Coals Burn Slow
Chapter 1
Tris POV
I'm a good girl.
I've always been a good girl.
I'm polite and quiet and I try to be kind.
I'm a good girl.
Everyone tells me I'm good, and talks about my family – the old and new one – like we're good, honest people.
I wonder what those people would say if they could see me now. If they could see the red dripping from my fingers, dripping from his forehead, spilling all over our kitchen floor.
Red, red, red.
I tell myself I'm a good girl, and I'd tell everyone else, too.
But every time I say it, I can never promise that it's true.
X
X
I am a better liar than even I knew I was.
I'm practiced at the art of make belief. Of storytelling. Of dishonesty.
It's the only thing that keeps me from being shipped off to wherever the criminals go after their trials in the City Centre. For petty crimes, it's usually just a courtroom in Candor. But when it's serious, when it's murder, they do things differently. I haven't heard much about it, but I've heard that it's bad.
And I don't want to see any more bad things.
When my older brother, Caleb, arrives at the funeral and asks me how it's been in the two years since he picked Erudite and left me, I tell him it's been fine. I tell him I'll miss Marcus, and that I'm sad that he's dead and gone.
I tell him about the terrible accident that never happened, and I must be convincing, because my brother who always knew what I was thinking doesn't bat an eyelid. He just nods his head and squeezes my shoulder.
Or maybe he doesn't know me anymore. It wouldn't be a stretch; I haven't seen him since he cut his palm open and tipped his blood – the only blood relative I have left – into the water of the Erudite bowl.
He stopped being my brother that day.
And everything in my life quickly went to Hell after that.
The funeral is a quiet, understated affair – it's very Abnegation that way. We gather around Marcus's casket, and everyone bids their silent goodbye to him. Nobody talks very much, and people offer me pitiful glances and comforting words. Then, they shut over the casket and a van arrives to take it away.
I don't know, or ask, what they'll do with him. It doesn't matter.
He's gone.
For the first time in two years, that tightness from my chest unwinds itself; the lump in my throat melts and I'm at ease again.
It's so relieving that it makes me cry.
X
X
The only bad thing to come of the whole affair are the questions.
And the crippling, crushing weight of guilt and panic that swallows me whole any time I'm alone.
But, right now, it's the questions.
It's how the Candor detectives, and the Dauntless police arrive at the house, and they sit me in the living room, right next to the kitchen, and they ask me questions over and over.
"What happened?" the man from Candor asks me, and his partner sits up straighter in her chair.
"He fell," I answer quietly, keeping my eyes low. It's an Abnegation habit, so they won't think much of it.
"He fell over?"
"He fell down the stairs," I clarify.
"How did he make it to the kitchen?"
"I helped him to get there."
"Why did you take him to the kitchen?"
"Because we have some medical supplies in the cupboard."
"And you didn't think to go for help?"
"It was the middle of the day; nobody was around."
"Why weren't you in school?"
"We both had the flu."
They ask me more questions. It goes on for at least an hour, and I'm not sure if they suspect me for anything, but they try their best to poke halls in my story.
But they'll be trying for a long time.
I've rehearsed it, I've edited and finalized it. It's so strong, so impenetrable, that it's bulletproof.
"Thank-you for your Candor, Beatrice. We're sorry for your loss," is what they say to me before they leave.
Everyone says that to me. But I'm not sorry; I'll take the loss if it buys me my freedom.
All night I wonder when my heart turned so cold.
X
X
A week after Marcus's death, it's the day of my Aptitude Test, and the day after that is Choosing Day.
This year is my year. I'm sixteen.
I go with the family that live in the house next door to the Choosing Ceremony. They've been looking out for me, trying to help me run the house. It's nice of them, but I'd never expect Abnegation to be anything other than nice.
They tell me I can talk with them if I need, even though talking isn't a very Abnegation thing. I thank them, but keep quiet. I don't tell them what happened, or why. I don't tell them how I feel or how I'm doing. I don't tell them that in my Aptitude Test, I got three results instead of one and the woman added another lie to the heap I've been telling lately. I just sit with them at the dinner table and smile.
When we sit in the big room for the Choosing Ceremony, I wait and watch as everybody chooses before me. So many choose the faction they come from, sticking to what they know. Everyone looks so much harder at the ones that do anything else.
I already know what I'm going to do long before my name is called – by Jeanine, whose taken Marcus's place while Abnegation's new leader finds his feet.
"Beatrice Prior."
I stand and walk from my row of seats, my grey dress swishing against my legs. People look up at my name, their attention temporarily re-engaged. I am the girl who the leader of my faction and our city, adopted. I am the girl who was with him when he died. I am the girl who everyone thinks will go on to be a leader, to follow in the footsteps of my real parents, and my adopted father after that.
So when I slice my hand and drop my blood into the sizzling coals of Dauntless, the room is quiet, aside from a few gasps.
Jeanine's beady eyes narrow at me and she smirks.
"Dauntless."
I join the sea of black, with only a few patches of colour from where other transfers have joined, and I ignore every single one of them.
I haven't chosen Dauntless because I think I'm brave, or because I think I'm strong, or because I think I'll make it.
I've chosen it because I might be free there.
X
A/N: Let me know what you think. I've never written anything for Divergent before, so this is a bit new to me.
Just for anyone who wants to know, this story will be a Four/Tris story.
Please leave me your thoughts so I know if anyone's interested in this.
- Laylz