A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! Thank you also to my wonderful beta reader, Rosalie, and to BK2U, who has kindly agreed to help with the review process too, since my schedule can be more than a little difficult to accommodate. I really appreciate the help from both of you!
"Divergent" Chapters 29 & 30 – Final Exams
It's a mystery to me how the population of Dauntless can possibly expand so much on initiation day. People fill the Pit and the pathways surrounding it, flooding through the dining hall and the Pire in such numbers that it's virtually impossible to move without being tripped or rammed into or knocked off a narrow path.
I have to assume my most intimidating instructor presence and bark, "Out of the way!" periodically simply to get lunch and then navigate to the Fear Landscape room afterwards. Almost everyone I pass is drunk.
My official role today is minimal, since the leaders will be the ones who observe the landscapes, but I still arrive early and set everything up. They'll consider it to be beneath them to do that, and by doing it myself, I can make sure it's done right. And that Eric doesn't somehow mess with the system.
Lauren arrives next, looking almost nervous. I wonder if she has any particular initiates she's worried about, but it's too loud for discussion, so we just exchange nods and wait.
The leaders begin trickling in ten minutes later. Not surprisingly, Eric is the first of them. He gives me a malicious smile before making a show of taking his seat in one of the observation chairs and beginning to hook himself up to the computers. It's his way of proclaiming that he's more important than I am.
The crowd quiets a little when Max arrives, toting a box in his hand. "Four, Lauren," he says loudly enough to be heard over the remaining noise, "I have something for you."
As we look at him curiously, he opens the box to reveal a set of syringes that are filled with an orange-brown fluid. It's not the right color for the landscapes.
"We've had a problem with members going missing," he states, "so we're injecting everyone with a tracking device."
Something freezes inside me, and I can't help but think this must be related to the upcoming war. Do they know that I discovered their plans, or that I warned Tris? Are they trying to track my whereabouts to see if I go to Abnegation?
"I'm not worried about getting lost," I tell him coldly.
He gives an irritated grunt. "It's standard procedure. We're injecting everyone, thanks to your initiate – you know, the one who wandered off to Erudite. We can't lose anyone else like that."
"That seems like an absurd overreaction," I state flatly, but I can feel the tension increasing even more inside me at the mention of Tris.
"Oh, come now, Four," a voice murmurs smoothly beside me, and suddenly Maria's hand is on my arm. With all the noise, I didn't even hear her approach.
She gives me the false smile she always does, and I can feel my stomach turning. "How are we supposed to get our newest members to comply if their trainers don't?" she asks, as if it's the most reasonable question in the world.
"That's your problem," I snap. It's a bad idea to speak that disrespectfully to a senior leader, but I can't help it. There are few people I distrust more than Maria, and her presence makes me even more desperate to find a way out of this.
For the first time since I've met her, Maria's face loses its seductive mask, and I see anger flash behind her eyes. "It's a direct order," she hisses. And I know I have to either obey or risk being kicked out of Dauntless.
For several long seconds, I debate taking that chance anyway, but then a movement draws my attention from across the room, and I find myself looking at Eric. He's watching me with a smirk on his face – one that reminds me of our last conversation…and of how much danger he still poses to Tris.
If I get myself in trouble with the leaders, I'll only be increasing that danger.
"Fine," I snarl, turning back to Max. I don't want to look at Maria any longer. "But for the record, this is stupid."
The needle pinches sharply as it goes into the side of my neck, but that isn't what bothers me. Instead, it's the way Max meets Maria's gaze in the moment before he injects me, and the sour expression on his face as he does it. I'm not sure if he's irritated with her or me, but there's something about this that he doesn't like.
Whatever it is passes quickly, and Max injects Lauren without further comment. Then, he and Maria take their seats by Eric, and we resume waiting. I try not to think about what just happened – and how much harder it will be to warn the Abnegation now that the leaders can track my every movement. Maybe I can find a way to disable its functionality….
The Dauntless-born initiates begin filtering into the room, and I try to focus on them. We're almost ready to begin.
Uriah gives me a smile as he comes in, and I nod in return, watching as he takes one of the last few seats. When Marlene joins him, I realize they're all here now. Lauren obviously realizes it too, since she's already moving toward them.
The crowd quiets further as she speaks, explaining how the test works and the order in which each person will be called. And then the first initiate enters the landscape room, and I turn my attention to the screens.
It's slow watching them complete their landscapes. Very little is visible from the outside, so all I can really do is track each initiate's number of fears and total time. And there aren't many surprises with those, since they tend to follow the ranking order. Still, it's better to watch that than to think about the war, so I do.
It also helps to see that members in the Pire are receiving the same type of injection that Max gave me. Apparently, I wasn't being singled out after all.
Eventually, the transfers start to arrive, and I watch them take their seats. They make a variety of nervous movements as they alternate between staring at the screens and trying to ignore them.
The last one in the door is Tris, and my heart jumps when I see her. But I keep my expression neutral, and she in turn does a good job of ignoring me. There are no empty seats at this point, so she takes up a standing position near the wall.
"Hey, Tris!" Uriah calls loudly, catching my attention as well as hers. When I turn to him, I see he's patting his leg. "You can sit on my lap, if you want."
A surge of jealousy flares through me, startling me with its intensity, and I have a hard time not letting any reaction show.
"Tempting," Tris calls back with a grin, but it's obvious she's joking, and I relax a little. "It's fine. I like to stand."
At that moment, Marlene finishes her test, and the leaders rise to congratulate her. The transfers won't start yet – not until the remaining Dauntless-born are done – but I take this opportunity to speak to them anyway.
"Transfers," I call loudly, "the order in which you go through the final test was taken from your rankings as they now stand. So Drew will go first, and Tris will go last."
I meet her eyes briefly as I say her name. She looks calm and collected, at least compared to the others, and I have no doubt she will do well. Still, I wish I could talk to her – or better yet, hold her hand – while she waits. But instead I continue to stand by myself, watching the screens.
Uriah and Lynn finish their tests, both with very good times, and I feel my muscles unclench a bit with the reassurance that my friends' siblings have both made it into Dauntless. It's Drew's turn next, and he looks downright petrified as he stumbles forward. I'm not sure if that should bother me or not, but my eyes turn automatically to Tris with the thought. I meet her gaze for only a second before watching my last-place initiate struggle through his landscape. I swear it takes him hours.
The others aren't that much better, going one by one through their worst fears. As with the Dauntless-born initiates, I can recognize some of the obstacles from the simulations, but not all of them.
Nervous energy starts running through me when Peter enters the landscape, since I know that Tris is next. But Peter takes considerably longer than I expected. His per-obstacle time is good, but he faces a full twenty fears one after another. I recognize some of them from his simulations – being attacked by cigarettes and then by a factionless man with a knife – but others are new. Not that I really care.
When he's finally done, Eric steps forward with the last syringe.
"Tris," he calls in his cold voice, and I watch as she crosses the room and lets him inject the serum into her neck. I try not to shudder at the sight of him touching her.
"Ready?" he asks, and then she's heading into the room.
Her first fear is easy to recognize: the crows. Judging by her movements, she finds a gun in the simulation and shoots them down one after another until the landscape moves on. It doesn't take long.
The next obstacle sends a spike of cold terror through my stomach, because it's the one I had to delete during stage two. The one that showed her Divergence. I can see her pressing her hands against walls that are invisible to me, and then kicking them. It takes a few tries before the tank must burst open, as it did the last time. But it's okay that she did it here – she's allowed to manipulate the landscape, unlike the regular simulations.
I can't tell what the next obstacle is, so I assume it must be new. She drops and flails and drags herself across the floor before finally regaining her feet and running. But even though it's a fear she's never faced before, her time in beating it is still excellent.
Next comes Peter burning her on a pole high above the ground. That simulation was particularly difficult to watch during stage two, but this time it's clear that Tris has already come up with a strategy to beat it, because she finishes quickly, ending it with a wide smile.
Another new obstacle follows that, and this time, Tris struggles. I can't tell what's happening, but she screams at one point, and the tension that runs through me in response is somewhat unnerving. It reminds me too much of how I felt by the chasm.
Her time on this fear is the longest so far, though still well within the "good" range. I breathe a sigh of relief when she escapes, only to watch as she enters another unknown obstacle. This one seems different, though – she looks more confused than scared.
It's difficult to interpret her movements, but another flare of jealousy goes through me when she moves her lips as if she's kissing someone. What the hell? Maybe I'm interpreting it wrong, but given the way she smiles next, and the way the leaders suddenly start laughing, I don't think I am. Before I can decide or can figure out just what's happening, she's moved on to the next obstacle, and I force myself to continue, too. This isn't the time to dwell on who she might have been kissing, if that's even what really happened.
The next one is easy to recognize, since I've seen it twice. She's being forced to shoot her family. It's her worst fear, and I watch tensely, waiting for her to face it enough to pull the trigger. But she apparently finds another solution, because she never fires. I wonder what she did instead.
The wonder doesn't last long, because when that obstacle ends, the test does as well. I can't help the smile that curves my mouth. Tris only has seven fears, and her total time was amazing – easily the lowest of the initiates, and possibly a new record. There's no doubt she just made it into Dauntless.
A/N: There aren't many chapters left within "Divergent." As a reminder, I'm going to continue filling in the blanks until I reach the chapters that are currently in Part 2 of this story. Then, I'll revise those and move them to here (and will delete Part 2 once it's empty). After that, I'll probably add the first ten chapters of "Insurgent" here, though I don't plan to go beyond that, since I feel like Wee Kraken's "Killing Four" story works well for the rest of "Insurgent." If you haven't read that story yet, please check it out; it's well worth the time.
Anyway, please take a moment to review this chapter. Reviews motivate me to find the time to write, despite a crazy schedule, and they always make my day! :-)
