His name was called.

Tobias took a deep breath and stepped forward with utmost certainty. The Candor woman who had given the opening address handed him the knife.

Tobias never stopped to think. He slit his palm and blood trickled from the wound. Pain diffused out from the cut but he held his head high. Extending his hand out over the burning coals, he let several drops of red liquid fall. They seared and sizzled but that sound was overwhelmed by the sounds of whispers and gasps.

He didn't care. He made his way over to the other Dauntless initiates, and the ceremony continued. He had resolved not to ever look back but Tobias couldn't help shooting one defiant glance towards his father.

Marcus looked straight ahead in stark contrast to the people around him who were leaning over muttering to each other. To the casual observer his father might have looked stolid, calm even. But Tobias knew better. Right beneath that emotionless façade his father wore Tobias knew rage was reaching a boiling point. Marcus might have had the whole world fooled but not him. For he was wearing that face Tobias had learned to fear. The expression that came right before all the screaming and the beating and the belt. The face that had tormented him all his life, whenever his father got angry, which seemed to be becoming more and more frequent as the days passed.

But not anymore.

Tobias turned away from his father and stared at the back of the head in front of him. He wouldn't have to ever see his father again. Tobias briefly wondered who his father would take his blinding rages out on now that he had left. But it didn't matter. Such a thing no longer concerned him.

This was the start of his new life.

He was free.

He was Dauntless.