I do not own Divergent's characters or story. Words in italics belong to Veronica Roth.
She lies on the table, and for a moment I think she's just sleeping, and when I touch her, she will wake up and smile at me and press a kiss to my mouth. But when I touch her she is cold, her body stiff and unyielding.
Christina sniffles and sobs. I squeeze Tris's hand, praying that if I do it hard enough, I will send life back into her body and she will flush with color and wake up.
I don't know how long it takes for me to realize that isn't going to happen, that she is gone. But when I do I feel all the strength go out of me, and I fall to my knees beside the table and I think I cry, then, or at least I want to, and everything inside me screams for just one more kiss, one more word, one more glance, one more.
I think I fall asleep. I think Christina left at some point, but I don't know. I'm numb. I'm hollow. I feel nothing. I think nothing.
She is dead. I think. She is gone.
She can't be gone. She can't be gone. She promised. She promised.
One of the guards from outside grabs my elbow and bends down to tell me something, - probably that it's time to go, - but I didn't hear it. I can't hear anything.
He tries explaining a few more times. I know this because I can see the movement of his lips out of the corner of my eye and I hear the muffled noise of his vocal chords vibrating.
She's dead.
The guard throws his hands in the air and starts dragging me out of the room. I see Tris, - I cringe, just thinking of her name, - getting smaller and smaller as he pulls me away. I whip around to knee him in the gut and scream her name. I scream "Tris" so loud that there is hope it will press life into her dead body.
It doesn't.
The guard bends over with his hands on his knees, gasping in breaths of air that I knocked out of him. After a few seconds of me just standing, staring at her, and him catching his breath, he speaks, and I finally hear him.
"She's gone, son! Let it go!"
I turn to face him slowly. She's gone, son... Let it go...
"Let it go?" I say slowly but quietly. "Let it go?" How could I let it go? I can't let it go. I can't let her go. She's gone.
Suddenly, my anger takes over my actions and I lunge at him, pinning his husky figure against a window. I think it cracks, but I don't notice. I keep an arm locked around his neck, pushing so hard my fist and elbow smash against the glass. He squirms and turns a deep purple color, but I don't care. I lean in close to his face.
"I won't let go." I shove my knee into his groin and run back over to her body. Her lifeless body...
I think the guard leaves. I think I fall asleep. I think Zeke tries to make me get up a few times, but I can't hear. I'm numb. I'm numb.
Eventually, Christina gets so upset with me she punches me in the face, knocking me over. I don't feel it. I am numb.
Over the days I waited there, waited for her to come back, my hearing returned, but the flame inside me pumping the numbness through my body has grown.
"She's dead! Stop waiting for her!" She screams into my ear. I don't know if it's because she's screaming so loud or because she's thinking of Tris, but tears start to roll down her face. I stare at her, feeling anger for the first time since the guard...
"She isn't dead!" I shout, shrinking into a ball on the floor. "She's not gone! She promised me! She promised me! She's not dead! She's not dead!" I notice wet beads rolling down my cheeks, but I don't know if I'm crying. Anger. Anger.
"Tobias I know this is hard for you, okay? But you have to understand... They need you." She says a little more calmly, pointing outside the door. "You've been here for three days. Let me help you." She holds out a hand to me, and I just stare at it, emotionless. She wiggles her fingers as a come on sort of gesture. I slowly grab it, and she pulls me off the ground. She starts escorting me out of the room, but I pull away desperately and wrap my arms around her body. Her cold body. And I cry.
Her eyelids, her pale eyelids concealing her electric blue eyes. The eyelids that stay closed. The eyelids that draw the line between alive and dead.
Dead.
I cup my hands around her face and let my tears drip onto her chest. Her cold chest. The chest that holds her heart, her cold, unmoving heart. I start making noises, sobbing noises that are so unusual I can't even describe them. The emotion.
I am not numb. I feel this. I can feel the emotion.
It is then that I notice Christina, crouched by my side with a hand brushing my back.
"Are you ready?" She asks once I calm down to the level of sniffing and kissing her hand. I plant my lips onto Tris' blue, freezing ones that I used to kiss so many times. When they were pink, and warm, and moving. I slowly nod, and she grabs my hand to lead me out of the room.
"She's dead." I say. Because I know this now. I accept it.
I have to let go.
I have to.
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought. Any ideas for another trilogy fic?