Chapter Thirteen
By the time we leave, the downpour has begun. The ten o'clock train whooshes by us as we chase after it in the pouring rain, the clinking of its gears loud and blaring, ominous, followed by a whistle, a warning slipping through the teeth of a ghost. Silver wind rushes past me, the speed of my body breaking it in two, and I clench my wrapped fists, feeling power surge through me. Each step of my feet blends with the next, and in a moment, it feels like I am hovering above the damp grass as I run, choking on the cold air as it enters my lungs.
"Faster!" cries Zeke over the howling wind and rain, far ahead of us. Tobias and I strain our legs to carry us further, feeling a deep pain shoot through them, but we only run faster. "Keep straight! We're gaining on her!"
Sweat and water cloud my vision, but through it I see Zeke grab ahold of the train handle and swing himself onto the protruding platform. With his palm, he slams down on a button and the doors part. He jumps in and holds onto the rail, beckoning us forward, hanging precariously out the side. Uriah grabs his hand, and the two boys tumble backwards and disappear into the train.
"We won't make it," I choke out, watching the train get smaller and smaller. My lungs burn as we run, and Tobias takes my hand, pulling me with him.
"Yes we will," he yells. "We have to. For Mama." With those words as our motivation, we run faster than we ever have, every inch of our skin and muscle screaming with agony, but it pays off; Tobias jumps in, crouching on the platform.
I run side by side with the train, willing my legs to take me just a little further. Tobias should look relieved — he's in, at least — but he seems like his heart is about to explode out of his chest. Suddenly, I realize that the wind is pushing me closer to the tracks, edging me towards the soaring metal car that could crush me to pieces under its weight.
"Break right!" he yells out. "It's not worth it!" I shake my head, desperate against the wind, and keep straight. I know that if I just stay a little longer…
A shooting pain bursts through my face. Feeling for the source, I pull my hand away and see blood — something has cut my cheek. Frustration flows through me, spurring me on, and I reach, jump… and grab the handle.
Tobias' arm wraps around my waist, drawing me into the car, my knees bumping painfully against the metal rail. "That was stupid, Tris!" he yells as he forces the doors shut with one hand, the other's grip on me tighter than the laces on my boots. "That was reckless and dangerous and…" I let him yell. Eventually he stops; his fingers find the cut on my cheek, and he wipes the blood away with his thumb, sighing.
"I would have done the exact same thing," he whispers, touching his feather-soft lips to my forehead. "That was so stupid, Tris." And he doesn't say it, but I know he is proud of me for acting Dauntless. No, for being Dauntless.
"Look at it this way," Zeke says from the opposite end of the car, swaying back and forth as he holds onto the poles. "If you can do that, you'll pass Dauntless initiation without a doubt."
Tobias shakes his head at Zeke and pulls me to his chest. "My girl," he whispers into my hair. "So brave." My hearts soars in my chest, and I grip his shirt in my wrapped, blood-soaked fists.
He sighs again. "I have to talk to Zeke," he says. "You'll be alright?" I nod, and he kisses my forehead once more, hesitating before withdrawing his arms. His eyes, blue and deep, lock with mine. "Careful, Tris," he says. And with that, he's halfway across the car.
The floor begins to sway beneath my feet, which makes me think that sitting down is a good idea. I rest on a wooden crate, legs apart, elbows propped up against them. The air begins to return to my lungs, and I lean my back against the wall, closing my eyes. Someone sits on the crate beside me, their body spreading warmth to mine.
"You alright, Tris?" Uriah asks, resting a hand on my shoulder. I nod — I don't need to tell him about how my head aches and my lungs burn and how I think there's something wrong with my knees.
"I'm alive," I say, brushing dirt from my black pants.
He stares at me, almost with reverence. "You are no Stiff," he says, eyes wide with wonder. "That was incredible, what you did before."
"It was the only way," I reply, wiping the sweat from my forehead. "Taking the train, I mean. If we'd taken the route I took last time to my hideout, running, it would have taken hours."
"This hideout of yours," Uriah begins, cautious.
I sigh. "It's a long story."
"We have time. If you want to tell me, that is."
"Okay," I decide. "But I've never told anyone before."
"You can trust me," he urges. "I think of you as my little sister. I love you and Tobias."
I can trust Uriah. This much I know. I nod. "It was three years ago, just a few months after we found Tobias on the street and took him in. He was still recovering — it makes me sick that it took so long, after what his father… Anyway, my… my brother, Caleb, had gotten terribly ill one night, and we needed to take him to the hospital. Mama went, and I stayed behind with Tobias.
"We didn't know it, but that was the night that my father was promoted to Vice Leader of Abnegation. I remember thinking, how could a group of people devoted to selflessness have such selfish fools in power over them? But my father, there was something dark in him that night. Something wicked.
"He came around the house while I was making Tobias dinner and broke in through the window. I remember the sound it made when he hurled his beer bottle at the glass and it shattered. He crawled through it, the glass cutting him to pieces, but he didn't care. The alcohol made him numb to the pain. He shook as he walked — that's how drunk he was — with blood seeping through his clothes and a knife clenched in his fists. It was horrifying.
"I… I tried… tried to save Toby… tried to keep him safe…" I brush away the tears. They shine along the back of my palm, mixed red with blood, and the saltiness of them sting the cut on my cheek. "He told me to run. I wouldn't listen, not even when he told me that he would never forgive me if I didn't listen. But when my father held the knife to his neck and told me the same thing… I knew that my being there was only making him angrier, and I couldn't fight him myself. I would only make it worse. So… I…"
"You ran." I can almost hear the shame in Uriah's voice, the insinuation that I am a coward. He is not wrong.
"I ran. I ran for hours and hours through the city, and I hated myself, so I ran further, and eventually I ended up in my hideout — an abandoned warehouse at the intersection of North and Fairfield. When I closed the door behind me, I collapsed. Woke up days later, starved half to death, and wandered back into the factionless sector where Anna — a friend of mine — found me and took me home. Tobias was alive when I came home, thank God, but Mama had made a makeshift hospital upstairs because we couldn't take him to a real one. Andrew had sliced his stomach with a knife. From that day on, we all keep a knife under our pillows. It doesn't matter much, though, or do Caleb any good… it seems everyone in my family is meant to get hurt."
My eyes lower to Uriah's hands. They are balled up, white at the knuckles. "I know what you're thinking," he says. "I've known you for years, Tris. Stop it. I don't think you are a coward, not at all."
"I ran, Uriah."
"You had no other choice!" he cries out.
"I could have found help, called for someone…"
"You were hysterical! I would have been, too! No one should have to go through that. It was not your fault. I don't blame you, your mother doesn't blame you, Tobias doesn't blame you. Don't blame yourself."
"My mother…" My heart tightens as I think about what she must be doing right now.
"Your mother will be fine," Uriah says, as if reading my mind. "She was Dauntless, right?"
"She still is. She's brave and selfless at the same time." I stop, closing up. I don't want to reveal my mother's divergence my accident. Uriah doesn't seem to think anything of it. I suppose he doesn't even know what divergence is, nor will he ever have to.
"You are, to. Brave and selfless, I mean."
"Thanks," I say. I don't tell him that I know am far from either of those things.
"I wonder," Uriah begins as if to himself, "if it's possible to be both Dauntless and Abneg…"
A loud whistle drowns his train of thought, and Tobias and Zeke both stand, yanking open the two doors. "It's time," Tobias calls over the deafening noise that floods the car.
"Time for what?" I call back.
His eyes flicker to me. "Time to jump."
Knees stinging and dripping with blood, I lead the boys through the narrow streets, muddy from the blinding rain. The Abnegation Headquarters nears, and we run faster. "The place is 'round back," I shout at them, glad that there are no people out at this hour.
"Wait!" Tobias calls out, and I stop. He looks around anxiously before taking my hand. "Tris, there are guns in there."
"I know," I reply. "I solved the riddle."
"Tris."
"Look, Tobias, for all we know there's no one in there. Maybe Mama just hid the gun and left. But even if something happens, we are here because we want to be here. Because we have to be here."
He watches me for a moment, eyes scanning up and down my face. "Fear God alone," he says, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.
"Fear God alone," I repeat. "So?"
He takes a deep breath, nodding. "Okay. But Zeke and I are going in first." I agree easily. I know Tobias well enough to realize that protesting will do me no good and will only waste time. He reaches down, pulling a flashlight from his boot, and flips it on, one hand up with a knife enclosed in it. Jerking his head, he motions for us to follow.
As we approach the abandoned warehouse, the silence becomes eerie. Zeke pushes the front door open, and it parts with a loud squeak. It's pitch black inside apart from Tobias' flashlight, and each step seems to echo across the walls. Suddenly, I notice an orange light — a flame — from around the corner.
"Look," I whisper to Tobias, pointing in the direction. My voice is low, soft, but it is loud as a gunshot in the deadly quiet. He nods, motioning for the brothers to follow us. My heart hammers against my ribcage, ready to explode at the slightest of sounds. As we round the corner, we see a door cracked open and a torch hung up on the wall.
I shove through the door, knife positioned. Tobias' flashlights pans across the room, landing on a dark figure in the corner, and I sigh in relief. It's only a sand bag propped against the wall. "There's no one here," I breathe. "Mama's fine."
Tobias smiles at me. "See? Nothing to worry about. I told you."
"Ha, what a joke. You were a wreck."
"I was not!"
Uriah throws an arm around me, grinning. "I told both of you. Hey, don't you think this would make a great training room?"
"Yeah, if it wasn't hours away," Tobias counters. The two launch into an argument about efficiency and time management, and I just laugh at them, feeling my heart swell back up. I feel lighter than I have the whole day.
Wandering over to the sand bag, I crouch by it. It's heavy and large and covered in dust, and there is a substantial bump at the front. Running my fingers along the burlap, I notice that the bump is cold and hard… like metal. I pick up the bag, straining the muscles in my arms, and turn it over. Sands spills across the floor.
I dig through the contents, feeling around. My fingers hit the source of the coldness and hardness, closing around the handle of a long and narrow rifle."Tobias," I call out, beckoning him over. As he makes his way over to me, I yank it out of the pile and show it to him. I turn it over in my hands just as a familiar voice calls from the doorway.
"I should have waited," the voice says, "to tell you. At least until tomorrow. Perhaps then you wouldn't have followed me here."
"Mama!" Tobias cries out, tackling her in a hug. Quickly, I bury the gun in the sand again. I don't know why I do it, exactly, but I do. Standing up, I rush to Mama's side and wrap my arms around her.
"Happy thirteenth birthday, Tobias," she says, kissing his forehead. "You're finally old enough to learn to shoot a gun. Did you enjoy the scavenger hunt?"
"You scared me half to death, Mama," he replies, voice low and full of lingering fear. "We thought you were in trouble."
At his words her expression hardens, and she says, "Son—"
"He is my son," another voice interrupts, a voice that could cut like a knife or embed itself into your stomach like a bullet. My heart sinks to my feet. "I would appreciate if you didn't delude the boy with your false affection, Natalie."
"It's not false, Marcus." She says his name like the curses that I struggle to keep in. "My affection for my boy is pure and true. That is more than you could ever say."
"I suppose you're right," he muses, sauntering towards us, grin like a cheshire cat's. "I never did want a son. I wanted a daughter." He smiles sadly. Suddenly, Tobias' flashlight goes out. The torch on the wall illuminates the room. Marcus continues, "She would be beautiful like her mother, with her hair and my eyes. Ah, yes. My daughter."
"What is he talking about?" I whisper to Tobias. He shakes his head — don't know. As I watch Marcus lost in his reverie, I feel fear creep up my spine like the cold in winter.
"Anyways," Marcus says, snapping out. "That's unimportant at the moment. What is important, however, is the issue of my son. I want him back." The frosty fear envelopes me and turns into terror, and I grasp Tobias' hand. This is a declaration of war if ever I saw one.
"No," Mama says, but her voice wavers. It's more a protest than a rejection. Tobias seems to realize this as well, and he squeezes my hand. What has changed between Caleb's funeral and now?
Marcus notices as well. "Finally realized it, have we?"
"Son of a bitch," she snaps. "You underhanded, sick—"
"My, Natalie, you've got quite the temper," he drawls, making his way over to Mama. "How does it feel? A Dauntless fallen to her own faction's technology?"
Tobias' eyes widen beside me. "A serum," he whispers, his hand falling loose from mine. "What has he done to her?"
Suddenly, Mama's eyes widen and glaze over. Her body remains upright, but it is stiff. Like a bolt of lightening, Marcus' hand shoots out and grabs her around the throat, so tight I can see his knuckles turn pale. Her lips part, gasping for breath as he cuts off her airway with his fist.
Zeke springs into action, running towards Marcus with uncalculated purpose. Horror strikes my chest as the older man drives a knife into the boy's stomach. Zeke falls, blood spurting from the wound, staining his shirt. Uriah rushes to his side, screams filling the room, and grasps his brother's face in his hands, calling out his name over and over. "Zeke!"
I turn my eyes to Marcus. As his grasp around my mother's neck tightens, she chokes out random words jumbled together, eyes still hazy. Blinded by rage, I run at Marcus. His weapon is embedded in Zeke's abdomen, so he is left unarmed. My fist jams into his jaw, and a snap resounds in the echoey room, but I am knocked to the ground by a blow that comes from nowhere, unimaginable pain searing through me like white hot lava as my head connects with the rocky ground. My vision blurs.
Mama's choked sobs grown louder, and then begin a gradual decrescendo. She is suffocating. She is dying. My lazy eyes look up — everything is moving slower — and I see Tobias. In his hands is the gun that I hid under the sand, and it is pointed at Marcus.
The gun goes off, the loud explosion shaking the ground and walls, and a bullet sinks into Mama's chest.
All I can see is blood.
"Mama?" She turns around, and I can see her holding a rag and wiping the dust off of a pair of scissors. They haven't been touched in three months.
She walks over to me and messes around with the cabinet that I am sitting in front of. "Yes, Beatrice?" Mama slides open a keypad and presses a few numbers. My eyes trail her movements, just like they do every time.
5-2-7-6-3. The cabinet slides open to reveal my face.
She should block the code from my view, but she doesn't. If I wanted to, I could cheat and see my reflection anytime.
Still, I never look until it's time for my haircut.
"Beatrice?" I stop looking at myself and turn to Mama, remembering that I want to ask her a question.
I tell her what I've been afraid to, because I'm brave now. "I don't like being called Beatrice. It's a Stiff name."
"You want something Dauntless," she says. I nod, because it's true. I want a Dauntless name, something bold, something unique, something that makes me feel alive… but that is a lot of pressure to put on a name.
"Yes, Mama. Something Dauntless."
She thinks for a moment, as if imaging, as if becoming lost in a memory. "Tris," she says, suddenly. "We can call you Tris. Do you like that?"
Tris… "It's perfect, Mama!"
She smiles. "Let's try it out, then." She sticks out her hand — a Dauntless greeting. In Abnegation, we acknowledge by nodding heads. "Hello."
"Hi, my name is Tris." I stick my hand out and shake hers. It feels foreign, strange, but I like it.
I like it a lot.
Mama glances up at us, and the look on her face leads me to believe that she thinks we will be scared of her. We are not; instead, we are proud. Our Mama is strong. She is brave. She is what we want to be.
She lets him go; she is merciful. "Get out, Andrew, and don't you dare come back and threaten me or my kids ever again."
"Soft like a teddy bear," he mutters as he backs away, rubbing his throat, and the door closes gently behind him. Tobias lets go of my hand and runs down the stairs to Mama, where she pulls him into a hug.
Then, Toby turns around and calls to me. "Come down here, Bea-Tris." I join them, and we all stay there for a moment, wrapped up in each other, and soon enough Caleb joins as well.
It's over. Finally, it's over
She spins around with purpose shining in her eyes just as Tobias crawls out from beneath the curtain. "I'm going to train you both."
Tobias voices our confusion: "Train us for what, Mama?"
She beams, twinkling like the star from my nursery rhymes as a baby. "For Dauntless."
"What?" Surprise engulfs me like an ocean wave. Toby seems the same, frozen mid-climb into my cot — perhaps his wave was too cold. He unfreezes and climbs in, wrapping his arms around me. His coat is gone, and he is in a grey t-shirt and slacks. I move closer to him.
"Both of you want to transfer to Dauntless, correct? You wouldn't be leaving me here. I love you, Baby, and you, Tobias, if you pick Abnegation or Dauntless, or Amity, or Candor, or even Erudite like your brother." Her nose wrinkles up at the last one, but the smile is still on her face, and I know she is joking.
Mama pulls us into her arms. "Thank God, you are both okay." Her sobs fill the air, raking through her body, and her arms shake around us.
"Mama," Tobias soothes, rubbing her shoulder gently. "What happened?" Her sobs grow louder, strangled, and an unintelligible word, like a rush of air, is pushed through her lips.
"Le… Le…"
I grasp her arms, making her look me in the eyes, which I am sure are shining with worry. Hysteria pours off her like sweat, and her eyes are bloodshot, red as the fiery sun draping over the mountains. "What? Mama…"
"Ca.. Cale—"
My heart stops in that moment… or maybe it is beating so fast that I can't even feel it anymore. The pain in my ribs is excruciating, so unimaginable that I don't even realize that it's in my head. It's real pain, physical pain, like I've been stabbed, and one word repeats itself in my mind:
Caleb, Caleb, Caleb, Caleb, Caleb….
"Eight forty-five," I whisper to myself in the darkness of my room. From the open window, a light breeze ruffles the white curtains and cools down my flushed skin. The moonlight is the lamp by which I write in my notebook: "Mama will be home in fifteen minutes, and we will celebrate. Finally. Today is the day, the special day… Tobias is turning thirteen."
I stare at the wall as the nurse reads from a list. "Medial ligament sprain in right knee from some sort of impact, stitches to the head, and a concussion. You'll have to wake her up every few hours. Oh my, what has your daughter gotten into?"
Andrew's eyes narrow. "Oh, she's a troublemaker, that one. But at least she didn't turn out as bad as her mother."
The nurse looks at him with sympathy. "Mr. Prior, sir, I am very sorry for your loss."
Tears well up in his eyes, and I can't tell if they are real or fake. He nods. "No one saw it coming. That factionless man just came out of nowhere and attacked them and the Dauntless boy." I don't try to tell the nurse the truth. It is useless. I am powerless. The truth is powerless.
"Where is he?" I say, voice flat and emotionless. Andrew's head swivels when he hears me, and he does the whole concerned parent act. It's the same as the day I met Uriah and Zeke… "Where is Zeke?"
"Mr. Pedrad is fine," the nurse tells me. "Well, he will be. The procedure was a success." She fiddles with a tray on top of a rolling cart. On it is a syringe.
Andrew hesitates. "Will you give us a moment, please?"
"Of course," she replies, leaving the room. Andrew glares at me, but there is weakness behind it, tiredness.
"Where is Tobias?" I say. It is not a question so much as a statement that requires an answer.
A smirk glances across his face. "Who, the boy? Why would you want to see him again? You were there, were you not, when he aimed a rifle and shot your mother in the heart?"
"He didn't—"
"The boy had perfect aim," he mused, "for someone who had never shot a gun before. You'd almost think he'd had practice with the precision…"
"Where is Tobias?" I ask again, nothing of substance in my voice.
Andrew scoffs, rising from his seat, and runs his fingers along the cabinet beside my bed. He saunters over to the cart and picks up the loaded syringe, squirting bits of blue liquid from the top. His eyes find mine.
"The boy," he says, "is gone."
With that, the beast walks towards me, wearing the head of my father. I close my eyes.