Soli Deo gloria

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Divergent. UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE :))

Breathing in my position is precarious; the gun presses cold against my temple. It feels hard and more imposing with every quarter inch I move.

Eric laughs. Of course he laughs when Tobias is facing him down with a loaded gun aimed strategically at his head. "Somehow you're always on her heels, Eaton. You stalk her from a distance, like during her initiation?" Eric asks.

A lie, but one he believes. One Tobias doesn't refute because of the more important matters standing right in front of him: such as the bullet a second from being fired into my non-conformist brain.

"I have my own methods of finding her," Tobias says. "Now, Eric: you put a bullet through her head, I'll do the same to you."

"You sound like you're trying to sound like you have the upper-hand, when in reality I have your Divergent girlfriend's life in my hands." I can't see his face, as my eyes are limited to see only what is within three feet of the floor, but I can see in my mind's eye the rings in his mouth flexing as his face makes room for a rip of a cold smile.

"I'd say it's a fair trade, her life for yours, though her life is worth far much more than yours," Tobias says.

"Oh, the burn, Eaton. That hurts." I imagine the bullet striking straight through my head, the shreds of brain and skin and pieces of skull falling onto the floor, like the plaster of a ceiling.

"Hands off of her, Eric," Tobias says evenly.

"Nah. I don't think so, Eaton. I'm your Dauntless leader still. Government. So you listen to me, not the other way around. You had your chance to be an important Dauntless representative, but you threw that away. Your loss." Eric leans down, pressing a bruise into my skull. I know he's grinning know. "And now for another loss."

Without a word, a second of hesitation, Tobias points and shoots Eric's leg.

Eric screams and his gun falls to the ground as his hands frantically press against his pants leg. I flip from his hold and grab the gun and back up from Eric and his roaming, dangerous hands. My stance lines up with Tobias's, both of our guns shaking slightly, but both steadily pointing at Eric's bowed head.

"Count that leg shot as me being generous," Tobias says. His voice is too even for having just shot someone.

Eric grits his teeth. Unlike him and his taunting words, Tobias is a man of few words and hard actions.

"Take us into Jeanine's lab," Tobias says.

I wonder why for a split second before it hits me. Eric is devoted completely to the plan he formulated with Jeanine. He is a loyal follower. Though the follower, he tries hard to be the leader, and so probably knew a lot about the project. Probably how to get into Jeanine's office.

What better way to get information about the mission Jeanine was about to launch against Abnegation than to force Eric to get us into her lab? It must have a plethora of information. Unless, I realize, those who found her body cleared away any evidence.

Eric spits at Tobias's feet. "Like hell I will."

"For someone who always pressed onto the initiates the words 'Faction before blood', it's strange to see you betray your former faction," Tobias says quietly.

"Dauntless was a part of a bigger system, Four. I was helping the entire city by getting rid of an entire faction that shouldn't exist. Cleansing it," Eric insists.

"Do you really believe that?" Tobias says, not believing him for a second.

"No, Eric, you didn't believe that," I say. I take a step forward. "You want power. Dauntless strength and Erudite knowledge. A perfect formula for power. You would do anything, even get rid of Abnegation, because it gave you what you wanted." I breathe heavily, stare at this man brought to his knees by violence, a marked trait of his former faction. He would've killed my origin faction; the place where my parents live. And he would've done it without a scrap of remorse.

I want to say something of rage and vigor to his humbled face. That he's heartless. Scum. A would-be murderer. A sociopath. A disgrace to Dauntless's manifesto. But he doesn't deserve any words. Not anymore.

"Take us to the lab before I shoot your arm. I highly doubt you need that to limp," Tobias says.

Eric glares and throws a rough hand in the air. He doesn't scream for help; it's not becoming of someone from Dauntless. At least he keeps himself loyal to that part of his corrupted version of Dauntless. "I'd like to see you do it, Eaton," he says, even while his eyes fill with tears from the suppressed moans of pain.

Why does he test Tobias like this? I saw how Tobias emotionlessly, blankly, automatically, killed the woman in his fear landscape. Mechanically, once he was able to remove himself from the situation, did he pull the trigger. He can remove himself from the fear by removing himself from the situation completely.

"You know I can, Eric," Tobias says. "But why are you trying to damn yourself?"

"Because I'm loyal to the factions, not this factionless crap letter that's swept the city!" Eric growls.

"You can redeem yourself, Eric," Tobias says quietly. "Let us into her lab."

For a second it's a stalemate; I wait for the refusal and the gunshot into Eric's arm. Instead he mutters, "Help me up. Or there's going to be a trail of blood for the Erudite to follow."

Tobias shoulders Eric, adjusting his hold and his position in the hand holding the gun. Eric seems too weak from blood loss and the pain to even try to throttle Tobias and steal his gun. Tobias drags him to the end of the hall where Jeanine's lab should be and I follow closely behind, turning once to stare down the shining blue hall. No one came running at the sound of the guns. True, they're quieter than the ones Dauntless had in their training rooms. I'll ask Tobias about it when we're not in a hurry for the truth.

I trail as the rear guard, but glance over my shoulder to see Eric wincing as he points Tobias to the end of this hallway. I hear no footsteps running up the stairs to investigate the gunshots. The Erudite must do research on even lower floors than I thought.

All around me the colors of this hallway are blue. They seem to blend together, with no seams. No door appears, and I stand, stunned.

Tobias stops too, his chest deflating and inflating from the obvious effort of carting muscular Eric around. His eyes dart around the walls and he turns to Eric. "Where are the doors?"

"Your eyesight going as well, Eaton? It must suck to be you," Eric drawls, before coughing heavily.

I find blue doorknobs wedged into the walls. The doors stand opposite each other, and I look, quick, to Eric. My hands grasp each doorknob, so I block off any further travel down the hallway. One of these doors will let us into Jeanine's lab.

"Eric, if you want to keep breathing, I suggest you stop playing games," I say in a cold voice. Not the voice I grew up with in quiet, meek Abnegation. I am commanding, demanding, like a Dauntless. "Which door leads to her lab?"

"Left." Eric clenches his teeth.

I release the right doorknob. "Is there a lock?" I ask. Jeanine must have been crazy about keeping her results safe, protected from any wandering eyes. Why does it appear so . . . vulnerable?

"Go right in," Eric says. The pain creases his face.

Tobias nods, and I open the door.

We enter.

The room is small, enclosed. The door closes without any move from us. It slides in like a bolt. Tobias and I chance one look at it before facing the rest of the room. The gun, familiar and foreign in my hand, becomes heavier.

Lights pierce our eyes. Tobias drops Eric and one hand covers his eyes while the other holds tight to his gun. I peek through my fingers against my will to keep an eye on Eric. He slumps on the floor. I feel my heart beat faster. What if he passes out before we can use him to get past this room?

A cool female voice fills the small blue room. "Beatrice Prior, Second Generation. Faction of origin: Abnegation. Selected faction: Dauntless. Confirmed Divergent. Status: Intruder. Tobias Eaton, First-Second Generation. Faction of origin: Abnegation. Selected faction: Dauntless. Confirmed Abnegation. Status: Intruder. Eric Quinn, First Generation. Faction of origin: Erudite. Selected faction: Dauntless. Confirmed Dauntless."

I stand up from my cowering position; the light is easier to face as my eyes grow accustomed to it.

"Status: Allowed."

The voice stops. It seems to wait for something. A command? A voice?

Tobias and I look at Eric.

"Is there a signal it needs?" Tobias asks.

Eric sits up begrudgingly. "It identified you for who you are, Prior. Divergent. Should've done the same for you, Eaton." He cringes from the pain, but doesn't break a scream from his throat. "It identified you both as intruders. But it's allowing me in. Eric Quinn and guests." He growls that last word.

The lights' glisten decreases. A door opens at the end of the room.

"Do you want me to help you get him up?" I ask Tobias.

The lines in his face tense. Eric is dead weight right now. Attempting to make him stand up on his own isn't even an option. "I need you to hold both guns," he says. "I can't shoot him while supporting him."

"The contradiction," I say.

Somehow, in the midst of our dangerous mission of breaking through Erudite headquarters, into their dead leader's office to recover evidence of an attempt on annihilating an entire faction, our origin faction, as the cool-voiced lady called it, a smile twitches his face.

He hands me his gun. His fingers graze my skin. I try to not to focus on his touch as I grasp the gravity of the gun.

We face the door. I open it. Tobias rolls his eyes as he heaves up the weight of Eric and drags him through the door.

The room is lit with pale blue, big and spacious. The windows are closed off with shades, to hide the secrets of her lab. A large table sits in the middle. Pictures, photographs, and other graphs pepper the walls. Strings and markers criss-cross over each one.

My face. Uriah's. Marcus's. Other faces I don't know. Tobias isn't up there. No. He is known as Abnegation in the system. A note of satisfaction hits me. Jeanine lost. She never found out that he was Divergent.

I spy a desk with a laptop, black, flat, on it. Then an idea hits me. I run to the far end of the room, put the guns carefully on the floor, and climb the back of a chair. My arm is barely long enough to touch the security camera. I jump and it comes off in my hand. The wires slip off. A red button blinks. Somehow, I know that means it's on.

Tobias shoves Eric into a computer chair the second he can. He breathes heavily and notices the guns on the floor. And me. He leaves the barely-conscious Eric and takes up a gun and hands me the other. He looks deep in my eyes this time, and I stare back. The emotions are too thick, too muddled and intense for me to think about right now.

He just says, "What is the camera for?"

I point it at Eric. "I want to capture him on camera." I march over to Eric and set the computer on the desk. I shove him towards the desk. The chair reels into the furniture, hitting his leg. Eric hisses. No escape of pain from him. But I am cold. I want to hear that one slip of humanity from his lips.

I sit on a chair, the back of it pressed against my chest. My hold on the gun never grows any looser.

Now we have all the time in the world.

Reading this over, I realized I wrote Tris as being really, really cold. Wow.