I try to smile, though I'm not totally sure why I do. The Dauntless stand around the chair where I now sit, staring at me as I stare at Four. To look away would be a sign of cowardice, and if there is one thing I have learned over the past two years that does not involve violence or fighting, it's that I am not a coward. I am Dauntless.
So I stare at my rival, my enemy. He stands next to his girlfriend. Too close, actually; he stands so close that it seems like he'd be able to throw her over his shoulder in a moment's notice and run. Over the years, Four might have learned to hide from me, but not well enough. My smile grows, partially real.
If it were any other time, I would have been completely real. But now… now I face death. And I have no way to avoid it. Execution. Funny, I'd always thought I would die in a fight, a battle, or a shootout. But this, this is just pathetic. I am weak and physically helpless, bound to a single chair for most of the day.
"Would you like me to tell your crimes?" Tori asks. As I remember, she was the tattoo artist back in the compound. She was the one who tattooed my arm last year. "Or would you like to list them yourself?"
I think for a moment of listing them myself; I think of listing every terrible thing I've ever done, just to see the Dauntless react. I could hit some in their weakest points just by my confessions.
But that would be no fun. And If I am going to die, I can't do it in such a boring way. I look around the circle, face to face, remembering the people whom I had once led. But they have a new leader, and now I die, like so many of them.
My eyes settle on Tris. I remember the little finch of disgust she makes when I smile, the time when she beat up a girl during her initiation and refused to stop, and the way she bravely took the place of that huge kid—Al, was it?—in front of a target for throwing knifes. But I also remember how much Four cares about his precious girlfriend, and I decide on her. I need to hit Four just one more time. Lacing my fingers together, I say: "I'd like her to list them. Since she's the one who stabbed me, clearly she is familiar with them." That is partially true.
I shift my fingers, trying to stop their shaking. I can't show my old faction—the faction of my enemies and the faction of bravery—that I am terrified.
"Leave her out of this," Four says. His voice sounds strained, hiding a growl. I turn back to him, meeting his blue eyes.
"Why? Because you're doing her?" I smirk. I am fairly sure by the way his remains the same that he isn't, and the fact that Tris has a hilarious fear of intimacy proves my point. But I have nothing to lose, so I might as well. And even if I did have something to lose, I would have said it anyway. Anything to piss off Four. "Oh wait. I forgot. Stiffs don't do that sort of thing. They just tie each other's shoes and cut each other's hair."
I look at the two of them. Initiate, trainer. Beatrice, Tobias. "I want her to list them," I repeat.
"You conspired with Erudite." Truth. "You are responsible for the death of hundreds of Abnegation." True. Tris becomes angrier. "You betrayed the Dauntless. You shot a child in the head." Truth and nothing but that. "You are a ridiculous plaything of Jeanine Matthews."
I stop smiling. Though I am guilty of those (and many more), I need to hear something from her and Four. "Do I deserve to die?"
Four opens his mouth, but Tris beats him to it. "Yes," she says. Her voice is cold.
Do I though? There is evil in the world that goes unnoticed and unpunished. And in my life, I have done a few good things. Not enough to call me innocent, but enough to at least makes Tris think about her answer. She angers me. She is not a leader, she's just a girl. And this girl will not decide my fate.
"Fair enough," I say quietly, staring at her. "But do you have the right to decide that, Beatrice Prior? Like you decided the fate of that other boy—what was his name? Will?" I know more than she thinks. And I will use that.
Tris doesn't answer.
"You have committed every crime that warrants execution among the Dauntless. We have the right to execute you, under the laws of Dauntless," Four says calmly. He crouches to empty the three guns by my feet. This is the Dauntless execution. A sick version of what was called Russian Roulette. Four puts a single bullet into the middle gun and moves the three guns—one with a single bullet, the other two empty—rapidly on the floor. Most people would lose track of the middle gun, but I taught him how to do this. I always know where the middle gun is. When the guns are passed out, Tori has the bullet.
The three gunners stand before me, aiming at my head, and I feel my heart speed up. I am going to die like this, in the Candor hospital wing, shot in the head by a tattoo artist, afraid and surrounded by my former faction.
Death is staring at me. Mocking me.
And I don't want it to happen like this.
"Wait," I say quickly. "I have a request."
"We don't take requests from criminals," Tori says harshly.
"I am a leader of Dauntless," I say. Once a leader, always a leader. That is almost an unspoken law. "And all I want is for Four to be the one who fires that bullet." I need to see Four collapse. I know I can make that happen. So many times I've messed with him in horrifying ways, and this will be my last.
"Why?"he asks.
"So you can live with the guilt," I reply, keeping the fear in my voice to a minimum. But I know this will cause him fear. I have spied on part of his fear landscape, and I know his fear of killing people. "Of knowing that you usurped me and then shot me in the head.
And now he can't deny my request. Four wants to kill me, I can see it just by how he stands, but he must be afraid to kill me. He needs to break. I need him to break.
"There won't be any guilt," Four says. Liar. Neither of us would belong in Candor.
"Then you'll have no problem doing it," I say as I smile once more. I expect him to pause, to say something along the lines of I won't shoot you. But instead, he bends over and picks up a bullet.
I feel my heart speed up. No, no, no, no!
I won't die like this!
"Tell me," I say, no louder than a whisper, "because I've always wondered. Is it your daddy who shows up in every fear landscape you've ever gone through?" Break already. BREAK.
He puts the bullet into the empty chamber without looking at me.
"You didn't like that question? What, afraid the Dauntless are going to change their minds about you? Realize that even though you've only got four fears, you're still a coward?" I babble the words, trying to break the damn Stiff, but he won't break.
Four points the gun at me, and I'm back in my fear landscape. It was my ninth fear.
Death. Any means of it. The pain of dying has ripped through my body hundreds of times as I stood perfectly still, screaming through clenched teeth. And even after the pains were over, I hadn't gotten my heart rate down, so the stimulation continued to a point where I was blind and deaf and in an infinite place with no indication of its size.
That was oblivion, where we go after death.
I lean back in my chair and grip the handles. Four stares at me, and I know he can read me. He knows how terrified I am as his eyes meet mine. His eyes hold no pity or guilt or fear.
I want to run away from him and the gun and my old faction and death.
And I break.
"Be brave Eric," Four says. Words of advice? Apology? Was he saying them to me or himself?
I stare at him as he pulls the trigger.