CHAPTER ELEVEN
TRIS
Screams. Screams surround me. Filling up my ears, making them bleed. I scream. Christina screams, James screams, the man holding him screams.
I look down at my foot, and I jerk my knee backwards, screaming again. Eric's blood drips off the end of my shoe, dark, thick, and red. Tobias wraps an arm around my torso and hauls me over his shoulder, like a fireman. He carries me away like I'm kindling he's just chopped to manageable pieces. I reach an arm around to his other shoulder, hugging him tightly. Tears start to stream down my cheek, and I let out a sob.
All of a sudden my hand touches something wet. I bring my finger up to my eyes, and inspect it. Blood.
"Oh my god, Toby, are you hurt?!" I pat him to let me go and he swiftly lets me down.
"What's wrong, Tris?" I look into his eyes.
"Are you hurt? You're bleeding." I show him my finger, crimson red. He takes it and puts it to his nose. After taking a whiff, he gently pushes it back, chuckling.
"It's just paint Tris."
Only then do I look down, and realise we're on top of the Ferris wheel. He slips, grabbing onto my wrists, holding on to them for dear life.
"TRIS! TRIS! You can't let me go like this! Don't let me fall! Don't. Let. Me."
He turns into Eric.
I let him go.
"Tobias!"
"Tris!"
The last I can get of him is the end of his finger.
It slides away.
"Hello?"
"Tris!"
"OH MY GOD TOBIAS!"
"What? Tris, wake up." Christina's hands are on my face. With her thumbs she traces my eyebrows, like how my mother used to. She did it that time she held me and told me everything was going to be alright, that time I fell on the pavement outside our house.
"Have you got the water, honey, go get her some water." I push Christina's hands away and sit upright.
"Is Four okay?" I ask.
"Oh he's fine, probably the least shaken out of all of us, he handled the situation well. I mean, it was Eric, but he's still a human. I mean, we did just witness a murder, still."
I shudder at the word 'murder'.
I put a hand to my temple.
"Hurts?" says Christina.
"Headache." I reply. Christina gets up softly and heads over to the kitchen.
I lie on her and Will's sofa. They have a nice apartment. It opens up to the living room where I currently sit. Behind the living room is a dining room with two doors leading off of it, one to their bathroom with a two-person shower, and another to their bedroom, with a window providing them with a cool view of the pit. The kitchen is off the dining room to the right. I can hear Will and Christina discussing quietly in the kitchen. I'd rather ignore them, focusing on their apartment layout seems like a more comfortable topic to think about. I slide my legs off the sofa, setting them on the ground.
Rubbing my forehead with the heel of my hand, I stare directly forwards, at a seriously messed up scratching pole.
Christina hurries over to me and hands me a glass of water, and a bright green pill.
"What happened?" I ask her. At that moment Will sits down on the chair beside me. He smiles and puts three mugs on the coffee table. I quickly glance at the clock above their TV.
It reads 4:30am.
"Jesus." Christina and Will look from me to the clock and they both nod.
"Yeah, might as well just stay awake." Says Will, taking a sip of coffee. I wince as he puts it back down.
"So, what happened? Why'd I wake up here?" I say it like I'm just curious but I'm etching to know what part of my own stupidity landed me in this situation of having to talk to Christina and Will both at once.
"Um, I don't really know how to say this, Tris." Says Christina quietly.
"Oh, come on Christina, you know you can tell me anything." I say, avoiding Will's eyes.
"Well, you sort of… collapsed." I'm leaning forward to place my glass of water on the table when she says it. I pause midway.
"What?" I can imagine what my eye lids look like – like they're not there.
"It's nothing to be embarrassed about Tris, you were probably just tired, or shocked."
"It's not like anyone's going to stop recognising you as the second-lowest fear score, you're still Six." I turn my gaze to Will reluctantly. He grabs my hand and squeezes it lightly. I'm like a ragdoll. I don't move unless forced to be the laws of gravity. I look down at my hand in Will's. My heart pounds.
He gives me an assuring look and lets go. My hand drops limply.
I don't speak for a while. I can see Christina and Will looking at each other and then giving cautious glances back at me. Christina sips her coffee and sits cross-legged on the floor.
"So…" I stumble out of the daze, trying to change the topic but sloppily doing so. "Cat?"
"Oh, Cotton balls?" Will looks at me with a cheeky look on his face. He glances at Christina and makes frantic flapping movements with his hands.
"Oh shut up." She says, smiling. I laugh too as I grasp back onto reality. As I try to ignore the memory that keeps flashing in my mind:
"Oh-ye-ye"
"FUCK!"
"I guess Cotton Balls is out protecting me from the moths."
"I think I want to go see Tob-Four." It gets out of my mouth like milk snorted through your nostrils. I'm trying to hold it in as much as I can, but it does a little spurt.
I seriously need to start calling him Four at all times.
"Tris, who's Tobias?" Will asks. I turn my head to look at him accusingly. But then my legs give way and I slump back onto the couch.
"No one, who is Tobias?" I try to say casually, with a slight unevenness to my voice.
"You shouted 'oh my god Tobias!' when you woke up."
"Oh," I say, trying to stall but doing not a very good job of it. I try to think up of an excuse.
Christina does for me. "She's probably just dizzy and hazy from the dream, I dream about the craziest shit when I'm sick."
"I'm not sick!" I snap.
But Christina just laughs. "Tris, just promise me you'll stay here for a few hours until we all go out for breakfast.
At that moment a fist wraps on the door.
Not a man's fist, banging to bring the door down, but a small, dainty, feminine fist, lightly knock-knocking to see if anyone's home. I should have left the room before she enters.
Christina opens the door to reveal a medium-height girl, with long, slightly curly dark brown hair, hazel eyes, porcelain skin, and a tattoo that says 'tainted' across her collarbone.
I almost drop the coffee mug. I pause, again.
Shit.
Fuck.
This is way worse.
So much more worse.
"Hey, is uh-Will here?" she asks. I look down at the mug and wrap my hands around it tightly, so tight I can see sweat drip out of my skin as it burns.
I can't believe I've woken up having to talk with Will and Christina at the same time, but now the mistress is here too?!
It's too much.
I breathe in slowly, to keep bile from erupting through my throat.
Will walks up to the door, and his eyes become alert when he sees Kaya.
"He-y" he says, casually. He's unbelievable. "Oh, sorry, Christina, this is Kaya, she works at the fence with me." Christina puts out a hand to shake, and Kaya takes it with a courteous smile.
She's good.
At acting.
"Hey, Will, so we have that ah… thing?"
"Oh yes, the thing!" He says, with a poor attempt at looking like he's suddenly remembered about 'the thing'. Christina looks from Kaya, to Will. They both look back at her. All three of their faces have ridiculous anticipation on them, waiting for each other to break. I don't know why Christina just doesn't ask them the question that could easily break them. She's giving them more time to come up with an excuse.
"Where are you going? What thing?" I blurt out.
They all turn to me.
"U-uh, well, we…" Will starts off. I've caught him, I've got him in a trap, all I need is Christina to become suspicious, for her to get onto them, for her to find it out all by herself.
"We've got that fence thing."
"Yeah, what fence thing?" I ask Kaya condescendingly. It's the first time we've spoken, and the first time I've been rude or interrogative to just an acquaintance.
"a-ah, well…"
"It's a fence, thing, something about Eric, we have to be there early."
Christina nods, as if none of this sounds strange or suspicious whatsoever.
"Oh, okay, then, um, it was nice meeting you, Kaya."
"And you, you're so nice for a Candor-born." She says nicely.
"Oh, how'd you know?"
"Will's told me all about you." She says, laughing. Christina smiles, then Will and Kaya leave.
When she sits down next to me, I notice she purses her lips and that her mouth twitches slightly. I think she knows. Maybe she is suspicious.
When I ask her what's wrong she tells me nothing and closes a lock on the subject.
You need to tell Christina.
You need to tell Christina.
You need to tell Christina.
You need to tell her.
Now.
"I need to tell you something, Christina." She looks up from her food at the dining hall, two hours later, with a curious look of innocence on her face.
"Yeah?" she says, swallowing her food, and pouring another cup of black coffee. The day has been cancelled, due to post-traumatic stress (not something I expected from the Dauntless – a babying) from Eric's death.
I look down at my food. The contents of my bowl is milky and soggy. I haven't touched it. "Christina, I need to tell you something."
"My god, say it, woman." Only when the coffee mug doesn't block her view does she understand the full extent of how serious the thing I need to tell her about is.
"Should we walk somewhere?"
"I think so."
It's incredibly wrong. I've been wallowing away at my brain, trying to find ways to tell her about Will. At one point, I wasn't even sure if I had the right to, at another point, I actually forgot about what it was Will even did, and at another point, I thought I was being highly selfish for keeping it to myself.
But I wasn't selfish.
This has been eating me alive for weeks.
I don't want this information.
Nor do I want to be the messenger. People always say don't shoot the messenger, but let's be honest, they always do.
I've dreamt about telling her. The first time, she said nothing to me, and then got in a fist fight with will. The other times, she would slap me in the face and deny it. Then came a montage of her and Will walking past each other, hating each other, hating me, for ruining their relationship.
Sometimes I even feel bad for Will. What would drive such a wonderful boy into doing something like this? Sometimes I went so far as thinking that maybe I was mistaken. But I know I wasn't, I know what I saw.
I feel like there is two sides to every person. It depends on how much of each side a person shows.
Christina, shows both of her sides, to everyone. She'll bitch to your face, tell you you're too fat, too ugly, that your tattoo's stupid (she said that to Tobias – Four – one time, and he told me later, he had never hit a girl before, but probably would have had I not been with them.) To be fair, she hadn't even seen the whole thing, she thought that he had gotten a tattoo of flames on his back, so that they looked "artistic" where they poked out around his neck. She's pretty stubborn and ignorant like that. But she's also kind, loving, protective, and funny.
I thought Will was an exception.
None of them are ever exceptions. Everyone's got a nice, everyone's got a naughty. I could look back on anyone, and tell you about their two-sidedness.
Lynn, is a complete dick when you meet her, she's rude, mean, and resentful when you react the same way towards her. But she's a deep person, there is so much more inside her.
Toby, when I first met him, seemed like a dangerous guy. Sure, he wasn't as dangerous as Eric seemed to be, but everyone around me (slightly including myself.) thought he was scary. Probably the only reason I got to see his other side, was because I'm drawn to that kind of mysterious person.
Will, I thought was perfect. No wonder Christina wanted to be with him. He was cute, with his blonde, slightly shaken hair, and his dazzling light blue eyes. Even the small dent between his eyebrows. He's smart, funny, and the nicest guy I know.
Knew.
I guess now, he's a liar and a cheat, and good at covering it all up.
Christina doesn't bother me while we walk, she lets me stick to my thoughts, and she allows me a while to myself before I talk to her.
When I do talk to her, she completely surprises me.
"Christina."
"Tris. Please, I don't care if you've spent the last fifteen minutes going over how to tell me about whatever it is you are about to, I want you to tell me."
"But-"
"Trust me." She says quietly. "I know that look on your face, I've noticed how you've been acting around me." She looks at the floor. "Around Will…"
She doesn't look up.
"Christina."
"Tell me."
"Christina…"
"Tris, tell me."
"You already know, don't you?"
"Tris, please, just tell me. I can't live in this ignorance anymore. I want someone to say it. I can't say it."
We stand together in a hallway somewhere far from unwanted ears. It's dark, and I can't see her face. But I can tell she's crying. By the way her shoulders move in the darkness, by the way her voice quivers and shakes like a dog dunked in cold water.
"Christina."
"Tell me, tell me, now."
"Will… and Kaya."
That's all she needs, that's all she needs for me to break her. She hiccups loudly and collapses onto me. We fall slowly to the ground, embracing each other. She collapses onto me, like the time she told me she was pregnant. We hold each other like we did then.
Her life is such a mess.
I start to cry, and she tries to comfort me. I refuse her help. I don't let her. But she does anyway.
She pulls me in for a hug, wiping my face.
"Tris, you are the strongest person I know."
I sob into her chest.
"Thank you for telling me." She says.
I sob a little more, shaking.
"Look at us," she moans. "We're so emotional."
"I think it's okay to let it out, sometimes." I say quietly.
"You should let it out? God, none of this even has anything to do with you, Tris, you big pussy." I laugh so loudly, and so naturally. It doesn't come from hysteria, it just comes to me. Christina laughs as well, shaking more, but only from giggles.
"I'm going to be okay, Tris. I'm gonna be okay." I peel myself from her.
"Yeah. I know."
"He's a dickhead." She says.
We both smile, and get up, pulling each other in for one final hug.
"We're gonna be okay." She says into my ear.
Hey, so I hope to god that isn't too cliff-hanger-y, and that it maybe provided you with some closure? I don't know, not the best at ending a chapter with no cliff-hanger, as you can probably tell… ;)
-Eve