Holy crap! What a response! I certainly wasn't expecting that. But it brings me joy that I could get you all riled up for a few days! Thank you, thank you for all the wonder (and frustrated!) comments! Hopefully this continues to meet expectations. The story will be ending soon; I just don't know how soon. Fewer than 10 chapters, probably. Until then, enjoy!

xXx

The first thing I realize is I have no air. The second thing I realize is that everything is black. My eyes pop open and my mouth drops of its own accord and my lungs suck in air. It's not me doing that. The things a body does on its own when it's about to die.

Die.

I lurch up, blinking, gasping for air. My brain is a blank. I don't even know who I am until it starts flooding in piece by piece as my mind wakes up. As if from hibernation. Death.

Death.

What the hell happened?

Am I dead?

I lift an arm up and a sheet slips over me and falls to my lap. I'm still clothed. Clothed in what? Dauntless regs. I'm in Dauntless clothes. I flip the sheet off of me. My boots are still on. What was I doing? Why am I on a metal table?

I look around the room and subdued light surrounds me, as does dozens of small metal doors. Maybe only wide enough each to fit . . . the table I'm on. I notice the temperature. How cool it is in here. I swing my legs over the side of the table and press my booted feet to the ground. My knees buckle under my weight and I press my hands into the table to hold myself up.

When the jelly passes and I feel like my legs can support me again and I let up on my arms and pull myself upright. Walking still feels strange, like I haven't used my legs in a while, and I have to mentally prepare myself for each step. One foot after another I walk my way to the wall of metal doors and press my hand to one.

Ice cold.

A notion of dread fills my gut as I reach for the handle, as if I know exactly what's going to be behind that door but that knowledge is just out of reach. I wrap my fingers around the handle and yank. The seal around the door breaks as I pull and a gush of cold air assaults me as I open the door wide.

I was right. A metal table is in there, but this one has a lumpy sheet on it. I pull the table out and the mounds under the sheet look vaguely human-shaped. I can pick out a nose, a head. Shoulders.

I reach out and take the edge of the sheet, slowly pulling it down the head of the person on the slab. I squint my eyes, afraid of what I might find. But when I reveal the face it's intact. I stop at the neck and stare at the cold, dead face on the table. There's something familiar in that face that I just can't put my finger on.

Then it hits me. All of a sudden. As if a bucket of ice water was just tossed on me.

She was one of the initiates I trained. One of the few who didn't make the cut. But they were supposed to be booted into Factionless territory. What's she doing dead on a slab?

And what I'm I doing in a morgue?

My heart thuds in my chest and I desperately try to control my breathing. Panic creeps up quickly and I have to beat it back down. What the hell happened? Why am I in the Dauntless morgue?

I scramble to grab onto my last memory. What was the last thing I remember? I press my hand to my neck and rub the skin. Eric choking me awake because he thought I was on the heist. That he saw me. Of course he did and of course I denied it. He didn't want me to lie to him, but how could I not? How could I tell Jeanine's perfect pet what I was doing? I don't even know if I really trusted him.

I bring my hand up to rub my forehead and jerk it back when something crusted scratches against my hand. I look at what's flaking on my fingers and at first I don't understand. Then I do: blood. Dried blood. I press my fingers to my forehead again and wince as I touch the wound. It's not deep, but it's raw and bloody and already scabbed? No, that can't be possible.

My eyes scan the room looking for something reflective. All the metal doors are brushed and the windows are all tempered. Something catches my eye on a nearby sink and I scuttle over to it, grabbing the metallic container and bringing it up to my face. Its reflection is curved, spreading my face out, but I can get an idea of what I'm looking at, and it almost looks like a bullet wound. I poke at the wound, press my fingers into the bone of my forehead. It certainly looks like a bullet wound, but it's only skin deep.

What the—

Eric.

Eric shot me.

Eric shot me after he spilled his guts about me to Jeanine. That fucking dickhead.

Wait.

Eric shot me, but I'm not dead.

I'm not, right?

I pat my body down. I feel myself. I feel present. I feel the wound in my face. I feel the cold in the air. I turn back to the table I crawled off of, half-expecting to see my body still under the sheet and I'm really standing on another plane of existence. But it's empty. I'm here. Standing up. Wondering how the hell I got shot yet I'm still alive. It couldn't have been a simulation dart. That would have been obvious immediately.

What the hell?

"I told you I had to make it look real. Jeanine skinning me alive wouldn't have gotten us anywhere."

Eric?

I turn toward the door and listen to footsteps come closer.

"How can we trust you? You've been in Jeanine's pocket since we were initiates."

Four? I have the worst headache right now. I step closer to the door. They certainly are not being quiet walking here.

"So has Madeline," Eric responds.

"Can we discuss this after we get her body out of here? Dauntless aren't the brightest bunch but they're going to notice the dead body of enemy number one missing."

Bennie? Now it's a full blown migraine.

I take another step toward the door and rear back as it comes flying open, nearly smacking me in the face. Eric, Four, and Bennie stand in the doorway staring at me while I stand in the morgue staring at them with a hole-shaped scratch on my face.

My head feels like it's going to explode.

I squint against the pain, double over, grab a waste paper basket, and proceed to eject my breakfast.

"Good to see you too, Madeline," Eric says, his voice sounding like an echo with my head in a metal bucket.

I spit the rest of the bile out and pull my head out. Heat swims around my ears, heating up my mouth, and I look back and forth between the three of them, my eyes narrowed.

"Glad to see you come around," Four says and I look toward him. "That serum's been known to cause muscle weakness. People have had trouble just sitting up after getting injected."

I look back over to Eric and he has this sardonic smirk on his face. Not like the mask, but something jocular. Like we're flinging jokes at each other. So I step up to him and fling my fist at his jaw, sending him reeling back. He grabs his face and laughs, rubbing his jaw.

"I may have deserved that," he says with a chuckle.

"You shot me, asshole," I say. "Not shot at. Shot." I point to my forehead. "In the head."

"Bo, it had to look real. It was the only way we were getting you out of there," Bennie says.

I look between the three of them. "We?"

"We'll explain later. We have to get out of here. Now," Eric says as he tries to grab my arm to lead me out of the room but I lurch away. When I do he rolls his eyes and clenches his teeth.

"You can trust him, Bo."

I turn to look at Bennie, incredulity smeared across my face. "You just warned me about staying away from him."

Bennie shoots a look to Eric before looking back at me. "I was wrong. Now let's go."

I look back to Eric and he holds my gaze, but I don't know what it means. The paranoid part of me says this is all a trick. But the rational part of me says Eric just helped me fake my own death. He can't really be all that bad.

Four leads the way out, Bennie close behind. Eric doesn't grab for my arm again, but he motions me in front of him and I go, braving my back to him. Instead of stabbing it he presses his fingers lightly into the small of my back and sparks light up my skin, warm up my spine. In that nanosecond of touch I feel safer than I've ever felt. And I feel so much freer.

My god, I feel light as air as I run down the corridor after Four and Bennie. Like with just a step I could fly. I'm finally free. The burden I've been carrying has been lifted and now it's just me. Jeanine and Max and Kai all think I'm dead. I can literally do anything now without worrying someone will find out.

Until Dauntless realizes their short a corpse.

We dash out a back door and run straight for the wastes, the winter wind biting into my skin. I'm covered, but not enough, and the longer we run the number my legs get, the more frozen my hands become. We stop at an alley tucked between two crumbling buildings that used to reach toward the sky, and waiting for us is a pile of clothes. Warm clothes. To the touch warm. When me, Bennie, and Four take what's on the pile I see a small metal container with glowing embers inside. Someone left us heated clothes.

Then I realize there's nothing for Eric. I turn around to him and frown, the moonlight lighting up his face. His calm face. Like this is just another day at Dauntless.

"You got it?" Bennie asks, but I keep my eyes on his face. I don't know what she's talking about.

Eric nods. "I'll take care of it." He looks down at me and this time when he puts his hands on my arms I don't pull away. "I'll see you in a couple of days."

"What are you taking care of?" The duh moment makes its way to my brain as the words leave my mouth. The empty slab I just left behind. "What are you taking care of it with?" I amend, my eyes narrowing.

"I'll make do," he says with a humorless smile. "Once clean-up is done I'll come back out." He shakes his head and this time when he smiles he's amused. "What the fuck have I done?"

I smile back, pride swelling within me. Pride and a whole hell of a lot of questions. "You made the difficult decision. The right one."

"I hope so," he says as he grabs my face and plants a kiss on my lips.

I grab his face in return, running my thumbs along his jawline, and savor this moment.

"We don't have all night," Four mutters and Eric and I break apart.

"Eat shit, Four," Eric responds, his face deadpan.

Good to know whatever just happened with me those two are still at each others' throats. Eric gives me one last look before he runs back toward Dauntless headquarters, leaving me with Bennie and Four. I turn to them and glare at them both.

"Okay. Spill. What the fuck just happened?"

Bennie grabs the sleeve of my overstuffed jacket and guides me along the mottled street. We amble along, dodging chunks of cement and jagged pieces of rebar along the way. Part of me wants to keep running just to stay warm. The other part of me has a feeling we're walking for a reason and I hate running in the cold. So I just keep my mouth shut and wait for Bennie to fill in the gaps.

"Now's as good a time as any," Bennie says with a sigh.

"We'll be walking for a while," Four adds. "Might as well."

Fabric swishes as Bennie shrugs and for a second it's just our feet crunching over debris as we walk. When she finally speaks it's with resigned determination.

"Four ran into Eric while he was transporting you. Caught him in the hallway. Eric told him to come with him."

I look over to Four and his face is barely visible in the dark. "And you listened?"

A laugh sounding more like a cough escapes his throat. "Not a chance."

"After they bitch at each other Eric throws back the sheet to show your face," Bennie says

"You looked dead. You were gray. You had a bullet hole in your forehead," Four adds.

I poke at my sore skin. "Still do."

"Then Eric says you're going to wake up. That it wasn't an actual bullet but more like a heavy duty tranq."

"I'll eat my boot if you believed him," I say and I see the shadow of Four shakes his head.

"No."

"So how did you end up going along with it?"

"Eric threatens him," Bennie says. "Eric knew it was Four he was fighting on the train.

"The danger of being in Dauntless. You learn other people's fighting techniques. I'm sure Eric would have known you with a single punch."

"Absolutely," I say.

"He said he'd haul me in if I didn't help and that if you ended up actually dying he'd kill me."

I step over a downed lamp post. "Was is getting caught or getting killed that did it?"

Four snorts. "Eric couldn't kill me if he tried."

I highly doubt that, but I'll give Four his moment.

"And you?" I ask Bennie. "How'd you get roped into all of this?"

I see her silhouette nod toward Four. "He came and got me."

I look between them. "How long have you two known about each other?"

"A while," they say in unison.

"Maybe I was wrong about Eric," Bennie says and I think back to our conversation. I pull my jacket tighter around me, trying to block out the bitter chill trying to slither under my skin. "Maybe there's some human left in him after all."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Four says. "This could all be a rouse."

"Yeah," I say, acquiescing to that thought. "It could be. But if it really was I'd be dead. No questions about it."

"She's right," Bennie says and I stand a little straighter with her support. "The Eric we know would have put a real bullet in her head without a second thought."

I see Four nod in my direction. "Maybe that's a tracking device." He must be talking about my head wound.

"You sound like me," I say, a hint of amusement in my tone. "Paranoid about everything. You've been in hiding for too long."

"I'm not ready to blow my cover just yet," Four retorts and I hear the seriousness in his voice.

"So now what?" I say as a familiar shadowed structure rises up in front of us. I can't even articulate how long we've been walking. It feels like forever.

"Now things get fun," Bennie says and I can hear the smile in her words.

I look ahead at the structure, at the Factionless headquarters, and a weight settles back on my shoulders. I just ditched one ice queen for another. Evelyn's face looms in my memory and I silently curse myself. I was free for our walk here. Now I'm walking into more of the same, just under a different flag. I wonder how different Evelyn actually is from Jeanine. What worries me, though, is how similar she is.