Thank You, God, for everything.

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own the Host or Divergent.

Kyle joins us on the raid. Jeb says to a heated Tobias, "I trust you to keep an eye out on him. 'Sides, I don't want to see him for a bit. He's been eyeing Wanderer. He needs time to cool off 'fore he does something all of us regret."

Jeb's rules.

We take two of the cars. I'm in the jeep with Tobias, Christina and Brandt. Jared, Kyle and Aaron are in Jared's pickup, Aaron driving, for he and Brandt know the route we're taking.

Kyle has to be separated from me. For all our sakes.

I don't mind. I'd rather not even go on a raid with him, but he's being forced out. And I need to learn how to work in the outside world with these people. So we barely tolerate each other.

Jamie promises me that he'll take care of Wanderer while I'm gone.

"I'll hang out with her. Maybe Uriah will hang with us too. We'll have fun." Despite him being a thirteen-year-old with an alien against a group of humans, I believe him. I want to. He's an eager little kid, more open than Hector, who stays with Shauna all the time.

We travel through the desert. Get more dust in our lungs. Stay away from the major cities. The entirety of the country is calm, actually. Neighborhood streets and grocery stores. It's quieter, with less tension than the factions had had. But with the boys and Christina, the only thing there is is tension. And no privacy. I have to bring Christina with me everywhere. Not that I mind at all. After punching Kyle, she's more cheerful towards me.

"You didn't deserve that at all. For just being with her all the time? Pathetic excuse. He's just another Peter," she says. And Christina and I know how to unite together against Peter.

I wonder about him. Occasionally. Wonder if he was ever caught. 'Healed.' Or if he is still human. Still alive. I actually think him being inserted with a soul is a good punishment for him. Replace his evilness with something calm, something that doesn't want to do harm but only what they think is right.

That was what the faction leaders had thought when they had made us into factions. But they just divided us all. Starting with the factionless.

We have bags on us. Take the houses at night. Stalk them to make sure the souls inside are out. Take two houses in one night, us divided. There's a special whistle that Brandt had made. We use it to communicate. A toot has to be followed with a toot from the other group. Or they're captured by the souls, and the remaining humans have to bolt out back to the caves, keeping care to not use the same route they had used to get there. Keep things squiggly. Go not in straight lines.

It's a soul-eat-man, man-shoot-soul world. This is our world now. No factions. Sneaking around from aliens.

Not what I thought my life would be like the day I left Abnegation. I had thought of many ways my life would go in Dauntless. I never thought this a possibility of my future.

And here is my reality.


We steal more than food. We learn something about the humans we've joined.

They kidnap souls.

It's for Doc, Brandt says. It was the doctor's idea. After all, the humans don't want to survive. They want to beat the aliens. They want their people back.

I was at a loss for why they wanted kidnapped souls until Brandt continued.

Doc wants to operate on them. Try to extract the soul from inside the human. Bring the person back. Back to the living.

"Has he been successful?" Tobias asks.

Brandt sighs at that. "It's a messy business. Remember, the souls are the ones who die-"

"'Die?' The operations haven't worked?" I say. My voice is squeaky.

"We would have introduced you to the humans we've saved if we did. No. Doc has done nearly fifteen operations, and none of them have worked. He's been trying, though. He — WE all want the humans back. There's no point in trying to live if we can't have our people back."

"So you kidnap souls, get them under the metal, and Doc ends up killing them, having not found a way to get the soul out without harming the body?" Tobias asks. His voice doesn't sound angry. Or annoyed. Or interested. But blank.

"Yes. Remember, though. They're ALIENS. They're not human. Their blood runs grey," Brandt says.

I'm a little shocked. And I shudder. I remember when Jeb had shown us the hospital how uptight Wanderer had been. She thought they were going to try to take her out of Melanie's body. But they can't. Doc hasn't figured out a way.

And they don't want to mess up Melanie's body when they don't have a method. They won't be using her body as a guinea pig.

I lean forward, so I can see Brandt and Tobias in the front seat.

"Is that why they haven't killed Wanderer yet? Because they want Melanie's body?" I ask. My voice echoes in the quiet van. We're traveling at nearly eleven o'clock at night. There's no other cars running down this road.

"Probably," Brandt says.

So, if Doc somehow finds a way to get the soul out of the host, they're bound to operate on Wanderer to get Melanie back. And Wanderer. . .

"Will Doc try to save the soul?" I whisper.

"Don't know for sure. Pretty sure not. Why would we want those got-dang souls to live? No," Brandt replies.

Tobias straightens. Stiffens, more like it. He's thought of it, too.

They'll kill Wanderer to get Melanie back. They might find a way to get the human to live but the soul to die. That'll be fine for the humans.

But not for me.

I fall back in my seat against Christina, who looks indifferent about the entire affair, her eyes following the desert passing us.

Doc would have been an Erudite.


They resist. Like we have. But like the souls have taken over and subdued Earth, we subdue the souls. One screams and falls over. Jared pronounces him gone.

"What?" I whisper, my hands holding up the arms of a young woman. She has slanted eyes. She reminds me of Tori. I try to swallow the bile filling my throat.

Aaron gulps. Almost uncomfortably. "Sometimes, when they know they're going, the soul kills itself. It scrambles and dies."

It'd rather be a soul than be taken by humans. Like we would be the same. I have a pill in my pocket from Jeb. We all do. Get captured and pop the pill. I feel like I'm in enemy territory when we're out on the country. Like in Erudite's headquarters.

"There's got to be another way!" Tobias says. To take the souls and save the humans.

"Think of one. This is the only way they've thought of," Jared says, his voice harsh. His face is stoic as he looks at the bodies littering the floor of the house. A family, probably. The bodies look similar. The father's gone. The rest have had a knock to the head. Passed out before they could resist.

We can only hope they stay knocked out long enough for us to get them back to Doc.

It sickens me, nauseates my stomach, as we drag the bodies, practically corpses, back to the van. Stuff them in the back. With their eyes closed, it's like they're humans. But they're not. They're like the enemy. Like the Erudite.

But the Erudite are gone. All souls now. Still enemies. Not themselves.

I try not to think, once I'm in the car. Aaron and Tobias set bags of food next to me, and I shirk away from them. I feel horrible, like a kidnapper. And we're not we're not we're not we're not we're not. We're trying to save this family's bodies. Eradicate the souls out of them. Save their lives.

The father lost his chance at life. They lost one.

We killed him.

There's a lot more urgency to get back to the caves. We picked up the bodies a few dozen miles away from Jeb's caves, as close as we could to them. The place feels packed. Christina and Tobias have to share two seats with me. I end up on Tobias's lap. His hand grips my wrist and just holds it.

We take the cars right up to the entrance. Jared turns to me as Aaron and Tobias start to open the truck. He sighs and says, "Look, can you go inside and distract it?"

"Distract what?" I say. I, of course, know to who he is referring to. But I don't like that he is doing that.

"I — the soul," Jared says. He looks to the souls getting unloaded and says, "She might freak out and kill herself if she sees this."

He doesn't want her to kill Melanie's body. I don't want her to kill herself or Melanie.

So I walk first into the caves, already knowing some way around the curves and juts of the dark stone. I only trip once. Then I start running, knowing that the boys and Christina will be coming along quickly.

I enter the large plaza. With the down setting sun and the mirror nearest the center of the ceiling, Jamie looks up from where he's kneeling in the dirt of the garden and runs to me, nearly toppling me over. He's my height but heavier than I am. I'm lucky I don't fall over.

"Tris, you're back!" he says excitedly.

I nod. His arms are around me in a big hug. I don't think Caleb has ever given me a hug. Maybe a reassuring pat on the shoulder, a smile. But nothing like the joyous affection of Jamie.

He pulls back and says, "Did everything go well?"

"Yep. We didn't lose anyone, and we probably won't have to go out for a while," I say. Any of humans, anyway.

He grins and starts tearing toward the kitchen, yelling, "Wanda, Wanda, they're back! The raiders are back! Hurry!"

Ian comes out from one of the caves' many entrances, looks to Jamie, spots me. He looks a little uneasy. He takes a spot a few good feet away from me. I see my gun against his heart in my head.

"You brought more back?" he says, his voice barely a whisper.

I nod.

He lets out a queasy sigh. "Okay. Do they need help lugging them over to Doc's?"

"Probably," I say.

He nods and looks to the kitchen. Then back to me. "You're going to go distract Wanda?"

"Wanda?" I am definitely not one to be surprised when people change their names, seeing as Beatrice Prior is gone. I'm more surprised as to why she has changed it. "When did that happen?"

"While you were gone. You all were gone for a few weeks, that's enough time. Jeb decided to call her that. Shorter, quicker. Sorta stuck," Ian says. He turns his body and looks up when Jamie comes hurrying out of the kitchen, dragging Wanda out by the hand. She looks brighter than she had been before. It must have been the absence of Kyle and Jared.

"Tris, you're back," Wanda says. Her voice is light.

I nod, and am about to start wondering what to say next when something hard pushes gently against my back.

"Here. You and Wanderer can take these into the kitchen," Tobias says , his voice low.

"Oh, I can help," Jamie says. He takes one of the boxes. Ian looks at him with a smirk. "Heavy enough for ya, kid?"

"I can handle it," Jamie says. Wanda smiles at him and she and I take the other boxes into the kitchen. Tobias shares a glance with me as I disappear around the corner. I see his glance go immediately to Ian, who walks out of my sight.

Jamie talks animatedly as we unload the boxes onto the counters. Two of the humans, Trudy and Heidi, come to help. They even talk kindly to Wanda, which is strange to me. They were so off her when we had left. Things have changed. Obviously. And for the better.

But Wanda is finished and turns to me and says, "Where's Jared?"

"Unloading things," I say. My words are quick, hasty.

"We can go help him," Wanda says.

"They've got Aaron and Ian and Kyle helping. Might as well stay away from him," I say. My heart pounds. What if she were to find the souls? Would she kill herself? Like Al? So quick?

Wanda looks past me for a moment. Melanie. Is she speaking to her?

After a moment, she faintly smiles and says, "All right. Want to go back to our room? Get you some new clothes?"

I look at my dust covered clothes. I nod, and she smiles harder.

The main room, the cross section for all the caves, is surprisingly normal looking. None of the men are dragging bodies hurriedly over to the hospital. Walter is squatting over a bunch of plants, weeding. He smiles faintly at Wanda, and Geoffrey calls over to him, "Want to go lie down, Walter? Don't want you to get stuck in that position."

"I'm fine," Walter says. Though, he looks like he's pained. I've heard from Jared that he has a bone cancer spreading through him. Going to take him out in a few months. The inevitable.

Wanda and I head through the halls. I look at the ground, my feet behind hers. I know the feeling. Of knowing my days are numbered, but not how many I have left. It's scary, knowing but also not knowing. Just knowing that it was coming up. The day of death.

The cave I share with Christina and Wanda is at the end of a long line of caves. I collect my clothes and Wanda offers soft conversation as we walk to the bathing room. There's no doors to the caves, so we usually go in pairs to stand guard. After being caught in the Dauntless rooms wearing barely any clothes, I don't want any strange people seeing me naked.

I slip into the dark room as Wanda takes her place outside. The entire place is black. The floor is dark and smooth. When I feel wetness but no dip, I know I'm near the water. Discarding my clothes in a place I can remember, I tiptoe forward, bracing myself for the dip.

I find it and slip in. After completely covering myself, I come up. While I don't have an irrational fear of drowning, I try to stay above the surface whenever I can. I find the rough cactus soap. It's disgustingly slimy and burns against the skin. But I like that. That's a cleansing pain.

I scrub my body, fill the place with the sounds of splashing. I call out to Wanda, and she says no one is coming up. Good. I know she won't lie to me. Christina would, just to tease me. Not Wanda, though.

As I pull on my clothes, I say, "Wanda? Is anyone there?"

There's no reply.

I call louder. No reply.

I look to the entrance, the slight doorway with a spill of white light. I don't see her at all.

Now I'm worried.

I pull on my pants and picking up my shoes, hurry to the entrance. "Wanda?"

She's not. She's living up to her name.

She has no reason to run off. She usually keeps her word. She must have noticed how amiss everything was. The tension, the silent looks, the jerks of a head. All these have added up, and she's too curious for her own good.

I run down the passages, my wet hair slamming against my neck, my barefeet slapping against the dusty ground, screaming hurriedly for Wanda. To come to me. To find me. To stay away from the hospital.

I nearly run into Christina and Uriah. "What is it?" Christina says.

"We need to find Wanda. She's gone wandering," I say. My eyes travel to the direction of the hospital.

"Shit," Uriah says, and we split, calling for Wanda.

I'm in one of the long caves, near the storage area, when I hear it. The screams. The screams of horror, of pain, of disgust, of shock. A scream I might have screamed at seeing my parents get killed in front of my eyes. But I didn't.

Tobias runs past me, towards the hospital, and I immediately follow him. He already knows what has happened. Everyone has.

I stumble into the hospital, and am disgusted as well. There's silver blood spilled over sterile tables. Body parts everywhere. Hair dyed with blood. Doc is really an Erudite. He's dissected the bodies for information. Like Jeanine would have.

He's in a corner, looking miserable, looking between his drinks on his desk and Wanda, who is shaking all over, her face incredulous, her eyes filled with horror, her hands trembling. Kyle, Jared, Andy, and Aaron are stock still amongst the dead. Uncertainty is across all their faces.

"What's happening to her?" Ian yells, demanding.

"What the hell?" Kyle mutters.

Jeb stands in a corner, looking as shocked as I've ever seen him.

Men.

I step forward, hurry to Wanda, avoid the bodies. "Wanda! Wanda! Calm down!" I say.

She just lets out another shriek and wringles out of my hands' grip on her arms. Her body is bigger and stronger than me, and startled, I'm shoved a few steps back as she flees from the place. Tobias immediately runs after her.

I turn to the rest of them, my hands in fists. Kyle says, scowling, "Great job, Tris. Way to keep her distracted."

"Hey, I wasn't the one who thought it a good idea to bring back bodies and tear them apart!" I say. I glare at Ian, who looks aghast. "Why didn't you keep a guard at the entrance, try to keep her out?"

"We thought she was with you," Ian says weakly.

"You all are real subtle," I say, my voice laced with disgust. I can't control all of Wanda's actions. She ran off and there was nothing I could do about it, and they can be more subtle with their surgery. Try it at night. Or just tell her, carefully, calmly. The way nobody has told me anything since I left Abnegation.

I shake my head, take a step back. "I'm going to go find her." I turn and stalk down the passages, anger burning in me. Why did we have to bring those souls back? Why?

DUH DUH DUH. I know this sort of happens in the book. But it had to happen here as well. I don't own it. It's all Stephenie's. :)

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