So... I do not own the song Let Her Go, because it belongs to Passenger. I just love that song too much and found it applicable to this so... Yeah. Anyway, this chapter is dedicated to all my reviewers especially guest reviewer Kiara.
Without further ado, The One: Chapter Three.
When the light comes back around, all Four sees is the dark gray dullness of his cell walls. It's so dark, and it's probably night time now, but these parts of Erudite had no windows, so for all he knows the skies could be red and he'll have no clue.
Then, he regains his feeling and feels himself slumped at the foot of his bed, back against another wall. He tries to move, but he can't. He can't, and he thinks it might either be paralysis or a severe numbness from staying in this position for too long.
Either way, his movement is restricted as of now, and chains have nothing to do with it.
Then he regains his hearing. He didn't think he lost it at first, until his ears are bombarded by a painful buzzing noise, and a distant whisper of a voice so familiar, yet so foreign.
That person is supposed to be cold, but... She isn't.
He hears it from beyond his walls, from the other side, and there seems to be nothing and no one else in the other room so he just listens, because as much as this situation feels a little bizarre, he's still suspicious.
"Well you only need the light when it's burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go
Only know you've been high when you're feeling low
Only hate the road when you're missing home
Only know you love her when you let her go
And you let her go."
Four's cell door opens and Peter enters. It seems like Four's body is still numb; he still can't move.
"I see you've heard Jeanine." Peter tries to sound nonchalant, but Four can hear a somber tone slip through. Peter's eyes are cast down on the ground, and in them, Four can see a hint of something, but he refuses to believe what it is. Still, Peter's eyes are glassy, but Four tells himself it's because Peter's sleepy, and he probably hasn't had a blink of sleep in a while.
Yeah, that's it. Nothing special.
"Yeah." The soft, gentle tones filter through the walls and echo, though muffled, in the cold gray walls that comprise of Four's cell. Peter stands unmoving by the door, hands in his pockets and head still bowed down. Outside, the lights reflect off the white floors, and suddenly the place looks more empty and hollow than it's supposed to be. Suddenly, it's like the day when Tris' body came rolling through that hallway, just a foot out of reach, was a whole life ago.
Four shakes his head, or at least tries to, and behind the wall he leans on, he hears the voice of Jeanine Matthews, singing with such gentleness and loneliness and regret, with so much emotion that he nearly couldn't believe it.
"So, how long was I out?"
"About three days." The answer is instantaneous. Less than a breath to wait.
Peter's quiet again. His head still down, the hall still hollow. Besides from the sweet yet sad sound of Jeanine's song, and the steady breathing of his and Peter's, nothing could be heard from where they are.
"How about Jeanine?"
"Huh?"
"Is this the first time... She's done this?" Peter's looking up now, as if the mention of simply Jeanine's singing is enough to get him. Then again, it's what got to him, and simply that made something deep inside of Four start nagging at him from the back of his head. Something's going on, it tells him, over and over again, and it takes him all he's got to keep himself from forcing his body to stay still.
Peter clears his throat, and again, he looks away. His eyes are hidden from view now, so Four can't see them. Still, behind Four and the wall he's leaning on, Jeanine's voice goes on, in all of its bittersweet loneliness.
"No." A pause, and Peter faces him again, but Peter's bowing his head down again, lower this time, and Four can't see his eyes anymore. "It's, like, the second time she's done this."
Second time?
"When was the first time?"
Pause.
And in the other room, Jeanine's still singing, but it sounds like her voice catches in her throat, and the words are enough to bother Four.
"Everything you touch surely dies."
The silhouette of a young girl appears in his mind, in a gray dress with her braided brown hair flying behind her, bright blue eyes and an even brighter smile.
No, he tells himself. Not now when he already forgot. Not now when everything about that is already gone, erased, nearly oblivion. And he thinks nearly, because he still remembers. After all this time, when he thought it would be over.
He remembers.
It fills him with disdain.
Peter's voice speaks again. Still, Peter's bowed down, eyes cast down with seemingly no will to ever lift, or at least take a look at Four.
"Yesterday." Four thinks he hears a cut in Peter's voice, as if there's more, as if he's holding back, as if it's not simply and just 'yesterday'.
But he doesn't bother about it. He would, and he wants to, but maybe it's his state of partial paralysis or it's something else that's pulling him back, and it's too strong to fight against, though when he really thinks about it, he doesn't even have any thoughts about how he'll get that information out from Peter.
But he just doesn't bother about it.
Without another word, Peter leaves the room and the glass door closes behind them, and again Four's trapped in, and it feels like the walls are closing in but it feels like warmth and Tris' arms too. He stares out the door where Peter walks to the left, out the hall and probably into the rest of the building, and there doesn't seem to be another body there except his, but Jeanine's voice echoes like a sad melody and he feels the lingering presence of Erudite's leader behind his wall, as well as Tris' body that's lifeless, gone, dead.
It takes him all his strength to keep from remembering that girl that used to have such a bright smile, and instead tries to sleep.
Jeanine's voice is like a lullaby now, soft and gentle but sad and lonely, grieving with a heart filled to the brim with regret. It rocks him to sleep even in his slumped position, and soon his eye lids droop close and the darkness of sleep engulfs him, with the last words of Jeanine's song echoing in his last moments of consciousness.
"You let her go."
He falls asleep to the cruel memory of a young girl in a gray dress, her braided brown hair flying behind her with her eyes as bright as the blue sky, her smile even brighter than the shining sun.
You let her go.
Her back skids down against a wall. Her clothes are still as they were yesterday. Still prim, still proper, still the clothes of the leader of Erudite.
Or is it former leader? Either way, she didn't have the heart to care right now.
Oh the irony, of how she used to only see the power and leadership, of how it was the only thing she ever cared about, but now she's doing nothing but throwing it away. All because of someone she should want to kill.
Truth be told, she would never kill Beatrice.
But the moment she found out Beatrice was Divergent, back then when she received the results of the Aptitude test, she convinced herself that Divergents are a threat, and just like any threat or virus, they must be eliminated; they must be killed. So far, Beatrice Prior was the one she wanted to eliminate the most.
Or at least, that's what she told herself.
So, as time went by, Beatrice Prior became her biggest mission. Examine the girl, observe the girl, experiment on the girl, and use her as the test subject she was built perfectly to be. Soon, she forgot about who she is and how she's mortal, how she's human, and knew only one thing: Divergents. Specifically, Beatrice Prior.
She was lost in her own storm of thoughts and ideals, and she thought it to be good that it made her leave her humanity behind. Human nature is the enemy, isn't it?
Events passed and tragedies happened, and however the hell she got herself trapped like this, she didn't even bother to think about. As much as she lost herself once before, nothing's going to distract her now, and just like how storms and tornadoes and everything organic and just nature, human nature will keep coming back; it will always be there. And now that nothing's keeping her humanity away from devouring her, there's nothing she can do to fight back.
This battle is something she lost, just like her battle with Evelyn Johnson.
And now she's stuck in Beatrice Prior's jail cell, with nothing to do other than to stare at the lifeless body of the girl she used for her cruel experiments, the girl she will admit to love now.
She was so blind, so dumb. How did she not see reality and truth as it is?
But that's done, that's over, and there's nothing she can do about it anymore.
So Jeanine just leans her head back and closes her eyes, and thinks that maybe everything could just be okay, if and only if she closes her eyes.
How she wishes she could be wherever Beatrice is right now.
It's a song that she remembers someone used to sing. Maybe a neighbor, or her mother, but she remembers hearing it once. A sad melody, a gentle song, a soothing tune with a lonely heart.
She remembers she heard it before, but she couldn't believe she's hearing it now.
"Staring at the ceiling in the dark
Same old empty feeling in your heart
Because love comes slow and it goes so fast."
It's a soft voice, a sweet voice, and it's a voice she remembers to be void of emotion, as if it's a voice from a program, or a sim, or a machine.
But the voice she hears now is broken, is lonely, is filled with regret. The voice she hears now couldn't be the person she used to know, and as much as she knows, Jeanine Matthews is not lonely. She is heartless and void of emotion and more machine than human.
But this? This is a bittersweet melody.
"Well you see her when you fall asleep
But never to touch and never to keep
Because you loved her too much
And you dived too deep."
It's sad, it's gentle, it's everything she remembers the song to be. Except this sounds sweeter in the loneliest way, like freedom and loss, like love and the 'almosts' she used to read from a few books that her mom used to keep. Not that her mom ever knew she even touched those.
But it's Jeanine Matthews, this is Jeanine Matthews, and Jeanine doesn't sing, or feel, or love.
That's not Jeanine.
"And you let her go."
It couldn't be. But Tris hates how her heart knows the 'truth', and the truth is wrong and it couldn't be more than a lie, but the way she feels those warm lips against her forehead is just too sad, too lonely, too broken for it all to be a lie.
She misses the warmth as soon as it leaves, but a cold drop of a liquid replaces it, plopping down on her cheek and skidding down to what she thinks is the thin mattress of her cell bed.
The click-clack of heels moves away from her, and soon she hears a sigh, and the singing is gone but the sadness is still there. She can't see beyond the darkness she seems to be trapped in, but she swears she can see a head of platinum blonde hair against a dull gray wall, and before watery gray eyes can hide beneath those eyelids, two more tears escape, and Tris hopes she's wrong because this is weird, but it feels more real than anything else.
She sees Jeanine Matthews exhale one more time before the watery gray eyes disappear under those eyelids and the tears come stronger, and she nearly wants to reach out and wipe them away.
Nearly. Just nearly. But as much as she wants to feel hate towards the woman, she thinks she's lost that towards Jeanine Matthews.
Tris can hear Jeanine's heart breaking even if she's unconscious on the bed. The cracking sounds so clear, and Tris almost accepts that Jeanine's changed.
But she'll never be able to accept it if Jeanine's crying for her. Or because of her. Because why would Jeanine Matthews ever care about her, a Divergent, Beatrice Prior?
Let me know what you think, and I apologize in advance if I take a long time before updating again. But of course, thank you for reading! :)