Someone calls out and I jerk awake at my name. Sitting up was a bad idea, my eyes sting and vision is blurred. My head is exploding only further with every passing minute.
I stabilize my breaths to bring down my headache. I pinch the bridge of my nose and exhale. There, better now.
The world around me is spinning and I don't know why. In the stirring of everything around me, I can't figure out much. I sit in a cell, of sorts, padded and steeled with just one door that has been locked, undoubtedly from the outside. I am not going anywhere anytime soon, it tells me. I let myself lie down again, I need it, and embrace the black again and drift away.
"Get up" a woman screams and I blink away the spots in my eyes as I prop myself up. My jaw hurts, and the memory comes rushing back. I saw him, I did, I know I did.
The woman eyes me wearily, but threateningly, as though she does this every day. Maybe she does. If she weren't planning on beating me up, I would think that she is beautiful. Her brunette tinted hair is swept back and her tan skin seems flawless.
A suspicion lingers at the back of my mind, that maybe, just maybe, I hadn't seen him, maybe it was the fire causing hallucinations.
I shake my head, no. He is alive. I saw him.
"Where am I?" I ask, my throat tightens.
"The capital of course, you're a prisoner, love" she tells me, her tone brimming with hatred. She strikes me as Dauntless because of her recklessness. She wears a gun, underestimating me. I want to make a run for it, but I wait. I wait for the right time.
"Tob-" I begin to tell her but the name wont spill, my lips wont part. His name was his and mine to take, a part of him that he gave me.
"Four" I finally say "He is here, isn't he?"
"Why thank you, but I'll ask the questions" she says and edges closer, dangling a knife trying to intimidate me. But I notice a flash of emotion flicker on her face, and I know that it is recognition. She knows him. My eyes sting with relief, maybe he is alive. I want to cry, or weep, or punch somebody, but the woman brings the knife closer to me.
"So, you're a part of the Insurgence, huh?" her voice is a whisper, one that frightens.
I say nothing and glare at her. Tobias. Tobias. Tobias. It's a chant in my head. He's alive.
She edges even closer and touches the cool of the metallic blade to my right arm and scrapes with the flick of her wrist. I bleed immediately but my face remains unchanged.
"Fine. Fingers then" and she grabs my hand, I try to yank back but she doesn't let go. I don't scream, I choke. My heart bangs against my chest and I sweat. Deep breaths, I tell myself.
She slaps my hand to the floor and brings her knife. She places her knife on my little finger, takes it away for impact and brings it down.
"That's enough" he calls before my little finger splits into two and I exhale the loudest I ever have.
He steps in and I can see the disappointment on the woman's face as she steps back.
I hold my breath as Tobias walks closer. His dark blue eyes the same, his hair black and cropped, he wears a black t-shirt perfect against his chiseled self and sighs at the sight of me.
"I want some time alone with the prisoner" he says and my heart races. He doesn't know me.
I begin to reach for him and he shoves me to wall and pins me. My body is on fire, I can't breathe and I can't take his strength against mine.
"And shut off the camera" he announces and looks at me wildly, as if he were about to set me on fire. He looks at me with hatred and rage that breaks me and burns me, and I can't breathe. I can't exist with him looking at me like that.
The last of the guards leave and I'm truly frightened, not of what he will do to me now, but because of what has happened to him. What happened? I want to ask but I know better. Maybe he's under the serum. Maybe, but I would be able to tell if he were. His eyes aren't conflicted for what he feels for me, he just feels hate.
The door clicks shut and the camera is off.
He doesn't drop me, I am still pinned and I still can't breathe and I am about to be killed by the man I would die for.
He edges closer and then he kisses me.
My knees crumple and he takes me in his arms, I am wrapped and hidden and cocooned.
It was all a show, I think squealing like a 5-year-old and I think nothing else.
I run my fingers through his hair and I am myself again. The tears flow without warning but we don't stop. We stay like that, locked and hidden and lost in a chasm, and I swear I hear the roar of the water as I did the first time we ever kissed.
"Tobias, what happened?" I ask, when we finally pull away but my voice is weak and shaky. He winces at my weakness and traces my lips with his fingers.
"They told me you were dead. The government. They had me join them"
I want to console him, to reach out and touch him, but I don't. He needs to say what he must.
"But then I saw them for what they were. Cold-blooded murderers. Jeanine seems like such a nice person now" he laughs bitterly "and then the Insurgence found me. I work for them now. The government doesn't know it yet" it is all a whisper now. We are both aware how horribly dangerous it is to talk about this now so he doesn't say anything else.
So we stay like that, until he has to leave, but before he does, he kisses me one last time and whispers so painfully, I wince too.
"It is a lot bigger than we thought. And it has just begun" he says and I nod slowly, as the dread settles on me. But the joy doesn't leave me. I can't help but think that he is alive and I am too, but I doubt we'll both be any longer.