CHAPTER 35

FOUR POV

Tris and I walk into the cafeteria together. I don't really care who sees us together anymore. I just want to know she is safe. We separate and go to our friends tables. I go to sit with Zeke and Shauna. Tris has sat with Will and Christina. I see Uriah, Marlene and Lynn walk over and sit with them.

"How is she?" Zeke asks.

"She is okay Zeke. She's a bit sore and bruised this morning but she is so tough."

We have just finished eating; I keep looking over to make sure Tris is okay. Then I see Al go over to Tris. It looks like he has been crying. This can't be good; I start walking over to Tris.

"Tris I need to talk to you," Al says.

"What's wrong Al," Tris says. I am standing on the opposite side of the table from Al.

"I'm sorry Tris, I'm really sorry. I knew what they were planning. I heard them take you and I couldn't do anything. I'm really sorry," Al says.

I can't believe what I am hearing. I can't believe he would do this to Tris. I thought the fact that Molly had taken his place in the attack meant that he mustn't have been involved. How wrong could I have been?

Tris rises from her seat as Al speaks again, "Please, I am sorry. Please can you forgive me?"

Tris looks straight into Al's eyes and says, "Stay away from me, never come near me again."

She walks past Al and turns and says, "If you do, I swear to God, I will kill you. You coward."

I walk over to Tris and we walk out of the cafeteria together. Once we are out the door I stop her, "are you okay?"

She shakes her head, she has tears in her eyes. I wrap my arms around her. Christina, Will and the others come over to us. Christina rips her out of my arms, hugs her and says, "are you ok, Tris? Know we are all here for you."

"I'll be okay Christina, thanks."

They all go into a big group hug.

"We need something fun to do," I say. Everyone looks at me strangely.

"What?" I ask.

"Since when have you been fun, Four?" Lynn asks.

Everyone laughs and I can't really blame them, it's not like I come across as someone fun.

"Paintball?" Zeke says, with a big grin on his face.

"Yep, Zeke you and Shauna go get the paintball guns. Everyone meet me in the training room in thirty minutes."

Everyone disperses and I see Al walking out of the cafeteria. He is walking towards the chasm. I start to follow, I know what could happen here and I don't want to see him dead, although part of me thinks he deserves it. Coward.

Al is at the railing now and I am watching as he starts to climb over the railing. "don't do it Al," I say.

"I can't live with this Four. I'm not going to make it here in Dauntless. I could have stopped what happened to Tris and I didn't," Al says. He is crying, I hate when people cry, it agitates me.

"Don't do this to Tris, Al. You know she will feel guilty; she doesn't deserve to live with that. Stand up and take responsibility for your actions, that's the Dauntless way," I say.

"I'm not going to be Dauntless, we both know I'm not going to pass training," he says.

"You don't know that Al. Peter, Drew and Molly are out, which means you will move up the rankings. There is still stage three to go," I tell him. I know he is still going to fail but I can't let him know this. I don't want to see Tris have to live with guilt that isn't hers to live with.

"Come on Al, let's go and get you some help," I say as I hold out my hand to him. Willing him to take it.

Al gets down from the railing and I put my hand on his shoulder and lead him towards the infirmary. He needs help, help that I can't and don't want to give him. Just looking at him makes me sick. Everything about him makes me sick. But I don't wish him any harm either.

We have all been running around the Pit having our own paintball war for hours. Everyone is covered in paint, none of us are wearing black anymore, well we are but you couldn't tell from the amount of paint covering us. We are all sitting in the pit just laughing and joking. We had all run out of paint when Max comes over.

"Just the nine people that I have been looking for. I need to see you all in my office now," Max says.

Everyone looks at me, like I would know what is going on. I just shrug and we follow Max out of the pit and up to his office. We reach Max's office and we find Hana is already in the office along with Shauna and Marlene's parents'. She watches as we all walk into the office, you can see she is trying not to laugh at us. We must look a sight with our rainbow coloured clothes.

Max shuts the door and turns and asks Tris, "How are you Tris?"

"I'll be alright Max, thank you," she says.

"Good to hear. Peter, Drew and Molly have been sent to Candor for sentencing. They won't be back, we will not put up with that type of behaviour in Dauntless," Max says.

"Now, we have a small problem. I know that you are all in on the plan to help to stop this Erudite attack. That's not the problem. Six of you are not members yet. So I need to change that. I am invoking a special rule that we have here in Dauntless. We have never had to use this rule before and it is only to be used in special circumstances. I think this is the perfect time to use it," Max says.

"I thought your families would want to be here for this. Uriah, Marlene, Lynn, Christina, Will and Tris, as the leader of Dauntless I am proud to announce that you are all now new members of Dauntless," Max says.

Everyone is silent for what seems like minutes, I'm sure it is only seconds. Then Lynn lets out a YEAH at the top of her voice. Everyone starts laughing and hugging and congratulating each other.

Max clears his throat and says, "I know with your current rankings that you were all going to pass initiation, so I need you to keep this quiet until we make the official announcement. I am proud of all of you and I want to say thank you for what you will be helping within the next couple of days."

"Party time," says Zeke.

"Not yet mister," says Hana. "We have too much work to be done before then, we can't have you all hung over."

Zeke hangs his head; he knows that he may be classed as an adult but Hana will skin him alive if he goes against her. Everyone is laughing at Zeke; we all know how much he respects his mum and is too scared to go against her wishes.

Tomorrow is the day. Zeke and I have got everything from the armoury and we have it stored at my place. We are having a meeting tonight to discuss battle plans. Give everyone their assignments. I have schematics for the warehouse spread over my dining table; I keep going over the plan making sure there won't be any surprises. Max was able to give me details of how many Erudite will be guarding the warehouse. Max refused to give Jeanine any of his own guards for this, he told her it would raise too many suspicions between the Dauntless, plus they are sure to gossip about it.

I hear a knock at my door. When I open the door I find that Tris and Amar are standing there with food. "We knew you would be here," Amar says. "Thought you might want some food, maybe distract you from what is about to go down. I'm sure you have been obsessing over it."

"Thanks, come on in," I say.

We eat the food and just sit and talk. It has been a great distraction, I definitely needed this.