Some ideas are mine. Everything else belongs to Veronica Roth.

Tremors, SOHN

A bump. My eyes darted open.

The first thing I got back was my feeling. I felt cool wind against my face and body, goosebumps dotting my skin. And the pain I almost forgot I had. I was sitting down on a train, not knowing where I was going. I saw Beck across from me, sitting down and knocked in sleep.

I never passed out before, but the entire time, I felt like I was never going to wake up. Like I was sinking down into a hole and couldn't pull myself out of. It's nothing like sleeping, it's a feeling of being trapped, not having the energy to cross a raging river.

"You're awake,"

Haley squatted down in front of me, only speaking in a whisper. Her red hair was whipping like fire around her and her eyes were green and bright. My head was stuck with pain for the 700th time.

"Haley you have to pull these fucking bullets out of me right now," I whispered, harshly.

"I can't, they're stopping a lot of blood loss at the moment and if I tried to pull them out, you're looking at a possible hemorrhage, going into shock, massive blood loss-"

"Okay, okay. I get it," I interrupted, shifting myself upwards. "The bullets stay,"

I looked down at myself and saw my jacket undone and a large amount of bandages around my waist, with the hints of blood seeping through. I assumed she did the same to my arm, but I was too cold at the moment to want to strip off my jacket. I saw myself in the reflection of the metal of the train and couldn't even recognize myself.

My hair was stained red at the ends from sticking to my arm. It was messy, undone now and scattered throughout my face. My skin was pale to the point of translucent and the dark patches beneath my eyes made me look undead. I felt like shit, exhausted, tired, in pain. Nothing in training could give me this experience. Nothing I've ever experienced in my short life was this amount of intense. Teetering on death, in an unfamiliar place, without even knowing an ounce about where my life was heading. And maybe it's fucked up, but I felt, excited. And maybe that was my Dauntless blood being spilled at the expense of others, enjoying the rush from dangerous situations. Knowing that I couldn't get scared. Was this what I was made for?

"When did you become a doctor?" I quipped to Haley.

She let out a little laugh and took a seat cross legged across from me. "I mean, I was always in the hospital wing,"

"Nothing like hands on experience," But I realized I still haven't asked about the whole incident and even mentioned why we came to see her and cause mass destruction in the process.

"Haley, where are we going?" I asked, serious.

"We're going back to Dauntless," She said, keeping her eyes towards the opening in the side of the car. Her hands had cut on them and bandages were secure around her knuckles.

"Why? We won't be able to get back in, the security is high and there's no way you're going to be able to get bac-"

"I know a way," She cut me off, her eyes still outside the train car. I noticed the white scars across her cheekbones and the faint way her nose was now crooked to one side. I almost forgot this was the same girl who took beatings on the regular from Paige. I didn't respond to her, hoping she would understand I wanted her to continue. Needed her to continue.

"We were all from Amity. Paige, Logan, Reece, Cole, and me. But Paige was Dove, Logan was Abraham, Reece and Cole were Alex and Taylor. I was never friends with any of them. They were always so loud, so obnoxious. All they wanted was to seem better to everyone in Amity. Become something more important. A few weeks before the Choosing Ceremony, Jeanine Matthews came to visit,"

"The leader of Erudite," I filled in. I remember seeing her at the Choosing Ceremony, her gray hair pulled taunt against her scalp, wrinkles permanent in her sallow skin. She was analyzing everyone in the room, her eyes dark on me when I stepped up to the bowls. I never liked her, from her visits to Dauntless when I was younger and way she spoke to my parents, as though they were incapable and insignificant.

"Dove was so obsessed with her. Thought she was the single leader we needed. So when she came to talk to some of us, Dove was going on and on about how she was going to choose Erudite. But Jeanine and the Erudites already had their plans. They pledged their loyalty before hand, wearing all the clothes and everything. You would think it would just be for the looks, but they we working from the inside. The way we're going in is how they would go in and out. They were taking guns the whole time, that's what you saw at the factionless," She shuddered with the memory.

"Erudites would be armed, they would attack the fence, tear it down,"

"But why? Why would Jeanine do that?" I asked, dumbfounded. None of it made any sense, but Beck was right.

"Imagine you're going about your day as normal. Not as a Dauntless, where your conditioned to face your fears with pride. As an Abnegation, Candor, Amity, or Erudite. And you wake up and see the one thing that protects you from the unknown is gone. Social disruption, chaos, and it's all on the hands of Dauntless. The ones who are suppose to protect us. And the one person who has a plan to handle it?"

"Jeanine," I replied, balancing my spinning head on the train wall.

"She wants to restore order, cause people to distrust the Dauntless, your parents. It's the only way for us to stay here for another hundred years,"

We were interrupted by Beck, who came awake slowly and upon seeing me coherent, dashed over to me and berated me with questions on how I was doing.

"I'm fine, Beck. I'm fine, we're going to Dauntless to take care of this-"

"He can't," Haley chimed in, standing up and walking towards the train car opening. "It's tough with two but nearly impossible with three. I have to take her to someone who does under the table surgeries. If you want people finding out about this, you have to be careful and plan it right. If not, you're going to look like the bad guy,"

"You need to check on Evie and Asher," I added, giving him something to consider doing. The thing with Beck is if you gave him a separate option from one he was trying hard to choose but wasn't allowed to, it made the entire process much easier. "Just go in through the regular entrance and say you were out for a run. Dump your gun before you get in,"

He stared for a few seconds, lost in thought. His mind was pretty malleable, all you needed was to implant a single idea and it didn't take long for him to say-

"Okay. But I need to hear from you tomorrow. That's my one condition,"

"I promise," I smiled up at him.

"We have to get off soon," Haley reached her hands out in front of me and I grabbed them, pushing off the ground to stand for the first time in a while. My legs wobbled at first, but the adrenaline associated with jumping off the train kept me steady. "You're gonna have to be careful, it's going to hurt when you hit the ground,"

"I'm well aware," I glanced down at my wounds, zipping up my jacket to conceal them. Out of sight, out of mind, or something like that.

"Theo," Beck called out to me as I prepared myself at the train opening. I turned slightly and he tossed me something. I caught it and felt silver between my fingers. My hand travelled along until I found a dog tag.

THEODORA NATALIE EATON

DAUNTLESS

O NEG

2357-

"It was supposed to be a birthday present, but I figured I give it to you now," His lips moved into a small smile.

My hand moved across the indentations and couldn't help but smile back. And of course in the moment I needed blood the most, he was wrong.

"Beck, I'm AB positive," I told him, settling the chain around my neck.

"Get ready," Haley spoke next to me.

Beck shrugged and his smile broke, revealing a crooked smile. "I guessed,"

That was the last thing I heard before I hit the air.

We were so close to the compound. The only thing that stood between us was the shipping center, where crates lined the area, giving ample coverage. It was late, no one was really around, making it fairly easy to sneak in and out. It was probably a cakewalk to get boxes of weapons out of here. All you had to know was the simple layout and clock when traffic was the lowest. Erudites probably thought they were fucking rocket scientists putting these pieces together.

I followed as we found a small opening where it looked to be only a room where unused weapons were held, but it opened to reveal a open space of grains stacked to the ceilings. Haley brought me through a series of hallways that were empty for the most part, until two bodies appeared down one of them. Their silhouettes were large and I could see the outline of guns through the white light in on the sides of the walls.

We tucked ourselves behind a parallel hallway, muttering a shit in the process. We heard them laugh, deep voices echoing off the cold walls. Slowly, I turned my head around and peeked into towards them. They were walking towards us and I swallowed as they got closer.

"I'm telling you, I take the job as a trainer and they still put me on these watch shifts-"

Of course. Of course it had to be fucking Nash.

"Who is it?" Haley asked next to me.

"It's Nash," I muttered back, annoyed. But instead of staying back against the wall, Haley's reaction was not what I expected. She decided to move around and head into the hallway.

"Haley what are you-" I drew my gun as quick as I could with the injuries I've been trying to pretend weren't there. In reality, the pain was throbbing, and I could feel the blood that was supposed to be pumping around of my body slowly easing out.

I turned around the corner, gun drawn.

And I saw Haley running towards Nash and my heart began to race thinking about what she was going to do to him. He had a gun and she was unarmed so anything she could have tried to do would only result in disaster for her. That and the fact that she wasn't even supposed to be here. She was only screwing herself over if she tried to-

Hug him?

I took a few more steps forward and saw Nash with his arms around Haley in a tight hug. I mean, I guess she was his trainer and all but a hug? I was in such a state of confusion, I didn't see the guy next to them raise his gun at me to shoot.

"Wait, stop!" Haley's hand came down on the barrel of his gun, breaking her away from Nash. A stab of pain brought my mind back to reality and the only thing I cared about was getting these goddamn bullets out of my body.

"Theo?" Nash came closer and I cut off anything he was going to say after.

"Listen, it's been a long day. I have no idea what's going on. I passed out for the first time in my life and all I need right now is for someone to repair my fucking arteries,"