I am awoken by a mad rush. All around me people are panicking and shoving on Dauntless clothes . 

Sam, his glasses askew on his face, climbs up the ladder from the lower bunk, and taps me repeatedly on the shoulder. 

"Sam!" I protest, still half-asleep, "I'm awake, ok?"

"Come on!" he half-yells in panic, "It's 7:20!"

"And?" I ask, glaring at him grumpily. 

Sam stares at me like I've lost my mind, "We have to be in the training room at 8! We need to change and eat breakfast! With all the craziness that happened yesterday, I can't imagine what would happen if we were late!"

"Forty minutes is ages," I laugh, slowly pushing my duvet off me, "You should have seen how little time I got myself together in Amity."

"Fine," sighs Sam, "But don't expect us to wait for you. Me, Amy and Cass are heading to breakfast. We'll see you there, ok?"

"There or the training room," I mutter, but I'm talking to myself because Sam has whizzed off to join the others. 

It's 8:07 when I join the others in the training room, having decided to treat myself to a nice long shower and a cooked breakfast that was being served in the Dauntless Cafeteria. Amar doesn't say anything but gives me a long stare, which I return. He looks tempted to reprimand me but evidently decides not to waste time teaching a sixteen year old discipline. 

Instead he just gets on with the session. Today, he's showing us how to fire a gun.

There's something exciting about watching him fire-a thrill that I've never experienced before runs through me. This is why I chose Dauntless. It's everything that's not Amity. 

I take one of the guns eagerly and begin firing it at a target. I'm so excited; I feel like I'm breaking all the rules. But after some minutes, my excitement rapidly turns into frustration as every shot I fire misses the target.

Sam, on my right, snickers, "Amar probably gave you a faulty gun for being seven minutes late for training."

I scowl, "I had priorities, ok?"

He ignores me and says, "Either that or it's defying you because of your Amity heritage. I'm surprised the same thing isn't happening to Amy." Amy, surprisingly, has managed to hit the target at least 5 times.

"Shut it Sam." I mutter. I keep going for another few minutes, but then I let out a growl of frustration. It just isn't working.

"Can I help?" a quiet voice asks to my left. I look and see that it's the small boy from Erudite who helped Amy on the rooftop.

"I don't need help," I growl back, feeling anger and frustration rise through me. 

He shrugs, and, as if I haven't said anything, shows me the way he's holding his gun, "I think you have to hold it like this. They way you're angling it sends the bullet into the wall."

I try out what he's said and it turns out he's right. I don't thank him; I didn't ask for his help in the first place, and I carry on shooting at the target.

He looks at me for a minute, and then says, "I'm Plato, by the way." And then he resumes shooting.

"Dex." I reply.

At lunch, Plato joins us at the table and I notice that he's mainly eating potatoes and vegetables covered in a sauce with tofu on the side. 

"Do Erudite not have meatballs either?" I ask. Yesterday, Sam introduced Amy to a meatball as she'd never had one in Abnegation before. 

"No, they do," Plato smiles, almost shyly, "But I'm vegan."

"Oh," I think this over whilst the others talk about what food was like in their past factions. It's when I'm eating some cake that a thought suddenly occurs to me. 

I turn to Plato, "Wait but if you're vegan, that means you can't have any Dauntless cake." Plato just nods whilst Sam drops the fork he's holding in shock. 

"No cake?" he repeats, dumbfounded. 

I stand up, "You," I point to Plato, "Are coming with me now. We're going to fix this."

"Why?" asks Plato, slowly standing up. 

"Because you showed me how to shoot a gun. It's my turn to do you a favour. We are getting you some vegan Dauntless cake." I grab his arm, and begin to lead him over to the kitchen. 

"Dex it's fine, honestly," Plato protests, "I'm fine going without cake, really..."

"Well I'm not," I retort. 

We enter the kitchen and I rap on the door loudly, making all the cooks jump. The kitchen is quite different from all the other Dauntless rooms. It's tidy and has white-washed walls. 

"My friend here is a vegan," I announce, "Can he have some vegan cake?"

"If it's not too much trouble," Plato adds somewhat timidly. 

"Oh sure!" says one of the cooks, "We have plenty of vegan cakes as a just-in-case measure but we've never put them out on the tables. Here you go." And she gives Plato a whole trayful of cupcakes. 

"Thanks," Plato beams with happiness. 

As we head back to the table, he says to me, "Thank you Dex. No one has ever done that for me before."

I shrug, "I never really had friends in Amity. Aside from my brother, that is," I tell him truthfully, "This is what friends do for each other right? Teach each other how to shoot and get vegan cakes for them?"

He smiles, "Thanks again Dex," he says gratefully

"No problem," I grin. 

Back at the table, Cassie is complaining loudly about how sore her hands are. All our hands are sore from holding the gun. Every time it fires, the gun rubs against our hands.

"Oh shut up, Cassie," I say, as we sit down, "We're Dauntless now. Pain is part of our training."

Cassie looks at me, hurt and says with a sniff, "Well, I think my hands hurt more because I was trying harder than you were."

I roll my eyes and glancing away, I notice that Jo and Phoebe, two other transfers, are eating together on an empty table. It looks like some of the Dauntless are giving them a wide berth.

I turn back to the table and continue to eat my food. Cassie continues to talk about her hands. At that moment, Brooke, Isaac and another transfer approach us. Brooke slams Sam's head into his food as she walks past, and the three of them burst out laughing. 

Sam stands up angrily, fists clenched, with soup dripping down his face, "You'll pay for that!" he shouts. He's about to start walking after them when Plato suddenly grabs him by the cuff of his sleeve.

"Let me go, Plato!" Sam hisses, his face a funny shade of red from both his anger and the tomato soup.

"No," Plato shakes his head, quietly determined, "Trust me, Sam. You really don't want to be going after Isaac."

"Then I will," I say, standing up, "I've dealt with Isaac before. No one treats my friends like that."

But Plato grabs me too with his other hand. For one so small, he's surprisingly strong. 

"I remember how you 'dealt' with him a couple of days ago at school," Plato says, "Please. Dex. Sam. Sit down. You won't gain anything by fighting him."

"Fine," I huff, throwing myself back into my chair. Sam sits down, still scowling, and tries to wipe some tomato soup off his glasses. 

"Why didn't you want us going after them?" Sam demands. 

To my surprise, it's Cassie who replies first, "You really don't want to mess with Isaac. He used to experiment on people to see how they reacted to pain."

Plato nods in agreement, "He's sadistic. And what's more, he's been teaching himself self-defence since childhood," he glances at me, "I take it he gave you that black eye?"

My hand flies up to the bruise in the sudden memory of the punch to the face Isaac gave me. 

"Yeah," I say. 

"And how long would you say you lasted against him?" Plato asks quietly. I glare at Plato. He raises his hands, "It's not a personal question. I'm just saying that none of us have got a good chance of fighting him."

Sam shakes his head, looking confused, "I just don't get why Brooke's with them. Edgar-that's the other person who was with them-I can understand. But Brooke was always nice to me in Candor."

"I hate her," I say vehemently, "She always used to pick on me."

Sam looks at me surprised and shrugs, "I thought she was better than that but I guess I was wrong. I suppose, even in Candor, we never see the absolute truth."

"Tomorrow, you'll begin fighting in the ring," Amar announces at the beginning of our afternoon session, "You'll fight a new opponent each day and that way we will determine the rankings for the end of stage one. Today we will go through various techniques and then you'll have some time to yourself to practice. I suggest you try and work on a strategy. "

Amar goes through various punching moves and orders us to repeat what we've just learnt.  

As Plato and Sam pummel the boxing bags on either side of me, I glance down at my fists, perplexed. 

"What's up?" Plato asks, seeing that I'm not moving. 

I frown, "Whenever I got into fights at school, I always put my thumb on the inside of my fist, not the outside."

He raises an eyebrow, "I'm surprised it didn't break. How often did you get into fights?"

"Quite a lot," I admit, "But I'm from Amity so no one told me how to fight. I just did what came naturally on the boxing bag my parents gave me and then repeated that at school."

Sam chokes, "What kind of Amity parents would give their children a boxing bag ?"

I flush and glare at him, "They gave me it to let my anger out! They're good parents!" 

Sam edges slightly away, "I can see that."

I huff and glance around the room. Looking at Isaac, I can see that Plato was right about him. It's clear he knows what he's doing. Watching his arms move like a whirlwind is scary to look at. 

I try to concentrate on my own boxing bag. It's hard work and even though I have a lot of upper body strength from all the tree climbing I've done, I'm still somewhat lacking in the muscle department.

After various drills, Amar lets us work on our own.  I see Isaac attacking his vigorously and I see Plato ducking and weaving as he punches his bag. I've never really had a tactic when fighting. At school, I would always catch the bullies by surprise because no one expected an Amity to fight back. But that won't work tomorrow-they'll be expecting me to fight.

When it gets to six o'clock and Amar claps his hands to get our attention, I feel I haven't got a plan. At all. 

"Dex, you stay behind. I want to talk to you," says Amar, and the dread I'm feeling worsens, "The rest of you are free to go." I glare at him as the others begin to file out. As Plato shuts the door behind him, Amar looks at me right in the eye. 

"Do you want to be Factionless?" he asks me. 

"No," I reply. What kind of question is that?

"Then don't be late for training again. I expect discipline." With so much that happened today, I'd almost forgotten that I'd been seven minutes late. 

"I don't like following orders." I scowl. 

"Then you should have thought of that before you chose Dauntless, pansy cake."

"My name's Dex."

"I'll call you what I like until you earn my respect pansy cake. " He stares at me and I hold his gaze. He sighs and says, "Look. You've got a good reputation so far. Nobody forgets the First Jumper. Let's not ruin all that by being late to training, shall we?"

Before I can answer, the door opens and Isaac and Brooke enter. I scowl at them but Brooke stares vacantly to the side of me and Isaac rewards me with a winning smile. 

"What do you two want?" demands Amar. 

"We'd like to do some extra training," Isaac replies smoothly. 

"Alright," Amar sighs, "But I won't be around. I'm going to pack up my stuff and relax for the rest for the evening." He turns to me, "You're dismissed Initiate."

"Yes sir, "I reply sullenly, and slam the door behind me. 

Moodily, I join the others in the Cafeteria for dinner. Cassie, again, complains about her hands, but no one listens. Plato eats his food in silence, while Sam and Amy talk about training.

Amy cuts off at one point, and stares behind me. I look round and see that some Dauntless enter the room. It's the Dauntless born, and I see the red-haired girl from yesterday-the one who'd tried to help Amy.

Most of them are muscular and are covered in tattoos. When I was younger, I remember feeling envious- I always wanted to be one of them. And now I have my chance. But to become Dauntless, I must first get through initiation.

And I will.