Disclaimer: I do not own Divergent, any of the characters or any of the dialogue that comes directly from the text.
Chapter 20
"Your hands," she says softly, concern evident in her voice.
My hands? She just got attacked by three people and she's worried about my hands?
"My hands aren't important," I say, holding the ice pack up to the back of her head where I found a bump earlier. "How are you feeling?"
She raises her fingers to the side of my lips and I instinctively pull back, wincing at the pain that arises. When did I even get hit there?
She lowers her hand and leans into the icepack.
"What happened to them?" she asks, ignoring my question.
"Peter, Drew and Al?" I reply. I know who she is talking about, but I want her to know that I know exactly who did this to her.
"Yes," she responds coldly. "Peter, Drew and…Al." So she had figured out that Al was one of the attackers.
"Al and Peter ran away…and Drew's probably in the infirmary by now."
"Will he be okay?" she asks.
"He'll live. In what condition I can't say," I spit. I shouldn't feel pleasure from what I did to him, but after what he did to Tris I can't help but feel as though he deserved it. There's even a part of me that wishes I hadn't stopped, that I had kept going until…
I look away from her. I shouldn't be showing her this side of me.
"Good," she says her voice hard. I look at her curiously. She has this side too. She must have it. I saw the way she looked when she beat Molly, like she was going to keep going whether her opponent was unconscious or not. Maybe she and I are more alike than I thought.
She lets out a heavy sigh and grips my wrist, gently pulling the icepack away from her head, but not letting go of me. Her hand is hot against the coldness of mine.
"Why were you there," she says.
I blink a few times and try to come up with an explanation that doesn't involve Jeanine.
"I saw something on the monitors in the control room. I couldn't tell exactly what was going on or who was involved, but I knew it wasn't good, so I got there as fast as I could."
It sounds plausible enough to me.
Her eyes roam my face as if searching for something.
"You're lying," she says. Her words are accusatory, but her tone is not. After a beat, she lays back onto my bed, legs dangling off the edge. I watch her for a second, expecting her to continue, but she just lays there.
I take a deep breath before falling back onto the bed next to her and stare up at the ceiling. We lay silently and I find myself relaxing to the sound of her breathing. She shifts slightly and I can feel her eyes on me now.
"I heard you talking to someone. A woman. You were talking about Divergents." Her voice is calm.
Panic instantly rises up in my chest and I struggle to control my breathing. What do I do? What do I say?
"You lied to her. You protected me," she shifts again, her eyes now directed at the ceiling. "Four told me to stay away from you. He said that you're dangerous," she pauses. "That you're going to kill me."
My neck snaps towards her and now I am the one forced to look at the side of her face.
"I figure he's wrong," she says turning to look me in the eye. "You're not going to kill me."
I could argue with her. Deny the conversation with Jeanine. Act like I don't know exactly what Four meant by what he said to her. But there's something about the way she approached all of this with me that tells me honesty is my best course of action.
"Why do you say that?" I ask, wondering how she can be so sure that I won't.
"You could have let them kill me. It would have been easy to just leave me there. To not intervene. No one would have linked my death to you and one more Divergent would have been taken care of," she says. "But you didn't. Instead, you saved me and brought me here."
"I could never hurt you," I say. The words come out automatically and even though I've never really thought about it before, I know that I mean them.
She nods gently against the bedspread, unsurprised by my words, before looking up at the ceiling once more. I do the same. After a moment, I feel her hand reach for mine. I react instinctively, closing my fingers around hers.
"Is what Four said true? Are you dangerous? Do you kill people like me?" she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
Honesty. You decided to be honest with her. Just suck it up and do it.
"Part of my job is to hunt down Divergents. So yes, I am dangerous, at least to people like you, and yes, Divergents have died because of me." I expect her to pull away from me but she remains, unmoving.
"Why? Why do you do it? I don't understand. What is so wrong with me that you don't think I deserve to live?" her voice shakes and I wonder if she's near tears.
"There's nothing wrong with you," I reply.
"You know what I mean. Divergents. What is so wrong with us?"
I take a few breaths before trying to explain.
"You have to understand, growing up in Erudite, they teach us that Divergents are evil. That they want to tear us apart and get rid of the factions. They teach us that without the faction system our whole society would fall apart. That civil war would break out and our cities would be left devastated. They teach us that without faction cooperation our way of life would be unsustainable. That without sharing our resources each faction would have to rely on themselves inclusively. Food wouldn't be shared, medication wouldn't be divided." I stop for a second, wondering if she will argue with me. When she doesn't, I continue. "It always made sense to me. So when Max asked me to be in charge of tracking down Divergents I agreed, thinking I was doing the right thing. I've never killed any myself, but I may as well have. I've passed along information that has resulted in deaths. And I've always been okay with that. I've been able to accept that it's necessary in order to preserve our way of life. I truly believed that what I was doing was keeping us safe…until I met you. And the more I got to know you the more I questioned what I've always believed."
I turn to face her now, expecting to be met with the side of her face, but I'm surprised when her eyes lock onto mine.
"How can you be dangerous? How can you be the evil threat to society that I've been told about all of these years?...It doesn't make sense to me anymore..."
She continues looking at me, shifting her weight so that she is now laying on her side.
"I had never even heard of Divergents. Not until my aptitude test," she states. "How is it that Erudite is teaching their children about this evil, enormous threat to their lives while Abnegation doesn't even mention the word?"
Her aptitude test? So she's known since before the choosing ceremony. She knew…and so did the person who administered her test. I briefly consider pressing her for more information, but decide to let it go for now.
"I don't know."
Silence falls over the room once more.
"Tris?" I say, breaking the silence.
"Yeah?"
"Why are you still here?"
"What do you mean?" she asks.
"Why haven't you run away from me? I basically told you that I've been responsible for the murders of a lot of people over the past few years…yet you're still here with me…still laying with me…still holding my hand?"
"Honestly?" she says. "It doesn't make any sense, but for some reason…even after everything you just told me…you make me feel safe…I know it's crazy…but I trust you."
"That is crazy," I respond.
She snorts in response which makes me laugh. Then suddenly, we're both laughing. My laughter comes on fast and hard, as if all of the tension of the night…of the week…is coming to a head. We laugh until we can't breathe and when we finally come down my eyes are watering.
"I don't know the last time I laughed like that," I say. Then exhaustion takes over and I'm yawning. I look over at the clock on my bedside table and realize it's well passed two a.m.
"We need to get to sleep."
"You're probably right," she responds. "Can I stay here tonight? With Peter…and Al unaccounted for…I don't really feel safe going back to the dorms."
How can staying with me feel any safer?
"Are you okay? I mean…Al…he's your friend."
"Was my friend…and I don't want to talk about it. Okay?"
"Okay…" Fair enough. "Take the bed. I've been sleeping on the couch lately anyways, it would probably get lonely without me."
She smiles.
"Let me get you something to wear." I get up and walk over to my wardrobe, pulling out a plain black hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, I toss them onto the bed next to her. "They'll be big, but more comfortable than what you've got on.''
"Thank you," she says looking down at the clothes.
"The bathroom is that way," I say, nodding towards it.
She picks up the hoodie and sweats then disappears behind the door. While she's gone, I change into a tank top and another pair of sweatpants before going in search of a blanket for the couch.
When she emerges from the bathroom, I can't help but chuckle at how adorable she looks in my clothing. She's practically swimming in them. The pants have been rolled up multiple times around her ankles and the arms of the sweatshirt extend far past her hands.
"Are you laughing at me?" she says, eyebrows furrowed.
"Absolutely not!" I respond while laughing.
"You are! You're laughing at me," she says, now smiling.
"I can't help it, you look cute in that outfit."
She raises an eyebrow at me.
"Did Mr. Glare at Everyone, Quiver before Me, Hard Ass Dauntless Leader just say I look cute?" she teases.
I roll my eyes before turning towards the couch and walking away. "Good night Tris," I call over my shoulder.
"Eric," she says softly behind me. "You know we still need to talk about some things, right?"
"Yeah, I know."
"Okay, goodnight."
I wish there was a way we could just move forward and ignore all of this Divergent crap, but I know that's impossible. Plus then there is Jeanine, Max and my mission. How can I continue hunting down Divergents when I'm…falling for one?
I push those thoughts from my mind and try to get settled on the couch. I may have a lot of decisions to make, but knowing Tris is safe for the time being gives me peace of mind and sleep finds me for the first time in days.
I awake with a start to the sound of a girl's scream. Blinking, I take in my surroundings. The events of last night come back to me and I start to panic. Did someone get in here?
"No, please, stop! Stop!" I stand up and see Tris, alone, trashing back and forth on the bed. I dart over to her.
"Stop! Please, stop," she continues, tears starting to run down her sleeping face.
I take a hold of her shoulders and start to shake her lightly. "Wake up, Tris. Wake up."
Her eyes snap open and she bolts into a seated position so quickly that we nearly collide. She looks into my eyes, confused. "Eric?"
"It's me. You were having a nightmare."
I watch as she immediately crumbles before me. Tears streams down her face and her breathing becomes uneven as she hiccups through them.
"I was b…b…back there. At the P…P…Pit. But this time," she looks away from me. "You didn't come. His h…h…hands. They were everywhere. I couldn't get him off of me."
She wraps her arms around her small torso and looks down at the bed. I squat down in front of her and place my fingers beneath her chin, lifting her head to meet my gaze.
"Hey, look at me. I'm here now. You're safe," I say as reassuringly as I can. "I won't let them touch you again."
She nods and lifts her fingers to her face in an attempt to wipe the tear tracks from her cheeks. We stay like this until she is able to steady her breathing.
"Do you want to try going back to sleep?" I ask, standing up.
She shakes her head violently, wide eyed and terrified. "No."
"Hey, take a deep breath. It's okay. We have to get up in an hour anyway," I start, trying to calm her down. "Why don't I make us some coffee and we can just relax for a little bit?"
"Okay," she says softly, but before I can walk over to the kitchen she speaks again. "Eric?"
"Yeah?"
"Could you maybe…" she stops and shakes her head.
"What is it?" I say, encouraging her to continue.
"Could you…"
I raise my eyebrow as she stops again. She averts her gaze, looking passed me towards the wall before starting again.
"When I was little, I would go out with my mom to feed the factionless. This one time, one of the older factionless men grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards him. My mom, she stopped him right away, got me away from him. But after that, I kept having dreams…nightmares…about it. I would wake up screaming and my mom would come into my room and get in bed with me. She would stay, holding me, until I calmed down," her eyes shift to look back at mine. "Could you…could you hold me? Just for a minute?"
She's nervous and I can tell that it's hard for her to ask for help. I don't know if that's her Abnegation side coming through, asking for help is not considered selfless or if it's her Dauntless side not wanting to show vulnerability. Either way, it doesn't matter.
I make my way to the other side of the bed and lay down, opening my arms to her. Tentatively, she rolls towards me laying her head on my chest. I pause for a brief moment before wrapping both arms around her, pulling her tight against me. The familiar scent of her hair wafts towards me and I breathe it in deeply. We lay in silence.
After a few minutes, I realize her breathing has turned even and steady against me. She's fallen back asleep. The warmth of her body and the sound of her soft breaths causes my muscles to relax and my eyes to flutter shut. For the second time tonight, the world drifts away.
Hello lovelies! I hope you enjoyed that one. I'm not sure if this will actually interest anyone, but I always find it fun to know so I figured I'd share it with you. When I write, I almost always play a certain song on repeat as I go. I always end up associating that song with the story and listening to it just gets me into the right headspace. For this one, so far, I have gone through four different songs. Not cycling between them but I started out with one, then moved on to the next and so on. For fun, I thought I would share the list of songs with you!
I started out with:
Pictures of You by The Last Goodnight
Then I moved on to:
Paralyzed by NF
Followed by:
Dusk Till Dawn by Zayn feat. Sia
And my current song is:
Hold On by Chord Overstreet
Anyways, I'm not sure if that's of any interest to you, but there it is!
I hope you liked this chapter and looking forward to hearing what you think. See you Tuesday! :)
