"Plato!" I hear the word leaves my mouth in a scream, a noise I never though I could make, as I see blood come trickling out from the wound in Plato's chest. Still feeling stunned and shocked, I reel backwards and turn the full force of my gaze onto Edgar, who looks just as shocked as I am. As if he wasn't the one who threw the knife. 

"You !" I hiss, and move towards him, " What the hell ?"

"I..." Edgar says, his mouth still open. He blinks and tries to back away, as if he knows what's coming. 

"You just stabbed Plato!" I cry, grabbing hold of Edgar's shirt roughly. 

He blinks, as if he's still processing what's happened. "I don't...I mean...I...I didn't mean to-"

"I don't care what you meant to do," I snap. "I should've given you this a long time ago." And pulling my fist back, I let it fly right into his face. 

It makes a satisfying crunching sound as it makes contact. "It wasn't meant to hit him!" Edgar cries out, with one hand clutching his face, the other wrapped around my wrist. 

"Right. It was meant to hit me?" I ask, punching him again. 

"Ow! Yes!" he shouts. I glare at him, and he then says, "I...I mean no! I didn't mean to hit anyone!" 

"Don't lie to me." I growl, and kick him in the stomach. I let go of his shirt, dropping him to the ground, and I aim another kick at his leg. 

"What in the world is going on?!" I hear a thunderous voice, and I see that Amar has just entered the room, with a terrified Cassie in tow. 

His brown eyes move from the knife sticking out of Plato to the crumpled form of Edgar on the floor in front of me. Cassie takes in the scene, screeches, and turns to run out the door again, but Amar grabs her arm before she can leave. 

"What are you idiots just standing there for?" he bellows, "Have you no common sense? Dex! Stop beating up Edgar, and take Plato to the hospital wing! Now! He needs a doctor not revenge! Sam, you help her!"

I give Edgar one final glare, and return back to Plato, who's bleeding out on the floor. Sam doesn't meet my eyes as we heave Plato onto our shoulders. 

"The rest of you!" Amar shouts to the others, "Explain! Now!" 

"Well..." Isaac begins smoothly. 

"Not you Initiate!" he pauses and points at Amy, "You! I trust you! Explain!"

"Umm..." Amy begins, as Sam kicks open the door for us to exit. 

We begin to heave Plato down the hallway, it being surprisingly empty compared to the evenings. 

"Hang in there Plato," Sam whispers to him, his face almost as pale as Plato's, "You'll make it. They'll fix you up, you'll see."

"Course they will," I say confidently, "This is Dauntless. Accidents happen all the time."

Sam glares at me, "Just shut up, Dex. This is all your fault."

"My fault?" I hiss back. 

"You were the one taunting Edgar!" Sam retorts, "If you'd just ignored him, he wouldn't have got worked up enough to throw that knife! And none of this wouldn't have happened!" Then before I can open my mouth to respond, he adds, "Plus, you were too busy beating up Edgar to help out Plato!"

"That's not fair!" I say back, my voice nearing a shout, "You taunted Edgar too! I was just backing you up! And besides, at least I was doing something when I was beating up Edgar. What else could I do? I don't know anything about medicine!" I glare at Sam, and then say, "And anyway! I didn't see you doing anything!" 

We glare at each other for a few moments, until Sam almost walks into a wall and has to break the staring contest. 

We head into the hospital wing. Although the lights are on and there are plenty of patients, there are no nurses or doctors to be seen. 

"Probably on coffee break," Sam mutters scornfully as we lower Plato onto one of the spare beds. "I'm going to find someone," he says gruffly, again not meeting my eyes. 

"Fine." I say back, as he runs off towards the office. 

"Dex," I hear Plato say weakly. 

"Shut up. You're wounded. You're not supposed to talk." I say back. 

He raises an eyebrow, before saying, "I don't think I should have taken that knife for Sam."

I glare at him, "You idiot. You're only realising that now ?" I can't help responding.

But Plato doesn't seem to have heard me. "You and I, we need to be careful," he says, "Can't draw attention to ourselves."

"What are you talking about?"

"In case they find us out," he insists, "we have to be brave."

"Well, you were brave." I say, thoroughly confused. 

But Plato shakes his head, "No, that wasn't brave. That was-" And he mutters a word that I don't hear. 

At that moment, Sam comes back with a nurse. He takes one look at Plato and grimaces. 

"Well you were right not to take the knife out," he says, "That could have seriously messed him up internally."

Sam and I watch in silence as the nurse rushes around, fetching bandages and other equipment. Finally, he injects Plato with some sort of fluid, and nods to us. "He just needs some rest then he should be as good as new." He smiles slightly, "Never a day passes when I don't thank the Erudite for their medicine and technology."

He glances at us, "Thanks to the stuff Erudite has given us, he should be all healed in a few days." The nurse moves to a set of drawers and pulls out a piece of paper and pen. He scribbles something down before handing it to us. "This note should make him exempt from training. Give this to whoever is in charge of you lot." The nurse moves away and Sam gives him a nod of thanks. We stand there in awkward silence. 

"I'm sorry I said this was your fault," Sam says to me at last. 

"Well it partially was," I say, having finally let of my anger, "But it was mostly Edgar's."

"And Plato's," says Sam ruefully, before turning to me and offering a hand, "So. Friend's again?"

I glance at his outstretched hand, puzzled. "Yeah. Friends." And I give him a hug. When I break apart, he looks startled. 

"Oh," I say, "Was I not supposed to...?"

"No," he says recovering, "But hugging is fine." He smiles, "You were meant to shake my hand though."

I glance down at his hand, "Do what to your hand?"

He gives me a confused look before clasping his hand in his, "Shake it. Like this." And he moves our clasped hands up and down. It's the same thing he did when he first met Amy on the train.

I look at him, "Never did that in Amity."

"Oh," he blinks and smiles, "Well, we did it all the time in Candor."

We make our way back to the training centre, where we see that Amar has got the others to continue to throw knives. He heads towards us as we come in. 

"Well?" he asks, brusquely. 

"He'll be alright." Sam says. 

"Good," Amar says. Sam hands him the note and Amar raises his eyebrows slightly. "Never got a sick note after I got beaten up in training." But he shrugs and just puts the note in his pocket. "Ok, you two, Plato might have an excuse but you don't. Back to training."

Sam and I grin at each other and return to our places. Beside me, Cassie is still crying but she's doing better than before, whilst Amy and Jo are now hitting the centre of the target each time. Phoebe, on the other hand, is still pretty bad as usual. 

"I want you to remember, " Amar says, as we and Sam pick up our sets of knives, "That this is Dauntless. We are dealing with lethal weapons here, not toys." 

He sends a pointed look at Edgar, who shrinks back. I glare in his direction. "Yes, you are being trained to be soldiers. Yes, you are being trained to hurt and, if necessary, kill people. But those people are not our people. They are not the people inside this city. Not the people from other factions or other factionless. They are-" He breaks off and glares at Isaac, "Have I said something funny Initiate?"

Isaac is standing, nonchalantly leaning against one of the knife racks, with a smirk on his face. But, seeing everyone's eyes upon him, he quickly recovers himself, and says, "No."

Amar gives him a glare, before pulling himself together and continuing his speech, "As I was saying, these weapons are not to be used on people from Dauntless, the factionless, or other factions-" 

Isaac snorts. Amar glances at him quickly but continues anyway. "They are to be used on anything or anyone that lives on the other side of that wall. Our sole purpose is to protect our city from the outside threat. Is that understood?"

We all nod, unsure whether to continue training after his long and impassioned speech. Amar looks at us all levelly, meeting all of our gazes. "Good." He says. There's an awkward pause before he says again, "You may leave." 

And in silence, we all file out of the training centre.