I moved last week so all my computer stuff was packed. I've finally gotten myself situated enough to get back into the groove of things. So I'm making up for last week now and you'll still get another chapter on Friday! Enjoy!
xXx
My hair is braided up on top of my head, out of the way. I've had trouble sleeping lately, and last night was no different. Just for different reasons. Our meeting with Jeanine is this morning. If I can't shake this shit, Jeanine will shake it out of me and that's not something I want to contend with.
Instead of command I make my way to Max's office down in the bowels of Dauntless. It sounds worse than it is and besides. Max likes his cave-like atmosphere. He spends a good amount of time down here. I don't pretend to know why. I don't actually want to know why, although I have a feeling I'm about to find out.
When I enter Eric's already there, but Jeanine thankfully, is not. It would have looked incredibly bad if I showed up after her and I'm sure she would have held that over my head until the day I died.
Instead I just have to face Eric. And he has his mask on. A look of cold indifference is settled on his face and his eyes narrow when I look at him. The depth to his compartmentalization is nearly terrifying, or he's one hell of an actor. Either way I shift my eyes away from him and look to Max, who's rifling through a stack of papers.
Max briefly looks up at me before looking back down. "Did Eric tell you what we're doing?"
My eyes flutter, but I keep them off of Eric as he stands tall behind Max, his hands clasped behind his back. "It's an extraction. I assume we're pulling information from someone."
Max nods, his eyes still down. "In this case two someones. A transfer from a couple years ago and a member of the Factionless. Kill two birds with one stone."
When he looks up he smiles and he actually means to to be light-hearted. We're about to torture someone and Max is making a joke. I catch Eric smirking behind him and my gut churns. We've adapted, he said last night. That means two different things for us. I'm training and torture to myself. I never had the opportunity to really fight anyone. Attack, torture. It was all done to me. Eric . . . He's done it to others. Because he had to? Wanted to? I don't know the answer.
Max sees I don't smile and his own smile drops and he stands up. "You've never done anything like this before."
It's a statement. Matter of fact.
I clear my throat. "No. I've never had any practical application of my skills until now."
"Well, got to start somewhere," he says, and that smile is back.
I look back to Eric then, and he's staring at me, that same smirk on his face, but it's slipped into a sneer. His eyes don't linger long, but I feel them rake across me, searing trails across my flesh. I hold back a shiver and I question my very sanity. What the hell is wrong with me? I'm about to see the monster Eric's really adapted into. And just what am I going to do? Be a passive observer? I doubt it. My stomach churns again and I swallow hard.
The seal on the door breaks and I look up to see Jeanine walking into the room, leaving behind a detail of guards in the hallway. She wouldn't feel so threatened if she weren't such a psychotic bitch, but those are details. The corner of her mouth is quirked up into what could pass for a smile, but it doesn't come anywhere near her eyes. Unlike me and Eric, this isn't a trained look. It's Jeanine's look. One she was born with. Not one she had beaten out of her.
"Madeline," she says, her voice like trilling birds. She's feminine in a way a sword is feminine, sleek and beautiful and fourteen different ways of deadly. "You look well. It appears your training wasn't for naught."
I smile my own fake smile that feels more like a sneer as I answer, "No, it certainly wasn't. Everyone's been keeping me on my toes."
"Good. Wouldn't want you to get rusty." She turns away from me then, her eyes skating over Eric and landing on Max. "Are we ready?"
"Of course," he says and he puts out a hand to show Jeanine through a door behind him.
He holds it open for her as she walks through first. He follows, with me behind him and Eric bringing up the rear. Incredibly close, I might add. Closer than what he would need to be for anyone else. I smell his soap, that same soap from our car ride on my first day here. Like he's reminding me, in his own subtle way, that he's here. Because there's no other way to do it. Then again maybe I'm making that up entirely.
We enter a narrow hallway lit by harsh, sterile light. The hallway's lined with doors and we walk through one into a plain, nearly run down room. The ceiling tiles show water stains. There's a small puddle in one corner. The light flickers and it smells damp. No, this room wouldn't be made to be comfortable.
Especially not with the steel table in the middle and the wriggling, damaged Dauntless strapped to it. He's not as young as the children going through initiation now, but he's still younger than me. Twenty, maybe, but you'd never tell from the damage to his face. Caked blood, purpled bruises, a swollen eye. His clothes are shredded, speckled with holes and tears. Dirt and grime are thick under his nails and his skin is splotchy, from bruising or dirt, it's hard to tell.
My heart rate spikes and all of a sudden I'm flushed with heat. The tiny, dank room we're in suddenly seems stifling and I want nothing more than to run out. Run away. I don't think I can do this. I must do this. I must find out more. Sacrifice one to save many. But who am I to make that call? I'm no one. But I'm a fighter.
"This one's good," Eric says from behind me and he moves closer to Jeanine. "Already revealed a network of underground Divergents working from the testing center. We just need to push him that extra inch to find out who and where. He's more stubborn than we thought."
Max hands Jeanine a file and she rifles through it. "He has at least a dozen fears. Madeline, what do you suggest?"
My head is blazing hot and my ears are ringing and I can barely hear my secret leader, but I make out her words well enough. "What are his fears?"
She looks back down at the list and begins to read. "Heights, confined spaces, fire, his parents dying. They're all very standard."
It hits me then. The perfect thing to do and I nod them out of the room. I can't let the victim know what's about to be done to him. It takes all my strength to not have my knees buckle under me, but I manage.
When everyone's out of the room I say, "Sensory deprivation with slow introduction of olfactory stimulation combined with a hallucinogenic drug and a low dose of the fear landscape serum. Combine his fears, but make his brain work against him first. Put him in sensory dep first for a few hours, then start pumping in the smell of smoke, fire. Just smells," I say, making particular emphasis to Max and Eric. This isn't physical. "Pump in a low grade neurotoxin to start the hallucinations. By then he won't notice if you stick him with a needle and get the serum into him. But you need to keep him lucid enough to hear you. Otherwise you're submerging him and you won't be able to get him out."
It vomits out automatically, like a switch flipped in my head and all the training I've done becomes a sentient being and releases itself. It makes me want to actually vomit.
"I like the way you think, Madeline," Jeanine says with one of her ice-coated smiles. That certainly doesn't make me feel any better. And I don't bother to correct her on my name. She wouldn't care what the Dauntless are calling me. I'm still Madeline to her. Always will be. "Eric," she says, looking to him. "Make sure that's initiated."
He nods and turns to walk away without another word. Such a dutiful soldier. He's been broken in well. It makes me wonder who did it. His parents? Jeanine herself? Or was it him? Did he dive head first into the Dauntless way of life and beat his sensibilities out of himself on his own? It makes me sad for him. And sad for me. What would I be if not for Jeanine?
Weaker.
"Now," she says as she flips through a dossier and walks toward another door. "This one's interesting. We captured him in the last raid, correct?"
"Yes. We made sure he knew we were serious before taking him in," Max says with a sly smile on his face.
I wonder if he's talking about the last Factionless raid. The one where people died. Was that the captive's family? My stomach flips over and I cross my hands over my chest and clear my throat. The bile creeping up is starting to sting.
"Now, Madeline, I want you to try and extract more information from him. I see he mentioned something about meetings, members of the Factionless getting intelligence, but nothing more than that. Get more."
Her face is stone as she looks at me, and remains unmoving when she opens the door to let herself in. This room isn't any better than the last, and neither is the person strapped to the table. In fact, considering the amount of blood on the floor he's far, far worse.
He's in a mix of Candor white and Erudite blue, leavings from the factions left in dumpsters around the safe zone, scavenged by the Factionless themselves or collected and delivered by the Abnegation. Open lesions litter his arms and cuts slash across his face. He's panting and sweat clings to his skin where there isn't any blood. On a tray next to him sits bloodied instruments, some crusted and old, but others fresh and still glistening.
My heart thuds in my chest and I can't take my eyes off this man. I don't know him, thankfully. But that doesn't mean we don't have known people in common. I want to know him. I want to help him. But I can't. I'm just as trapped as he is.
"Today, Madeline," Jeanine says, impatience evident in her words.
I blink and realize I've been staring. For too long. I nod and the opening door draws my attention away from the bloodied heap in front of me. Eric walks back into the room and stands at the foot of the table, his hands clasped in front of him. I catch his eye and he gives me a nearly impercetible nod. Something I'm sure is supposed to be reassuring, but he's encouraging me to torture.
So I pick up a needle and turn off my humanity. I work on the Factionless man for at least an hour, mostly shoving heavy-gauged needles under his nails. Slowly. Every once in a while he lets out a scream, mumbles something incomprehensible, and passes out. Whoever worked him over before we got there really did a number on him. He's closer to dead than he is alive and I feel my soul slipping further and further away from me.
Jeanine points to a syringe. I don't hear what she says is in it. I don't want to know. Only when I grab it I pull the plunger out just a little farther than where it was, letting in a small bubble of air. The man under my pain is not walking out of here alive. The least I can do is put him out of his misery. No one will know. No one's watching my slight of hand. I make sure of it. They just see me slide the needle into his skin and push the plunger down.
It takes only a second, but the man gives off one more gasp and then falls limp onto the table. As a show I flick around the needles still wedged under his nails and don't get a response. I mutter curses and stick two fingers to his neck.
"Damn," I say. "He's gone."
"Well," Jeanine says. "That was unproductive."
She says something else, something to Max, but I can't hear her over the ringing in my ears. I stare down at the dead man on the table, the one I killed. The one I tortured, and the image sears itself into my brain. I look up and find Eric staring at me, still in the same position he was in from when he walked in. No emotion shows on his face and I'm pretty sure none shows on mine, but inside I'm crumbling and I don't think I'll be able to hold myself up much longer.
Jeanine slaps the folder into Max's hands. "Find some more. Don't stop until you get something useful."
Without another word she exits the room. Her guard waits on the other side of the door and the cadre of footsteps echo in the hallway as they all walk away. "Madeline, a word," she says, without pausing.
"You did good," Max says. "Didn't even falter. And on your first time, too."
He says that like it's a good thing. Like it's not the last time I'll have to do this.
"Thank you," I respond and scrabble to keep the shudder from my voice. "Jeanine trained me well."
"That she did," Eric says and I look at him and see the smirk quirking up his lips. I'm too dead on the inside to feel anything at that look.
"Go get cleaned up," Max says. "Make sure you're down in the training room by ten."
I nod and shuffle out of the room without another word, without looking at Max. Or Eric. I can't. I'm barely holding myself together. But I still have to go to Jeanine.
She stands farther down the hallway, her arms crossed over her chest, an impatient tap to her toe. Her head tilts to the side slightly and she watches me walk closer.
"How is everything progressing?" she asks as she releases her arms to her sides.
I swallow down my pain and give the best answer I can. "As planned. The initiates are ruthless. I doubt those ranked at the bottom will even survive to the end of training."
A smile quicks up the corner of her lips and my stomach turns even more sour. "Excellent. The physical portion should be wrapping up soon, yes?" I nod. "Pay particular attention when they start in the fear landscapes. Anything out of the ordinary and I want to hear about it." I nod again but don't say anything. And neither does she as she turns and walks away.
I'm calm as I turn around and walk down the hallway. Back up into the Pit. To the stairwell. Then I take the stairs two at a time and sprint back to my apartment. I barely make it to the bathroom before I start vomiting.