CHRISTINA
"WHAT THE HELL are you doing here?" I say.
"Let's see, probably rescuing you," Peter replies. He still hasn't lost that smirk. I know I should be thankful, but I can't help but be a little irritated that we even needed rescuing.
Which we didn't.
"Now's not the time to hold grudges about things he doesn't remember, Christina," says Tobias.
The man he was in combat with lies on the floor, unconscious.
"We need to get the transfers out of here before the soldiers come back."
As much as I don't want him to be, he's right.
I shove my knife back into my shoe and get ready to follow Amar out the door with the transfers when I notice someone is missing.
"Where's Zeke?" I ask, looking around.
Then I see him.
The leader with the skull tattoo has him by the arm, dragging him across the floor. A bullet wound in his leg slows him down, but not enough to keep him from pulling Zeke's body behind him.
Zeke's eyes are closed and blood trickles out of a cut on his forehead.
"ZEKE!" yells Tobias.
Without hesitating, he grabs the gun nearest him from the floor and aims, hitting the leader in the chest. He falls to the floor with a thud and I don't know if he's dead or just stunned, but I don't take the time to figure it out. Tobias and I rush over to Zeke's unmoving body and carry him between the two of us.
Outside, I'm heaving from the recent combat and carrying half of Zeke's body weight. Amar has most of the transfers loaded up into the back of the vehicle.
"What about those two kids who caused the diversion?" Tobias asks hastily.
At that moment, the girl and boy run around from the side of the building, their nimble legs carrying them swiftly over the snow-covered lawn.
"Back entrance," one of the older kids pipes up. He looks to be about nineteen, his hair grown out so that it hangs in front of his eyes, which are a dark green. He stands next to Amar, helping the younger kids to climb into the back seat.
I don't know how long we have until those four men double back and notice we've all left. They are probably running through the halls right now, seeing all the injured or dead bodies of their fellow soldiers, rage coursing through their veins, picking up the guns strewn across the hall…
"We've got to get out of here," Tobias urges, breaking my trance.
We climb into the cab, laying Zeke down on the back seat. His breaths are ragged and short. The older boy climbs in back with the rest of the transfers and Amar closes the door behind him. He sits next to Zeke in the backseat, his face twisted with grief. I slam my foot on the accelerator and we jerk forward.
Within minutes, I notice two motorcycles in the distance. I'd bet my favorite knife that they're not just some people taking a leisurely drive.
I check the side mirror again, and they've taken the shape of two bulky men, with leather jackets and guns as long as their upper half. I talk into a speaker that connects to the back, which is separated from us up front by a solid, steel wall.
"Everybody, hold on!"
I flip a black switch on the dashboard, and hope for the best.
A distant roaring sound begins to echo in my ears, gradually becoming louder. A few seconds later, the gravelly bumps trembling throughout the car cease, and all I can hear are propellers cutting through the air and the rush of the wind over the car frame.
"WHY?" screams Tobias above the thunderous sound.
I look at him and his face is Candor white, his knuckles clenched so that they are the dominant feature on his hands and his eyes are squeezed shut. We're free from the danger now, high above the ground and heading back towards R.I.O.A. headquarters.
I break into a laugh.
"WHAT THE HELL, CHRISTINA?"
All I can do is laugh harder. It's difficult to take him seriously when his tough-guy composure weakens to that of a small child.
"I'm sorry," I say in between giggles. "I know you…don't like heights."
"Just try and open your eyes. The first step to overcoming your fears is to first let go of the notion that the fear is yours and not just a conception someone else led you to believe," Amar adds quietly.
"Very poetic," I joke. "Who did you get that one from?"
He hesitates. "Tris, actually…"
I feel the familiar pang in my chest and Tobias' jaw stiffens, his hands squeezing impossibly tighter.
I don't want to last thing hanging in the silence to be about Tris, so I say, "C'mon, it's not going to get any easier."
Tobias doesn't move at first, but after the idea circulates in his mind for about fifteen minutes, I can tell he is forcing himself to relax. His fingers slide down the armrests, and his eyes go from shut to squinted. He looks out the window, and over the empty land, decorated only with the crumbled bricks of a war long forgotten. His face does not retain its color, but I notice the curious 'Tobias' overcoming the tenacious 'Four' within him.
We sit, enjoying the view, Tobias as much as he can without having a panic attack. The pound of the propellers drones in the background, leaving just our breathing to fill the empty air.
We're only about five minutes outside the city when it gets noticeably quieter. There's a shuffling in the back seat.
"He's stopped breathing," says Amar in disbelief.
I'd almost forgotten about Zeke.
But now's he's stopped breathing.
I have to get us on the ground and to the hospital. There's no time to figure out the best landing method, so I take control of the wheel and flip the switch again. The propeller immediately shuts off and the vehicle is oddly still before gravity takes hold and we begin to fall.
Oh, god, what did I do?
I turn the flight mode on again, but it will need time to start up and in the time being, we're plummeting down to earth.
"Christina, hold the vehicle steady! Try to keep us in the air as long as possible!" instructs Tobias.
Yeah, right. Let me just wiggle these controls and keep us afloat. But I do as he says, veering us in a zig zag pattern to avoid accelerating to maximum speeds. I don't know how he keeps his head in all this chaos, but I'm glad someone can. My teeth are clenched in concentration and Amar is muttering to himself, his eyes closed to reality.
Tobias begins to press buttons all over the dashboard, some of which I didn't even notice until now. He turns the flight mode off again because it's not doing anything to help us. Levers shift, lights blink and alarms sound.
I can see the shapes of buildings, now: the Merciless Mart, the Ferris wheel, the Hancock building. Tobias continues to tap out a pattern that will hopefully save our lives.
Finally a sudden, sharp tug momentarily halts our downward plunge.
A parachute.
But with the extra weight in the car, we aren't descending slow enough to prevent ourselves from crash landing.
"Hold down the gas. We'll hit the ground at a forward momentum, instead of a solid one." Tobias closes his eyes again, but not in fear this time.
Like he his saying his goodbyes.
My foot subconsciously presses to the floor, and I hear the wheels spin in the empty air.
The ground is only one hundred feet away, now.
Fifty.
Twenty.
Ten.
My teeth are knocked against each other one moment, my head pulled back against the seat in the next. The car rocks and falls heavy onto four tires again, still surging along the ground. We've landed in the fields outside the city.
I can see the gates ahead of us.
We speed through them, no longer on a mission to land safely, but to save Zeke's life. The poor transfers are in the back, unaware of what's going to happen next, some of them possibly injured and scared.
Amar yells something from the back, but I can't hear him over the loud sound of fabric snapping in the wind.
"WHAT?" I yell back.
"The parachute is holding us back! We'll go faster without it!"
I have no idea how to release the parachute. I don't need to, though, because Tobias comes back to reality and presses another button. The snapping sound stops and I can feel the power behind the car as the Panther reaches one hundred and ten miles per hour. I can see a pile of blue and white in the side mirror, crumpled in the road behind us.
We're just a few minutes from the hospital now.
There's a group of people milling in the road, but when I honk the horn, they scatter. Some of them yell at us, but I don't care. What's most important right now is Zeke's life.
The tall brick building looms in front of us as I squeal around a corner. As quickly as I can, I park the car in front of the doors and hop out. Tobias and Amar carry Zeke through to the inside and I run around to the back of the car. Fifteen confused and terrified faces blink at me, the sudden sunlight blinding them momentarily.
"One of our guys needs emergency care," I explain. "Stay here unless you need medical treatment as well. If that's the case, then come with me. Those that are staying, listen to—" I look at the boy who was helping earlier.
"Justin," he says.
I nod. "Listen to Justin; he's in charge."
A few people climb out of the back; some have cuts and bruises on their arms and faces and one girl has an eye that's swollen shut.
Inside, it is freezing cold, a change from the weather outside. My socks are wet from the snow that melted on the trip home. A nurse approaches us and I motion to the small group behind me, suddenly too tired to even explain why we're here.
I don't see Zeke or the others, so they must already be with a doctor. I take a seat in the lobby, the rough leather scratching against my thighs. I clasp my hands together between my knees, rocking back and forth. What did I do to deserve this? I can't lose another friend, when I was so close to becoming happy again.
The time passes and still there's no news. The lobby is empty, the air dry.
I can't help but let my eyes close as the afternoon turns to evening, and still nobody comes.