Hello! Happy Sunday everybody! To everyone who's recently started following this story, sorry for the long wait between chapters! The next one shouldn't be so super long :) Thanks to everyone for your patience, and thank you so much to BK2U for editing this for me.

Everything is dark.

After what feels like forever in a dimly-lit mental institution, Dauntless should seem downright fluorescent. Instead, ancient blue lights flicker off and on as I navigate through the rocky walkways, and the few spots with natural lighting seem dulled, covered up by something I can't see from the inside. The walls seem sharper, more menacing and dirty. Shadows seem to stretch and grow every time I turn my head, and the lighting in my apartment feels like someone's dialed it down a few watts just to fuck with me.

It feels unreal. I spent so long nearly tasting freedom, and now that I have it, I find myself feeling like I'm not really here. No longer under the steely watch of the orderlies or the intense gaze of doctors plotting my next treatment, I can come and go wherever and whenever I want, though my mind keeps trying to warn me it's a trap. I left the asylum with a sticky, paranoid feeling, one that crept in when things became silent. It hit hard when I realized I no longer had a schedule to adhere to, that there would be no overcooked meals slammed in front of me or mandatory therapy sessions that made me want to vomit up my words. Just my own empty apartment, my own bleak reflection staring back at me in the mirror, and my own dark wardrobe filling my dresser.

Today, I stride through Dauntless with my arms behind my back and my chin jutting forward. The dark, heavy vest I threw over my shirt feels odd and uncomfortable; maybe it's the disappointing realization that my chest still hurts and my breathing still feels labored, or maybe it's the unrelenting feeling that I've missed something. I pause at the top of the stairs, the ache so hot that I fear it's not real, and I end up clenching my jaw down hard enough that I'm surprised my teeth don't crack.

I bypass the guards, trivial patrolmen happy with their lives here, never thinking about anything beyond what they've been told to think. I walk past them with an unimpressed sneer twisting across my face and no actual destination in mind. Compared to my floor of the institution I'd been living in, Dauntless is immense; the twisting caverns are endless, the Pit is wall-to-wall with writhing members, and I swear the ground undulates under my boots as I walk.

I swallow heavily as the loud noise seems to settle into the depths of my brain, hurting even as the sounds lessen.

I've been back for three days.

Three sleepless nights.

Seventy-two hours of trying to adjust back to this place. Seventy-two hours without anyone monitoring how or where I slept. Seventy-two hours of forcing myself not to think about my time away from here.

I narrow my eyes as I walk past a few familiar faces, pleased when they scatter at the sight of me, wide-eyed and frantic as their stares sweep over me.

They're learning that the rumors of where I've been, so deliciously disturbing and horrifying, are very true.

Tori gives me space.

I'd expected her to be all over my ass to head out, guns blazing and a plan in place. She'd told me she had her own reasons for wanting Jeanine dead, so I was surprised when she didn't immediately attempt to get started the second we walked through the entryway of Dauntless. On the drive back to the compound, she'd handed me my phone and told me she'd keep in touch, her tone hinting that I'd see her sooner than later.

Killing Jeanine was of urgent importance, so my guess was that the ensuing quiet was due to Tori realizing that I was more injured than she'd been expecting. We had stopped at the infirmary on our way into Dauntless. Helena had checked out my surgical site and pronounced it quite acceptable and healing well. She'd wanted me to stay overnight just to be safe, but I'd declined rather forcefully. Tori decided to escort me back to my apartment, and as we walked, she told me the basics about how she got me out. I'd blinked at her in surprise when she informed me that Bella, the very reason for why it hurts now to take a deep breath, was the one who'd been given orders to stab me.

"She was only supposed to hurt you enough that Jeanine would want you out of there. I told Bella to aim to the right, even lower, so she would bypass any major organs. Maybe hit your spleen or something. Something you could live without." Tori's clipped tone was almost a whisper as she walked beside me. "I didn't think she'd be so… ambitious."

Tori had smiled apologetically in response. She stopped when we arrived at my apartment door and looked up at me. "I hope you're feeling better soon. Get some rest, and we'll discuss this further when I see you next."

I'd nodded at her curtly and closed the door without looking back.

On the fourth day, Tori seemed to have reached the limits of her patience; I found her waiting outside my door. She explained to me that she'd be joining me since we both have the same leadership meeting to attend. On the slow walk over, she explained the rest of her plan, and I had to give her credit for thinking it through.

I was surprised to learn that Bella was a disgraced member of the Dauntless faction, and the only remaining family member Tori had left. She had worked as one of our patrol soldiers at the furthest post, one at which our soldiers stay for weeks at a time. At best, Bella was unimportant and easy to overlook, but the long hours, lack of sleep, and a healthy dose of craziness had led her to attack some of the guards she worked with. Repeatedly. They moved her, time after time, unwilling to give up a warm body that filled a spot not many wanted. After a more brutal attack, she was given two weeks off, per protocol, and was furious to discover she had been demoted.

She didn't handle it very well. One quiet day, poor Bryce had no clue she was even coming after him. He was no one important, simply a soldier she'd worked with on a different patrol, but before he knew it, she had taken him down and dragged him from the Pit by his hair, proceeding to nearly kill him. They found him unconscious, barely breathing, along with Bella, who was covered in blood. He died hours later, and to the horror of our medical staff, Bella was strangely calm.

I'd never bothered to pay even a single ounce of attention to the fiasco. I hadn't been a leader all that long when it happened, but I eventually heard about the incident. The report had been slapped on my desk months later, having been treated as nothing more than a minor occurrence in a routine report on factional safety. Had I known her at the time, I would have found her to be little more than a rogue soldier, driven mad, and now useless to us. I would have barely looked up from my own work upon hearing the news that she was found not guilty after a plea of insanity, perhaps grunting my displeasure that she hadn't been executed. It was by the grace of Max — and the hotly embarrassing petitioning from her cousin, Tori — that she was sentenced to time in the Sanitarium.

With the understanding that she'd never return to Dauntless.

The original diagnosis they gave her made sense. Something in her had snapped, causing her to hallucinate, to quite frequently believe she was hearing voices, and to eventually become perpetually violent. They didn't think they could fix her, but they could keep her away from society so she was no longer a threat. Devastated that her cousin wasn't fixable, Tori kept an eye on her from afar, often making anonymous arrangements to make sure Bella stayed alive and wasn't being treated too terribly. It made her feel better, sort of soothing the pain of seeing her only family wind up there, even though Tori knew there was nothing she could do.

For a while, things were okay. Tori got scheduled updates on her, pleased with her progress. Then the inconsistencies began, and eventually, Tori realized that Bella wasn't ever going to get better or really be taken care of. There was nothing Tori could do to change that, and so she tried to put the whole mess behind her.

But my stint there ripped the scab right off of Tori's mostly-healed wound.

News of my stay had traveled across Dauntless, and it forced Tori to think about Bella, locked up and dreaming of broomsticks and warlocks and cold-blooded murder. I'm sure she must have panicked, realizing Jeanine was really in control of the sanitarium since she'd insisted on having me committed there. That meant Bella wasn't really under the care of the asylum, but at the mercy of Jeanine. One day she'd be used, just like the rest of them, as a test subject for whatever Jeanine was working on. Surely, there was no way she wouldn't end up as a lab rat, because not a single soul other than Tori would notice or care that she was gone.

It had taken Tori mere minutes to decide that this might be her chance to save her cousin, and maybe even give her some sort of redemption. It had little to do with me, although my help in taking down Jeanine would feel like some sort of justice for her.

Of course, Tori wasn't well-versed in the layout of the mental institution. She had limited knowledge about what went on there, but it only took scrounging up blueprints, a visit under the guise of being my fiancée, and the bribery of one semi-lucid Bella to set her plan in action. It wouldn't matter if Bella failed along the way, she only needed her to attack me, to get me separated from the group and have me wind up injured enough to need medical treatment elsewhere. She'd get me out of there, force my hand in helping her, and we'd be even.

It seemed foolproof.

Knowing her cousin could fight, the attack was Tori's idea.

The scissors were Bella's.

It was easy to convince her; Tori made it sound appealing, because after all, Bella got to stab me. She told her she'd work to get her stable, maybe even to the point where she'd be free. Visions of Dauntless must have danced through her mind, an unobtainable privilege seeming very obtainable now. It was laughable, because anyone who spent five minutes with Bella knew she was one hundred percent nuts, but desperate for her old life back, she went for it.

She became a model patient.

She lowered their defenses, one by one, until they thought she was doing alright.

After a week of routinely taking her medication, Bella was alright. In fact, she had been feeling fine. It explained her coherent state when she mocked me for not telling Violet I had a fiancée, and it explained why she was trusted enough that she wasn't being watched very carefully. To the delight of the staff, Bella was golden. She was normal. She didn't speak of warlocks in air vents, nor did she scream for her husband that never existed. She'd earned enough of her privileges back to attend her art class, and while there, she lifted the shears when the lone, overworked art teacher wasn't looking.

Stabbing me deeply, with the intent to harm, had been her own idea. It was fueled by a delirium that even Tori couldn't attempt to justify. The day she sat beside me, the anger and rage that had always been pushed deep down burst forth, prompting Bella to attack when Violet panicked. In that moment, she took it out on me, rationalizing it to herself that since I'd worn the same uniform as the men who'd put her here, I deserved it.

It made sense, I suppose.

After they stabilized me, Tori was notified of the attack on me, having been added to my emergency contact list as my fiancée. She hung up from the call quickly, knowing she now had little time to make her plan work.

Luckily for her, she was ready. For days she'd been on edge, waiting for this exact phone call. She'd already taken my password and logged in as me, and with the help of the only person I could possibly hate more than Bella, created a program that allowed them to remotely access Jeanine's computer. Computer coding wasn't a strong skill our faction possessed, so that was where Four came in. Turns out that after years in the control room, he'd become skilled at hacking into the systems. Maybe he'd learned it out of sheer boredom, or maybe there were some other sketchy reasoning, but whatever it was, it worked.

Even worse, beyond having access to years of emails and notes, Four discovered Jeanine had minimal security software in place, and Dauntless had even less.

It felt embarrassing. I cringed when she told me this, wondering just how many of my own files had been intercepted. How many amateur hackers had access to our sensitive information. Our war plans. Access codes. Memos and agendas not meant for the other factions to see.

Once he had the access he wanted, Four easily and irritably realized that all along, I had been an integral part of Jeanine's plans. Within minute of snooping through my laptop, he found that I had been given a high-level security clearance on every single one of Jeanine's programs, all for the sake of utilizing whatever data I wanted. It only made his job easier. Within an hour, he was able to make sure he had intercepted all of Jeanine's main forms of communication and had the emails forwarded to an incognito dummy address. With some bribing from Tori, and no doubt some bargaining on Four's part, they'd sent Dr. Branger a few emails regarding my status and had me transferred right into Tori's hands.

Jeanine was none the wiser.

Tori concludes her story there, but just as we reach the doorway to the conference room, she announces cheerfully, "Four wants to see you, you know. I'm sure he's wondering what happened in there. I was thinking maybe we'd go see him and thank him for his help…"

"Tell him to fuck off or come see me himself," I snap, drawing the stares of Harrison and Max. Both of them look nervous when I walk in and sit down, and Harrison pales considerably when I hold his gaze.

I roll my eyes hard enough to invoke a headache, or maybe that's from being forced to sit here and pretend I don't want to kill Max and Harrison. Four had emailed them as well, pretending to be Jeanine, with strict instructions to act like everything was fine so I would assimilate back into my normal routine without much fanfare. Too bad the two of them didn't realize my list was growing with every passing day, and they were both on it.

Luckily for them, I needed to make sure I had my shit in order; I needed to deal with Jack first, then I'd take out Jeanine, and then — and this was the hardest part of all — I'd have some decisions to make regarding the asylum. Never in my life did I think I'd take a moral stance on how these patients should be treated, but suddenly, here I am. Sitting here, staring at my coffee and wondering what Violet is doing.

Or if she's still alive.

"Eric, you uh, your thoughts on…the border safety of…Amity."

Max is having a hard time speaking or looking at me. His voice drops off at the end for a few reasons. He knows I don't give two shits about Amity, but he also knows something is wrong. I haven't spoken to him since I've been back, and I haven't brought up that he watched me being taken away and locked up and failed oh-so-spectacularly at getting me out. He currently looks sweaty, his forehead shiny even in this poorly-lit room, and I have to admit I get a great deal of joy from seeing that Harrison shares his same nervousness.

"You uh, you want to check out Amity? There was a report there the other day…on that uh…there was some suspicious activity..." He trails off again, growing even more uneasy in my presence.

I smile at both of them, raising up one eyebrow and making sure they are both looking right at me, and I sit up perfectly straight. I make sure my smile is nasty, beyond condescending at their stupidity, and pleased at their transparent panic.

It'll be satisfying to get rid of them both.

"You know what, I'd be more than happy to check out Amity. Sign me up. One of you can come along with me," I answer smoothly, watching as Max recoils.

He eventually nods, but neither of them smiles back.

"What the hell is wrong with you? You look like shit."

On day six or seven, Tori pointedly asks me this polite question, sliding a beer towards me, across my own coffee table. I glower at her, wondering at what point she decided we were friendly enough to hang out, but then again, I had opened the door to let her in here. I'd been hoping she was coming with some information I'd asked for, but the only thing she'd brought were drinks and annoyance.

"What do you want?" I snap, reclining back onto the dark couch. "All I asked for was the report on Jack. Not a social call."

"Don't be an ass," she snaps back, and I bite the inside of my cheek so I don't sucker punch her right in the face. "I have your precious information. But I wanted to see how you were doing. You've been back for more than a few days, and yet you still look just as miserable as you did the last time I saw you."

"This is how I look every day," I point out, taking a swig of the beer, regretting it immediately. "This tastes like shit, by the way."

She stares at me for a long time before she takes a long sip of her own drink.

"It was all they had." She pauses, and I know I'll dislike what she's about to say. "Look, I wanted to talk to you, leader to leader. I know you were there for a while and I know you shouldn't have been. But the last time I talked to her, Bella hinted that you were sort of close to one of the patients there. I thought maybe that was part of the reason you looked so unhappy. I was wondering if you wanted to know how she's doing."

"Fuck off." I slam my beer down so hard that I'm surprised the table doesn't shatter. "Is that why you're here? To find out if I miss the mental patients?"

"I know not all of them belong in there," Tori answers slowly. "Some do, sure. I certainly know what Bella's capable of. But I know that some of them, like the one she mentioned, aren't in there for the right reasons. And the information you asked for tells me that."

I stare at her, waiting for her to back down as my pulse increases. The feeling is similar to the one I get right before I rip someone's head off, but I'm too tired to kill Tori at this exact moment. So I stay silent, and after ages of waiting, Tori gives in, but just a bit. She holds her palms up and smiles in a way that's supposed to be non-threatening.

"As your fiancée, let me say that I understand. I don't blame you for bonding with any sane person you could find in there. As another leader here, let me agree with you that there's some shady shit that goes on in that place."

"Funny," I answer dryly.

"It's not a terrible thing to be close to someone. Especially someone who isn't crazy," Tori continues, and I realize I'll have to tell her something or she'll never shut up.

"They're working on a way to wipe everyone's minds," I finally mutter, feeling thrown off that she seems to know more than I do. "They can experiment on the patients there because they aren't important to anyone. No one will ever notice what happens to them, nor will they care. They break them down until they're just a body to work on. Some won't recover, but some know what's going on. All of them have no way out. Jeanine has a whole hospital full of people to pick from."

She nods. "I know. I found out the hard way that they aren't really helping them. When I would follow up with Bella, they'd always have some strange reason for why she wasn't any better. Or why she hadn't responded to their treatments. Not that I expected her to ever leave, but you'd expect some improvement. I finally realized that the only way people leave there is if they're deceased."

I stay silent. I lean forward, picking up the beer bottle and I stare at the label until it blurs before my eyes. Her words aren't remotely helpful, especially now.

"Have you slept, Eric?"

Tori's voice jars me back to the apartment, back to the worn couch I'd had for ages, back to the faint concern behind her stare. I shake my head as I set the bottle back down.

"No. Maybe an hour here or there. I'm fine."

"You aren't fine." She presses her lips together. "I need you… look, I need you coherent when you take down Jeanine. We'll only have one chance. You need to be—"

"I can kill her. Sleep or no sleep," I answer, but I recline back and shut my eyes. "She'll get what she deserves. They all will."

"Eric," Tori says my name, quietly and kindly. "If you want, I can call. I can have Bella look out for her… maybe make sure they leave her alone until you can..."

"Until I can what? Save the day? Bring her here?" I ask flatly. "Have her live in Dauntless? Wouldn't that be quite the sight?"

"She'd be safe here. It would be easy to just let her blend in. No one is going to question you," Tori very generously suggests, and I let out a bark of laughter.

"Right."

"But you've thought of it, haven't you?" Tori pushes, and to my horror, she sounds just like Dr. Erin. "You've wondered what it would be like to save her, because you know she could stay here. And you and I both know she probably can't sleep either, knowing that you're gone and she's stuck."

"Fuck off, Tori." My eyes fly open, and I sit up ready to let her have it. My hands clench into fists, but the look on her face stops me.

"I saw her there. I know who she is. She was waiting for you when I was visiting. She looked… sane. Too sane to be there."

"She is," I mutter, and I press my palms against my eyes. The world swirls to darkness, and I could stay there forever, except I can hear Tori breathing.

"Eric…" she prods me, and I finally give in, realizing I have nothing left to lose at this point.

Again.

"Violet. Her name is Violet."

The report is long.

I read it quickly, scanning it while I lie in bed, trying hard to pretend it would be easy for me to just set it down and go to sleep.

But I can't, especially now. The report has been sent to Jeanine in response to her request, and I'm sure Four had a field day typing up that email. But I don't care. I read everything that they've sent, finally setting it down on the nightstand beside my bed and closing my eyes and preparing to lie here for a long time while sleeps evades me.

The news isn't good, but it isn't surprising.

"So they're keeping her mostly sedated? And you don't agree with that, correct?"

Four stares at me like he's seeing a ghost. He looks normal, aside from the unease that radiates off him every time I shift in my seat. I wonder if he's curious about the asylum, or wondering if I enjoyed my stay there, or if he's just being nosy since now he's involved in this little scheme with no way out.

"Would you like to be sedated daily? So you can't escape?" I ask him, sounding far ruder than I'd planned, but it is Four I'm talking to. In his defense, he's rightfully concerned since he's in this far too deep now, and I'm counting down the minutes before his worry for this person he's never even met kicks in.

"No. But if that's the case, then you'll need to do something soon. I'm not sure how long someone can safely be sedated, but I don't think we should continue running the program past this week. It won't be long before Jeanine starts to get suspicious. Her emails are coming in at a much slower rate than normal because I'm manually approving them to be sent on to her. But it's time consuming, and I do have a job I need to do," Four informs us, and I stare at the wall behind him.

Meeting with him had been Tori's idea. I hadn't protested because I had shit to figure out, but unfortunately, he's now an integral part of this process. I need to decide who to kill first, but I also need to make sure Violet stays alive. Sedating her daily isn't great, but the report hinted that she's next in line for some other things after they realized she wasn't good with being left behind. Dr. Branger's notes state she's lost all her progress, and if things stay the way they are, she'll make an excellent test subject.

I have no doubt this is their way of reinstating control over the patients.

"Are you bringing them here?"

I look back, realizing Four is still talking to me. I hadn't been listening to him, for my mind was miles away. I was thinking that I didn't have long, maybe another few days, before I'd run out of time.

"I think I need to take care of Jack first. I need to make him pay for what he did, and then I can take care of Jeanine," I bark at him, not really enjoying the way he stares at me out of the side of his eye. He sighs, probably for dramatic effect, and I cross my arms over my chest.

"The girl, not Jack. I know you want to make him pay for sentencing her there, but I need to know what you're doing with the girl. Is she coming here?"

"Do you have a better plan, Four?" I say his name nastily, leaning back in my seat. "Is there something I'm missing?"

"Yeah, there is." He sits up and looks over at Tori. "If you push him to change his ruling, isn't Jeanine going to take an interest in the fact that Jack's suddenly changed his mind on a case that's over a decade old? Especially seeing as how you're there, and…"

"She won't have time," I interrupt, and I force myself to remember I need him for a few more days. "I'll get Jack to take back the orders and then I'll kill him. I'll leave his office, Tori and I will proceed to Erudite, and I'll kill Jeanine. I take the orders with me, and we appoint someone in Jeanine's place. Someone we can form an alliance with. Someone with a vested interest in Dauntless. They can oversee the asylum from there on out."

Four doesn't look impressed.

"Fine. And the girl?"

"Why are you so obsessed with this girl?" I snarl, leaning forward. "Why do you need to know what's happening to her? You don't even know her."

"I'm just confused why you're so hellbent on getting her out of there. She's the only one you've mentioned leaving. Where is she going to go? Tori told me she needed me to help get you out of there, and now I'm helping get this… Violet person out of there. I should know if you're letting them all out, whether she's coming here, or whatever else you're planning to do."

"Why? You want me to bring her by so you two can hang out?" I snap and Tori's hand flies to my arm.

I shove her away from me without looking.

"Eric, knock it off. He's just asking you a question. You had him send for information about her. He has every right to be concerned. But you realize this has to go just like you're planning it, or we're fucked, right? That if they figure out what you're planning on doing, they'll kill Violet or wipe her brain and we'll be in some deep shit when Max catches wind of this."

"I'm not scared of Max finding out. What is he going to do? Send me back there? Send all of us there?" I glare at her, and she glares back, until Four clears his throat.

"Are you planning on killing Max, too? Does anyone survive this?" Four demands, and Tori snorts.

"We didn't discuss killing Max. But don't worry, he won't kill you, Four," she promises, her grip tightening on my arm. "Right, Eric?"

"Sure," I smile at him in mock enthusiasm, raising both eyebrows. "You help me get Violet out of there, I won't kill you. Deal?"

"This is sounding great. I'm forced to help you, or you'll kill me and no one will try to stop you. And if you two get caught, then this can be traced back to me, and I can also be killed. It's a win-win for me, isn't it?" He glares at me, and I roll my eyes.

"Then you shouldn't have helped in the first place," I remind him. I decide I'm done with this meeting when he protests that he didn't want to help. "Look, just keep Jeanine busy for a day. I'll take care of both of them tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Tori looks up in surprise, and I nod my head.

"Yes, tomorrow. We've wasted enough time. Tomorrow we take them both down. I make sure Violet's alive, take care of Max and Harrison, and you two can run Erudite for all I care." I stand up, reaching for the phone in my pocket. "I'll meet you in the morning. Wait for my call."

"Eric, wait. We need to plan this out… we need more time. You need to tell me what you're doing!"

Tori yells the words after me, but I ignore her. I want to scream that I don't have more time and neither does she if she really thinks about it, but I stay silent. I stomp out of the tiny office Tori had arranged for us to meet in, and I keep going until I find the stairs. I take them two at time, stopping when I reach the upper levels.

Members scatter as I walk by. A few look at me, but I ignore them, walking a bit further until I'm sure I'm alone.

I pull out the phone when I'm sure I have reception, and I dial the number that Tori had written on the report. It takes a second to connect, the connection spotty even though I'm not that far underground, and the receptionist who picks up is annoyingly cheerful for someone working in a mental hospital. I lie easily, giving the name of a doctor in Erudite that I had seen as a child, and I'm not all surprised when it works. She tells me to hold, and I wait until she transfers me. I try to remain patient, though it's hard with their painfully slow phone system.

A few seconds later, I hear her say hello, her voice slow and drugged as Violet struggles to stay awake — until the phone abruptly disconnects.