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Her eyes lock to mine, and her features become more and more familiar. I don't want to shoot this girl.

"Tobias," she says. "It's me."

She steps right into me, wrapping me in a hug. My body tenses as I absorb the hug and I feel like I've felt this before, but I want her off. She's my enemy- right?

My fingers wrap tightly around her shoulders, and she yelps. I look at her again and memories flood into my mind. I know her. She hit the net first. She came from Abnegation. She almost died. I saved her. She kissed me in the chasm. I was in her fear landscape.

"Tris," I say. I kiss her and pick her up easily. I hold her body against mine, my hands grabbing at her back. I can't believe I almost lost her. That I almost killed her. I hold her for a moment, keeping my arms folded around her.

I put her down carefully and look at her in disbelief. I run my fingers lightly over her every feature until I've touched her whole face.

I stop myself from crying out- tears of sadness, relief, agony, happiness- all mix and well up in my eyes. Her voice brought me back. What if it hadn't?
She hugs me again and cries, her face pressed into my shoulder. I can tell that they are both relief and pain and I remember her shoulder and the shot that hit it- how I just beat her up. Her legs go limp under her, but I don't care, and I hold her. She was my strength so now I can be hers.

"How did you do it?" she asks.

"I don't know," I say. "I just heard your voice."

She stays against me for a bit before pulling away. She wipes her tears and looks at the screens. I stand in awe. I look at the computer. How could something like a tiny computer control a whole mindless army? Then it occurs to me.

"Was I running the simulation?" I ask her- but I think I know the answer.

"I don't know if you were running it so much as monitoring it," she says. "It's already complete. I have no idea how, but Jeanine made it so it could work on its own.
I shake my head in astonishment. "It's… incredible. Terrible, evil…but incredible."

Tris looks to one of the screens and I follow her gaze. Three men stand together on the first floor. They stand close together, encircled in a ring of armed Dauntless- programmed to kill.

"Tobias," she says, tense. "Now!"

I sprint to the computer, and begin tapping the screen. The information comes easily to me. Tris stares at the screen. The codes make sense in my mind and I keep tapping. My fingers flit across the keys.

She gasps and I know someone's gun has gone off. I was almost done. I watch the screen. The trio in the middle move after a few moments, and Dauntless close in around them.

"Tobias," Tris says.

I touch the screen one last time and the world in the screen stops.

The arms of the Dauntless drop. Their heads shake. Their guns clatter to the floor. They shout. They shove. They fall to their knees- realizing what they have done.

Tris sits down, sighing deeply.

I shrink down to be level with the computer and begin to take the side of the case off.

"I have to get the data," I explain, "or they'll just start the simulation again."

"Got," I say after a moment. I see onscreen that our world is unraveling, and I pull my eyes away. I don't want to watch. I give the hard drive to Tris, and she stuffs it in her back pocket.

"We have to leave," she says, standing up and points to the screen. She looks so shaken I don't even know how to offer her help in any way.

"Yes, we do," I stand too and put an arm around her shoulders. "Come on."

We walk through the dark hallway. We walk around a corner and towards the elevator. Tris searches for something but I can't imagine what. On the way to into the elevator she screams and it gurgles in her throat. She turns away and vomits on a wall. She sinks to the ground and her body shakes. All this death must bother her. I don't blame her.

I watch her and she rises quickly, and doesn't look back.

We don't speak in the elevator. I think she's in a daze, her eyes blank, her face slack, her posture defeated. We step out. Sunlight hits my eyes in an almost painful way.

As soon as we walk out, the boy with my father and Peter runs to her. Tris collapses against him, clutching him close.

"Dad?" he says.

She shakes her head.

I make the connection.

This is her brother, Caleb.

The man who she saw dead and made her vomit was her father.

"Well," he says now, "he would have wanted it that way."

I walk toward her, but my eyes lift beyond them to Peter, and…my father. I stop walking. I freeze. I can't move. All I see is a belt coming to hit me- walls enclosing me as I curl up in a ball. Angry eyes. A stern, demanding jaw.

I feel him hold me in a hug- a poisonous touch to my skin. I don't return the hug- but I swallow- so hard it hurts my throat.

"Son," Marcus, my father, says, heaving a sigh. But I am not his son. I wince at the word.

"Hey," I hear Tris. She wriggles between my father and I and pushes him back firmly. "Hey. Get away from him." Her body rebounds a little into mine. I try to calm my breathing- forcing my lungs to expand and contract normally, but I feel leather tightening around my wrists anyway.

"Stay away," Tris repeats.

"Beatrice, what are you doing?" her brother asks.

"Tris," I say. My body shakes and I want to thank her.

"Not all those Erudite articles were full of lies," she says, staring him down.

"What are you talking about?" he asks calmly. "I don't know what you've been told, Beatrice, but-"

"The only reason I haven't shot you yet is because he's the one who should get to do it," she says, cutting him off. "Stay away from him or I'll decide I no longer care."

My hands slide over her arms and I squeeze- she's looking out for me. But I don't want to kill him for some reason. I've been working on kindness and now it decides to kick in.

"We have to go," I say, in a shaky voice. "the train should be here any second."

We walk to the train tracks. I try to contain my emotions within me.

"Sorry," Tris says, so only I can hear it.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," I say, grabbing her hand for stability.

"If we take the train in the opposite direction, out of the city instead of in, we can get to Amity headquarters," she says. "That's where the others went."

"What about Candor?" her brother asks. "What do you think they'll do?" No one answers as we all think. We keep standing and I look down at her. She looks like she's going to collapse on the grass at any moment, so I pick her up. Her head leans against my shoulder and her weight grows a little heavier as she allows herself to relax- but she's still pretty easy to hold.

A few moments pass and I hear the train in the distance. I set Tris down and we struggle on the train. Tris sits down and I sit between her and Marcus and Peter. I pull her in to me and we scrunch up, protecting ourselves from the world around us, and there is barely any room between us.

"My parents," she says. "They died today." She pauses. "They died for me."

I feel guilt starting from my heart them stretching out into my fingers and toes. My father had distracted me so much I had forgotten to check on her- and I didn't even know about her mother. "They loved you," I say. I think about how they were in Abnegation. "To them there was no other way to show you."

She nods, but her misty eyes don't meet mine.

"You nearly died today," I say. "I almost shot you. Why didn't you shoot me, Tris?" That question has been tugging at my mind, and I don't know how she handed the gun to me, knowing I was under a simulation.

"I couldn't do that," she says. "It would have been like shooting myself."

I feel a stab in my side that turns into a subtle warmth and spreads through my body. I lean into her so when I talk my lips stumble happily over hers.

"I have something to tell you." I say- and I do. I'm not sure when I decided this- but I know- maybe I knew all along.

"I might be in love with you." I smile a little. There's no might about it- but after what she told me and the day she's had- I don't want to alarm her. "I'm waiting until I'm sure to tell you, though."

"That's sensible of you," she says, a smile lighting up her tired eyes. "We should find some paper so you can make a list or a chart or something."

I laugh silently and my nose skims her jaw line as I kiss beneath her ear. I move my mouth next to her ear. "Maybe I'm already sure," I say, "and I just don't want to frighten you."

Now she laughs for a second. "Then you should know me better."

"Fine," I say. "Then I love you." I smile a little. I don't exactly expect her to say it back. I just wanted to tell her, and she will tell me when she's ready.

She kisses me, nice and slow. I set a hand on her knee, and she eventually pulls away. I want to kiss her again, but there are other people on this train.

She takes the hard drive from her pocket. This small piece of metal that turned a whole faction into murders. That Jeanine made to mind control a whole population. That almost made me kill the girl I'm in love with.

She turns it in her hands then grasps it close, bringing it to rest against her chest.

She leans her head on my shoulder and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. I know I won't be able to sleep for a while, but I hope she can. I hope she can for a long time because when she wakes up everything will sink in for her- the grief, the terror, the pain.

My mind shifts to how to defeat Jeanine, but I don't know how. No one does- but together we might be able to. After all, we are Dauntless.

TA-DA! so I hoped the story lived up to at least some of the expectations! Thanks so much for reading and as always, I'd love to hear your opinion! :)