Author's Note: Life has been crazy the past few months, but it's finally starting to calm down. I'm very happy to return to this story and I hope you'll enjoy. We have a few more chapters left until the end and I'm really excited for what's coming! I'd love to hear about any predictions you have, or anything else you'd like to see before I wrap up this story. I also want to give a special thank you to all of you who held onto this story, and for your kind messages encouraging me to come back. They mean more than you'll ever know.
It is only when I find myself alone that I can breathe again.
The dim hallway tucked behind the tattoo parlor is blessedly quiet. The exuberant celebrations in the Pit are merely a dull roar from all the way up here. I release the breath I've been holding since I stumbled out of my landscape, crumbling to the floor in a heap of sorrow. I long for Eric, for his perspective and his calming presence to help me find some way to wrap my head around this. But I know that this is my burden to bear.
There was never even a shred of doubt in my mind that my father belonged in Amity. He never spoke of his birth faction, and if his parents hadn't come each Visiting Day in blue I would never have known. When anyone spoke of my father, it was always with this quiet sort of reverence. It was as if our faction had lost far more than just another member in his death. There was no envy in it, like there would have been in any of the other factions. Simply an acknowledgement that there was something uniquely special about my father that died right along with him.
I always presumed that something special was a natural consequence of his upbringing. Perhaps it was his days in Erudite that instilled in him intellect both academic and social that helped him play the part. Now I am forced to wonder if that came from something else entirely.
Divergent was a foreign concept to me until Emily spoke of it after my test. Once I began to learn more about it, and myself, that I began to see it had always been within me. Had the very same been within my father all along? Did he love his home in Erudite as I loved mine in Amity but known, deep beneath the surface in a place untouched by fear and ego, that it was not where he belonged? Had his own initiation experience been marred by fear of discovery or, worse, death? Did he know that he was part of a dying breed with a countdown to extinction lurking in the backs of their minds? Was it this, this overwhelming terror at the prospect of exposure what drove him to—
"There you are! We were wondering where you'd run off to!" Bud's jovial voice brings that dark train of thought to a screeching halt. I whip my head around, surprised to see that he manage to extricate himself from the celebrations. His easy grin twists into a worrying frown as he spies my expressions, stepping further into the hall. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." I try my best to sound convincing, but I know that I fail when I see the look on his face. I need to pull myself together before I lose it completely, there is no time to fall apart. "I'm fine, honest."
"You don't look fine." He slides down the rocky wall until he's seated across from me, eyeing me critically. "Was it your landscape? Do you feel sick? Do I need to take you to the infirmary? Should I go get Eric?"
"No!" I burst out, trying to ignore the way my heart picks up its panicked pace at the idea of Eric seeing me in this state. "I'm fine, just a little shaken." I do my best to dampen his concern but I can tell it's not working, so I try to distract him instead. "Why aren't you down with everyone else in the Pit?"
"Forgot my lucky flask in the shop." He holds up a shiny black flask as proof, realistic-looking flames licking up the sides.
"What makes it so lucky?"
"No idea." He shrugs, unscrewing the cap to take a swig of whatever's inside. I catch a whiff of licorice that turns my stomach, wrinkling my nose as I firmly decide I will reject any offer to try a sip. "But I'll take whatever luck I can get at this point."
"Can't argue with that." I murmur, closing my eyes as I try to rest against the rocky wall behind me. No words pass between us on the subject, but it's clear Bud will not go until I seem marginally calmer so I do my best to relax. "Can I ask you something?"
"If I were an Erudite I'd tell you that you just did." I open my eyes to scowl at him, but he just grins infuriatingly in response. "But, since I am very much not a Nose, I will allow another."
"Did you know my father? Back in Amity?" Whatever he was expecting me to ask him, it was not this. He grows so still it's as if he's turned to stone and I begin to wonder if I've somehow said something wrong. When I'm about to apologize, for what I do not know, he heaves a heavy sigh and takes another swig.
"Not when he was alive, no." He frowns in apology as I still wince even after all this time, but I nod for him to continue. "I always say him in the fields during harvest, but we rarely crossed paths. I think the most interaction we had was when he dropped an apple on my head and brought me to the infirmary."
"You went to the infirmary because of an apple?" I can't stop myself from giggling at the idea and the tips of his ears turn bright red, though his relief at my lightening mood is palpable.
"It was a tall tree! Hurt like hell, too, so your father insisted I go to get it checked out. I had a nasty bruise and headaches for weeks, I'll have you know."
"Aw, poor baby." I coo mockingly and he scowls, crossing his arms as a light blush crawls up his cheeks.
"Do you want to hear the rest, or not?"
"Yes, please, I'm sorry." I try to look appropriately contrite and fail, but he doesn't seem to mind too much as he continues.
"Anyway, I only ever saw him in passing. He'd grin and ask me how my day was going, but beyond that we didn't have much interaction. When he died, though...I remember this one night, I overheard my parents talking about him. They went on and on about how it such a terrible loss, a tragedy that Amity had lost its brightest shining star. I heard them say that he had transferred and well...it was a big deal to me. I won't pretend that I knew your father well, but I couldn't imagine him ever being anywhere other than Amity. If he, the most Amity person in the whole faction, could have come from somewhere else then maybe I could actually be ok in another faction."
"Had you always known that you're Dauntless?"
"No, but I'd always known that I didn't belong in Amity. I love it, as I am sure you still do, but it wasn't the place for me. Your father gave me hope that I could find happiness somewhere else, like he did."
"And did you?" I whisper, voice tight with emotion I kept carefully contained. "Are you happy here?"
"More than I could have ever imagined." Warmth blooms in my heart, touched that my friend had been so inspired by my father to go find his own happiness. I cannot think of any better way to honour him than that. "Look, I don't know what you saw, but...you know that your father was a good man and he meant so much to so many people. Nothing you saw in your landscape can change that, ever."
For a brief, fleeting moment I consider confiding in him. The words are on the tip of my tongue, the terrible thoughts running rapid fire through my mind. Was my father Divergent? Is that why he is now dead? Was he driven mad by the fear of discovery? Will I have the same terrible fate? Have I lost my mind? Is that how I heard my father's voice in my landscape? But, I say nothing. There are more pressing matters to be dealt with before I can tackle the subject of my father and my divergence. Instead I smile, nod, and thank him for telling me.
"Come on, we should get down there." I open my mouth to argue-I'm not exactly in a celebratory mood-but my mouth snaps shut as he nods to the cameras. Though they are not pointed toward us and this is a safe place to talk, I catch his drift. "Gotta keep up appearances, right?" I nod and rise from the floor, taking his offered hand with a wicked grin.
"Eric will kill you if he sees you holding my hand, you know."
"Eric wants to kill me anyway, what's one more offense?"
There are still people swarming the Pit when we rejoin the rest of the faction, though there are fewer of them. Those who remain stand in neat, single-file lines before cases of orange-brown liquid. I tense at the sight of it, even though we've all been consuming enough anti-serum to ward it off for a week. Still, this knowledge does little to comfort me.
"Come on." Bud murmurs, dragging us over to stand in the shortest line helmed by a woman with a neon yellow mohawk. "Let's get this over with."
"Name?" She asks me when we reach the front of her line, eyes trained on the clipboard in her hands.
"Indie Jagger." She looks up at me, appraising me, before nodding and checking my name off on her list.
"Initiate. Word is you had one of the fastest times."
"It didn't feel like it." I grumble and she cracks a smile, the stud in her dimple catching the light with the action.
"It never does." She picks up a syringe and an alcohol wipe, gesturing for me to move my hair aside.
"What is this?"
"Tracking device. It's activated in you're reported missing, just a precaution. New tech from Erudite."
"Do people often go missing?"
"No, but it never hurts to prepare."
I wonder how much she knows, but I comply anyway. The serum won't effect me, but I'm still not keen on the idea of getting injected with anything else today. I wince as a deep ache spreads through my neck and all the way down to my toes, a flash of cold before it disappears. I step to the side as she injects Bud, knowing there is no way to stop this without arousing suspicion. I force myself to trust in our plan, to trust the serum will fail and so will their plan. Still, I can't stop the twinge of fear in my heart.
"Hey, where were you?" Christina asks as I take the seat beside her soon after, a half-eaten hamburger in one hand and Will's in the other. "Tris finished her landscape hours ago."
"Sorry, I needed some time to process." I say, nonchalant as I grab a patty and a bun. The Christina I met on my first day here would have pried, badgering me to reveal the inner-workings on my mind. The Christina sitting beside me now only smiles, accepting this response without question. "How was your landscape? Any surprises?"
"A few, but nothing I couldn't handle." She boasts, flexing her muscles and grinning. I giggle as I spoon on some tomato sauce, feeling better already. "Yours?"
"Fine. Some surprises, but I doubt they hurt my time too much."
"I'm sure you did well." Her tone is genuine as she says it, and I detect no envy in her expression. "I wish the leaders would hurry up and come tell us where we stand."
"I'm sure they do it on purpose." Will points out, spearing a piece of asparagus with his fork. "Builds suspense."
"Oh yes, because we've been lacking a sense of suspense lately." Tris says flatly and I snort, thinking back to the Abnegation transfer I met on day one. I could never imagine Tris being sarcastic or sporting tattoos, but I could never imagine a lot of what I would discover here.
"I remember this one year, they didn't reveal the rankings until almost midnight." Uriah's expression turns sheepish as he spies our horrified reactions, backtracking. "I'm sure they'll be much quicker than that."
"That was the year Bud transferred, wasn't it?" Lynn muses, a fond expression crossing her face.
"Oh yeah! Amar let Zeke and Shauna go zip lining after capture the flag that year."
"Yeah, and they didn't shut up about it for six months after. Do you remember when that Rollins kid got stuck halfway down…"
As I listen to the Dauntless-born trade stories and share pieces of their history with us, I take a look around the dining hall. I spy familiar faces with colourful hair and an array of piercings laughing and eating together without a care in the world. I hear the roaring echo of conversation, of arguments and jokes and lively discussions that I probably wouldn't hear anywhere else. I taste the juicy meat of the hamburger and the rich sweetness of the chocolate cake. I smell the aroma of baked confections and grilled meat, with the sharp undertone of ample amounts of alcohol. I feel warmth and love and an overwhelming sense of peace.
I feel like I'm home.
I watch the Dauntless digest the antidote that will save them from the terrible betrayal plotted by their leaders. It's a sort of Last Supper before all hell breaks loose come morning. I fear their reactions, of the possibility that many would have chosen this same course of action if they had their autonomy, but I know this changes nothing. I would still be willing to sacrifice myself to save them from themselves, if it came to it.
I observe my friends, this ragtag group of people with different personalities and origins but all ready and willing to carry out this crazy plan that might fail. I know in this moment that I cannot let anything happen to them, even if it means breaking my promise to Eric.
Suddenly, there is a commotion from the balcony above as the leaders finally enter the room. Whoops and cheers echo through the hall as members take note of their entrance and I laugh at the exhilarated thrill that shoots through my veins in response. Max steps forward first, raising his arm to silence the crowd as Eric steps up beside him. I ignore the way Christina pretends to gag and Tris smirks as he catches my eye and winks, causing my heart to do a little somersault in my chest.
"Initiates, stand." We do as he says, rising up on the benches of the table as the members around us pound their fists and cups on the table at our action. "When you cut your hand over the coals during your choosing ceremony, you pledged yourself to eradicate cowardice and fight for peace. We believe in justice, in freedom from fear, and in ordinary acts of bravery. We do not believe in comfort, in silence, in any virtue being more important than bravery."
As I listen to Max speak on the values of Dauntless, I feel a strange sense of sorrow as I look at him. He sounds so passionate now, but I know that he has warped those values into something cruel. I wonder if he knows how far he has strayed, or if he believes that the choices he has made are how to best exemplify those values.
"We are the warrior faction, and we may only accept the best of the best. If you did not make the top ten, you will leave us tonight for the factionless sector. For those of you who remain, tomorrow you will select your professions in order of how you are ranked. We look forward to seeing what you can do for this faction."
The screen behind him illuminates with a list of names, the bottom two in red and the rest in white. I read through the list once, twice, and then a third time as I struggle to marry the names on the screen with the numbers beside them.
1. Tris
2. Indie
3. Uriah
4. Lynn
5. Will
6. Maverick
7. Marlene
8. Christina
9. Damien
10. Caroline
11. Jonas
12. Molly
Second. I'm ranked second. Out of all the remaining Dauntless-born and transfer initiates, I'm second. But more than that: now I'm Dauntless.
Christina is the first to recover from the shock, letting out a wild shriek as she throws her arms around Tris and I. The motion nearly sends all three of us toppling off of the bench but we don't care, too overwhelmed by relief and elation to do anything but laugh. Uriah pumps his fists in the air as Marlene does a little shimmy dance beside him, both of them puling a reluctant Lynn off of the bench and into a strange victory jig. Christina releases us and practically throws herself at Will, who manages to steady the both of them before he pulls her in for a kiss.
I look up to the balcony to meet Eric's gaze, pleased to see a genuine smile on his face as he nods in approval. Max and Harrison even crack smiles, laughing as they watch Uriah and Marlene dance outrageously beside a reluctantly smiling Lynn. Four pushes his way through the crowd until he reaches Tris, pulling her down from the bench and into his arms. I join in with the cheers and catcalls of the crowd as they kiss, though my gaze wanders back up to Eric.
"I love you." He mouths while the crowd is focused on Tris and Four, heart fluttering as I grin unabashedly.
"Love you more."
The celebration soon spills into the Pit, where someone has set up equipment blaring music so loud it shakes the ground. The room is packed so tightly with people it seems that every Dauntless has turned up to celebrate. Someone passes out bottles of something that smell of apples and home, while others lay out tables of chocolate cake.
I nurse one drink the whole night, keen to not let anything interfere with what we must do. I dance with Uriah, Will, and even Four to keep up appearances but I switch my eyes between Eric and the clock the whole night. Soon I spy Uriah nod to me from across the room, jerking his head towards the nearest staircase.
I take one last sip of my drink for courage before I slip out, jogging up the steps to the roof. Uriah and I are the first ones there, retrieving a locked black box from behind a stack of empty boxes. Inside is a tablet loaded with proof of the Erudite's misdeeds, ready to project to a large crowd. Knowing how the Amity govern and make decisions, it will come in handy.
Tris and Four arrive soon after, followed by Christina and Alice. Four passes out keys to the boxes, slipped to him by Eric at some point in the night. We stand by the tracks, the box clutched to my chest like a precious treasure as wait for the trains. Tris, Four, Christina, and Alice will board the train headed East while Uriah and I will go West to Amity.
Our train arrives first, light flooding the tracks beyond the edge of the roof where we wait. Tris wishes us luck as Four nods, and the weight of what we're about to hits me like a ton of bricks. Before I can fall too deep down that rabbit hole, Uriah's voice pulls me back to the present.
"Are you ready?" He asks, as if I have a choice. I nod, turning to run and jump onto the train as it speeds towards us.
"Let's go save our faction."
