•  two years later  •

"Today's the day!"

I looked at my reflection in the mirror and managed a smile, "yeah...it is!" Thankfully, my attempt at enthusiasm was enough to fool my only sister, 6-year-old Lacy.

"Are you scared?" She asked, slurring her words around the popsicle she was trying to slurp up on this sticky, hot day.

"You know what?" I said as I turned my head and finished braiding my waist length hair, "I kind of am scared."

Lacy looked at my solemnly. We didn't beat around the bush in my family. We should have been Candor for how direct we were, at least, with each other.

Lacy continued to stare at me, and I stared back, a mirror to her wise little face. Finally she took a deep breath, "that's ok. It's ok to be scared, you just hafta still gotta do it anyways!" She beamed at me and began sucking on her purple popsicle again. I giggled at her eloquent way of expressing the very thing I had told her a week ago:

"Lily, why are the Dauntless our protectors?" Lacy looked up at me with wide eyes after watching Dauntless perform an exercise in the city. The only reason she was there and not at Amity was because our family was nominated to deliver the tomato harvest to the Central City Processing Stockyard and we had no one to watch her; the rest of Amity was working or at school.

I studied the whooping, laughing, energetic group as they began swinging themselves up onto the train and jumping off again. There were a few who were serious, standing over to one side, talking. But not many.

"Because they are big and strong and brave," I finally answered Lacy and turned back to loading tomato cases off of one of the trucks and piling them on the platform of the warehouse where the food was picked up by different faction leaders and distributed.

"How do you be brave, Lily?" Lacy held up a tomato that I had dropped.

"Well, you...you have," I paused as I hefted another large crate onto the platform, "you have courage." I wiped my forehead with my forearm and let out the breath I had been holding.

"But Lily!" Lacy was pulling on my loose-fitting culottes, "what is courage?!" Her large hazel eyes looked curiously at me from beneath her comically furrowed eyebrows.

I sighed heavily as I knelt down beside her, putting my right hand on the tailgate of the truck and my free arm around her waist. I looked deep into her fascinating eyes that caught every movement and sponged up all the attention and love her little being could find and sending it singing back to the giver. Her little lips that asked a million questions a day and lightened many a mood. How was I going to leave my family if I got a different faction in my test? How was I going to live without Lacy, my little sister and little friend? I'd helped raise her, her first words were Mama, Da, and Lee-lee...Lily.

"Lily, why do you look so sad? Is it because I want to know what courage is?" Lacy looked perplexed as her curiosity was dying to know what "courage" was, but if it made me sad, maybe she would rethink asking...so adorable, so selfless, maybe Lacy was destined for Abnegation...

"I'm sorry, Lacy, no, I'm not sad about your question." I moved my hand along her waist giving her a little tickle in the ribs until she giggled. "Courage means doing something no matter what, even if you're afraid."

"Like when Lance told me he'd catch me but I was scared but I jumped anyways?"

"Yes, just like that." I smiled and pushed a stray lock of hair behind Lacy's ear as she looked down at her feet then back over her shoulder.

I watched her for a moment, but she didn't turn back to me, so looked past her to see what had caught her attention. A Dauntless member was walking toward us, two or three younger Dauntless in tow.

I quickly stood up and lifted Lacy into the back of the truck, "here Lacy, you push the crates towards me, ok?"

"Ok!" Then she leaned closer and shout whispered, "why are they coming over here? Are we in trouble?"

"Uh, I, I'm, just push that one there towards me, ok?"

"They are coming over here!"

"Lacy! Hush!" I snatched the closest crate and swung myself around, using centrifugal force to make it easier to stack it higher. I had swung perfectly and I should have just been able to stack it when my fingers on my right hand were smashed between the crate and something soft, but unyielding.

"Ouch!" I felt my fingers fly open and release the crate against my will.

"Oh no, Lily! The tomatoes!" The tomato crate hit the ground with a crack, half the tomatoes spilling out, and half of the spilled ones making a sloppy mess as they hit the floor and were crushed.

"Oh no...oh no!" I raised my aching hand to my cheek and finally had the presence of mind to see how I could have miscalculated my movements. I looked up and steel grey eyes were boring into mine. The tattoos and black attire spoke of Dauntless: why had I not noticed they were that close? And then I looked down at his shoes...

"Oh my, I'm so sorry, here, I have some rags in the truck we can use for your boots, they're just covered in tomato...guck."

I quickly dash around the side of the truck and fling open the door. When I got no rebuttal from the Dauntless leader I began to feel more and more nervous that I had crossed some invisible line or broke some unknown rule when I'd accidentally hit him. I found the rags and distractedly hurried to the back of the truck, just as I realized Lacy was chattering away...in the minute and a half I had been searching for the rags, the Dauntless members had unloaded my truck and were shaking Lacy's hand goodbye.

"How? What...? Why did you...?" I felt out of breath and confused and... butterflies?? "And thank you, I mean..." I looked up at the leader, who still had tomato on his boots. "Oh, here are the rags, I apologize again," I knew I was blabbing and I couldn't seem to stop it, so it was a strange sense of relief when one of the young Dauntless spoke up.

"We were coming to pick up food anyways, figured we'd help, especially when this little girl," as he spoke, he scooped up Lacy and tossed her in the air, pulling a laughing screech from her lips, "kept smiling and waving whenever you weren't looking." He glanced over Lacy's auburn head and winked at me. I felt a horrendous blush creep across my cheeks and glanced at the Dauntless leader. He was looking at me sideways, then nodded his head towards Lacy, "your kid?"

"No, oh no, that's my little sister..." I started.

"Lacy!" Lacy finished for me and gave a little jump.

The Dauntless members gave a faint smile before hefting the crates to their shoulders and heading towards a Dauntless truck I hadn't seen before, parked a few dozen feet away.

"Goodbye nice Dauntless people!" Lacy yelled.

"Goodbye Lacy!"

The tall Dauntless leader turned around and looked me right in the eye and I felt myself falter...he paused for a moment, then gave a curt nod and turned back towards his fellow faction members.

"And then she said that I couldn't have it but I wanted it so bad, Lily!! Why couldn't I have it? Lily?? Lily!!"

I blinked a couple of times as I suddenly realized that I had not heard anything Lacy had been saying as we walked along. We were heading to the fields to drop Lacy off with my parents so I could go take my aptitude test. Two of my brothers were in school. My oldest younger brother, Lance, was helping my parents and Lacy wouldn't be going to school until next month.

"Sorry, Lacy, say again? Oh look! There's Mom!" Lacy let go of my hand and ran down the path, completely forgetting whatever it was she'd been talking about. I watched her go and as soon as she reached Mom and Lance, they waved to me. I waved back and started down the road towards the central city.

Here goes nothing...only everything.