TRIS POV
"Ready?"
Lauren stands over me, a syringe in hand. Tobias meets my eyes from across the fear landscape room, silently giving me the encouragement I need with a simple nod. Things may be precarious between us right now, but at least he is willing to set aside our grievances for the moment I need him most.
Because this moment will determine my fate in Dauntless for the rest of my life this time. Passing the final test shouldn't be this nerve-wracking for me, as I have completed it before, but I am not eager to deal with any more turmoil, however fake.
"Yes," I say.
The needle jabs into my neck, and I bite my tongue to direct the pain to another place. Next to me, the leaders prepare to watch my full fear landscape, and I let out a heavy breath to relax myself. Hunter's gaze sets me on edge anyway.
My heart starts pounding. The dank room fades, and the spray-painted words on the wall across from me morph into different ones as my vision fails me:
Be brave.
Facing the crows makes me panic every time, since I am usually unable to fight back by using my Divergence. This time though, I am allowed to be aware, so I reach down through the thick undergrowth and pull out a gun. It is still challenging to pull the trigger, but it is not so hard when I realize how much I hate these feathered animals, how my only alternative is to let them peck and suffocate me.
The simulation shifts. I am in a water tank, just like the one that I used to be trapped in in simulations, just like the one that Jeanine constructed for me to drown in for the sole purpose of gathering data. I bang on the glass walls, soon realizing how idiotic it is to waste my energy every time. So I let the tank fill up completely before I try again, slamming my palm into the wall until I see a crack, until it shatters.
These fears are effortless; I have faced them each before with the same results. They are phobias, not genuine horrors.
Then, the real ones set in.
I once again find myself in a field, at the top of a pile of logs, bound to a stake. But this time, instead of Peter and his companions, the familiar faces in front of me are of those whom I have killed.
My mother, or a sinister version of her, holds the torch. My father pours gasoline at the base. Will and Al shovel more wood onto the pile. And Marlene watches, though she doesn't have a face to watch; her blonde hair is the only thing recognizable, since her face has been splattered into a gruesome image by jumping off a building.
"I will forget the ones I love if I do not serve them," my mother quotes.
I recognize the line. It is from the Abnegation manifesto.
Before I have time to question the meaning, she steps forward and lights the wood on fire. The flames burn around me, reaching upward and outward, until they lick my ankles.
With tears in my eyes, I say, "I'm sorry. But I don't deserve to die because I couldn't save you."
The admittance is a relief, something I would not have been able to think let alone say aloud in the real world. At my words, raindrops begin to fall from the sky, dousing the fires and relieving the burns I have acquired.
The scene disappears. I wipe away the moisture from my cheeks and stand, ready to face the next obstacle.
I turn around. A handgun appears on a table in front of me.
I gulp, having a notion of what this next fear will be. It will involve killing someone, which I somehow find worse with a gun. Although I didn't kill Eric, my goal was to see the life leave his appalling eyes when I stabbed him in Candor; I don't know why being up close and drawing out death is less frightening to me than a tool that could quickly and painlessly take a life if aimed right.
Gathering some strength but leaving some untouched for my other fears to come, I pick up the cold weapon. Something to the side catches my eye, and I see that it is a faceless Abnegation woman. Maybe that should make this less demanding. She isn't really human, after all. She doesn't have eyes that will drain when I shoot her, or a mouth that will tremble.
"Do it," a robotic voice orders.
But when I raise the gun, my hands start shaking as they commonly do. Will I ever move past this silly, inconvenient dread to hold a gun? What if I come across a situation where I need that willpower; will I freeze up like I did in Amity, when Caleb saved my life because I was too distracted to?
"Do it," the voice hisses again.
If it came down to it, maybe I would be able to defend myself, or take a life in general. But I don't need to cause myself any more unwanted distress by murdering an innocent person in a simulation. It isn't worth it.
So I take the bullet that comes for me instead, sacrificing my life in the way Tobias used to chastise me for.
The room blacks out. Before I can do more than prepare for my worst fear, the one where my friends and family scream for me to save them, I am suddenly in an Abnegation home. I blink again, and I am in the hallway upstairs, standing in front of the mirror. My mother trims my hair behind me.
Confused, I dart my eyes around for some kind of imaginary demon to pop out. Nothing happens though, and I am left to wonder why such a pleasant memory would be in my fear landscape. Seeing my mother again, even in an image produced by my brain, is bittersweet.
Glancing down at my clothes, I see myself in a gray dress. When I look into the mirror, I am unable to tear my eyes away, for I have short hair again, and I am dressed in Dauntless black. My eyes are rimmed with red from extreme lack of sleep, and my face lacks all emotion, except for a grim frown.
"Look at you...I didn't raise you to be this way, Beatrice," my mother says sadly, apologetically, when she meets my eyes in the mirror. She is not the false woman who burned me at the stake just minutes ago, but my real mother, clad in stifling clothes yet wearing a warm smile.
She combs my hair back. "I'm sorry to say that I can't be proud of the choices you have made."
It is impossible to swallow now. Oh, I understand. My fear is not living up to her image, her expectations, her wise example. Everything about her is convincingly deceptive, down to her mannerisms. That is why it is so difficult for me to brush off her meaningless, sim-generated words.
"I'm sorry too," I admit, and I can't stop the tears from flowing. She looks so real. "I miss you, Mom."
"I miss you too. The real you. Who you are right now is a monster; you have murdered and betrayed. You have been selfish."
I nod in agreement, my eyes slipping shut as a sob escapes me. She is right, and it doesn't matter how fake this is. Luckily, that thought directs the simulation into a more positive outlook, based on how my mother would really speak to me if she were here.
"But that doesn't mean that you can't try to be better now, and it doesn't mean that I don't love you."
Forgetting that I am being influenced by a serum, I cry and embrace her. She smells like soap and evenings of sewing by the fire, and the way she holds me reminds me of when she used to tuck me in at night. Sometimes the gaping hole inside of me is consuming enough that I forget about who and what I am missing, and when I remember my parents it is challenging to not cling to their memory.
All too soon, my mother vanishes. I am left to sob to myself, alone, as I grieve for her as I find myself doing periodically. The fear of failure lingers, and I wonder if she would be proud of who I am; I wonder if she would still reflect on the horrifying mistakes I have made instead of the choices I am making now.
Maybe the past doesn't matter as long as you fight to be a better person.
Wiping the tears away, I straighten, ready to face my last fear.
It was unspoken but understood that Tobias wanted me to meet him so we could discuss our dispute that happened two nights ago. We haven't spoken since, anyway, and I think this has been enough time for both of us to blow off steam. So I head for his apartment right after my final test, not bothering to stop for a meal which I could eat later.
He is obviously still in the fear landscape room, transferring the leaders' observations into actual scores that will be announced at dinner time. I kick off my shoes and sit down on his bed, where just yesterday morning he laid me down before he stalked out the door, avoiding another argument like the night before.
I sigh. With wishful thinking, maybe I can avoid any more conflict with him, but I know how quickly his moods shift, like clouds rolling in and signaling a storm.
The day catches up with me as I sit atop the mattress. Unable to face him without some form of rest, I curl up on his patchwork quilt and inhale his scent as I try to catch a quick nap.
"Tris?"
My eyes drag open to find Tobias sitting on the edge of the bed. I feel his hand on my hip, warm and steady. Maybe this dreaded conversation won't be too bad.
"Hi," I say groggily, because I don't know how else to approach him.
"You did well on your test," he starts. Apparently he doesn't know how, either. "It took you less than twenty minutes."
"That's good to know."
With a lull in the conversation, he removes his hand and sets it in his lap. When he notices me staring, he sighs.
"I don't blame you for not telling me about Marcus," he admits. "I do have a hard time controlling my anger whenever he is involved, and you knew that I would take it too far when I found out that he hurt you. That being said, you still need to be honest with me."
I nod in complete concurrence. "You're right. I need to be able to trust you like you are trusting me. It's unfair of me to keep things from you, no matter what it is," I remark.
"Also," he continues on, his eyes lowered, "I don't want to keep returning to the same mistakes we made during the war. We seem to gravitate toward blaming each other for past experiences, but I'm so tired of living in that time period."
I am glad that he sees exactly what I see in this scenario. "Nothing good can come from us looking backward. I agree."
"One last thing." Tobias flashes me a minuscule smile, like he knows that I am getting irritated at his unwillingness to let me participate in this discussion. "I'm sorry for swearing like I did at you. It sounds stupid that I would apologize for something so small after what we both did." He shakes his head. "I'm sorry for a lot of things, but specifically, I should have never directed that foul language at you. While I do swear on occasion, it is wrong to use those words as a weapon against you, and I hope you can forgive me for that."
At the end of his heartfelt apology, sympathy flows through me. No, he is wrong. I was the one who sparked this whole issue, and I was the one who ended it in a way that left us both extremely discontented. He should not be asking for forgiveness from me; it should be the opposite.
"Tobias..." I sit up in the bed, pressed against his side. "You shouldn't be pinning any of the blame on yourself. It was my fault that I was dishonest, knowing full well where that gets us every time. It was my fault that I hit your weak spot—which I am aware you haven't recovered from," I tell him. And though my pride attempts to stifle my words, they come out anyway. "I'm sorry. You had every right to be upset with me."
His hand reaches around and plants itself on my side again. "I appreciate that. And I don't want to go over it again, okay?" he murmurs. "We're both sorry. That's all we need to know. It's not worth it to rehash this."
After a pause, I rest my head on his shoulder and laugh, "We're not very good at this communication thing, are we?"
"We'll figure it out eventually."
Eventually. Sometimes I forget that my time with him is limitless now that I will officially be a member of Dauntless. I don't know whether that should frighten me or soothe me.
Which reminds me—the final rankings are being posted tonight. "Can you tell me what place I got?" I ask, sitting up with sudden interest. It doesn't matter if Uriah beat me or not, but it is something I can hold over his head in the time to come if he didn't. After all, he has been teasing me about how he is supposedly going to keep his place in the first slot.
Tobias masks a smile. "That would be unfair to the other initiates, Tris," he deadpans.
I roll my eyes. "Oh, come on. It's not like I can change it now!"
"You'll find out later," he assures me. "But I can tell you that you passed."
"No, really?" I exclaim with mock surprise.
He relaxes back into the bed with a chuckle, his feet still touching the floor. I admire the way his Adam's apple bobs from the low vibrations, and how his teeth glean in the evening light pouring in the windows. With a burst of emotion—I did almost lose him over an idiotic argument—I lean down over him and place my lips on his.
My hair forms a golden curtain around us, our own little enclosed world where nobody can interrupt us. Our fingers interlock against the bed, our kisses staying controlled and not shifting into anything remotely near the heavy ones that led to something much more a few days ago. His nose slides against mine when I pull away, and there is something intimate about the way we press our cheeks together afterwards and just lie there in our strange position.
After a few breaths, Tobias slips out from under me and beckons to me to follow him up to the pillows on the bed. There I settle back, snug, into his side.
"Did your fear landscape change?" he asks curiously.
"Yes and no." I still can't make sense of some of it. "I'm still afraid of the crows, drowning in a tank, and burning at the stake, except the people whose deaths I blame on myself are the ones lighting me on fire. And I picked up new fears: disappointing my mother, shooting someone, and well...my worst fear," I ramble, because there is no way to really describe it without seeing it, which he has.
He hums. "You're officially Six this time, then," he points out playfully. It reminds me that he isn't my harsh instructor anymore.
"Four and Six," I prompt him. I can't believe it has been a year since we had that conversation; that seems too short, like it has been a much longer timespan between war and heartache.
"I hate to ruin the mood," he says, and his lips turn downward, "but I need to talk to you about something. I don't know if you have heard—I hadn't checked the news in a week—but seven more people have committed suicide."
"Seven?" I gasp, horrified. I try to sit up, but his steady grip keeps me in place. "That's what—fifteen now? In less than a month."
"It's getting out of hand, fast. People are speculating that we might have to go into some kind of lockdown until it's stopped."
The idea makes me uneasy, yet it is a much better alternative than another war. That is, unless things became out of hand, which I could see happening.
"I think we should go to Erudite soon," he declares solemnly. "Break in, steal whatever information they have on that serum."
I shake my head, not wanting to go through with the risky plan. "That would be extremely dangerous. And besides, we don't even know where that information would be in the first place, let alone how to navigate Erudite."
I don't even remember the paths I took during my time as a prisoner there. It was an awful, white maze with no promise of escape.
"I'll message Cara," he offers. "She can meet us and give us information on the inside and any gadgets that we might need."
My face scrunches up with distrust. "I don't know how I feel about telling her," I say. "She only helped us when she fled Erudite because of its obvious corruption. We don't necessarily have any proof that Erudite is specifically behind these attacks." But I don't tell him the real reason I don't find her trustworthy: I am still the person who killed her brother. That fact will not disappear because we once partnered up for a life-threatening mission to salvage information.
"I'll keep it vague. Just...trust me?"
At those words, I can't help but put my faith in him. He hasn't led us astray before in wartime.
"Okay," I murmur, burying my face in his neck and closing my eyes, letting the conversation drop.
TOBIAS POV
This year, the dining hall is crammed with more people than ever before to celebrate our new members. They are our future, and with so many members lost last year, I think everyone knows the underlying importance of gaining more soldiers.
I glance over at Tris a few seats down. She wears a content expression as she awaits for the rankings to be announced. We spent the evening dozing and then later dining in my apartment, and although being in those confines didn't make the time any less enjoyable, I am still pleased that we won't have to hide in a few minutes.
"Hey, stop staring at your girlfriend and pay me attention!"
Zeke watches me with a smug grin, and I narrow my eyes, annoyed.
"Did Uriah win this year?" he asks avidly. "We have a bet going on."
"You can't wait five minutes to find out?" I say. Regardless, my lips are sealed. I even made Tris wait for the results.
Begrudgingly, he huffs and returns to eating his chocolate cake. I eye it greedily before I ask, "Just out of curiosity, did you bet that he would fail?"
"No, he did." Pursing his lips, he adds, "The kid is still hard on himself a lot."
"He did lose his two best friends pretty recently," I remind him somberly.
"I know, but he has always been so bubbly. He isn't constantly smiling now, and even though that might sound like I'm overanalyzing, it is out of character for him." Zeke's face contorts when he states, "Sometimes, I worry that the people we hear about in the news might influence him to hurt himself."
It reminds me that people in line like him around the city don't question what is broadcasted. He doesn't know that the suicides aren't committed by the victims. From his perspective, it is a chain concept where it takes a hold of people with leftover grief from the war.
Adamantly, I shake my head. "No. I refuse to believe that Uriah would do something like that. But...if you are seriously worried about this, then I'll keep an eye out for you." Because who really knows what is going on in his life?
"Thanks, man." Zeke reaches over and slaps my shoulder.
Before long, Hunter takes his place on the balcony that overlooks the dining hall, giving some false speech about Dauntless teachings and values that are no longer a priority. The initiates hold their breaths as they stare at the large, flat screen on the wall where the rankings are posted from the top down.
Tris's photo is revealed first, since she came in said spot. She flashes me an ecstatic smile at her accomplishment, and then I turn my head to scan the list of names to make sure everything seems to be in order.
1. Tris
2. Uriah
3. Peter
4. Justin
5. Derek
6. Christina
Several tables over, Jessica high-fives Peter in spite of her rank decreasing since the first stage. Tris's friend, Dez, is jumping up and down while shrieking with excitement. The groans of the many who didn't make the top fifty cannot be heard over the louder, proud hollers echoing through the dining hall.
Somehow, I make it to Tris in the sea of congratulations. She is surrounded by and laughing with her friends, and when she sees me approaching, she can barely contain her elation.
"You think giving you a hug would give away too much?" I quip.
Instead of firing back with her line, she just says, "Come here," and wraps her arms around my neck before she kisses me.
Catcalls erupt, both from our friends and random onlookers. I am slightly sheepish yet unable to pull away from her lips because they are sweet like chocolate—just when I thought the taste of Dauntless cake couldn't get any better.
"Get some!" Uriah shouts, and we pull away with a shared laugh.
"I love you," I murmur in her ear when I pull her into a tight hug. "I'm proud of you."
The Stiff—my Stiff—has taken first place once again, proving it wasn't luck that put her on top the first time, though I'm not sure who would have doubted her score anyway.
Her cheeks tint pink at my compliment. She moves on from it, taking my hand and saying, "Let's go celebrate."
When I notice that she is leading me through the crowds in the Pit, I ask, "Where are we going?"
She slows her strides. "We're meeting our friends somewhere."
"Where?"
I receive my answer as soon as I hear the loud music thumping from a large opening in the stone walls of the Pit. Multicolored lights flicker inside to the beat of the current song, and the people inside dance uncoordinatedly or drunkenly sing along.
"Tris..." I try to back out as we are entering. A nightclub isn't my kind of place, nor hers.
"Come on, it will be fun," she urges, and I can't say no.
It turns out that it isn't as dreadful as I imagined it would be. Some time passes before I am used to the hectic movements in the mostly dark atmosphere and the sweaty people crying out as they party. Then Tris and I join in with the group, getting jolted into action by the combined excitement.
Neither of us can dance so we don't try to. Instead we copy those around us as they jump up and down shamelessly to the heavy music. We laugh at each other's mistakes and trust the other bodies to conceal them. Fortunately, I catch glimpses of our friends from afar, where they cannot see us well enough to tease us later.
The high lasts hours, only with breaks to talk in between songs. Sometimes, like now, the thumping tune is unhurried, slow enough that we sway to it together. With a fleeting moment where the light reflects off her smiling eyes, I am able to see their true color:
Blue.
When I met Tris, when I fell in love with her, they were that same penetrating blue. As time passed and the world shifted into something sinister, they morphed into a faded silver. Since then, I have caught moments where they do resemble azure, and they were only when she was beyond happiness.
I want her eyes to always be blue.
I want to share that bliss with her. I want to reclaim the stolen moments where we were allowed to be teenagers. I want to spend years making up for the lost time.
Because as much as we forget it, we are still young. We have our whole lives ahead of us, and those days cannot all be wasted with despair.
Maybe one day, I think when she rests her head on my shoulder. Maybe one day war will be the last thing on our minds; it will bow to us.
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