Hello! Here's part 3 :)

I was rushing around the lobby with a clipboard going from person to person taking down names and factions.

There had been an accident at the Merciless Mart and quite a few people were injured. From what I had managed to gather a metal beam had fallen from the ceiling and hurt a lot of people. There were no casualties so far, but there were a lot injuries.

Tricia had been roped in to work as a nurse, leaving me to deal with the paperwork and administration all by myself. All the normal nurses were busy and we still had people who weren’t being seen, so they had needed Tricia. Now, I can normally handle the paperwork without a problem but when I’m on my own things can get a bit hectic.

I was running from person to person, getting information. My hair was all over the place and I’m sure that my cheeks were flushed. I was fighting hard to keep the smile off of my face from the exhilaration.

I know that it’s bad but I classify a good day at work as a busy one. I know that that means I’m willing people to be hurt, but I can’t find it in myself to care. The thrill I get from the pressure makes it hard to feel bad about it.

All of the seriously injured people were already being seen by doctors and nurses and those with more minor injuries were having to wait around for somebody to become free. The rule was if there was more than a little blood they were classed as ‘critical’ and were bumped to the top of the waiting list. But at the moment we had so many injuries to deal with even those at the top of the list were having to wait a while to be treated.

I had just finished collecting everyone’s names on my clipboard and sat down again behind my desk to process them when a shadow loomed over me. I quickly looked up thinking I must have missed somebody, but the person in front of me had definitely not been in the room moments before. I would have spotted him.

Now, I don’t mean that because he was physically very attractive, even though he was, I mean that because he was the sort of person that demanded your attention. The person standing in front of me was a young dauntless boy, he couldn’t have been more than a year older than me. Although his face held a neutral expression, he had this aura about him which told you that you definitely didn’t want to mess with him. He had an aura of danger. He had done nothing to indicate that he had a violent nature but there was something in the way that he held himself that told me that he was not somebody I wanted to come up against in a fight.

“Hello, what can I help you with?” I asked, smiling politely. Although I knew he was dangerous, for some reason I wasn’t scared of this boy in front of me like I knew I should be.

“Yeah, hi. Um, I need to see somebody about this.” The boy said whilst shrugging one shoulder. My eyes then moved from his face and focused in on a large gash that spread right across the top of his upper arm. There was a lot of blood coming out of the wound, enough for him to be bumped to the top of the waiting list. But there would still be at least a fifteen minute wait before anyone could see him, and in all honesty I didn’t know if the guy had that long before he fainted from blood loss.

“Wow” I gasped. The cut wasn’t a pretty sight. I quickly grabbed the first aid kit from under my desk and took out some bandaging to compress the wound until it could be seen to. “Here.” I said shoving the cloth into his hands. “Press that firmly onto the injury, and don’t let up. You’re bleeding badly, so I’m going to move you to the front of the queue, but unfortunately all the doctors and nurses are occupied at the minute. Now, I’m going to need your name and you’re in dauntless, right?” I asked, switching to professional mode. I needed to sort this out. I could worry about the boy bleeding out later, right now there’s work to be done.

“Dean Collins, and I’m offended that you need to even ask.” He said with a smirk.

I rolled my eyes, only a dauntless could be losing half the blood in their body and still be making jokes. I would never admit it, but I loved how they could be so calm and uncaring about their own injuries. It takes a brave person to not worry about your own mortality when you’re seriously injured.

“It’s just a formality.” I told him whilst filling out a patient form for him. “But a doctor’s not going to be able to see you for a while. There was an accident over at Candor headquarters so we are overrun with injured people.” I winced as I was telling him this. I didn’t want to say it to his face but on the inside I was worrying about if he was going to last the wait.

Dean didn’t seem fazed by my comment though. Either he was exceptionally brave or he didn’t understand the severity of his injury. Both options were equally possible.

“Have you ever seen the doctor stitch somebody up before?” Dean asked, almost offhandedly.

“Of course.” I replied, still working on the form.

“Great. Then you can do it for me.” Dean said, causing my head to snap up from the paperwork. He had said it as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. How could he assume that I could sew up his arm just because I’d seen it being done before? How could he trust me with that?

The answer was because he was dauntless. He wasn’t scared of me mucking it up. But he should be. I mess everything up. I couldn’t do this.

“What? NO! I can’t give you stitches! I’ve never done that before!” I said incredulously.

My protest didn’t seem to put Dean off of the idea though.

“Look, I need the stitches and you can give them to me. What’s the big deal?” He asked, clearly not getting the fact that I wasn’t a nurse.

“What’s the big deal? I am not qualified for doing that job!” I said panicking.

“How qualified do you have to be to sew a couple of stitches?” Dean asked, trying to coax me into the idea.

“In someone’s arm!” I pointed out.

“It doesn’t make a difference what it’s in. You’ve sewn before, right?” Dean’s tone was calm and oddly reassuring. Wasn’t it meant to be my job to reassure the patient?

“Yeah.” I admitted.

“Well this would be just the same as that.” He grinned brightly. Did he not see what was wrong with that comparison? You can’t compare sewing up a hole in your coat pocket to sewing up a hole in someone’s arm!

“But I’d be sewing through flesh.” I said trying to make him see the difference. You’d think, seeing as how it was his arm on the line, that he’d be slightly more concerned about asking an untrained hospital secretary to give him stitches.

“It’s no different. Please? Are you really going to let a guy bleed out in front of you?” He asked, resorting to the pleading tactic instead. He pulled out the puppy dog face that Rosie had whenever I was too mean to her.

No, Sophie! Don’t cave. Remember what he’s asking you to do!

“I can’t! What if I mess up and you’re scarred for life?” I protested, trying to get him to see how ridiculous his plan was.

“You won’t.” He said it with such certainty that my eyes snapped up to meet his. How could he have so much faith in my abilities? He didn’t even know me. My own parents didn’t even believe in me that much, why would a complete stranger? “And it’s my arm, why don’t you let me worry about the consequences?” He suggested with a half smile.

How could he be so relaxed? The fabric I had given him moments ago was already soaked through with blood, showing just how much he was losing. Didn’t he understand that this was a serious injury? I wouldn’t just be putting a plaster on his booboo and kissing it better. This was a big deal and he was acting as though it was nothing.

But the blood soaked cloth also reminded me of how desperately he needed this treatment.

Trust yourself, you can do it. Dean’s right, you’ve seen it done before, you know what to do. Be brave, Sophie. Be like him. Be dauntless.

“Come on, amity. I’m dying here!” He whined.

“Don’t call me that!” I snapped. My voice had risen to a shout and everyone in the lobby was looking at me in either shock or disapproval.

I shouldn’t have done that. That wasn’t at all an amity thing to do. That was the exact opposite of the amity thing to do. That was confrontational. That wasn’t peaceful. I can just imagine the glare my mother would be giving me right now if she had seen that outburst. I can’t believe I did that, and over something so stupid too.

But it didn’t feel stupid. A small voice in my head whispered.

He was defining me as amity. I hated that. I hated being told that I was the faction I live in. Even though it is the phrase I tell myself each and every day, when somebody else says it, it feels so ... final.

Also at the precise moment that he decided to stick that label on me I had just been convincing myself to be dauntless. It was like a slap in the face. He was a real dauntless. I wasn’t. When he called me amity it made me feel as though I was lying to myself all those times I secretly believed that underneath it all I belonged in dauntless. It made it feel like a stupid little girl’s fantasy.

“What I meant to say is that I’d prefer it if you didn’t call me that.” I said after a short pause.

That was the correct response. That was the amity response. That was the way I should have reacted in the first place.

Dean’s face was blank as he starred at me, but I could see in his eyes that he was trying to figure me out. My shout had confused him and he didn’t know what to make of me anymore. He had automatically assumed that I would be like any other amity girl. Calm, relaxed, easy going, light-hearted. I felt slightly happy at the thought that he had underestimated me and that I was making him re-evaluate his opinion on me but I soon came crashing back down to reality.

It wasn’t a good thing that I was making him second guess his assumptions. Amity are meant to act in a certain way. Things are expected of us, and I hadn’t met those expectations. I shouldn’t be proud of that. I shouldn’t be happy about that. I had let my faction down by letting my temper get the best of me. I shouldn’t have done that.

“Then what should I call you?” Dean asked simply.

“Sophie.”

“Well Sophie, could you please stop me from bleeding to death by sewing up my arm?” He asked, whilst smirking.

“Fine!” I conceded, throwing my hands up in the air in exasperation. “But if you die or end up horribly disfigured it is not my fault!” I warned whilst pointing a finger at him.

This only seemed to make his grin grow bigger.

“Deal.” He chuckled.