Wendy really did want an opportunity to sleep in that day, to sleep through the initiate wake up call Yura was now in charge of. It rang too chirpily across the initiate dorm beside her apartment. She felt like she hadn’t let her body properly relax for years, wondered if every one of her fellow members felt this sort of hurt. But endurance was a skill she’d learnt to master, and adaptation to extremes was her strong suit, whether that extreme was a change of battlefield or a lifetime of sleep deprivation.

Hyeri’s voice tinkles like a shrill siren across her eardrum at some random time in the morning, and it’s rude awakenings like this where Wendy wished she could just rip her earpiece out, not have to deal with it permanently fastened to her hammer bone for Hyeri to intervene with her hearing wherever, whenever.

“Rise and shine!” Hyeri cackles, and Wendy has to momentarily switch off her mouthpiece in case Hyeri picks up on the long chain of death threats she’s irrationally sending her way.

“What the , Hyeri?” She almost barks. And Hyeri’s still laughing.

“Calm down, sailor,” she teases, meanwhile there’s a furious rustling over the transmitter and a muffled element to her voice. Of course, she’s eating something. “I swear you always said you were a morning person too.”

Wendy sighs. “What do you want?”

“The truth serum gas has finally faded out of those few guards. Let me tell you, that stuff doesn’t get into your system easily but when it does it lasts forever.”

“Because clearly, you were there.” Wendy wishes Hyeri could see her dramatic eye roll. But every time she speaks, Hyeri starts cackling again at how groggy her morning voice is.

“Chill out, Gruffalo. I was, in fact, keeping a close eye through the monitors.”

Wendy drags out of her bed, not minding that half of her apartment wall was cut through with glass and her entire bottom half was only underwear. “You mean you were actually doing your job? Strangely enough I don’t quite buy it.”

“Hey!” Hyeri feigns extreme offence, her swallow of food so sudden and loud through the transmitter Wendy almost keels over. “Look who’s up and doing her job before a Dauntless leader?”

“Technically I can’t look, I can’t see you.” Wendy grumbles, realising that her comeback was typical and terrible but not caring because it was only 6AM and she was already fed up with the day. Her agile fingers run over her right aluminium wardrobe door, and after a second to ponder she slides it swiftly open to admire hanger among hanger of only black, studded clothes. “But we’ve majorly sidetracked. Really, what were you saying about the gas?”

“Before you insulted me? Oh,” Hyeri speaks childishly and coldly but Wendy smiles regardless, wiggling into a pair of tight-fit jeans. “Clearly Candor thought about how they didn’t have much chance winning a war against the fighting faction, so this gas packs a huge punch. I’ve booked you another session with Amber to discuss some kind of mask or shield to put over your helmets before you’re back to the battlefield tomorrow.”

“Alright, thanks.” Wendy chirps, trying not to cause too much fabric commotion against her mouthpiece as she slides a dark sleeveless top over her head.

“Don’t want you all tattling your greatest secrets to those Candor smart mouths, especially if you’re a Leader. Reputation and all that.”

And Wendy’s nodding rapidly until she remembers Hyeri can’t actually see her. “Blackmail is powerful.” She responds.

“Human reason can excuse any evil.” Hyeri quotes a well-acknowledged Dauntless priority, attempting a tone of sophistication, though her aggressive chomps and swallows successfully remove any of the phrase’s meaningful nature.

“Yep,” Wendy says, fastening on her bullet strap and layering up on a few pocket knives for everyday protection. She stares at her shiny apartment door and lets out an exhausted breath. “What are you even eating, anyway?”

“A muffin.” Hyeri states. Wendy can imagine her grinning proudly through her teeth. “Oh, and speaking of food and such, there’s an Amity grain delivery coming by this afternoon. And since I’m such a hard working member of city security scheduling all of these things for you, I’m sure you’d be more than obliged to accept the delivery instead of me. You know, while I beaver away down here.”

“Thanks for your consideration.” Wendy drawls sarcastically, now fully dressed. She makes sure to mute the transmitter while making her way down to Amber’s workshop.

Before she knows it, she’s alone in a simulation room, her entire team monitoring her through a plexiglass window carved into the side of the steel wall. Amber’s murmuring something to her through the microphone. It echoes, rattles a slight bit in her newly fashioned helmet.

They have her in there because she’s quick-thinking and physically built, and they’re testing the new helmet on fumes. These fumes are to have the same strength of Candor’s evaporated serums, but instead of having one of their leaders piece apart all of her truths right before them, the gas’ll just let off a bad smell.

“Okay Wendy, you ready?” Amber’s slight mumble sweeps across the room in full volume.

Wendy lifts her leather glove in the air, saluting.

In a calmer wisp, there’s a hiss coming from craters dug into the floor, and an off, weak green sort of smoke begins to seep in. For this part, it’s fine. Over Wendy’s eyes is a thickly plated helmet with bulletproof glass now covering her face. It’s a sort of sensing glass, tinted grey slightly and hyper aware of any chemicals in the air. When there’s chemical material present she may not necessarily notice by vision, the glass portrays it to be a certain shade of green.

Wendy reasons by the dark, barely present purr of mossy, leafy colours around her, they’re starting it off easy.

“Can you smell anything?” Amber says through the speakers. Wendy tosses her head from side to side; she can’t. “Good - so the custom glass doesn’t let in scent at this level.”

Great for a place like Amity, with all of those dung fields, Wendy thinks smugly, though training herself to focus on her fogging up surroundings. Something behind her suddenly bleeps, and oh boy, her mind whistles, here comes the real test.

She’s well prepared to be braced for action. Through the simulation floor drags up a figure, a fake, brain-dead pixel soldier, not really there to anyone else but her and those surveying her from the animated monitor window. They’re thickly built up, fumes of a slightly more sharp green inching out of their lips, their stinging eyes. Wendy holds her breath. She leans her firm body forwards, knowing through countlessly performed technique that she should use her agility over any sort of brawling talent due to her tiny height.

They make a run for her, and she ducks, madly squabbling at their sides however sustaining professionalism. And every strike she places on their simulated body let off extra bursts of green. The green’s far from weak now, it’s sharp. Like a monstrous growl emphasized by the compacted gas, the room beeps again, yet another pack of simulations filing up from the floor like a predatory army. There’s not enough space in this chamber, and Wendy knows it.

All fire goes off in her head so she begins to pounce, striking down a few savage pixel soldiers before her entire body feels winded. Perhaps these are too many all-powerful green beasts for one small leader to take down at once, and they kick at her sides. Somehow with a shaking grip of her pocketed Chiappa Rhino 50DS revolver they decrease in numbers, her bullets sent wildly, aimlessly, desperately. She doesn’t know how any of them actually landed where she wanted them to, and doubtfully she regains whatever breathing she possibly could in an airless situation like this. Her mind’s startled to the core. This is too toxic.

It’s chaos - the whole room is flooded. Wendy’s not really aware of how she herself is doing, merely focusing on how the new technology is working for her and that wretched beeping sound that won’t stop. There’s a hint of something aching into her nostrils, making them burn like fire, and she’s about to call it out before she realises is too choked up to talk.

“How are you doing?” Amber’s says. In the dense atmosphere, her voice is droning.

Not too great, Wendy feels like shouting. The gas around her is neon, it’s venomous, caking over layers of earlier gas, packing her within this tight and relentless, deadly fog. Wendy wants to scream out, to tell them Amber’s still in need of making a few final adjustments in her workshop, but the clean air is totally stolen from her lungs and salty tears from her eyes are fizzling off her cheeks and this... this must be what true suffocation feels like.

Amber’s spitting her words, tenser sounds being picked up by her mic in the monitoring room by mistake. In a few heartbeats, she’s speaking directly to Wendy. “Holy , can you even breathe? Hold on.” It’s probably clear enough that Wendy can’t. Her body fights out the stench poorly in desperation, kicks it off, letting herself crumble to the ground while the simulations slowly flicker away. In an instant, the beeping is over - but her ears still rattle, tinkle with the fading blaring sounds. The livid gas is back into the simulation room vents. “We’ll get you out of there.”

She thinks she’s going to faint, but she’s stronger than that. Just her mind has drifted off somewhat with the fumes, and her eyes still sting so strongly they could bleed. Regrettably, she knows all she’ll be able to smell for the next few days and smell of for the next few hours is whatever that disgusting chemical was.

“I’m so sorry.” Amber whines beside her, when she’s been yanked upwards and over to a cleaner sector where she can finally drink water and breathe, no longer attacked by foul smelling acidic smoke. Amber’s always had a slight bit more care and selflessness in her than your usual Dauntless, and Wendy’s never asked, but she has a slight feeling she was born as Abnegation. This care aside, Wendy’s not going to let her off too easily for almost killing her in a simulation.

The team of Dauntless leaders aside from Wendy has cleared back, more interested in their muscles or training or actual schedules for the day. She’s listening to Amber explain her way through the adjustments they’ll still, clearly, need to be making to this helmet model before battle tomorrow.

“It’s totally my fault, too. I should’ve at least let you in with some sort of oxygen tank in case of a situation where the stuff actually did end up seeping through.”

“That stuff reeks like death.” Wendy groans expressively, reminding herself to stop by some sort of parlour where she can make herself smell less vile once she leaves the workshop.

Amber hisses sympathetically. “It really does.” Throughout the final traces of their discussion, Wendy’s head isn’t in the right position to properly think whatever Amber’s saying through. She’s staring into space. Mainly staring at Amber’s glimmering septum piercing again. And soon enough she’s ready to bid her farewell until Hyeri’s voice barks into her eardrum.

“Hey, snowman,” Hyeri’s ever-excited, and Wendy wants to hate it but there’s something so oddly enticing and likeable about it. But then again, especially right now, Wendy wishes she didn’t have responsibilities so she could mute her earpiece for good. “The Amity delivery’s here. Remember you promised to accept it on my behalf!”

“You kind of forced me to accept it on your behalf.” Wendy responds into her mouthpiece, dryly. She’s physically less close to Amber now, but the weapon maker’s still picking up little parts of their transmitter conversation and laughing quietly to herself.

Hyeri seems to just shrug that remark off. “Go, go, go!” Is the last thing Wendy’s ear gets attacked with before there’s a click and the line’s dead, so she sets off quickly. Luckily, the route to the Net and up to the Dauntless roofs does actually go by the parlours, so she won’t have to smell like a terribly infected corpse for long.

The explosive technicolour of the sky surprises her. She’s only really seen it a sparkling blue or jet black, not like this. It’s late afternoon therefore, she supposes, and kicks her heels energetically against the pale gravel as she walks around the brick Exit wall.

The fuller landscape comes into view, and Wendy severely begins to wish Dauntless wasn’t mainly grey and underground. There’s so much delicate tangerine and lilac in the sky that she could stay here, hours passing by languidly as she stares.

She takes attentive notice of a side profile not too far away, and it’s a woman with her legs swinging freely over the side of the rooftop wall, allowing the gentle dusk breeze to swoon over her. Wendy almost curses because she instantly knows those eyes. And in clearing , Kang Seulgi’s head darts toward her, give or take a second due to late reaction speed. Her face is the same mis-match of sultry and kind Wendy can’t get out of her head.

Today Seulgi’s hair is tied into a single braid, cascading down the right side of her face and bust alongside ribbons of her faction’s signature colours. She’s positive-looking, very impressionable. And Wendy knows she takes her breath away, knows she’s trodden one step over an ambiguous pile of leaves and has been swept right up into a persistent trap. It’s Seulgi’s persistent trap. All of this, and Wendy’s too stubborn to even accept an ounce of it.

“Have you been waiting long?” Wendy grins softly, not daringly unlike herself. It’s surprising.

“Not really.” Seulgi wrinkles her nose, her long, pretty legs still swinging. “You’ve probably had important business to do and all. I really don’t mind waiting.”

There are several sacks of grain and a few smaller craters probably packed with vegetable items, and subconsciously Wendy’s pierced eyebrows raise at the sight. That would’ve taken a whole lot of strength to carry over here.

As she sighs into the gentle wind, bright blonde hair lapping over the side of her cheek, Seulgi shuffles off the rooftop edge and lugs a few of the sacks over the shoulder not covered by hair.

“Oh, I’ll take those off you.” Wendy lurches forward, extending her arms with wide eyes. Seulgi’s smile is a little bit tense but she seems fine with the load, blinking slowly.

“Nah, don’t worry.” says Seulgi, and her voice has a melodic aspect to it, like a smooth whistle. “I got this shift because I was physically strong enough for it. This isn’t usually my job.”

“Ahh, okay.” Wendy kicks at the rubble underneath her boots, nodding with emphasis. She’s a bit timid, which she hates because her personality was always so faultlessly daring. She hears the grain sacks being slumped down again. And when she looks up, Seulgi’s spaced out a bit, staring closely at her exposed arm.

Wendy mimics the way Seulgi’s tilting her head, and when Seulgi finally snaps into her gaze they both laugh. “What?”

“I think this is the first time I’ve seen you outside of a battle field, and y’know, not in a terrifying suit.” says Seulgi. Wendy hums distantly, grinning like an idiot. They laugh lightly and Seulgi reaches forth casually, takes gentle hold of Wendy’s arm. “I like your tattoo sleeve.”

“Oh?” The touch sends a shock through her system, “Oh, yeah. Thanks.” Wendy’s staring intently at her arm too, all of it a piece of graffiti art and tasteful scribblings, partially greyscale and partially blinking with blue, violet. And at this moment anything but Seulgi. She could’ve just acknowledged her arm or pointed at it, Wendy groans in her buzzing head - not caressed it.

She also prays to the heavens that there’s no trace of that gassy smell still lingering around her.

Seulgi’s thumb is still idly at her exposed skin when she mutters, “You were born as Erudite, right?”

Wendy’s somewhat touched she figured that out, so she nods. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“I thought so before with how clever you seemed, and I’m not surprised,” Seulgi’s more talking to her arm than to her, her hot breath hitting her skin and Wendy can feel herself getting goosebumps. “There’s the colour blue all over your tattoos. It really suits you.”

Wendy just can’t cope, it takes everything in her system not to burble out this embarrassing reply about how Seulgi looks like an angel in the light and any colour is her colour. As dusk beckons, the Dauntless offers to take the deliver back with her, and the Amity complies, a bit blankly and a bit late. Wendy notices there’s something sweetly off-kilter about Seulgi. She was often bewildered, perhaps a bit confused with her body language. And she was always a beat behind.

“So,” Wendy takes the load with seemingly no trouble though her back’s aching like crazy, “You said deliveries aren’t usually your job?”

“Oh, no,” Seulgi replies, her soft voice not sounding too much in contrast with Wendy’s now, with the smitten state the Dauntless is in. “I’m an artist. Also, I like to help out around the faction by digging out crop squares.” That explained the keen, artistic eye paying attention to her tattoos, and that explained the strength. It made completely perfect sense, and Wendy found Seulgi’s straightforward nature so charmingly different to how complex she herself was. But Wendy thinks everything about Seulgi is charming, and she’d only met her a few times but every time she sees her she feels like she’s forgotten the concept of using her lungs.

Wendy begins to steer off towards the Net, suddenly snapping back into her leader-like, fearless persona. The appearance of a smitten teen she’s slipped so effortlessly into just embarrasses her when she’s back to reality. She feels a mixture of stupidity and fear, nothing an Erudite-born Dauntless leader should ever feel. And she knows if anyone saw her acting this way or could wire themselves into the sappy mush that’d infiltrated her brain, her reputation would be done for.

“Hey, Seulgi,” She calls back for a second before launching into the shadows. Now her gaze is professional, daring, well-trained. Seulgi seems to wilt under her firm look, but by nature can’t help smiling a bit as she keeps her eye contact steady. “Stay safe.”

As a faction leader Wendy can’t admit there are a few things she’s not too fond of within Dauntless customs, but one thing she’ll honestly never regret transferring for is the food. It’s literally all hamburgers and then cakes for dessert, and yet it never seems to get boring.

She’s back inside, back in the comfort of a noisy Dauntless cocoon and in the dining hall, at dinner time. Though there are leaders a hierarchy system isn’t that much in place since no one cares about manners, so they sit freely amongst members and initiates of all kinds of rankings. Wendy had grappled Seunghoon and Amber apart to make space for her on the lunch bench after arriving late, fondly seeing them sitting around her initiates, the ones she hadn’t seen for days excusing Yeri.

But no shock of silvery-pinky hair caught her eye, and something didn’t feel quite right. “Hey, where’s Yugyeom?”

No one spoke for a few moments.The gaggle of Dauntless across the entire dining hall even seemed to tone down. Another initiate elbowed a very solemn looking Yeri, urging her to speak.

Yeri exhaled. “He was cut.”

Wendy hadn’t even taken a bite of her burger yet. “What?”

Yeri was ducking her head but soon became conscious of her new faction’s standards, and snapped upwards with a firm glint in her eye. “I mean, we couldn’t say we didn’t see it coming. I just… we just, we just didn’t want it to ever come, you know? I can’t get to grips with the fact that we lost him.”

Wendy would respond with something cold and sarcastic, but Yeri seemed to have a noticeable wilt in her look, and her motherly instinct told her to remove her leader-like image for now. “He’s factionless now. At least he’s not dead,” she said with care.

“Being factionless is a state worse than death, we all know that.” Yeri’s knuckles were white and tense. No one knew quite how to add comfort to this situation, and Seunghoon’s arm was brushing uncomfortably against Wendy’s while they sat, hunched. Wendy clicked her tongue.

Everyone turned to her as if expecting something, so her mind raced to find whichever topic of conversation came first. And unfortunately, she wanted to roll her eyes at her own brain because all that filtered through were images of Seulgi, snippets of Seulgi’s voice cruising through her ears, the way her petite fingers felt caressing her tattoo sleeve. It was a battle of heart versus head, and she hated how her head had become so weak in the unforgiving hands of her heart.

“I met someone in Amity who knows you.” It just seemed to slip out, carelessly. She can’t even remember saying it, but she can remember a slight snort coming from Seunghoon beside her.

Yeri perked up, curious. “Who?”

“She’s around average height, maybe a little under, but taller than me. Her name’s Kang-”

“Seulgi!” Yeri beamed instantly, the complete opposite of how she’d been a few minutes ago. Glee was written all over her eyes. “Kang Seulgi, yeah, I grew up living with her.”

Wendy nodded. “She mentioned that.”

Yeri looked as if she had enough energy in her gaze to leap over the table. “How is she? Wait. You’ve probably only seen her the one time so that was a dumb question.”

And Wendy almost let herself say she knew her well, but Seunghoon was probably giving her a watchful, knowing eye. She could sense his glance and anxiety was crawling up her cheek, triggering her face to tingle and eyes to shift, so she only cleared and smirked. “She seemed happy as ever, just now.”

Something made her heartbeat hammer, like this was some sort of final test where she was skimming her teeth against the failure barrier. Wendy couldn’t tell if Seunghoon’s face was teasing or serious when he spoke up. “Just now?”

“She was the one who delivered the produce from Amity. Hyeri told me to accept it.”

“I see.” He said with an ambiguous tone, while blinking slowly, which was something he’d always done but now it just reminded Wendy of the way Seulgi blinked. And now she also really wanted to smack herself in the head.

---

The train pulled swiftly across to Amity without even as much as a creak. Their factions weren’t that close, so Wendy always wondered if now was the best time to actually get some shut-eye. She’d always dismissed it, knowing how incapable combat is while you’re groggy, ambling and half-asleep, but at this time her mind was causing her so much confusion and havoc. It was even more exhausting, so reluctantly her darkly lined eyelids began to droop and furrow.

She was gently resting her head against a train window, upright, before she caught something outside between her eyelids fluttering open and closed.

“Hey, you, look.” she lazily elbowed the guard beside her, pointing through the window with leather hands, “What the hell is that?”

It was this giant mechanical monstrosity, wings sticking out everywhere, like a quick transportation device painted black and white but with this same recognisable supremacy about it. Wendy couldn’t even guess what it is, which was odd because it was Candor coloured, who were never short of straightforward. The guard seemed to finish her trail of thought, scoffing, “Erudite really want to get on Candor’s good side, huh?”

Of course it was Erudite built.

She smirked. “They kind of have to if it’s Candor. From what I remember about Erudite, they have way too many secrets to even know where to begin with them. They’re shady, and don’t want Candor tattling away all of their stuck up, superior garbage.” This battle of alliances was getting way too complex for anyone to process, and Wendy thanked God it took place in Amity otherwise there’d be no sanity whatsoever. Not that Amity civilians were especially sane.

She wrinkled her nose expressively, trying to get a closer look at the contraption they were soon approaching. “What is that thing for, though? I wonder what it does.”

“Don’t bother thinking about it. Whatever it is, it can’t defeat Dauntless, right?” said the guard, raising his arms while the rest of the faction team cheered and hooted along. Wendy scoffed under her breath, but still smiled with this enticing fire in her eyes.

Candor were really trying to fool them this time, ducking out of every possible angle and camouflaging themselves between every tree or pillow of wheat amongst the fields. Before Dauntless could fully file and launch themselves off the train their eyes followed greyish steam, recognising it to be truth serum gas and shutting their new and improved helmets over their faces.

And now, they’re still pulling all the stops. Wendy decides it’s best to stick by Seunghoon this time instead of drifting apart like a lone wolf like she had all of the other times. It’s not a faction priority, but Wendy’s always been a firm believer in teamwork. Wendy likes people, especially people who are willing to shoot out bullets for whatever they believe in.

They both lie on their chests behind a dismembered wall by the stables, minds drawn back into this brutal form of Cat and Mouse. The mouse always wins, Wendy tells herself like a mantra. The mouse always, always has to win. And they survey their surroundings, bullet-proof and fume-proof glass almost stapled to their faces while their body’s sweat and cry out for any sort of air due to being trapped within thick armour.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” A smart-mouth finally caws from the area they were both keeping an eye on, and Wendy almost laughs. “Dumb move,” she grumbles while gritting her teeth, throwing her body upwards to launch a pistol bullet at his neck.

She’s definitely given them away, but the bloodied Candor now convulsing on the floor gave his own side away first, so applying pre-school rules she’s really not the one to blame. She and Seunghoon infiltrate the clot of probably half a dozen Candor, all of them striding in at once while they either brawl against them or shoot them down. There’s a method of propelling her body and dodging that’s become such a routine thing to her that she does it almost subconsciously, and her thoughts are away with Seulgi again until she feels a sharp buzzing pain in her hand. It feels like a stab that vibrates, and while her blood pumps heavily through her body she drags her hand up to her face to look and how she’s been injured. The back of her hand is near-mutilated, deeply singed. Clearly the work of a taser.

Her anger overwhelms her pain by a small inch, so while Seunghoon applies proper technique she beats the remaining bodies around her in a mad flurry.

“Go back behind the wall and tend to your wound.” That’s possibly what Seunghoon shouted amongst the chaos of gunfire, Wendy’s not sure but his eyes seemed to say it, so she drifts back.

It seems so much more quiet behind the stable wall. She’s not really sure how she’s supposed to remedy her hand to this extent, but by common sense she shakily takes out a vial of healing serum and massages it into her skin. It burns, helping ease the long-term pain for now and cover up the wound. But she knows there’s some proper damage beneath that calls for surgery, and sighs, blinking the stinging tears out of her eyes.

Seunghoon joins her in hiding a small while later, and they keep their helmets vaguely above the top of the wall in order to get some sort of idea of what was going on.

The Dauntless guards up ahead seem to work as an impromptu distraction, while more and more Candor soldiers file through and don’t even notice them watching them at the side. String after string of them walk across wearing the same black, same white and same obnoxious grins as ever.

Trailing behind is a tall female soldier who noticeably lacks the confidence and ferociousness of the others, and under her Candor helmet only a leaf green bandana covers half of her face. Wendy firmly analyses her for a brief moment, noticing that her eyes were wide, and seemed kind. As the wind whips less calmly than it ever had as if preparing for a storm, wild red hair tails after this girl’s head.

Seunghoon has the predatory intuition of a lion, calmly pacing towards the soldier, seconds before he’s ready to fully pounce on her and blow a sharp dagger into her chest. But Wendy beckons him back with a distressed whistle, silently telling him not to harm her. That same fiery red equates to protection. Sooyoung, for whatever reason, was her own faction’s lone wolf, shadily fighting against her own faction’s beliefs. Wendy keeps her uninjured hand dragging Seunghoon back until Sooyoung’s able to scurry off, and unless Wendy’s well-trained eyes are lying, she briefly bowed in thanks. Seunghoon’s just been giving Wendy a long, venomous look.

“She’s not our enemy.” Wendy spits out quietly, still wincing at the pain in her hand. Seunghoon doesn’t see the point in asking she supposes - she’s probably always just given off this strange, cryptic air that he’s accepted he’ll never be able to figure out.

They crouch alert and quiet in their hiding place, and all seems oddly serene until there’s this painful scratching metal sound enough to amplify over the whole of Amity, maybe further. It’s like a roar that’s been torn into pieces. Their helmets rattle in retaliation, and all of the Dauntless soldiers seem to raise their heads to the painful noise, naturally looking more confused than afraid.

And then something drops, like a bomb. Accompanying it is a gust of steam thicker and less forgiving than they’d ever seen, and Wendy guesses it’s the same steam Candor’ve always used by how it lights up green on the glass of her helmet, but that doesn’t matter right now. It’s not just gassing - there was an explosion, somewhere.

Her head darts around, disturbed. When she sees the most alarming steam filtering above a domestic Amity area, she’s suddenly reminded of why they’re even fighting here. Candor want to take out their disagreements in any aggressive and unnecessary way possible, and it makes sense - nothing points the middle finger at a faction more than blowing up a large civil area.

Seunghoon’s being giving out all of the Dauntless instructions that she definitely should be listening to. Since the bomb let off, shock has run cold and alarming through Wendy’s veins. “I need to go.” she tries to say calmly to Seunghoon but instead desperately wheezes it, and she repeats it as she urgently pats his arm with both her alright hand and injured hand. “I need to go, Hoon, I need to go.”

“Calm down.” He almost barks back. It’s sharp, but he seems genuinely worried.

“They could all be injured back there and I-- I know it’s every faction for themselves, but we need to make sure they’re safe.” She burbles, barely decipherable within her repeated chants. There’s complete commotion, and she understands Dauntless were instructed to protect the important centre of town where Candor were doubtlessly making an ordered attack. Wendy also worries for Bae Joohyun, hopes she has a little fire in her otherwise Amity’s representative could be doomed.

That bomb was just used as a distraction, and it’s funny in a tragic kind of way, tearing up people and their homes only for the sake of diverting attention.

She has to know if Seulgi's alright.

She’s still rambling and desperate and bitter, and Seunghoon can’t quite take it. “Calm down, dammit!” He shouts, shaking Wendy by the shoulders in an attempt to let some sort of feeling run through her. But soon enough, his gaze softens into something knowing that she doesn’t want to decipher. “I need you to answer honestly,” his voice is husky. Wendy realises he’s not talking to her as a fellow leader, but as a friend.

Wendy nods with her mind in panic, swallowing and panting and trying to get her thoughts straight. He sharply exhales, still gripping her shoulders.

“Are you or are you not in love with that Kang Seulgi girl?”

A/N: Sorry this took a few more days to update, I didn't think I'd write over 5.5k words haha. I hope you like where this has progressed and really, really thank you for all of the super sweet feedback. I'm determined to finish this before school starts up again on Monday, but if I don't I'm really sorry ;;<3 Love you guys!