Disclaimer: I do not own Divergent, any of the characters or any of the dialogue that comes directly from the text.

Chapter 32

It doesn't take long to catch up to Khloe.

I need to find Tris right now. If I can get to her fast enough, I might be able to stop whatever Jeanine has in store for her.

"I'm going to need you to bring him without me," I say.

Khloe stops in front of me and Four follows suit.

"And after that 'Tobias' bombshell that got dropped in there I'm going to need you to be straight with me because right now I'm positive that you don't trust me and I'm sure as shit questioning whether or not I can trust you," she replies.

I take a deep breath and scratch the back of my neck. There's no getting around it. I have to be honest with her.

"Okay…what do you need from me in order to trust me?"

It's a little vague, but hopefully it'll allow Khloe to get the answers she's looking for while not giving her any more information than absolutely necessary.

She rolls her eyes and sighs, obviously not happy with that response, but speaks anyways.

"First of all, since when are you and Four buddy, buddy?"

"It's complicated."

"That's not good enough, Eric."

I don't have time for this.

"Okay, fine. We're not…not really. We're just on the same side when it comes to this government overthrow bullshit, okay? So…we have like a…truce…for now anyways."

She tilts her head as if contemplating whether or not that answer is good enough.

"Alright, if Four is the one you think can shut this all down then why don't you want to come with us to Dauntless?"

"I have something else I need to do first."

She stares at me, lips pursed, clearly unimpressed. "If this is how you're going to be…"

"Okay fine. I need to go find Tris. I can't let them kill her."

It pains me to bring Tris into this, but I need Khloe to cover for me.

"The Divergent initiate who looked half dead in there?" she asks, scrunching up her face.

Like I need to be reminded of how hurt she looked.

Khloe's face brightens suddenly, her eyes growing wide.

"Is she the one who almost had sex with you in her fear landscape?" she says, smiling.

It's my turn to roll my eyes.

"She is! Wow. I didn't think anything of it at the time, I mean objectively speaking, you're attractive and she's a sixteen-year-old girl from Abnegation who, I assumed after seeing that, was a virgin with a thing for 'bad boys' and/or authority figures but I never in a million years would have thought it was mutual."

"Well…it is," I say, grudgingly. "Now will you take him so I can go after her?"

She crosses her arms, still smiling. "How did that happen? I mean it's common knowledge that you're kind of a dick. A dick with more of a soul than I expected, but still. How do you, broody, grumpy, loner boy fall for a girl like that?"

Okay, I'm done with this shit.

"I don't have time for this. She could already be dead for how long this conversation is lasting."

Khloe sighs and uncrosses her arms. "Fine. Go save your girl. I'll take this one. But tell me this first, what is your plan after you find her?"

I hadn't really thought farther ahead than keeping Tris alive.

"We'll meet you at Dauntless. Okay? Maybe between the three of us we can snap him out of it and he can figure out how to shut down the simulation."

"You're really going to trust two Divergents to stop this war?" she says apprehensively.

"Their divergence has nothing to do with anything. I trust them and they're on our side. That's all that matters."

She looks skeptical but nods her head. "Alright, but if this works, I still have questions."

"Fine. When this is all over, I'll answer anything, okay?"

She nods.

"So…we're good? You'll take him?"

"Yeah. Go."

I let out a sigh of relief.

"Thanks Khloe." I turn and start to jog back towards Abnegation headquarters.

"Eric!" I hear her yell from behind me.

I turn back but continue to jog backwards, trying not to lose anymore time.

"KEYS!"

Right. I pull the keys out of my pocket and chuck them through the air before immediately turning back around not caring whether she's managed to catch the keys.

I slow my steps slightly as I get closer to the headquarters. I can't go back in the same way.

I head down the side of the building in search of an alternate entry point. Spotting a door, I make my way through it and find myself in a narrow stairwell.

B13? B…13?

If the floors are alphabetical that would mean I should go up to the second floor, but if they're numerical than B could mean the basement…

I don't want to waste time by choosing wrong but nothing in this stairwell is helping me.

Aggggh!

I run up the flight of stairs and quietly make my way through the door only to come face to face with two Dauntless officers who look at me curiously.

Be cool, they have no idea why you are here.

I quickly peer past them and see a small placard that reads 201 next to a door.

Fuck.

"As you were," I say turning tail and gunning it back down the stairs all the way to the basement.

I gently push through the double doors expecting to find another set of guards, instead, I nearly trip over the fallen bodies of a pair of Dauntless soldiers. I recognize them from the halls of Dauntless but their names escape me.

What the fuck? But who..?

I shake my head and I look up at the door in front of me: B1.

I let out a frustrated groan and turn left running as quietly as I can while scanning each door quicky: B3, B5, B7.

Come on! Come on!

I come to another set of double doors and slow my pace, bracing myself for what might be on the other side.

This time, the guards are alive and standing alert. They turn towards me just as a gunshot rings out and the officer to my left falls. Before I can register what happened, another shot wizzes through the air and the second officer goes down.

I look up from his body and there in front of me is Natalie Prior, gun in hand, barrel firmly pointed in my direction. Her free arm is tightly wrapped around a soaking wet, bruised, and bloodied Tris.

"Tris!" I exclaim, relief running through my body.

Her eyes light up and she gives me a weak smile before raising a hand and gently pressing down on her mom's gun so its now pointed towards the floor.

"He's with me," she says quietly. I make my way over to them and take over supporting Tris.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't stop them," I tell her.

"There's nothing you could have done. We were outnumbered. They would have killed you."

"What did they do to you?" I say, scanning her over.

"I'll be fine. Where's Four?"

"There will be time for this later," Natalie says urgently. "Tris, your father, Marcus and some others are hiding in a basement at the intersection of North and Fairfield. We have to go get them. Follow me."

Instead of going the way that I came, she leads us down a few dark hallways, up a dank staircase, and into daylight without interference.

"How did you find me?" Tris asks her mom as we reach the surface, emerging into an alley.

"When you and Tobias left the house this morning to go find Alice, and your father went to find Marcus I couldn't just sit at the house waiting for you to return," she replies, glancing over her shoulder towards us. "My intention was to go to the reserves and start gathering up rations for those we would be hiding, but then the soldiers started to arrive. I was closer to Marcus', so I found your father and once we had devised a plan, they went to hid and I came looking for you."

She stops where the alley intersects with the road and reloads her weapon.

I move ahead slightly and tentatively look around the corner. A few Dauntless soldiers with guns move to the same beat towards us.

Tris looks back. Far behind us, another group of Dauntless run down the alley, towards us, moving in time with one another.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"If these were Dauntless officers, I might be able to convince them that I'm bringing the two of you to join the rows of Abnegation set for execution…or that I am returning you to Max and Jeanine…but these are mindless soldiers following programming. They won't listen to me," I say, trying not to panic.

I rub my temples, willing an idea to come to me.

Natalie gives me a small smile before turning towards Tris and grabbing both of her hands.

"Go with Eric. Find your father. The alley on the right, down to the basement. Knock twice, then three times, then six times."

Here eyes flit to me for a second before her attention returns to Tris.

Cupping Tris' cheeks, she speaks. "I'm going to distract them. You two have to run as fast as you can."

"No," Tris and I say at the same time.

"I'm not going anywhere," Tris adds.

Natalie smiles at Tris. "Be brave, Beatrice. I love you."

Letting go of Tris, she reaches towards me and squeezes my hand tightly.

"Take care of each other," she says.

Before I have a chance to react, she runs into the middle of the street, holding her gun above her head and fires her rifle into the air three times. The Dauntless start running.

I pull Tris' hand into mine and we sprint across the street into the alley. As we run, I look over my shoulder to see if any Dauntless follow us. Natalie fires into the crowd of guards, and they are too focused on her to notice us.

As the guards begin to fire back, Tris whips her head over her shoulder then suddenly comes to a stop. My steps falter at the abrupt change in pace and I follow Tris' gaze. Together, we watch as her mother falls, first to her knees, blood covering her abdomen, and then to the pavement, slumped to the side like a rag doll.

She is motionless and without breath.

I hear a muffled scream and turn to find Tris with her hand clamped over her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks.

My heart breaks at the sight of her. Losing your mom is a horrible thing to live through, I know firsthand, but to watch her be murdered…I can't even imagine.

I pull Tris lightly against me, trying not to cause her any further pain by pressing on her wounds, and she buries her face in my chest.

"I'm so sorry," I whisper into her ear.

She gasps for air through her tears, and I wish I could hold her forever, but the Dauntless soldiers are on the move, and we have to keep going.

I pull away gently and she looks up at me through sad, tear-soaked eyes.

"We have to keep going," I say.

She looks back towards the road at the soldiers that are now on their way towards us and nods.

We turn together and start running.

Hello Lovelies,

So there's Chapter 32 for you! I don't know why but posting these new chapters has been making me so nervous! Maybe it's because we're getting close to the end or because I haven't written in so long. Who knows.

I do hope you liked it. The next chapter is a long one and I'm still tweaking it but plan to get it posted next Wednesday. I realized while working on the final chapter that I had messed up on a continuity aspect so I had to go back through chapters 32 to 35 and fix some stuff which was just such a pain because it messed with the flow so it took forever to readjust.

As always, happy for any feedback and/or comments! I hope you're all having a lovely week. :)

-MWB