Nine years, five months, twenty eight days, seventeen hours. If I could concentrate a little better, I may even be able to count the minutes, but this place has a constant level of noise that I'll never get used to. They packed me out of El Paso a little over seventy-two hours ago, which surprises me because of the all-out fucking brawl that went down earlier this week. El Paso wasn't a great place to do time, but compared to Chicago it felt like paradise. I had a slight bit of anonymity in Texas, there weren't any co-conspirators from the war there, and really there weren't a lot of people who even really knew who I was. Except for one person, but today's not the day to think about him.
People here remember me.
Hector Garcia is still working here, and he's still one of the most decent people I've ever met. When I was first locked up, he was kind to me, even though both of his sisters had been injured during the war. Hector shared that his middle sister Shauna was in a wheelchair for a couple of months while she recovered from a bullet wound close to her spine, and his youngest sister Lynn had been shot in the leg. Both women recovered physically, but mentally the war hurt them deeply. Hector was divergent, something no one knew, and he had played his part to blend in when the simulation started. It saved his life.
Seeing Hector that first time I was locked down here was awful. I was looking directly at a man who should have hated me, but he refused to. I was pretty shitty to him back then, yet he's always treated me with respect. When he came by yesterday to catch up, he warned me that today I would have my first court ordered meeting with a psychologist for my upcoming parole hearing.
I wanted nothing to do with it, and yet here they are chaining me up to escort me to my appointment.
"I don't want to do this." I say for at least the sixth time as I'm pushed down the hallway.
"Shut up and let us do our job Coulter." One of the guards grumbles from behind me.
I'm yanked around a corner, and I can see the lights coming out of one room, "I don't want to fucking do this!" I yell and I'm yanked to a complete stop.
"Like I said, we have a job to do, and we don't really give a fuck what you want. Garcia ain't here to protect you today, and neither is your crazy fucking Momma, now fucking move." Guard Jansen growls in my face.
"Fuck you!" I yell and they push me into the room.
"She's quite pretty Coulter, you sure you want to keep hollering for us to take you back to your cell?" Guard Cuffee asks sarcastically.
I refuse to turn around, I don't care if she's the hottest woman on the planet, I'm not staying here while a fucking shrink picks my head apart. They tried this crap five years ago, and it didn't go over well. I may have calmed down over the years, yet it hasn't changed my views on talking to a perfect stranger about my fucked up life. Whoever this is can shove it.
"He doesn't need any chains." She says. I recognize the voice, it's one that's haunted my dreams for almost ten years.
I turn around and stare. The one and only Beatrice Prior Eaton is sitting here in the flesh, the woman I risked my life to save almost ten years ago, who I've not talked to since I screamed for her to run while I bled out in a train car.
I stop protesting and put my arms out for the chains to be removed, and Jansen looks at me with a surprised look. He and Cuffee remove my shackles and they push me roughly into the chair across from her.
Why the fuck is she here?
"We're right outside the door." Cuffee says.
"Thank you," She replies.
I stretch my arms and crack my neck, then twist in the chair to crack my back. I meet her eyes again, and then trail them greedily over her. I can see her shift uncomfortably, but I don't care. She looks fucking amazing. Her hair is still long, and she has it braided back nicely. She's not wearing anything special, but I can tell she purposely dresses for a prison visit. She must be used to visiting people here.
She's not wearing a ton of makeup, which I like, she never was one of those typical Dauntless women who felt they needed to cover their natural beauty with that shit. Her skin is still on the pale side, and freckled, God I love those freckles.
She still smells like lavender and vanilla. Just like I remember her.
I try to tie my long hair up into some sort of bun but as usual it refuses to cooperate, and she slides one of those black elastic things off of her wrist and offers it to me.
I raise my eyebrows at her, "Contraband." I murmur.
"You can give it back before I leave." She replies. I take it, and pull my hair on top of my head and out of my face and she watches my every move.
"So you're a shrink now?" I ask her sarcastically.
"I'm from the parole committee, I was sent here to work on your case. I'm Tris Prior…" She begins but I interrupt her.
"Eaton." I press.
"Prior." She corrects me.
Interesting that she kept her maiden name with as possessive as that prick was with her.
"Kept your maiden name? I'm sure number boy loved that." I smirks. "You look good, Tris. It's been a long time."
She's blushing and I fucking love it. Tris has always been easy to rattle, and today seems no different.
"As I was saying, my name is Tris Prior, but you already know that. I am a board certified psychologist, specializing in working with the rehabilitation of prisoners for their re-entry into society. We will be working together to prepare you for your upcoming parole hearing…"
"I don't want a hearing." I reply firmly.
"You get one anyway, it is part of your sentence. You can always refuse to talk, like you have before, however we feel it would be in your best interest to cooperate…"
"We? Who exactly is we? You and number boy?" I press.
"Johanna Reyes and me." She replies.
"So your husband is ok with you working with me, Mrs. Eaton?" I ask. She shifts again in her seat and I can tell I've hit a nerve with her. She may be a professional woman now, but to me she's still the girl I can't seem to shake, no matter how hard I've tried.
"You seem very focused on my marital status," She sighs, "I answer to Johanna. How did you know I had married?"
She's losing the bit of professionalism she's hiding behind, and for a second I am seeing the real Tris. I love it.
"Sources." I shrug.
More like people who got their rocks off telling me the girl I risked everything for had immediately ran back to her boyfriend and then fucking married him while I was barely alive in a hospital. But hey, who's keeping score?
"You need better sources. We divorced after being married for less than three months, and the only Mrs. Eaton there is now is Christina Eaton, who married Four less than a month after we split up." She replies icily.
My eyes feel like they're going to pop out of my head. I never in a million years expected to hear that come out of her mouth, "Fuck…" I draw the word out, "Your best friend married your husband."
"Ex on both accounts, but we're here not here to talk about me, we're here to discuss you." She bites back.
That's a story I'm going to love getting out of her.
"Why are you taking this case?" I ask.
She's uncomfortable again. She makes it too easy.
"I told you, we believe you can be rehabilitated." She replies stoically.
"That's what you're forced to tell us, the same old bullshit spiel I hear every time. Why did you take my case?" I press.
"I believe that you followed the orders of your leader, and that you did so because you were an eighteen year old who was also trying to make his estranged mother proud." She replies. "I also owe you my life, so perhaps I feel that this is one way I can pay it back. An atonement of sort."
No, you owe me an explanation why you ran to Four instead of fucking talking to me when you saw I had survived that fucking attack. I take a breath and focus before I speak again.
"They teach you that in shrink school?" I counter sarcastically.
"Something like that." She shrugs at me and then slides the other cup across to me, "Lots of sugar and creamer, just like you like it."
How does she remember how I like my coffee? She hasn't made me a cup since she was an initiate back in Dauntless.
"If you want this atonement, or whatever the fuck you want to call it, why didn't you come the first time I was up for parole?"
"I didn't have my certifications at that time, I was still in school." She replies.
"So why come now? I get it, the Stiff part of you feels like you have to atone for your sins or some shit, but why you, why now?" I press.
"If you don't want me on your case, you have that choice, just like I have a choice when it comes to taking your case." She replies.
She's good, I'll give her that. I'm better at this game.
"Want has never been an issue for me when it comes to you." I reply.
There's that blush again, but there's the fire I remember in her eyes.
"Except when it's a friendly visit instead of a state mandated one." She snaps back without missing a beat.
"Where was the friendly visit when I was brought back to Candor? When I was barely recovered from losing most of the blood in my body, and my neck had to be sewed back together from fighting the factionless to save your life, Tris? You couldn't tear yourself away from your new husband to see me then, could you?" I spit, "That's when I needed to see you, you were the only other person who would understand what I was feeling then!"
I hear her take in a breath and hold it, breathing out before she answers me. It must be another one of her bullshit shrink tricks, "I wanted to see you, Eric, but I couldn't. Since we were both testifying against Jeanine, I wasn't allowed to see you before the trial. I thought we would have been able to speak afterward, I never expected you to be sent to prison."
"Bullshit." I stare at her and while she still looks uncomfortable, she actually holds eye contact.
I'm the one who looks away this time. If there's one thing that has been consistent between Beatrice Prior and myself, it is to expect the unexpected. Seeing a blur of grey jumping from the moving train onto the gravel roof I was standing on that day almost eleven years ago was certainly unexpected.
She looked lost, but determined, kind of like when our eyes met today.
She was pretty, even in the drab grey robes she was forced to wear in her former faction. She didn't flinch during my speech, nor did she hesitate when I asked for a volunteer to jump into the unknown. She ripped off her robe with determination, leaving her in just some sort of thick tights and a t-shirt, which left little to the imagination. She had the curves of a woman, and there was a spark of interest, at least on a physical attraction level that day.
I later learned just how un-Abnegation like Beatrice Prior was. Her first order of business was to shorten her name to Tris, a much better fit for a young woman who was literally and figuratively trying to shed her former faction's suffocating rules. She was spirited, spunky, and her determination to succeed stood out in everything she did.
Even when she was mouthing off to me, which she did quite often.
I let a lot of shit slide with her those first two weeks, because I knew how hard it was to actually leave the pressure of your former faction behind. By week three, she had gotten a little more brazen in her comments, and by the time we made it to knife training I had finally had enough of her shit. Her cowardly former friend Al was half assing target practice with the knives, so I ordered him to stand in front of the target so Four could throw knives around him. I may not like Four, but the bastard had impeccable aim with knives. Tris called me a coward, and a bully, and I challenged her to take Al's place, and she did.
After that incident, I left the training room to just get some space between Tris and me, but when she never exited I decided to go back in the room. She was pissed, huffing around and throwing knives at a target. When she saw me there, she started yelling and I yanked her away from the line of sight from the cameras. I warned her that she was way out of line with her attitude and insubordination, and if she didn't get her shit under control she was going to attract the attention of the wrong type of people. I couldn't say it then, but I knew that some of the divergent population of Dauntless were just disappearing under mysterious circumstances. The young woman who was arguing with me was showing signs and I needed to shut her up.
I kissed her.
I didn't expect for it to happen, because of shit that happened back when I was a kid I couldn't seem to initiate contact with a female. Until her. I kissed her, she kissed me back and my body was reacting in ways I'd not felt before. I wanted her, I wanted to rip her training clothes from her body and to take her right against that wall.
I'd never had sex before, and I had to get away from her.
I pulled away from Tris that day, it took every ounce of willpower I had to do so, and I walked out of the training room without saying another word. I needed to figure out what the fuck I was feeling for this girl from Abnegation, and I couldn't do it when I had her pressed against a wall willing to throw my whole career away for just a taste.
She's looking at me right now, very much the way I'd caught her looking at me after that kiss. Her eyes travel down to my scar, "It healed pretty decently, all things considered." I say, trying to draw us both back into the present.
"What happened that day?" She asks.
"Isn't that in your file somewhere?" I retort.
"What's in this file isn't as important to me as what you actually say. You are the first person I know of, besides myself, who could resist the truth serum. You held a lot back, things that could have prevented you from being sent here. Why?" She asks. She's being careful with her words and it shows.
The irony of her asking me why I held back isn't lost on me. Harrison was being held in the same area I was when she was giving her testimony. He's the one who had told me she was married. I'm pretty sure he and Jeanine had cooked something up to turn me against Tris, thinking if I was done with Tris that maybe I would do what Jeanine asked me to do. He had made an arrangement to have one of the guards stream her testimony back to us, and I heard her omit things when she was under the serum. I knew Tris was divergent, and I knew she was the pure divergent Jeanine had been looking for, but I had no idea she could manipulate the serum as easily as she did.
She drew her line in the sand that day, she was going to do everything she could to protect her new husband. She was done with me.
"I followed your lead." I reply flatly.
"Excuse me?" She asks.
"I heard about your testimony. You didn't bring anything up that could have hurt precious little number boy. I just followed your lead." I spit back.
"At the time, he didn't need to know how we got out of there. However, you were asked a lot of other questions that pertained to only you and any involvement you had in your mother's war, which we both know was practically none. Why wouldn't you have answered those to exonerate yourself? Why would you have tried to protect a man you hated?" She argues.
"Maybe I was protecting you, have you ever fucking thought of that, princess?" I bite.
"That makes no sense. Why would you risk putting yourself in here for me?" She snaps back at me.
"I was going to die anyway, it didn't fucking matter." The words just slip out, and I wish I could reel them back in. I'm hoping she'll just let it slide, but of course she presses on.
"What do you mean?" She asks.
I'm not letting her control this, she may think she's in charge but I have a shit ton of questions for her to answer, and if she wants me to play nice she's going to start opening up now.
"Have you ever told him?" I ask.
There's the blush again, soft and pink across her pale freckled cheeks. She's beautiful, and she has no clue. I have no fucking idea how the fuck number boy could ever walk away from her. Her hazel eyes briefly leave mine, she closes them for no more than a few seconds and then she says two words I never expected to hear.
"He knows."
I can't help but chuckle. Tris may be brave, but the former Stiff in her couldn't help but tell hubby dearest that she fucked his mortal enemy, "I bet that went over well, he still married you though."
"He divorced me because of it." She says quietly.
"What? He divorced you because of that? Why did you even tell him then?" I scowl at her and she shakes her head.
"It doesn't matter. There was no way to hide it. He left, filed for divorce, and I didn't fight it."
"That makes no fucking sense. It was well hidden. We both blocked the details during our testimony, the cameras were off, so how the fuck would it have ever came out unless you were too fucking selfless to keep a secret? We had to do what we had to do to get you out of there." I am getting angrier with her as she continues to provide vague answers to my questions.
"I didn't have a fucking choice. If you hadn't have refused every visit from me for the entirety of your incarceration here you would have known that." She hisses at me and I can't hide the shock this time.
The door opens and the guards come in, "Times up, let's go Coulter." They pull me into a standing position, and I throw the elastic down to Tris before the guards begin cuffing me again. She refuses to look at me, I keep staring at her while they chain me up and she will not look up.
"I want to know more." I say. "Why did you tell him? Why did you keep coming here after they locked me up, Tris. What aren't you telling me?"
Shut up, Coulter." The guard yells.
"When will you be back?" I ask. Fuck this guard, he'll get over his bullshit later.
"I won't be back. Johanna will send someone else, you'll see them tomorrow." She replies. I watch as she grabs all of her stuff hastily, and pushes past the guards and me.
"Tris, I won't see anyone else but you!" I yell at her retreating figure.
She keeps running, just like she did ten years ago. This time I'm certain she will be back.