CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Early in the morning, Tris shakes me awake. The bedside lamp is on, and the digital clock next to the bed reads 5:47. I rub sleep out of my eyes as I feel larger, rougher hands helping shake me awake, then Zeke's voice. "Uriah. Wake up."

My eyes adjust and Zeke, Christina and Will come into focus. It's a little odd that Christina and Will are with Zeke, but I can only assume that she didn't know where to find Tris and asked for his help. Christina's cheeks are streaked with tears and her eyes are red and swollen.

"Come on," she says. "The Chasm. It's Al." A leaden feeling settles into me, the weight of dread. Tris's eyes are wide in horror as I pull on a shirt and shoes and we run after Christina, down the halls, down the paths with no guardrails, through the pit to the Chasm.

Two men grunt as they pull something heavy up with ropes. A huge dark shape rolls over the ledge, landing on the Pit floor with a loud thump. Christina clings to Will, sobbing into his shoulder; I wrap an arm around Tris but she stands limp and numb.

The men turn the body over, and Al's head flops to the side. His eyes are open, lifeless. This kind of thing happens fairly often in Dauntless. I've seen the open eyes of the dead before. How did I never notice, never realize, that Al's eyes these last couple of weeks already looked dead, even when he was alive? They don't look much different to me now than the last time I saw him.

The rest of his face looks different, though. His lips are blue and his face is bloated and ashen from the cold water. Tris stares with wide, frozen eyes, her breathing becoming ragged, and I pull her into my chest.

"One of the initiates," someone behind us says. "What happened?"

"Same thing that happens every year," a different voice responds. "He pitched himself over the ledge."

"Don't be so morbid. Could have been an accident."

"They found him in the middle of the chasm. You think he tripped over his shoelace and… whoopsies, just stumbled fifteen feet forward?"

Tris hears them too. Her body shakes in silent sobs and she begins to collapse to the floor. I catch her, pulling her up, holding her the way I did after he tried to throw her into the chasm. "Tris, let me take you back to the apartment," I murmur in her ear. She nods through her sobs, keeping her face hidden in my shirt.

Someone brings out a large black body bag, but it will be too small. Al was a very large person. I press Tris's head into my chest to keep her from looking any more and turn, leaving the heartbreaking scene behind.

"It's my fault," Tris whispers hoarsely. "I should have forgiven him." It's the first thing she has said since we left the Pit. The last hour has consisted of Tris in my arms on my bed in Mom's apartment, at first sobbing, eventually silently staring at the wall, while I run my hands over her back and through her hair in an effort to soothe her.

I shake my head. "It is not your fault. He was depressed. You saw that the other day. We both know he wasn't going to make it into Dauntless and Al knew it, too. It's why he attacked you and it's a lot of why he jumped."

She shakes her head. "No, if I had forgiven him… if I had forgiven him, he wouldn't have done it."

"You don't know that." The funeral will be this afternoon. Every time someone makes the big jump, it's the same speech. Eric will stand in front of the faction and go on about how brave and courageous Al was, how he's exploring the unknown, blah blah blah and everyone will celebrate and use it as an excuse to get totally wasted. To be honest, I really wouldn't mind getting totally wasted tonight after what I just saw, either. "What do the Abnegation teach about suicide?" I have a feeling it isn't anything like how the Dauntless treat the matter.

"Basically, it's the most selfish thing you could ever do. Selfish and cowardly."

I am quiet for a while. Moments like this, maybe Tris would be better off with Four. He knows how she was raised, would know how to bridge the gap between what she was raised to believe and what reaction she will be surrounded with. He has already had to do that for himself. I feel like I'm fumbling around blind. Maybe I can just ask her questions and see where it goes from there.

"What would your parents say about Al's death?" I ask.

"That I should have forgiven him," she whispers. I look down at her to see silent tears streaming down her cheeks and I swear my heart literally hurts. "I'm so selfish."

"No, you're not, Tris." I sigh. "You're human. You were betrayed by a friend. He asked you to forgive him like half a day after he tried to kill you. There is nothing wrong with not being able to forgive him right away. Besides…" I tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear and she looks up, into my eyes. "Forgiveness, I think, is more something we have to do for ourselves. Al couldn't forgive himself. He didn't even give himself time to. You'll forgive him, when you're ready to. You will need to do that for your own heart." She nods slightly. "Tris, what else would your parents say? I don't think they'd be placing blame on you right now."

She spends several minutes silently contemplating my question. I'm almost startled when she finally answers me. "I think they would say that everyone could have done more. That it's okay to feel guilty. And that we can use that guilt to remind us to do better next time."

I nod slowly. "So you can learn from it and someday maybe you can help save someone else, yeah? Al would have been factionless in a week. I think he would have jumped rather than live factionless anyway. You couldn't have stopped it."

"I just feel so selfish."

I make sure she's looking at me before I speak again. I want her to understand that I mean this. She is much too hard on herself. I wish more than almost anything that she could see how amazing she is. "You, Tris Prior, are the least selfish person I know. Maybe you didn't always think to do little dumb things like carrying a bag of groceries for someone or giving up your seat on the bus. So what? You're selfless when it matters. You let Four throw knives at you so Al wouldn't have to. You stood in front of Marcus's belt in Four's fear landscape, and I know that had to hurt like hell. You're sitting here beating yourself up for someone else's guilt after he literally tried to kill you. Tris. You're selfless, smart, brave, kind, strong… you're still human. Just like everyone else. Don't fault yourself for that. I don't. I love every bit of you."

Oh shit. Tris freezes. I didn't mean to say that. Not yet! I search her face, cringing inside. What if she totally gets scared and freaks out and leaves?! "I didn't mean to say that, Tris. I meant it, but I didn't mean to say it. It just slipped out. You don't have to say it back. Please don't get freaked out." I squeeze my eyes shut, maybe that will block all this out and I can pretend it didn't happen.

Tris relaxes against me. "I'm not going anywhere, Uriah."

I talked Tris into skipping the funeral. After talking to her about Al's death this morning, I knew that hearing Eric's speech would only make her more upset. Instead, we decided that with everyone at the funeral, this would be a good time to hide that flash drive the Priors gave us with the file on it.

We wrapped it several times in plastic and found some gray duct tape, so that we wouldn't be too limited in possible hiding spots. Tris and I are holding hands as we walk to the track. Eric should be beginning his speech any minute now. Something about coming out to the track with her reminds me of the night we played capture the flag, and we climbed the ferris wheel. She was so smart and so brave. Not many people would climb so high up that old thing.

"Hey!" This is the most enthusiastic I've probably sounded in a couple days now with everything that's been going on, but I'm pretty excited about the idea that just popped into my head. "Let's go to Navy Pier. Back to the Ferris Wheel. Remember kissing up near the top of the ferris wheel?" I nudge her arm with my elbow and she smiles at me for the first time all day.

"That sounds fun." I can see that she's a little confused and nervous though.

I lean down to her ear and whisper. "Amity is the first place they'd expect us to hide something like this. We can hide the flash drive on the Ferris wheel."

I laugh at the wide grin she flashes me now. "Come on, let's hurry up before we miss the train." I scoop her up and run with her in my arms, I know she's still a little sore from the other night at the Chasm.

We make the train with a few minutes to spare. I jump on first, then Tris, catching her toe on the doorway and stumbling into me. I pull her against me and slide down the wall of the boxcar until I'm sitting on the floor with Tris in my lap.

Our eyes meet, and a moment later her lips crash into mine. My hand presses against the small of her back, drawing her closer, and Tris threads her fingers through my hair. Tris pulls away and I stick out my bottom lip. Tris laughs as she changes positions. She settles into my lap again but this time, straddling my waist and I waste no time in pulling her against me once again, kissing her hungrily. I slowly unzip her hoodie as I kiss down her neck, uncovering her tattoo so I can press a kiss to each raven on her collarbone.

Tris sighs and my hands find her hips, grazing over her butt, my fingers squeezing her on both sides as she grinds against me. I graze my hands up her sides under her shirt, my palms grazing the sides of her lace-covered breasts. She pulls away, breathing deeply, and rests her forehead against mine with her eyes closed.

"Is there something wrong with me?" she asks suddenly. "That I'm not crying?" I know what she means: she feels like she should be thinking only of Al, crying over the loss, and instead she is spending the afternoon with me, having fun.

"Have you had many people close to you die, Tris?"

She shakes her head. I continue, "In Dauntless, we do dangerous things, and we're reckless. People die. When they do, we drink and do more reckless things and find ways for the good side of life to overshadow the grief." I shrug. "I guess it just means you're Dauntless."

After a pause, she nods. "We need to get off the train soon."

Tris stands and we both straighten our clothes and pat down our hair. Tris smirks at me. "Nice hair."

"Why, thanks. My girlfriend styled it for me. It's the 'making out in an open train car' look." I stand behind Tris at the open door of the train car, both of us holding the handles in each hand, feeling the wind whip at our faces. "Time to jump!" I call into her ear so she can hear me over the rumbling of the train and howling of the wind, then I let go of the handles and back up to give her space.

Tris jumps and I follow, both of us landing gracefully on our feet. "Lead the way." I tangle my fingers with hers and lead her the same route we took a few weeks ago for capture the flag.

The walk is quiet and peaceful. The trees thin as we near the marsh. "Sometimes when I was younger, when no one was looking, I used to climb this big oak tree at the edge of the meadow in Abnegation. I would just sit up high in the branches where I could see a long ways but no one could notice me," Tris says, breaking the silence. I can picture a tiny Tris scurrying up a tree like a little monkey. Her admission doesn't surprise me at all- she's always been Dauntless, I'm sure of it.

"I broke my arm once falling out of a tree," I say. "I used to climb the ones by the lower levels school but I guess I may not have been as good a climber as you. Or I just took bigger risks. I can totally imagine you doing that, though." Tris runs her thumb back and forth on my palm. The ferris wheel is coming into view. "I guess since your mom was Dauntless, it makes sense that you've always been kind of Dauntless, too, huh?" I grin at her. "I always knew you were different than the other Stiffs. It's kind of odd that no one seemed to notice that but me."

"My mom did, I think," Tris replies. I smile and nod in agreement. I think her mom probably always did. She didn't seem surprised by Tris transferring, and of course, she probably gets it from her mom anyway. Then she grins at me. "So you noticed me, huh?"

"You weren't as good at blending in as you thought, Trissy," I tease. "Well, here we are." The Ferris wheel and carousel aren't far now. Tris drops my hand.

"Race you!" Tris yells as she breaks into a sprint, giving herself a totally unfair head start.

"Hey!" I yell as I chase after her. "You're gonna pay for that, Prior!"

No matter how hard I run, I can't quite catch up to her. We reach the carousel and she slows up so I grab her, throwing her over my shoulder. Her legs are in my left arm with her waist bent on my shoulder, her head upside down, and I carry her this way to the ferris wheel. She pounds on my back with her fists and tries to kick her legs, but she's giggling the whole time. I am quite pleased with myself; instead of crying and being angry about Eric's speech like she might have been, I actually got her to giggle. I'm glad I talked her into skipping it.

I dump her unceremoniously into the bottom carriage of the ferris wheel and slide in next to her. "So, you ready to climb this thing again? Last time was pretty scary…" I grin, but actually, it was pretty scary when she almost fell. I tease her anyway. "You sure you're Dauntless enough for this?"

"I could ask you the same thing," she quips. "I mean, if you think I might not be Dauntless enough for this, you should be worrying a little more about yourself there, Amity."

I feign shock. "I cannot believe you just used that against me! Get your ass up there, Nose," I fire back, teasing her about her Erudite aptitude.

This time up the ferris wheel, maybe it being daylight makes us more confident, we chatter and tease each other all the way up to the platform. "How high do you think we need to go?" Tris asks, glancing up. The ladder seems fine, but when we climbed the wheel itself last time, that was when one of the bars broke and fell and Tris wasn't tall enough to reach the next foothold.

I squint upward. Maybe one of the carriages isn't even the best place for it. If someone got the wheel turned on, they could easily check all of them in a short time. "What if we go about halfway out and tape it to one of these beams?" I suggest. "Makes it a lot harder to get to and to see, I think. It would never be very near you from the platform or the ground. The flash drive is small and thin, it would just take a small piece of duct tape, right?"

"Brilliant," Tris says. "You shoulda been Erudite, Uri." I scoff. I know I'm not smart. I just get lucky sometimes, when one of my random ideas turns out to be good.

"Stop, you're gonna give me a big head."

"You already have a big head." Tris grins and kisses me, pulling away too soon. "Well, it was your idea, you wanna climb up and find a bar to put it on? Didn't go so well for me up there last time," she laughs.

"Yeah, yeah, fine. I'll be the one risking my life this time, but next time it's all you, Pansycake," I joke.

The climb is a lot less fun by myself. Once I get about halfway out from the center, I slide along a support across to the opposite side to make it a little harder to get to. The flash drive is small and already wrapped tightly in several layers of plastic. Tearing off a strip of duct tape, I attach it to the metal pole, then add two more pieces wrapping all the way around the pole to make sure it doesn't fall off. It doesn't stand out much from the surface of the support pole; From a distance, it should be hard to notice.

Making it back to the platform without any problems this time, Tris and I sit, silently watching the sunset. Tris leans into my side but faces me, cupping my chin in her cheek and turning my head to face hers. "Uriah," she whispers. "I love you, too."

Less than a week from now, we will be Dauntless members. In less than a week, we may have stopped a war, or we may have failed and be in the midst of one. In less than a week, one of us may have lost the other. But tonight, we are here where it is safe and quiet, where it is just us, and everything is perfect.