25

We walk towards Abnegation headquarters- a large, two story, gray building. Tris has most of her weight on me, but she keeps moving her feet. I want to help her, I want to stop- but the guns pressed into our back disagree. We enter the building, but keep walking toward a door at the end of a plain hallway. Dauntless guard the door, but we walk in unharmed.

The door leads into an office. I'm sure that every office looks just like this one- gray walls, gray carpet, wooden desk, a computer sitting on top, two chairs facing the desk. Jeanine, leader of the Erudite, sits behind the desk in her own chair, a phone nestled between her shoulder and her ear. She looks very out of place in this office with her blue dress. She types something into the computer.

"Well, send some of them back on the train, then," she says. "It needs to be well guarded, it's the most important part- I'm not talk- I have to go." She closes the phone, her gray eyes are a dark, silvery color- and they are pointed right at Tris.

"Divergent rebels," Rex, a leader, says behind us.

"Yes," I can see that. "She removes her icy blue glasses, and folds them carefully before resting them on the desktop.

"You," she says venomously, and points at Tris, "I expected. All the trouble with your aptitude test results made me suspicious from the beginning. But you…" she shakes her head, moving her finger and gaze to me.

"You, Tobias- or should I call you Four?- managed to elude me," she says. Her tone is quiet, like she's too used to being in a library. "Everything about you checked out: test results, initiation simulations, everything. But here you are nonetheless." I think about this- I probably wasn't so easy to spot because Amar gave me my aptitude test- and was careful with me from the beginning. Unfortunately, he didn't watch after himself close enough. "Perhaps you could explain to me how that is?" I'm not going to explain to her.

"You're the genius," I say, keeping my tone calm. "Why don't you tell me?"
She smiles. "My theory is that you really do belong in Abnegation. That you're Divergence is weaker."

Her smile grows.

"Your powers of deductive reasoning are stunning," I say dryly, containing my anger. "Consider me awed."

I see Tris from the corner of my eye, tilting her head a little, looking at me by shifting her eyes more than shifting her head. I keep a steel stare on Jeanine.

"Now that your intelligence has been verified, you might want to get on with killing us." I close my eyes. "You have a lot of Abnegation leaders to murder, after all." I'm trying the only thing I can think of to save us- reverse psychology. Maybe, just maybe, if she thinks we're okay with getting killed, she won't do it.

I open my eyes and see Jeanine standing up. I feel something light about Tris's posture next to me, until she suddenly leans in hard. She's going to pass out soon, I think, and I wonder why she hasn't already. I slide an arm to circle her waist and hold her up with one arm- she's not too heavy.

"Don't be silly. There is no rush," she says, almost happily. "You are both here for an extremely important purpose. You see, it perplexed me that the Divergent were immune to the serum that I developed, so I have been working to remedy that. I thought I might have, with the last batch, but as you know, I was wrong. Luckily I have another batch to test."

"Why bother?" Tris's words sound strong and they must come from that unknown strength I've seen before.

"I have had a question since I began the Dauntless project, and it is this." She sidesteps her desk, skimming the surface with her finger. "Why are most of the Divergent weak- willed, God-fearing nobodies from Abnegation, of all factions?"

My mind flips to an image of my apartment- the words 'Fear God Alone' on my wall.

"Weak- willed," I say, an angry laugh escaping. I narrow my eyes are Jeanine. "It requires a strong will to manipulate a simulation, last time I checked. Weak- willed is mind-controlling an army because it's too hard for you to train one yourself." Jeanine is weak, not us.

"I am not a fool," says Jeanine. "A faction of intellectuals is no army. We are tired of being dominated by a bunch of self- righteous idiots who reject wealth and advancement, but we couldn't do this on our own. And your Dauntless leaders were all too happy to oblige me if I guaranteed them a place in our new, improved government."

"Improved," I say with a snort. With people like Jeanine in charge, we'd be lucky if we live.

"Yes, improved," Jeanine says, lifting her pointy nose a bit. "Improved, and working toward a world in which people will live in wealth, comfort, and prosperity."

"At whose expense?" Tris asks the question on my own mind, but her voice is slow and tired. I tighten my grip on her so she's barely standing on her own. "All that wealth…doesn't come from nowhere."

"Currently, the factionless are a drain on our resources," Jeanine says. "As is Abnegation. I am sure that once the remains of you r old faction are absorbed into the Dauntless army, Candor will cooperate and we will finally be able to get on with things."

"Get on with things," I spit out. I can't help my voice from getting louder. "Make no mistake, you will dead before the day is out, you-"

"Perhaps if you could control your temper," Jeanine says, cutting me off- probably a good thing, actually, "you would not be in this situation to begin with, Tobias."

"I'm in this situation because you put me here," I say back quickly. "The second you orchestrated an attack against innocent people." I mentally search myself for a weapon, but they took my gun, and I forgot to put my smaller gun in my pocket like I usually do when I suspect trouble. I wouldn't try to kill anyone unless it came to it, but a strategic bullet to the leg can do good to get someone out of a pinch.

"Innocent people," Jeanine lets out a nosy, annoying laugh. "I find that a little funny, coming from you. I would expect Marcus's son to understand that not all those people are innocent." She sets her pudgy frame on her desk. "Can you tell me honestly that you wouldn't be happy to discover that your father was killed in the attack?"

"No," I say, my teeth clenched. My father deserves to die, for what he did- it was evil, but Jeanine is worse. "But at least his evil didn't involve the widespread manipulation of an entire faction and the systematic murder of every political leader we have."

I stare at her, hoping she can feel the daggers that I wish were pushing into her skin. She clears her throat.

"What I was going to say," she says, "is that soon, dozens of Abnegation and their young children will be my responsibility to keep in order, and it does not bode well for me that a large number of them may be Divergent like yourselves, incapable of being controlled by the simulations." She scuttles a little to the left. "Therefore it was necessary that I develop a new form of simulation to which they are not immune. I have been forced to reassess my own assumptions. That is where you come in." She moves a bit to the right. "You are correct to say that you are strong- willed. I cannot control your will. But there are a few things I can control."

She stops her movements and turns to us. She looks at us like we're a puzzle- something to play with and figure out. Tris's head slumps to the side of my shoulder. I rub my thumb against her side.

"I can control what you see and hear," she continues. "So I created a new serum that will adjust your surroundings to manipulate your will. Thos who refuse to accept our leadership must be closely monitored." In other words- practically chained and forced to cooperate- one way or another. "You will be the first test subject, Tobias. Beatrice however…" She smiles at her. "You are too injured to be of much use to me, so your execution will occur at the conclusion of this meeting."

It feels like something in constricting my throat, my lungs. My stomach spins in circles. My jaw clenches, and tears spring to my eyes. All my muscles tense, and I hold Tris to my side- I won't let her go- I won't. I can't let her be killed- they should take me instead. They will have to kill me first. Fear, anger, terror, adrenaline- pumps through my veins instead of the blood that was there a moment ago.

Tris looks up to me with watery eyes, body a little heavier in my arm.

"No," I say, voice wavering. I shake my head. "I would rather die."

"I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice in the matter," Jeanine says. Her voice sounds candy-coated, like I'm a five year old and she's my teacher- brushing off the fact that I want to go outside and it's raining.

I can't let her go, and I have to catch Jeanine off guard. I pull my hand from Tris's side, and gather her face and some of her hair in my hands. I plant a kiss on her, slightly sloppily, but she kisses back. I feel strength entering me.

I pull away and she slumps to the wall. I lunge across the desk and force my fingers around Jeanine's neck. I start to strangle her, hot tears in my eyes. I don't worry about the guns behind me- they won't shoot me, I'm their test subject. I push my rough fingers into soft neck tissue, and I feel the airway bending, I hope it breaks.

Two Dauntless come for me, but I hold and squeeze her neck as long as I can. They pull me to the ground. My stomach presses into the ground, hands force their way against my skull, and my nose rubs carpet. Knees press hard against my shoulders.

I can't see her, but I hear Tris go in for attack now and I struggle to join her, but it's no use. I can't move and I already hear that she's been stopped.

I hear shuffling of feet and see Jeanine's shoes coming towards me. I elbow a Dauntless in the nose, but he hits me with a gun. I feel a prick in my neck, and all goes dark. That is all.

"Let him up," I hear a voice croak.

Someone gets off of me and I stand up. I look all around me. Amar stands next to me, with Shauna and Zeke. Eric is here too. We are all mad at Eric for something.

"Tobias!" Eric says in a girly voice. "Tobias!"

I don't hear anything- I walk over and begin choking Eric with one hand. I don't know why he feels so small. I'm not sure why I'm quite this angry, but I know I want him dead- I squeeze harder.

Zeke pulls me off Eric. I guess it's not his time to die yet, but I still struggle towards Eric.

I hear something about going to a control room. Yes, that is where I need to go.

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