CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
FOUR'S POV
I wake to loud banging on our door. "Four!" Zeke shouts.
More banging. I groan and just want to fall back to sleep. "Open the door," Zeke shouts as he keeps banging the door.
"Shut up," I mutter to myself. I hear a giggle come from next to me.
"Come on Four. Open the bloody door," Zeke shouts again.
"He isn't going away, is he?" I ask Tris.
"I don't think so," she says.
I get out of bed and look for some clothes.
"What?" I shout as I open the door.
"There's no hot water," he tells me.
"And?"
"I see you've put your cranky pants on," Zeke laughs at his own comment.
"You woke us up," I say.
Zeke peers over me and says, "Sorry Tris."
"What about me?" I ask.
"Toughen up Four," Zeke says seriously. "So, there isn't any hot water. Do you know how we can contact the people who have us here?"
"I don't think we need to contact anyone," I say.
"You might like a cold shower, but I sure as hell don't want one," Zeke sounds frustrated.
"No," I chuckle. "I mean, I think Tris and I may have used all the hot water. You just need to give it a couple of hours to heat back up."
"Oh," Zeke says. "Ohhhh!"
"It's not like that," I say.
"Well you've been up here for hours. Are we going to get to read any more chapters today?"
"We will be down soon," Tris calls out.
"Are you sure you want to do that?" I ask Tris.
"Yeah, I will be fine," Tris says.
"I'll let everyone know," Zeke says and then disappears down the hall.
"We don't have to do this," I say.
"I know but I feel better and I have to remember my mum isn't dead yet. We still have a chance to change things."
After dinner we make our way back into the lounge room and get ready to start reading the story again.
"I'm reading," Lynn tells us.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Three dauntless soldiers pursue me. They run in unison, their footsteps echoing in the alley. One of them fires, and I dive, scraping my palms on the ground. The bullet hits the brick wall to my right, and pieces of brick spray everywhere. I throw myself around the corner and click a bullet into the chamber of my gun.
"Tris, I'm sorry but I really think you are about to bite the bullet," Zeke says.
"I agree," says Eric."
"You are only hoping for that to win the bet," Tris says.
"Yeah," Zeke says. "It's not like I really want you dead. I couldn't stand it if I had to see Four cry."
"Nobody wants to have to see Four cry," Lynn says.
"Speak for yourselves," Eric chuckles.
They killed my mother. I point the gun into the alley and fire blindly. It wasn't really them, but it doesn't matter—can't matter, and just like death itself, can't be real right now.
Just one set of footsteps now. I hold the gun out with both hands and stand at the end of the alley, pointing at the Dauntless soldier. My finger squeezes the trigger, but not hard enough to fire. The man running toward me is not a man, he is a boy. A shaggy-haired boy with a crease between his eyebrows.
"Oh no," Christina gasps.
Will. Dull-eyed and mindless, but still Will. He stops running and mirrors me, his feet planted and his gun up. In an instant, I see his finger poised over the trigger and hear the bullet slide into the chamber, and I fire. My eyes squeezed shut. Can't breathe.
The bullet hit him in the head. I know because that's where I aimed it.
"How could you?" Christina screams.
Gasps are heard around the room and everyone is staring at Tris.
"I think I'm going to be sick," Tris says as she gets up and runs to the downstairs bathroom.
I go to get up and follow her but Will stops me. "Can I talk to her?" he asks. I just nod.
"Will!" Christina yells at him.
"Will," she yells again as she grabs his shoulder. "Don't you dare run after her."
Will ignores her and walks towards the bathroom.
Christina falls to the floor and has tears streaming down her face. Marlene runs over and tries to comfort her.
"How could she?" Christina wails. "She is supposed to be his friend."
"That wasn't her friend out there," I say.
"Of course you would take her side," Christina snaps.
"There's no sides Christina. It is war. It is kill or be killed. Do you really think Will would have stopped," I say.
"How could he, he doesn't know what he is doing."
"So, does that mean Tris should just let him kill her?"
Christina doesn't say anything she just sits there and continues to sob.
"Look this is a really shitty situation that we have been put into. We aren't going to like what we hear reading these books. But we can learn from it," I say.
I walk off. I go upstairs and get Tris her toothbrush. If she has thrown up she is going to want to brush her teeth.
I walk into the bathroom and Tris and Will are hugging. They break apart and Will goes to leave.
"Sorry man," I say as I clasp a hand on his shoulder.
"Yeah," he chuckles. "I suppose someone had to be first."
I just nod as he passes me by.
I look at Tris and see that she has been crying. I walk over and give her a hug.
"I brought you your toothbrush."
"Thanks. I definitely need it."
"You're not having a great day." I chuckle.
"I'm really not," Tris scoffs. "Why do I get the feeling my day isn't going to improve any time soon?"
"Probably because it's not. How was Will?"
"Surprisingly good. He told me that it wasn't my fault, that I shouldn't blame myself. I don't know Tobias he was to calm. It was like it had no effect on him. I'm worried about his reaction."
"Maybe it's the Erudite in him. I don't know. Are you ready to face some more?"
"Yeah let me just brush my teeth."
Once Tris has brushed her teeth we make our way back into the lounge room. Everyone is talking quietly amongst themselves. Marlene has red rimmed eyes, she has not been coping with what has been read at all. Uriah is holding her close.
Christina is in tears and Will is trying to calm her down. Will has changed his shirt and is now wearing a shirt with a giant X on it.
"What's with the shirt?" I ask him.
"Uriah and Zeke gave it to me," Will says.
"For what exactly?"
"Do you like it?" Uriah asks.
"What?"
"We made these shirts so that when someone gets killed off they get to wear one," Zeke says.
"When did you think this up?" I ask.
"The first day," Zeke says. "We thought it was a bit of a laugh."
"Dying isn't really funny," I say.
"We know," Uriah says. "But we needed something to lighten the mood. Plus, then we will remember who is gone and that we need to try and find a way to save them."
I just shake my head, I cannot for the life of me understand the way those two think.
"Now that everyone is here," Eric states. "Lynn can start to read again."
I turn around without opening my eyes and stumble away from the alley. North and Fairfield. I have to look at the street sign to see where I am, but I can't read it; my vision is blurred. I blink a few times. I stand just yards away from the building that contains what's left of my family.
I kneel next to the door. Tobias would call me unwise to make any noise. Noise might attract Dauntless soldiers.
"You are always thinking of Four Tris," Shauna giggles. "It's really cute.
I press my forehead to the wall and scream. After a few seconds I clamp my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound and scream again, a scream that turns into a sob. The gun clatters to the ground. I still see Will.
He smiles in my memory. A curled lip. Straight teeth. Light in his eyes. Laughing, teasing, more alive in memory than I am in reality. It was him or me. I chose me. But I feel dead too.
"You did what you had to do," I say.
"You should feel dead," Christina snaps. Tears still falling from her eyes.
I feel Tris tense but then she takes a deep breath, shakes her head a little and relaxes a bit. I can see that she is trying to ignore Christina and her comments.
I pound on the door—twice, then three times, then six times, as my mother told me to.
"How did you remember that?" Uriah asks.
"I haven't yet. So I don't know," Tris replies.
I wipe the tears from my face. This is the first time I will see my father since I left him, and I don't want him to see me half-collapsed and sobbing.
"It's not like it's all sunshine and rainbows Tris, you've been shot," Marlene says. "I wish it was though."
The door opens, and Caleb stands in the doorway. The sight of him stuns me. He stares at me for a few seconds and then throws his arms around me, his hand pressing to the wound in my shoulder. I bite my lip to keep from crying out, but a groan escapes me anyway, and Caleb yanks back.
"Beatrice. Oh God, are you shot?"
"Let's go inside," I say weakly.
He drags his thumb under his eyes, catching the moisture. The door falls shut behind us.
"What has he got to be sad about?" Lynn asks.
"His mum just died," Uriah says.
"Yeah but he doesn't know that yet," Lynn says.
The room is dimly lit, but I see familiar faces, former neighbors and classmates and my father's coworkers. My father, who stares at me like I've grown a second head. Marcus. The sight of him makes me ache—Tobias...
No. I will not do that; I will not think of him.
"How did you know about this place?" Caleb says. "Did Mom find you?" I nod. I don't want to think about Mom, either.
"I wonder how you will tell them?" Shauna ponders.
"My shoulder," I say.
Now that I am safe, the adrenaline that propelled me here is fading, and the pain is getting worse. I sink to my knees. Water drips from my clothes onto the cement floor. A sob rises within me, desperate for release, and I choke it back.
"Soggy socks," Uriah and Lynn both say at the same time and then laugh at each other.
A woman named Tessa who lived down the street from us rolls out a pallet. She was married to a council member, but I don't see him here. He is probably dead.
Someone else carries a lamp from one corner to the other so we have light. Caleb produces a first-aid kit, and Susan brings me a bottle of water. There is no better place to need help than a room full of members of Abnegation. I glance at Caleb. He's wearing gray again. Seeing him in the Erudite compound feels like a dream now.
Zeke starts to laugh. "You definitely found the right place to get help."
Laughter doesn't feel right as we have been reading the last few chapters but at the same time we need it. We might not want it but we do need it.
My father comes to me, lifts my arm across his shoulders, and helps me across the room.
"Why are you wet?" Caleb says.
"They tried to drown me," I say. "Why are you here?"
"I did what you said—what Mom said. I researched the simulation serum and found out that Jeanine was working to develop long-range transmitters for the serum so its signal could stretch farther, which led me to information about Erudite and Dauntless ...anyway, I dropped out of initiation when I figured out what was happening. I would have warned you, but it was too late," he says. "I'm factionless now."
"It's ironic that I was the first of us to be killed," Will says.
"Why would you think that? Christina barks.
"It's my sister who helped Jeanine to develop that simulation serum," he says.
"I should have broken her nose," Tris grumbles next to me.
"This is crazy," Zeke says. "Why would your sister do that?"
"I doubt she would have wanted to see this happen," Will defends.
"Are you sure?" Shauna asks.
"No, but I know my sister. She wouldn't want to see lives lost."
"Or is it that she wouldn't have wanted to lose you? She hates Abnegation," I say.
"I don't know," Will sounds defeated. "I hope not."
"No, you aren't," my father says sternly. "You're with us."
"So, does that mean we can all just change faction?" Christina asks. "Or does that only apply if you have family that are members of the council?"
"Wanting to change faction are we?" Eric asks.
"I'm thinking about it," Christina says.
"You're welcome to join Abnegation any time you like," Eric says.
"That's not funny Eric," Tris shouts.
"I wasn't trying to be funny, Tris."
"Asshole," Tris mumbles under her breath.
I kneel on the pallet and Caleb cuts a piece of my shirt away from my shoulder with a pair of medical scissors. Caleb peels the square of fabric away, revealing first the Abnegation tattoo on my right shoulder and second, the three birds on my collarbone. Caleb and my father stare at both tattoos with the same look of fascination and shock but say nothing about them.
"I don't know why your father is so shocked. Your mum had a tattoo," Lynn says.
"I don't think he is ready to accept that I'm Dauntless just yet," Tris says.
I lie on my stomach. Caleb squeezes my palm as my father gets the antiseptic from the first aid kit.
"Have you ever taken a bullet out of someone before?" I ask, a shaky laugh in my voice.
"The things I know how to do might surprise you," he replies.
A lot of things about my parents might surprise me. I think of Mom's tattoo and bite my lip.
"This will hurt," he says.
I don't see the knife go in, but I feel it. Pain spreads through my body and I scream through gritted teeth, crushing Caleb's hand. Over the screaming, I hear my father ask me to relax my back. Tears run from the corners of my eyes and I do as he tells me. The pain starts again, and I feel the knife moving under my skin, and I am still screaming.
"Got it," he says. He drops something on the floor with a ding.
"I hate when they take it out like that," Zeke says with a shudder and Uriah starts laughing.
"How do you know this?" I ask.
"Uriah shot me with mum's gun," Zeke says rolling up his pant leg to show us the scar.
"It was an accident," Uriah defends.
"That's one ugly scar Zeke. What did you do? Let Uriah take it out?" Eric asks.
Zeke starts to laugh. "Yeah he did. We didn't want mum to know that we had been playing with her gun."
"She found out anyway," Uriah laughs.
"How?" I ask.
"It got infected. So I had to go to the infirmary. They called mum and we had to explain what happened," Zeke chuckles.
"Didn't you clean the wound?" Eric asks.
"I was eleven and Uriah was nine. We weren't thinking of wound care," Zeke says.
"What did Hana do?" Tris asks.
"After she laughed at us for being idiots," Zeke says. "She grounded us for a month and then taught us how to shoot and take care of guns."
"Part of your punishment was learning how to shoot?" Christina asks shocked.
"Well we are Dauntless," Uriah says.
Caleb looks at my father and then at me, and then he laughs. I haven't heard him
laugh in so long that the sound makes me cry.
"What's so funny?" I say, sniffling.
"I never thought I would see us together again," he says.
"Your brother is truly strange Tris," Lynn says.
My father cleans the skin around my wound with something cold. "Stitching time," he says.
I nod. He threads the needle like he's done it a thousand times.
"One," he says, "two...three."
I clench my jaw and stay quiet this time. Of all the pain I have suffered today—the pain of getting shot and almost drowning and taking the bullet out again, the pain of finding and losing my mother and Tobias, this is the easiest to bear.
My father finishes stitching my wound, ties off the thread, and covers the stitches with a bandage. Caleb helps me sit up and separates the hems of his two shirts, pulling the long-sleeved one over his head and offering it to me.
My father helps me guide my right arm through the shirt sleeve, and I pull the rest over my head. It is baggy and smells fresh, smells like Caleb.
"So," my father says quietly. "Where is your mother?"
I look down. I don't want to deliver this news. I don't want to have this news to begin with.
"She's gone," I say. "She saved me."
Caleb closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
My father looks momentarily stricken and then recovers himself, averting his glistening eyes and nodding.
"That is good," he says, sounding strained. "A good death."
"Bloody Abnegation," Marlene shouts. "How can he think that?"
"I don't know if it is what he is thinking but it is what he has been conditioned to say," I tell them.
If I speak right now, I will break down, and I can't afford to do that. So I just nod.
Eric called Al's suicide brave, and he was wrong. My mother's death was brave. I remember how calm she was, how determined. It isn't just brave that she died for me; it is brave that she did it without announcing it, without hesitation, and without appearing to consider another option.
He helps me to my feet. Time to face the rest of the room. My mother told me to save them. Because of that, and because I am Dauntless, it's my duty to lead now. I have no idea how to bear that burden.
Marcus gets up. A vision of him whipping my arm with a belt rushes into my mind when I see him, and my chest squeezes.
I tighten my grip on Tris. The thought that she would be in the same room as Marcus makes me sick.
"We are only safe here for so long," Marcus says eventually. "We need to get out of the city. Our best option is to go to the Amity compound in the hope that they'll take us in. Do you know anything about the Dauntless strategy, Beatrice? Will they stop fighting at night?"
"It's not Dauntless strategy," I say. "This whole thing is masterminded by the Erudite. And it's not like they're giving orders."
"Not giving orders," my father says. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," I say, "ninety percent of the Dauntless are sleepwalking right now. They're in a simulation and they don't know what they're doing. The only reason I'm not just like them is that I'm..." I hesitate on the word. "The mind control doesn't affect me."
"Mind control? So they don't know that they're killing people right now?" my father asks me, his eyes wide.
"No."
"That's...awful." Marcus shakes his head. His sympathetic tone sounds manufactured to me. "Waking up and realizing what you've done..."
"At least they had an excuse Marcus," Zeke calls out. "What's yours, you bastard."
"I don't think he can hear you Zeke," I chuckle.
"Well I wish he could," Zeke grins.
The room goes quiet, probably as all the Abnegation imagine themselves in the place of the Dauntless soldiers, and that's when it occurs to me.
"We have to wake them up," I say.
"What?" Marcus says.
"If we wake the Dauntless up, they will probably revolt when they realize what's going on," I explain. "The Erudite won't have an army. The Abnegation will stop dying. This will be over."
"It won't be that simple," my father says. "Even without the Dauntless helping them, the Erudite will find another way to—"
"And how are we supposed to wake them up?" Marcus says.
"We find the computers that control the simulation and destroy the data," I say. "The program. Everything."
"Easier said than done," Caleb says. "It could be anywhere. We can't just appear at the Erudite compound and start poking around."
"It's..." I frown. Jeanine. Jeanine was talking about something important when Tobias and I came into her office, important enough to hang up on someone. You can't just leave it undefended. And then, when she was sending Tobias away: Send him to the control room. The control room where Tobias used to work. With the Dauntless security monitors. And the Dauntless computers.
"It's at Dauntless headquarters," I say. "It makes sense. That's where all the data about the Dauntless is stored, so why not control them from there?"
"Thinking like an Erudite again Tris," Marlene comments. "I hope it works out as well as it did for capture the flag."
I faintly register that I said them. As of yesterday, I technically became Dauntless, but I don't feel like one. And I am not Abnegation, either.
I guess I am what I've always been. Not Dauntless, not Abnegation, not factionless. Divergent.
"Are you sure?" my father asks.
"It's an informed guess," I say, "and it's the best theory I have."
"Then we'll have to decide who goes and who continues on to Amity," he says. "What kind of help do you need, Beatrice?"
The question stuns me, as does the expression he wears. He looks at me like I'm a peer. He speaks to me like I'm a peer. Either he has accepted that I am an adult now, or he has accepted that I am no longer his daughter. The latter is more likely, and more painful.
"Anyone who can and will fire a gun," I say, "and isn't afraid of heights."
"I bet you would have still gone if you had been there Four," Zeke teases. "You wouldn't have let your fear overtake you. Plus, I think you would follow Tris anywhere."
"Probably," I can't disagree.