Disclaimer: Disclaimed.
Chapter 1
Tris slammed a glass onto the methadone again; she'd stolen it from her friend Christina—who had pancreatic cancer, and was dying next Tuesday—but Chris had said to just use bug-killer. Tris refused. She needed to make sure The Bastard was dead.
She'd already practiced on Shauna's ex-husband, who'd raped her one two many times.
Tris scraped the powdered pills into The Bastard's beer, and mixed it in until there weren't any particals.
This was the sixth cup.
She had finished up the dosage. Twenty pills. Die, Bastard.
Tris set the heavy cup in front of her husband quietly. Then, she retreated back into the kitchen, and grabbed two knives, retreived the duffel from under the bar, and put it on her shoulder. The door to the basement was locked many times over, but—with Christina's bolt cutters—Tris got the padlocks off. She saw eyes, at the bottom of the stairs, glinting with the light from outside the small, dark room, and also with fear and tears; Tris knelt down, shhed the child, and held out her arms. The girl rushed to her mother, and Tris stood, settling Shailene on her hip.
"Come on, honey," she told her daughter soothingly, and made for the front door. When she got outside, she put Shai in the car and went to the front door.
Bye, Bastard. Tris thought. Remember that I love you. This was for your own good.
The exact same words he'd said before he hit her the first time.
Bye, Tobias.
The evergreens of Oregon whipped by; Shailene was in the backseat with a Christina-given Nook; she loved reading. But, right then, she closed The Expiration Day, and looked at her mother in the mirror.
Tris met her daughter's eyes unflinchingly: they were not blue, like The Bastard's or her own; they were their own dark brown sort of hazel. Shai's hair, though, matched her mother's own caramel locks.
"Mommy?" Shai asked, chewing her lip.
"Yes, honey?"
"Where's daddy?"
"He's not going to . . . be with us, Shai, honey-"
"Yes but, where is he?" She asked forcefully. Tris locked eyes with her daughter.
"He's asleep." She said.