breakfasts, but Rita and Marlene still looked in their direction with concern.

Tris lightly shook her head, "Not really."

Uriah's face was twisted in disgust, "But you're just..." he paused, releasing a sigh, "It isn't fair. Three against one?"

"Fair isn't exactly Peter's jam," Nate scoffed, glaring over his shoulder at the other boy, "He did stab Edward right in the eye."

Christina looked like she didn't quite believe what she was hearing, "Al, though? Are you sure, Tris?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"It has to be desperation," Will shook his head, "He's been acting... I don't know. Like a different person. Ever since stage two start-"

"Guys," Lilith cut him off, nodding to the door, where Drew had just made an appearance. He didn't meet anyone's eyes as he made his way to Peter and Molly, and the whole group watched him as he walked past. Lilith had never seen Drew in such an awful state, not even when they were practicing combat. His whole face was swollen almost beyond recognition, a gash running down his face all the way from his eyebrow. His lip had been split open as well, and he walked with a limp. The brunette's eyes drifted to Tris, "Did you fucking do that?"

Tris' eyes widened, and she shook her head, "No. Someone - I never saw who - found me right before-, she paused, gulping. It took her a few seconds before she found it in herself to finish her sentence, "I got tossed into the Chasm."

"They were going to kill you?" Christina asked, her eyes drifting from the trio to the blonde.

"Maybe," Tris shrugged, "They might have been planning on dangling me over it just to scare me. It worked."

Lilith was boiling with anger. Peter had realized that attacking on his own wasn't enough, so he'd recruited his sidekick and one of the most vulnerable transfers to eliminate competition. Not only that, they had descended to the point of murder to do it. As much as Tris claimed that their intention was possibly just to scare her, the brunette knew better. She knew the type of person Peter had revealed himself to be, ever since they'd transferred to Dauntless. So, despite Eric's unspoken warning for her not to do anything rash, Lilith found herself saying, "We can't let them get away with this."

"What are we going to do, beat them up?" Christina gave her a grin, "Reyna might not be here to stop us anymore, but it looks like someone got to them first."

"Not to Peter," Lilith retorted, through gritted teeth.

"That's pain they can get over," Uriah interviened, "We have to edge them out of the rankings. That will damage their futures. Permanently."

Silence fell over the group for a few instances. Revenge was an uncomfortable topic for most of them, it would seem, at least in the scale that Uriah was suggesting. However, Lilith couldn't help that they deserved something like that, a taste of their own medicine, of what they'd done to Edward, and now to Tris.

Her lips spread into a grin, "I like the way you think."

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hi guys!
First of all, we've reached 8k reads and 400+ votes on this book, which is fucking crazy? Thank you guys so much! This is book is like my firstborn child and the fact that so many of you seem to enjoy it is really cool, and I'm really grateful for all the support!
This chapter dives back into actual scenes from the book, and I'm taking full advantage of it to explore more of Lilith's relationships. We're diving into the juicy stuff soon, so definitely keep an eye out on the next couple of characters.
I hope you all enjoyed! Don't forget to leave your feedback, and I'll do my best to be here next week!