I feel naked sneaking through a warzone unarmed, my right shoulder useless in its makeshift sling. We keep to the shadows, moving through the city toward the safe house where my father and brother wait with other Abnegation refugees. My hair is still dripping wet from the tank, and I shiver in my sleeveless dress.
As we walk, I cannot help but wonder about Tobias, Christina, and our other friends. Are they still alive? Have they managed to save any of the Abnegation from the zombie Dauntless soldiers? My anxious thoughts, combined with the shooting and near drowning I've already faced today, are exhausting. I want nothing more than to sneak off to Tobias' apartment, wrap myself in the blue quilt and soft pillows that smell like him, and sleep until this is over.
We stop in the shadows before crossing a large intersection. When I quit walking, I sway slightly and almost faint. Zeke notices and reaches out a hand to steady me. His warm hand clasps my cold arm, and I see alarm on his face as he registers my weakened condition. He quickly removes his hoodie and puts it on me. It is warm and comforting, but it lends me no strength. Instead, I feel my resolve weaken as the small act of kindness brings me to exhausted tears.
"Be brave, Tris," he whispers in a low voice. "We will find them. Shauna, Four, your dad, all of them. We'll find them, and together with the Divergent, the Abnegation refugees, and the other factions we'll figure out what to do. Jeanine won't get away with this."
I nod at Zeke, take in a deep breath, and find my inner resolve. I don't know if Tobias is even alive, but I have to fight until I find him. I have to fight for the Abnegation - those who cannot fight for themselves – like the Dauntless creed says. I have to keep moving or die trying.
We quickly cross the intersection and enter another dark alley. I hear heavy, booted footsteps marching in a synchronized pattern. I know it's the Divergent, and I know they will be armed and looking for us.
"Here they come," my mother whispers sharply back to Zeke. I peek over her shoulder and see a few Dauntless with guns, moving to the same beat, heading toward us. My mother looks back. Far behind us, another group of Dauntless run down the alley, toward us.
She grabs my hands and looks me in the eyes.
"Go to your father and brother. The alley on the right, down to the basement. Knock twice, then three times, then six times." She cups my cheeks. Her hands are cold; her palms are rough. "I'm going to distract them. You have to run as fast as you can."
"No." I shake my head. "I'm not going anywhere without you."
She gives Zeke a pointed look and he nods back, placing a strong hand on my uninjured arm. As my mother runs out into the street, firing her weapon in the air to get the Dauntless' attention, Zeke pulls me the opposite way, toward the building my mother had indicated.
I whip my head over my shoulder when I hear them fire back. My feet falter and stop.
My mother stiffens, her back arching. Blood surges from a wound in her abdomen, dyeing her shirt crimson. A patch of blood spreads over her shoulder. I blink, and the violent red stains the inside of my eyelids. I blink again, and I see her smile as she sweeps my hair trimmings into a pile.
She falls, first to her knees, her hands limp at her sides, and then to the pavement, slumped to the side like a rag doll. She is motionless and without breath.
Pain courses through my chest. Worse that getting shot. Worse than the searing pain of nearly drowning. It is a pain from which there is no healing. No restoration. Nothing. It is so final, so deep. The pavement scrapes my knees, and Zeke hauls me over his shoulder again.
Three Dauntless pursue us and I grab Zeke's gun to fire at them over his shoulder. They killed my mother. I point the gun into the alley and fire blindly. It wasn't really them, but it doesn't matter – can't matter, and just like death itself, can't be real right now.
There is just one set of footsteps now. I aim at the last Dauntless soldier. The man running toward me is not a man, he is a boy. A shaggy-haired boy with a crease between his eyebrows and a torn piece of duct tape still hanging from his arm. Will.
I scream his name, but he is mindless, deaf and blind to me. His feet are planted and his gun up. In an instant, I see his finger poised over the trigger and hear the bullet slide into the chamber, and I fire. My eyes squeezed shut. I can't breathe.
The bullet hit him in the head. I know because that is where I aimed it. But I cannot look. Zeke turns to look, but when he does not go back to help our friend, I know I am right. Will is gone.
"You had no choice," Zeke begins excusing me in a panicked voice. "We couldn't do anything. He was going to kill us. Oh my god. We had no choice!"
Zeke stares at me with wild eyes, but I do not see him. I still see Will. He smiles in my memory. A curled lip. Straight teeth. Light in his eyes. Laughing, teasing, more alive in memory than I am in reality. It was him or me. I chose me. But I feel dead too.
I pound on the door with my good arm – twice, then three times, then six times, as my mother told me to.
I wipe the tears from my face. This is the first time I will see my father since I left him, and I don't want him to see me half-collapsed and sobbing.
The door opens, and Caleb stands in the doorway. The sight of him stuns me, and I can tell he feels the same.
"Beatrice," he says in surprise, "are you hurt?"
I nod mutely and shove him inside to get the door shut as quickly as possible.
"Where is Mom?" he continues his endless questions.
I want to choke at the question. I want to break down and sob on the floor. But I have to keep it together, so I focus on finding a solution to something. My eyes scan the group of Abnegation refugees, hoping to find someone who can patch up my shoulder wound. I see my father at the far end of the room, and standing beside him, Marcus. The sight of him makes me ache – Tobias…
I sway on my feet. One of the Abnegation medical volunteers steps forward, as does my father. They grab on to me and lift me onto a pallet. Someone else carries a lamp from one corner to the other so we have light. Caleb produces a first aid kit, and Susan brings me a bottle of water. There is no better place to need help than a room full of members of Abnegation. I glance at Caleb. He's wearing grey again. Seeing him in the Erudite compound feels like a dream now.
I lay on my stomach, and the medical volunteer begins to work on my gunshot wound. The pain is intense and I know that I am floating in and out of consciousness, vacillating between fighting to stay awake and wishing I could pass out to stop the pain. Beside me, my father holds my good hand while Caleb peppers Zeke with questions. I hear my brother gasp when Zeke tells them of my mother's fate.
I glance up at my father. He looks stricken, but recovers himself. "That is good," he says, sounding strained. "A good death."
Is there good death? Eric called Al's suicide brave, and he was wrong. My mother's death was brave. I remember how calm she was, how determined. It isn't just brave that she died for me; it is brave that she did it without announcing it, without hesitation.
When my wound is stitched and bandaged, the medical volunteer and my father help me to sit up, and Susan brings me some food, and though my first instinct is to refuse to take what little these people have, I know that I need to eat something to recover my strength and get back to the fight.
"We are only safe here for so long," Marcus says eventually. "We need to get out of the city. Our best option is to go to the Amity compound in the hope that they'll take us in. Do you know anything about the Dauntless strategy, Beatrice? Will they stop fighting at night?"
"It's not Dauntless strategy," I say. "This whole thing is masterminded by the Erudite. Ninety percent of the Dauntless are in a simulation and they don't know what they're doing. The only Dauntless who can act on their own free will are the ones that didn't get injected with the simulation, and the Divergent."
Zeke elaborates and answers a few questions while I rack my brain, trying desperately to come up with a plan. We have to end the sim and wake up the Dauntless, that much is for sure.