From Uriah's Perspective.
My muscles are burning, and I'm reminded of what happened in the training room only a few days earlier. It seems like a long time ago, though. Four saved me then, taking a beating at Eric's hands. He has protected me in other ways, too. It's only fitting that I am saving him now, carrying him on my back. I know it's what Zeke would have wanted. My heart contracts at the thought of him. I quickly push away thoughts of my brother. It's too painful. Instead, I try to concentrate on the mission. This is what we do. We're Dauntless.
We managed, somehow, between the three of us, to hoist Four onto the train with us. He had moaned, briefly, when his body hit the floor, but had lost consciousness again shortly after. We had left our rifles behind. We couldn't carry them and Four at the same time. Now we're walking through the factionless district, armed with only our pistols and knives, and with no idea what is coming next.
"C'mon, I think it's up ahead." Tris urges us.
We approach a tall concrete building, partially burnt out. It looks uninhabited, and I start to wonder if perhaps Tris has lost her mind. Zeke trusted her though, so I trust her. I have no other choice.
She bangs on the door, frantically, and to my surprise, after a few minutes, it opens. Two men come out, dressed in rags but carrying rifles. Tris wastes no time. "This is Tobias Eaton. Evelyn's son. You have to help him. Please help him." Without any further questions, one of the men waves his hand, and four more men appear, and they lift Four from my shoulders. We follow them as they carry him down a dimly lit hallway. We pass through a set of double doors, and I am shocked to find a gleaming white, brand-new tiled floor on the other side of them. As I glance around me, I see that everything here is new, and modern. It looks like a hospital. How could the factionless have built this, and why?
They carry Four into a small examining room and place him on a stretcher. There are doctors here. They start to examine him, using scanners that look much more sophisticated than what we have in the infirmary at Dauntless. Tris doesn't want to let go of his hand, but Shauna and I pull her away. I only catch some of what the doctors are saying, but it doesn't sound good.
"… His left pupil is blown."
"…Abdomen is rigid…"
At that moment, a woman arrives. She is tall, with dark hair and olive skin. She is dressed in the clothes of the factionless, but they are cleaner, less torn. She hurries to Four's side.
"Oh my God. Tobias." She strokes his hair. "My sweet boy." Four stirs for a moment, moaning, and I'm relieved that he's still alive. I struggle to understand what's going on, though. Zeke told me once that Four's mother had died when he was young. Who could this woman be, then? I know very little about him. I never even knew his real name until now. I think of my own mother, and of the news I'll be bringing her soon, if we survive. How will I find the words?
This woman who has come appears to be in some position of authority here, and the doctors defer to her. "Will he live?" she demands. "Yes. Probably," One tells her. "But he needs surgery - now." She nods, and they wheel Four's stretcher out of the room and down the hall. I move to follow it, but Shauna takes my arm and briefly shakes her head, then tilts her head toward Tris. Her back is against the wall and she is slowly sinking to the floor, shaking. The woman crosses over to her and lifts her off the floor with one hand, helping her to a chair. She scrutinizes Tris with concern.
"Tell me what happened." The woman's voice has a rough, unpleasant edge to it.
"It's my fault."
The woman waves her hand dismissively. "Just tell me what happened."
Tris begins to speak, filling in details I had not heard before. How she had been in Dauntless when the attack happened. How Four had sent her home, and how Jeanine had talked her into bringing Four to Erudite.
"I don't understand, Jeanine was letting you seeing him? She knew?"
"Yes." Tris lowers her eyes – her voice is almost a whisper. "I was supposed to be spying on him."
The woman's eyes flash with anger at hearing this. "And were you spying on him? Keeping tabs on him for Jeanine?"
"No." Tris is emphatic. "Not really. I… just went along with it."
Tris says nothing about her parents or the slaughter of the Abnegation. It must be too painful. I feel the loss of Zeke, viscerally, but I force the feelings away.
"Tell me what happened when you took him to Erudite."
Tris tells her about seeing Marcus and realizing that Jeanine had lied to her. Then she describes how she ran to Dauntless for help and found us. Tris seems to know this woman, and calls her Evelyn. I want to know where we are and what is going on here, but I don't interrupt. The questioning continues.
"And how were you able to get into his cell?"
Tris explains about the man who helped us in the library, and tells Evelyn that the Erudite have had the other factions under surveillance.
"And he just decided to help you?"
"He saw Eric plant the bomb in Dauntless. He realized that Jeanine had been behind it all." A trace of defensiveness creeps into Tris' voice. "Not all the Erudite are bad people."
"And so you escaped, and brought him here?"
"Yes." Tris sighs, wiping her face with the sleeve of her sweater. It's far too long on her, and I realize it must be Four's. "Can I go with him?"
Evelyn smiles, and I can see that she was once beautiful. I sense something else in that smile as well, though. I can't put my finger on it, but it feels almost... threatening. "Tobias is in good hands. You were smart to bring him here. Now, what else you can tell me? When you saw Marcus in Jeanine's office, did you hear him speak?"
"No, they had been torturing him, but they said he wouldn't talk." Her breath hitches. "That's why they wanted Four."
With this, Evelyn exhales.
"And did Jeanine ever tell you anything else about her hunt for the Divergents?"
"Only that she thought the Abnegation were sheltering them."
Again, Evelyn seems relieved at hearing Tris' words.
"Alright. You three should get some rest." She crosses the room to a panel in the wall. She presses a button, and speaks into it. "I need an escort for our guests."
She turns around, and fixes Tris again with the same awful smile. "They'll take you and get you cleaned up and fed. When Tobias is out of surgery, you can see him."
"Thank you Evelyn."
Shauna and I are so fixated on the exchange between Tris and Evelyn, that we don't notice that now we're surrounded. I must have been more tired than I realized. Zeke would have never made a mistake like this. There are at least twenty of them, and they are armed with rifles. One of them pulls my pistol from the back of my waistband. I still have a knife, but I don't dare try to reach for it. I glance at Shauna and see her making the very same calculation. Tris however, is beyond all rational thought.
"What is this?" she screams at Evelyn.
Evelyn's face hardens as she crosses her arms in front of her. Her voice is full of hate, now, but also strangely, horribly calm. "You are an Erudite spy, by your own admission. You led my son into a trap so that he could be tortured, by your own admission. I can only assume that it was guilt that moved you to bring him to me now. For that alone, I'm going to let you live. But if you ever come back here – if you ever tell anyone about what you have seen, I will kill all three of you. Slowly. You will never see Tobias again. Never."
With that, she waves to her guards, and they start to lead us away, back down the hallway from which we had entered. Tris is hysterical, screaming and clawing at them. They drag her down the hall behind us. When we reach the outer door, another guard grabs her ankles, and they throw her out onto the street, and shove me and Shauna toward her with the ends of their rifles. The doors slam shut behind us, and I can hear them being bolted.
Tris scrambles to her feet and throws herself at the door, kicking and clawing. She screams until she is spent, and finally collapses at the base of the door. Blood runs freely from her knuckles.
I look to Shauna. "We have to get out of here." She nods, and kneels down next to Tris.
"We have to go, it's not safe here. We have to go to Amity."
"I can't leave him."
"You have to. He would want us to keep you safe." She pauses for a moment, fighting back her own tears. "At least he's alive."
This seems to bring Tris around. She stands and wipes the tears from her face with the heel of her hand. "Alright. Let's go."
A/N As always, I appreciate your suggestions and comments. Thanks for reading. The title is Arabic, and means "My enemy's enemy is my friend". Of course, even the most casual student of history will know that this is almost never true, sadly. Only two more chapters to go, after this one. I already have an outline for book 2, though. It will be called Memento Mori. Thank you triseat0n for your helpful critique!
Standard Disclaimer: All rights to Divergent and its characters belong to Veronica Roth.