TOBIAS POV
Light footsteps draw me out of a deep, troubled sleep. When I notice the absence of weight on my arm, my eyes crack open, and I stare across the gloomy apartment to see Tris standing at the counter, her hands wrapped around a steaming mug and her head bowed.
I watch her for a moment, not knowing what to say. We didn't really talk about Dez last night. I still don't know what to say, and I have had all of yesterday to consider it. But now that I know of the other tragedy haunting her, the last thing I want to do is bring it up.
Both of us have grown tired of apologizing for the collateral of war. There shouldn't be sorries or excuses for what it has taken from us.
She remains motionless for quite a while, bent over the counter as if the weight of grief has crippled her. And I don't know how she does it, how she loses everything and is still standing. All I can do is watch her, building the courage to say something, anything.
Eventually my gaze shifts to the alarm clock. It suddenly dawns on me that I have a leadership meeting to attend in less than ten minutes.
"Shit," I say out loud, untangling myself from the covers.
Her head snaps up at the sound of me jumping out of bed. I hurry and pull on a pair of pants that are on the floor from last night and tuck my gun away in my waistband against my lower back. Then, as I am sliding my arms in my jacket, Tris croaks, "I thought you went to that meeting last night."
"We postponed it," I explain, shaking my head. "We agreed that we couldn't make a brash decision, so we thought it would be better to take the night and think about it."
She nods, biting her lip. And now more than ever I need to be home, with her, and it tears my heart out to think that she will be mourning by herself, even for a bit. But maybe she needs that time.
"Will you be okay?" I ask, crossing the room over to her. "I shouldn't be too long."
"I'll be fine," she says quietly.
I reach out tentatively, pulling her in for a hug which she automatically slumps into. Her breaths are shaky in my ear when I bury my face in her shoulder, and when I let her go, she is wiping away tears.
"Tobias," she whispers. "Do whatever you have to to win this war."
Her eyes are heavy; they carry dread and trauma and manage to stay open, weighted down by the sleepless nights but still open. Their gray reflects the ashes they have seen, and I have only seen her this close to death once, after the first war.
The Dauntless flames are being extinguished, one tragedy at a time. They have always burned the brightest within her—lethal and colorful and untamed.
But that fire is almost gone.
"I will," I promise.
I lean down to kiss her, just wanting a spark to remind me that there is still a fight to be had, a fight that I have to win in order to put an end to this living hell. It is gentle and conveys so much unwieldy emotion that sometimes we can't put into words. But it is there, and when I pull back and wipe away her tears, both of us seem to be a little better.
"I'll be back soon," I tell her.
Tris straightens and nods, collecting herself. She returns to lean at her spot at the counter, and I walk out of the apartment begrudgingly.
The Dauntless are furious, as they should be. There is a raging aura to the compound that follows me all the way up to the Pire as I pass people who can't hold back from fidgeting and wearing unapproachable expressions, as if they are itching to retaliate against the latest attack.
But we can't. Evelyn is waiting for us to jump first, out of the shadows and into a place that puts her at an advantage. As soon as we begin acting impulsively, we lose this war.
Tori, of course, thinks like a Dauntless.
"I say we hit them now, while everyone still has enough anger in them to care," she tells the conference room.
I tap my foot and keep my eyes trained on the table. It is safe to say that everyone here—leaders and advisors alike—know that Tori has slowly slipped down a path that is leading her astray from rationality. And it bothers me to know that if she weren't a part of this team, everything from paperwork to major wartime decisions would be completed efficiently and without delay. It is getting progressively worse.
"I think there will always be plenty of anger to go around," Mike points out.
She shakes her head. "Not like this. Our people are tired, and the longer we wait, the worse our chances of being prepared are."
I finally grow irritated enough by her idea that I speak up. "Why do you think she executed those people? Just for fun?" I say. "She did it so that we would do something stupid."
"So what do you suggest we do, Four?" Tori demands, throwing her hands up in the air. "Wait another week, or better yet, until we're out of food? Where has being passive gotten us?"
"Farther than we would be had we outright attacked. We have everything to lose, Tori, and they don't." The factionless have been awaiting this war eagerly because they can only gain, can only rise from their poverty status. But I suppose I can understand why Tori feels this way, since she has a history of taking her revenge as soon as it is in reach.
She scoffs. "You don't know that. In fact, you don't have much real experience in war—"
Tori is bold, but I never expected her to lash out at me like this, over my age of all things. Everyone watches with bated breath as we lock harsh eye contact.
"Do not try to patronize me," I growl. "The only reason you don't want to exercise restraint is because the last time you tried to make peace with Evelyn, it was widely unpopular." It was Tori who came up with those bullshit terms to fool the Dauntless back into submission, nobody else.
"You know what will be widely unpopular with the Dauntless?" she fires back. "Standing by as the rest of the city is slaughtered!"
Mike sighs frustratedly. "We can't be split over this decision. So you better have a decent idea, Four, or else I will have to side with Tori."
I pinch the bridge of my nose. "We already agreed that we cannot just send soldiers to Amity. Not without an idea of the layout," I state. "I think we should send someone out there beforehand to get a headcount and an idea of what we are dealing with before we send our military."
"If you're so keen on getting that dire information, maybe you should go," Tori snarks.
"Okay, fine," I reply hotly, to prove my point. "I will."
Between our stare-down, Mike interjects, "I don't think it's a brilliant idea to send one of our leaders out in the field alone."
"I won't be alone. I'll take someone with me. But I also don't want to attract any attention, so it will be one or two people."
He slowly nods along as it settles in with him. "Okay. I don't have any objections to that."
We both look to Tori, who shakes her head in enraged disappointment. "This is wrong," she says between gritted teeth. "Dauntless is supposed to protect every life inside the city, and you both are acting like cowards by letting your mother, Four, murder innocents while we hide inside this cavern."
"Don't insinuate that my loyalties lie elsewhere," I warn.
"So I am supposed to ignore your sudden disappearance in which you were supposedly infiltrating the factionless?"
"You didn't have a problem with it a day ago."
"Because I thought you were serving Dauntless's interests," she remarks. "I must have been wrong, and I see that now."
I roll my eyes. "I am serving Dauntless by using my head. You of all people should know that people can have several traits; we don't have to be stupid just because we're Dauntless. In fact, we can't afford to be."
She goes quiet, tapping her foot and staring down at the long table. Mike clears his throat and asks, "Does that mean you're voting against this, Tori?"
She presses her lips together in affirmation. "Let it be known that it was not my decision to stand by."
I want to scream at her that the wait may only be several days, and that sending troops into a trap would be suicide before this war has really begun. But I know that she won't see reason, so I don't bother.
"Any objections?" Mike checks with the silent advisors.
Nobody speaks up.
"All right, then," he confirms. "The vote is two to one in favor of scouting Amity before we send soldiers in."
The room clears when it is settled, until Tori and I are the last people to file out.
"What are you going to tell her?" she jabs. "That you idly watched as more people died, as more people like her friend died?"
She is speaking of Tris, of course, probably aiming for my weakest spot in order to influence my decision. I narrow my eyes defensively. "I'm going to tell her that I didn't want to send our faction to its death, including her friends that are still alive."
"The more time passes before we act lets the factionless grow more powerful. Nobody is safe, especially not her."
My stomach lurches at the thinly veiled threat. Tori has never given me a reason to believe that she is my enemy, but that sentence was enough to sever any shred of trust I had left in her.
She kept my tattoo—my Divergence, really—a secret. She kept Tris's Divergence a secret as well. She protected both of us, but the last several months have proven that she is anything but an ally to me.
"You've been my friend, Tori," I say calmly, even though my blood is boiling. "But you would be very wise not to threaten her."
"What are you talking about?" She seems falsely offended by my accusation, though underneath her acting I can see the danger she poses. Would she actually hurt Tris? Probably not. But there is other damage she could possibly do; she already had her extradited to Candor once.
"That's your one warning," I say, turning around and storming out the door.
The apartment is cold and silent, and I shiver when I shut the door behind me and kick off my shoes. Flipping the heat on, my eyes scan the place for any sign of Tris, and I almost think she left until I notice the lump on the couch.
She has a blanket draped over her crookedly, her arm dangling over the edge. When I step closer, her cheeks are pink and tear-stained.
I close my eyes. Sometimes there are things you can do to help someone, and sometimes there just aren't. And for someone like me who has a tendency to keep everything neat and strictly together, it is frustrating to see her so utterly torn apart.
Maybe Tori did have a point; maybe Tris thinks that I am not doing enough, and that's why she said what she said this morning before I left. But I can't even see her accusing me of that now, even as she is blinded by grief.
With my head spinning, all I can do is maneuver myself behind her, under her, not even bothering to take off my jacket. She stirs awake when I jostle her.
"Sorry," I murmur.
But she doesn't seem to mind. If anything, she burrows herself closer, her eyelashes brushing my neck.
We stay quiet, just breathing together until I can almost find enough tranquility in the moment to coax myself to sleep. Though it seems that she is more awake than I thought.
"I used to imagine what your death was like."
My eyes slam open at the jarring comment, and I don't dare move.
"I used to have nightmares where you crawled out from under the train, screaming, frantically clawing at yourself in a futile effort to put out the fire until finally, your entire body gave out from the trauma and you collapsed in a pile of ash."
Too late, I realize how unfair I have been. My own actions filled her head with those terrorizing images, and somehow it felt like she had forgotten in the last week or so that I had been dead.
But she doesn't forget; of course she doesn't. Just because I settle into some state of content when I am with her does not mean that she isn't in a violent mental battle. Appearances can be deceiving, but they are even more so when she has been trained most of her life not to express any emotion she might feel, just like me.
I want to believe that she is okay. Sometimes I'm not sure if she is ever okay.
Tris swallows audibly. "And I tried to convince myself that you didn't die in some horrible way, that maybe it was clean and quick and painless and..." She draws in a shaky breath. "But I'm not a stranger to death anymore. I saw my parents die; I witnessed how my bullet went through Will's head; I still think of Marlene's head splattered on the sidewalk—her body was crippled like Al's, though his was grotesque and bloated."
At those words, I cringe and pull her closer. I wish I could protect her from all of it. Maybe in a perfect world, she would be sheltered. But then again, I take pride in her strength. One of the thousands of reasons I love her is the redemption she has proven since being torn down mercilessly.
She is fiery when she wants revenge and gentle when her spark isn't needed; she doesn't trust authority and knows exactly how to survive. I wish the world hadn't darkened her past, but it shaped her into herself.
"I keep trying to reimagine it, like yours." Tris's voice cracks. "I keep trying to think she died in the most ideal way, but it never is. It's messy and awful and—"
With an involuntary whimper, she tucks her head so that her tears are on my shoulder. And I'm possibly the worst person to talk to about this—I barely knew Dez—so I run my hand up and down her arm, hoping that it is enough to let her know that I empathize.
It takes only a moment for her tears to dry. She distances herself from me a little so that she can wipe her face. "Sorry," she whispers.
"Don't ever apologize for crying," I say.
Tris doesn't reply for the next few moments. Then she tries to change the subject, eventually muttering, "What did you all decide?"
I yawn before answering, "I'm going to stake out Amity—probably tomorrow night—to get an idea of what we are up against. Then as soon as we can formulate a plan, we'll attack."
She doesn't seem unhappy with the plan, or at least she doesn't voice it, so I take that as incentive to dismiss my earlier thoughts.
"Tori was against it," I add. "She wants to attack right now."
"That would be stupid."
I sigh. "Well, Tori isn't exactly seeing reason lately."
Challenging me on everything because she can. Threatening Tris to coerce me into cooperating. This disguised part of her character has only come to my attention recently, and I can't make sense of where it originated from.
"Who are you taking with you?" Tris asks.
She attempts to mask the concern, but it is there, shining through the casual question because she probably won't be able to trust me—or anyone—with my own life ever again.
"Haven't decided yet," I say.
Pulling back far enough to look up at me, her eyes plead with me. "Can I come?"
And I don't know if it is out of worry or if she needs to desperately get out of this compound to distract herself. Either way, I don't feel comfortable with it initially.
But then I think of leaving her behind, of Tori getting ahold of her and exchanging her in a deal with Evelyn. It makes me shudder, and then I can't make an excuse as to why she shouldn't come with me. She is safer with me than she is anywhere else. Plus, she knows how to use the climbing equipment that Cara gave us to break into Erudite a long time ago, and we will definitely need it to avoid any guards and get over the fence.
"Yeah, you can," I concede.
She seems surprised that I would give in so easily, shifting so she can hover over me. With a small smile and her eyelashes stuck together from crying, she says, "Thank you."
"For what?" I ask nonchalantly. "We're a team."
Christina and Tris stand together, watching Uriah as he takes aim at the target across from him. He launches the knife in his hand, and when it hits the edge of the center, he swears, making the girls laugh.
"What's with the rifle?" Zeke asks as he approaches me. "Going somewhere?"
"It's a secret operation," I tease. "Leadership-only information."
"Oh, I get it. You're too important for me now, is that it?"
I crack a grin. "Nothing serious. Tris and I are going to stake out Amity."
He plasters a dramatic hand over his heart. "And I wasn't invited?"
"You would be bored out of your mind."
"You're probably right," he laughs. Our gazes both return to the group in front of the targets. "They're betting on the next piece of Dauntless cake that comes about. That shit is way too hard to come by these days."
I watch Tris's form as she throws her knife, hitting the center again like I knew she would. If I'm lucky, she might let me have a bite of that cake.
"Well, hopefully this will be over soon," I remark, on a more serious note.
"Hopefully not! As soon as this is over, I will no longer be a free man," he jokes. It reminds me about what he said about Shauna not wanting to marry him until we weren't living in a war zone.
Something about it bothers me, but I can't figure out why.
When Tris sees me, she smiles, forgetting all about the bet and making her way over. It is relieving to see her spirits up again, for however long they can be before the next tragedy happens.
"Hey," she says, wrapping her arms around my waist.
"Hey," I sigh. For a second I forget all about our friends nearby as I hug her after a long day, at least until I hear Uriah making gagging noises.
"Stop being so cute!" Christina shouts from across the training room.
Tris laughs quietly. And for a moment the grief is missing from her eyes. I wonder if she and Christina talked about Dez today; they must have.
"Are you ready for tonight?" I ask.
"Yes," she says. "When do we leave?"
"Soon."
From the targets, Uriah calls, "Your turn, Tris!"
She looks up at me, and I clarify, "We have time. Go have fun."
But when she steps away, I catch her arm. "Hey," I say quietly. "Not too much fun. Kick their asses."
Tris winks at me before she heads off.
I stay and watch for a short time before I decide to head up to the apartment and prepare. We don't need much—just the climbing equipment, warm layers, and firepower, of course—but in recent times I haven't felt ready for anything. I suppose that is part of being Dauntless, facing the unknown with what we have. Though how many times will we be lucky? What happens in that one instance when the completely unexpected happens?
My paranoia increases tenfold as soon as Tris and I gather everything and head downstairs to get into the truck that will take us almost all the way to the fence. It is never safe out in the city, I know that, though I guess Dauntless isn't exactly a safe haven either. Maybe if I tell myself that I live under false security every day then it will be easier to ignore my hyper-vigilant mind.
"I forget that you know how to drive," Tris remarks with a shake of her head as I start the truck.
It is probably the only useful skill that Marcus actually taught me. As in, the correct way to teach someone. I shrug. "It's not hard. You would figure it out very quickly."
"You'll have to teach me someday."
The snow on the road has mostly melted, just patches here and there on the edges. The truck hums too loudly, but I don't think enough of the factionless are positioned on this side of the city to really do something if they see us pass.
I try to dig up a discussion that could distract me from the worry and find nothing. So we sit in silence for a while as the streets grow bumpier and bumpier and we approach the outskirts of the city.
"You said Evelyn won't be able to keep the factionless together under their conditions," Tris eventually says. "But if we take Amity, won't they have to band together?"
I mull it over. She has a point, and if it weren't for all of the violence, I would consider it.
"There are some factionless that know what Evelyn is doing is wrong," I tell her. Cassie, for one, who holds some influence at my mother's side, didn't seem to enjoy the executions that were held at Candor a few weeks ago. If she was bold enough to do things her own way, she would break off from Evelyn and take some of the others with her. Or even people like Conner—I don't think he was a bad person deep down, just serving the wrong leader.
"She can't keep a hold on them by dangling her resources in front of them anymore," I continue. "She slaughtered those Amity, and that has to unsettle even some of the most zealous of her soldiers."
"I don't know. There are plenty of sadists in this city," Tris states.
Maybe she is right. How many of them stood by knowing that the factionless higher-ups were using suicide serum on people who weren't even their enemies? "We'll have to see, I guess. But if we take Amity, then I don't know if their numbers will matter."
When we are so far out at the edge of the city that the buildings don't resemble buildings anymore, I turn off the headlights. The road is so deformed out here from whatever wars came before that I almost hit my head on the roof of the truck. Before I become sick from the movement, I park behind a collapsing wall and shut off the engine.
"Do you have everything?" I ask as I open my door and grab my rifle off the back seat.
Tris nods and slides out of the other door. Now that we are outside of the truck, it is easier to see the fence up ahead.
I point along the wall to the left. "The opening for the train is about a mile that way. Any guards out there won't be able to see us."
We start heading straight, our shoes crunching the snow beneath us. I glance over my shoulder to make sure we aren't being followed. A gust of wind makes us both wince, and Tris crosses her arms to try to ignore the cold.
"Sometimes I think about the people I knew who are factionless," she says. "Molly, Drew, Myra..."
I cringe at the names. That was a long time ago.
"I wonder where they are, what sides they have taken."
"They're probably all dead," I predict. Molly and Drew weren't the smartest, and Myra was too fragile. Although in war, those odds often don't matter.
Tris shudders next to me. "I hated them, but that hate seems so negligible now."
I raise an eyebrow at her when I remember her fight against Molly. I knew she despised her since Peter was practically her handler, and Drew obviously helped try to murder her, but besides Molly's childish banter, I never knew why she got under Tris's skin so much.
"You never told me why you nearly beat Molly unconscious during initiation," I say. I had to step in and force her off before she realized past her rage what was happening.
Tris sighs at the reminder. "One time, the three of them cornered me in the dorms after I got out of the shower. Stripped my towel off. They laughed as I ran all the way to the bathroom down the hall."
Some part of me is furious, of course, but I'm more pitiful as I think of her being bullied like that. Back then, she was different; she couldn't have handled herself like she could now.
"Right after that, you put me up against Molly," she continues. "And I was already fuming, and then she taunted me about my birthmark, and I lost control."
I frown. "What birthm—" Then it dawns on me, and I grin mischievously. "Oh."
Even in the dark, I can see her cheeks glow red, as if she is mortified that I have seen it. "Anyway," she presses on. "I don't know why I let her bother me; Peter and Drew were obviously more of a threat. But it was still nice to have some sort of victory against one of them."
I am not pleased with the reminder. If I hadn't been close enough to hear her scream from the chasm, she would probably be dead. Before I could even really know her, like she barely even existed in my life. It is a horrible alternative to what did happen, and I don't like considering it.
"It's scary," Tris laughs, "that that was an easier time. I wouldn't have believed it back then."
I shake my head in agreement. It is quite difficult to believe. "It was hard enough, and then I nearly had a heart attack when I saw you manipulate the simulation," I add.
"And neither of us knew what was happening. One minute we were arguing and you were throwing knives, and the next you took me into your fear landscape and we were kissing." Tris is smiling, her eyes with a faraway look. "We've come a long way since we were initiate and instructor."
I stare at her as it all clicks into place.
And it is that statement that makes me realize why I had a problem with what Zeke said earlier. He and Shauna are waiting for the war to end when it may never come to an end the way they want it. They may never get married; they might be waving as their future passes them by when they could have had it now, ideal or not.
I have had it all wrong, just like they have. I have been wagering on someday when that day may never come.
I'm tired of living with uncertainty. And Tris is the one thing I am certain about.
"Tobias?"
My head buzzes anxiously with the decision I have made. Somehow I force myself past it and say, "Nothing. You're right, it has been a long time."
Soon enough, we approach the base of the wall. Fortunately it isn't nearly as tall as Erudite was when I climbed it, but the height is still unnerving.
"It will only take us a few minutes," Tris assures me as she digs through her backpack, sensing my discomfort.
"It's fine," I brush it off.
We prepare the climbing equipment by straightening everything out and checking to make sure that we are secured by the straps that will keep us on the line. I check her harness two, three, four times until she has to tell me that she will be fine to get me to stop.
Both of us shoot the grappling hook up to the top of the wall portion of the fence. Then we ascend, steadily and carefully, up the side. I let her go ahead of me so that I won't have to look down, and it reminds me of climbing that damn Ferris wheel with her—twice now—forever ago.
And when we reach the top, she is smiling like she did that night, like the rush of adrenaline we are both feeling is a beautiful thing, not a heart-stopping one. It does look beautiful on her, and after we look back at the dark, silent city, I take her face in my hands and kiss her.
For a moment we are high on each other, like she isn't grieving for her friend and like I am not struggling to save the crumbling city out in the distance. We could go anywhere; we could forget Amity and go past it until we found a better place for us.
But I think we have made our choice at this point. Dauntless is our home, our friends' home, where we found ourselves, and that is worth salvaging at the very least. We could never stop caring about those things, and we won't ask each other to, because they are a part of who we are.
TRIS POV
"How many?"
"Twenty-five," I yawn, handing the binoculars over to Tobias. My fingers are frozen stiff, and I try to massage some warmth back into them.
We have been observing the Amity compound all night, rotating in almost a complete circle around it and writing down how many factionless are on guard at certain times and in certain sections. Most of them haven't shifted throughout the night, and they keep the Amity members on full lockdown, so we have gotten an accurate count. A large majority of them are now centered around the train loading platform, as to be expected, and where we send soldiers will be dependent off that number.
This has been successful, but at this point, my whole body is bleeding exhaustion and I can't wait to go home.
"Sun's almost up," Tobias sighs. My eyes shift to the east, where the horizon fades from a menacing black down to a delicate blue. "Let's just head back to where we started."
"Okay."
My feet drag behind him as we walk parallel to the wall, as far off as it is. He seems to be as tired as I am, but if he is, he doesn't show it. I stare in between his shoulder blades and follow him, so worn that I almost walk straight into him when he jolts to a stop.
"Wait," he says quietly. "Do you hear that?"
First all I hear is our breaths, and then there is a low rumble. An engine.
As if we were both thinking in sync, we dart out of the open field to the orchard we were already heading into. We press our backs to two adjacent trees and wait as the trucks get closer. Several of them pass, and when we are certain that they are out of sight, we cross the road that runs straight down the center of the orchard.
"Let's get out of the trees and see if we can get a closer look," Tobias suggests.
I want to argue with him. We have what we need, and if we are likely attacking in the night, then why do we need to know how many replacements they bring for the morning? But we can never be certain, and if they are on standby, it would be important to know those numbers as well.
"Fine," I say.
There is no sign of danger, though nobody can ever be too sure. So I take my gun out of its holster and let the warmth it gained from my back spread to my fingertips.
Tobias leads the way, rifle in hand. We move past the main road and toward where we started out before moving up to a nearby hill. The hill provides an excellent view of the compound, and Tobias pulls out the binoculars for a better look.
"What are they doing?" I ask.
He goes to answer but then pauses and looks confused. Worried, even.
"Tobias," I say.
"They're motioning toward us. But that's impossible, they can't—" When he stops talking again, I steal the binoculars away from him, frustrated.
The guards in front of the compound are rushing around, pointing and frantically preparing. After my initial panic, I realize that if they somehow knew that the two of us were here, they would not be acting this way. No, they're gearing up for something bigger.
"We need to get out of here," I urge. If they come this way, we will be completely exposed.
He nods and searches the area for an escape. The sun peeks over the fields to the left, and ahead of us to the right the field continues, a sheltered space of dead corn stalks.
"We have to hurry. They're heading this way," he breathes, looking in my same direction. But to get to the field, we have to be in plain sight on this hill for a few seconds. "On three. One, two, three—"
We bolt over the top of the hill and toward the field to the right. The corn stalks part ahead of us, like they know exactly where we are and are running on an angle just to meet us.
Tobias grabs my arm and yanks me back toward him as we catch our breath, frantic for a way out.
There is the sound of snow crunching behind us, up on the hill. Hundreds of people.
And then, all hell breaks loose.
"Get down!" he shouts.
He shoves me the rest of the way down, away from him. The gunfire is everywhere, drowning out the pained yelp that escapes me when I land wrong on my arm at the bottom of the hill. Before I even have a chance to think, there are soldiers all around me. A Dauntless army, running straight into the factionless army, to the Amity compound.
And we are in the crossfire.
They don't see me, buried underneath the corn stalks. They wouldn't hear me if I cried out, underneath the deafening sound of bullets being fired and clipping the ground. My gun is lost somewhere in the snow.
"Tobias!" I try to scream, but it is worthless.
A bullet nearly misses me. Another, and it hits the Dauntless standing over me. He cries out and falls, somewhere out of my view.
Someone steps on my leg, the jagged bottom of their shoe simultaneously smashing and clawing at my calf. With a gasp, I drag myself to the right, noticing that less seems to be happening in that direction.
I need a gun. I need a gun.
My mind runs wild, desperate for survival in the midst of this chaos. I could try to stand, but even if I could manage it, I would be more likely to be cut down by the gunfire.
Where is Tobias?
Somehow, a factionless slips between everyone and ends up in front of me. Mutual panic ensues as we make eye contact, but then two shots hit him in the chest. As soon as he is on the ground, I scramble for his gun.
I turn around to see if maybe that was the most of it, that the Dauntless have almost all passed where I am. Only to get an accidental kick to the jaw by a running soldier.
I'm flat on the ground again, the world spinning as bullets part through the corn stalks every which way. The war is muffled now and sounds more like popping in my ears. I close my eyes and cover my head and pray for this to end because it is all I can do now.
When I open them again, the fighting has faded.
The dead vegetation is marked with blood. Bodies part it, some semi-conscious and most dead, and there is no more gunfire, not that I can hear. With one last effort, I haul myself up the side of the hill. I don't feel the icy ground cut my fingers. And when I face the Amity compound, all I see is mayhem.
The screams of the Amity reach me from here. I can see more bodies up here, bodies dressed in black and blue and white and gray and—
Where is Tobias?
There are still sparks flashing at the compound, brighter than the morning itself. I don't hear them anymore. My arm aches so I cradle it to my chest, but there is nothing I can do for my head and I'm so dizzy.
Dark spots around the edge of my vision begin closing in. I have to find him. But when I manage to stand, the ground lurches and I collapse immediately.
And this time, I stay down.
There is an agonizingly bright light. I know without opening my eyes. It sends sharp blows through my head with every pulse, and every pulse gets quicker as I become more coherent.
There is a monitor echoing my heartbeat. Then I hear other sounds: a cough, medical chatter, pained groans. By the smell alone I know that I am in the infirmary, that metallic, dusty smell of Dauntless that they try to cover up with antiseptic.
Finally I do force myself past the irritating light. My heavy eyelids flutter open, and I am in a bed that is secluded from the world behind a black curtain.
The beeping is faster now as the last events I remember come rushing back. And then I'm panicking because Tobias—
I turn my head to the right in my desperate search and find him beside me, in his own bed and hooked up to more machines than I am. From what my muddled brain can tell, he is in worse shape. But he is here, and that's all that matters.
I'm so relieved that I find myself silently sobbing. It feels like knives to my head and my jaw.
I am so tired. And it now seems like we are at the peak of the war. When I recall flashes of the Amity field of bodies, I am beyond upset. I could almost pass out again just thinking of how many people we lost, and I haven't even heard the full accounting yet.
It becomes difficult to breathe through my tears, so I try to stem them. Try to be grateful that it could have been worse for Tobias.
I reach my hand out for his, which hangs off the edge of his bed. Curling my fingers around his, I let myself focus on the ridges of his skin that I know so well. Maybe it will heal me in the ways that medicine can't.
After a moment, his hand twitches, and he returns the pressure. He doesn't open his eyes, but he doesn't need to.
We pretend it is just us for a moment, hidden away from the war and death and pain behind the black curtain.