ZEKE
"WHERE IS HE from, again?" I ask. The chair I'm sitting in is so deep and plush, compared to the hospital bed I was in yesterday, that I can't help but squish myself as far into it as possible. Christina gives me a disapproving look.
"This is serious!" she hisses quietly.
I stick my tongue out at her, but sit up a little while I listen to Evelyn's answer.
"The Rift," Evelyn answers patiently. I've asked her about ten times already, but I still don't know what she's talking about.
"Where is the Rift?"
"It's about two hours north of the farthest reaches of the fringe. No one really knows who resides there, except that they have something to hide. It's a dangerous place with high cliffs, on the edge of a dried up lake. There's no life and no water—only broken minds and lost hope."
"Sounds like the perfect place for who we're dealing with," adds Christina. "Is it difficult to find?"
"Not at all. Just drive until you reach the edge of the fringe and keep on going. Any sign of settlement is where the Rift begins. But I warn you, it's not somewhere you want to be going to."
"But Tobias is out there!" Christina raises her voice, panic edging its way in when she realizes that rescuing Tobias might not be so easy.
"Trust me, Christina," Evelyn reassures her calmly, "I want to have Tobias back just as much as you do, but if we go gallivanting off into danger, we'll just end up in the same situation."
Christina crosses her arms and sits down, her face contorted by anger and frustration. Amar sits on the other side of the room. He hasn't spoken since they've come in.
"But we don't know anything else about this Viktor? Like why he's out to kill us all?"
"It's most likely revenge of some sort," says Amar, rising from his seat and walking over to us. His hands are shoved in his jacket pockets and he looks just as troubled as Christina.
Evelyn nods her head in agreement. "I have heard stories, during my time with the factionless." She pauses, remembering her old life long ago, before everything turned itself around. "No one knew much about him. He was a rumored criminal, capable of unfathomable destruction, ripped free of mercy, and burdened by a life of pain.
"He would choose a victim, each one for a certain purpose. He never killed for the fun of it; he only killed for revenge. They say his family was destroyed in the Purity War and he's determined to ruin everybody that had a part in it."
"So basically like a GD rebel on steroids," I say when Evelyn finishes her story.
"You could say that," she replies. "No one knows if he's actually a GD or not; he could have been Divergent. But he believes that the only way to settle the debt he owes to his family is to eliminate any who still believe GP's are superior to GD's."
"But Tobias doesn't think that," says Christina. "He's a GD himself!"
"I know, which is what makes me think that Viktor has him for another reason, and it's not going to be so easy to get him back."
We all sit in silence as this sinks in. I think Evelyn might be crying, but she has her head turned so no one will see the tears.
What did we ever do to be placed in this messed up excuse for a solution? Why do we have to be the pawns in someone else's experiment? We're just as much people as they are: we breathe the same air, have the same structure, feel the same emotions. Why should different genes make us any less important? I mean, all of our genes are different in some way, right? Or we'd all be exactly the same.
I'm so sick of these sad excuses for people and their lack of compassion. I can't stand to talk about them any longer, and get up to leave.
"I'll see you guys later," I say, and then walk from the room.
I take turns left and then right, not even sure of where I'm going. I'm so blinded that I fall into old habits and let my feet take me to where I want to go. The corridors become longer and I climb flights of stairs.
This should all be over, I think.
We shut down the Bureau and reset their memories. How is it that their karma keeps coming back to bite us?
I stop walking when I reach a door. It's not different than any of the other doors on this hall, except for the number engraved in a small metal plate on the wall. The paint job is a little rusty and the handle sometimes gets stuck, but if you wiggle it, the lock will pop right open. This, time, though, I have no trouble and I walk right in.
On the left is the kitchen, with a table and four chairs, a tall one at the far end, which hasn't been used in a long time. On the right is the living room, small because it was hardly a necessity in the typical Dauntless family. There's a T.V. and a two-person couch.
On the floor beside the couch is a pair of shoes. They are small and worn, the laces knotted so tightly that it would be a miracle if someone managed to undo them. I approach them slowly, afraid that I might scare away the memories. I hold one in my hand and turn it over and over. The once silver stripes catch the sunlight filtering in through the window.
I follow the rays on the carpet until they climb the door to another room. I push against it gently, and the door moves, revealing a dim bedroom. Inside is a black bed with black sheets. Flames are sewn into the fabric, the red and yellows screaming at me from within the otherwise colorless room. Toy guns and plastic trains litter the shelves of a bookcase. There is only one book there. The spine reads "Dauntless Daredevils: Second Edition".
The shoe suddenly falls from my limp grasp and time slows down. I barely register the sound as it hits the wooden floor. The room blurs around me as my knees meet the floor and my hands struggle to block out the memories. I cover my ears, my hands shaking in anguish and grief. Tears begin to slip from my eyes as I squeeze them shut and my whole body begins to convulse from sobs.
It's all I can do to not run from this room and down the hall, looking for a young boy with a wide smile. Two years hasn't eased any of the pain that feeds off my losses.
Even though Tobias was involved in the plan, I know he didn't mean for anything bad to happen. I don't blame him, but I know there is more I could have said. Now he's missing and I might never see him again.
I feel as though the world is slipping away from me, all of my friends and family, everything I know and love.
Tris is dead. Tori, Marlene, Lynn, my father.
Uriah.
I let out a scream that I'm sure everyone in the building could hear. It feels as though there is nothing left in me. All I want to do is curl up and forget everything that is happening. I want to forget who I am and who I was.
I want to give myself the memory serum.
But I immediately push away the thought. I have promised myself that I'm not going to do that. The friends that are still here—Christina, Amar, George, my mother, Shauna—they need me. I would only inflict upon them what I am feeling now and that in itself would be a worse punishment than having to live with the pain of my losses.
I feel a cold hand on my shoulder and look up. My mother is standing there, her eyes glazed as she stares into the room. Her small frame makes her appear weak and her face is darker, like the burdens that she carries have aged her years before her time.
Neither of us speaks, but I know she is remembering him just like I am. She still lives here, even after we moved out to be in the dormitories with the rest of out initiate classes. I don't visit often because I know I will only be reminded of my past.
I can't imagine how she begins to live through each day with two bedrooms emptied, one of them forever. I bring my hand up and place it on hers. She wraps her small fingers over my hand as much as she can and squeezes. My mother is not an emotional person so when she bends down and puts her other arm over my shoulder, crying silently into my chest, I know that it is the pain she has been holding in all these years.
I hold her tight against me.
"I promise," I say softly, "that I will do everything I can to come back to you at the end of the day. Nothing can take us away from each other."
She nods her head and pulls back, staring into my eyes.
"You better," she says.
I wipe her tears with my free hand and we both stand. I lead her to the kitchen and she takes a seat while I find something to eat from the fridge.
"What led you here?" she asks after awhile.
I pause in my searching. "I couldn't handle the fact that we are the recipients of the aftermath for this huge mess the Bureau caused. I went for a walk and this is where I ended up."
I hesitate.
"I think…I think it was because this is where it all started and if I came back here I could just grow up all over again, bathed in the innocence of childhood before the truth came out. We were all so much happier back then."
I turn back to rummaging again.
"But it is better this way," she says.
I stop and turn around, staring at her incredulously.
"Better?"
She nods.
I can feel my heart begin to race as I comprehend exactly what that would mean.
"You think that we're better off without Uriah?" My voice is rising. "Without Tori and Marlene and Tris and everyone else who died in this unnecessary battle? What about all of Abnegation?" I'm practically screaming now. "Did they deserve to die, too?"
She keeps a calm stare as she processes everything I'm saying.
"None of us deserve to die," she answers when I've finished.
I scoff, thinking of Eric and Jeanine and all the others who were involved in these horrible schemes.
"But lives must always be given to cure the ill in the world." She shifts her gaze to watch out the window. Five stories down, people drive their cars across the city, the train chugging away in the distance.
"We can wish for our loved ones to be safe, but if they are, then someone else must die in their place. Someone's going to experience loss, Ezekiel, and Uriah was just a part of that circle. Because their lives were taken, we can live in peace now."
"But we don't live in peace!" I yell, gesturing with my arm to the world outside. "Don't you see? People are still being hurt, they're still dying!" She says nothing, but continues to stare out the window and my echoing shouts fade into silence.
I immediately regret screaming at her and I take a seat at the table beside her. My thoughts are like mush in my head and I can't seem to gather them in one place, so I just sigh and drop my head into my hands. I begin to think that's she's mad at me for attacking her like that, my emotions getting the better of me, and then she speaks.
"But I still have you." Her hands grasp mine and pull them away from my face. She's looking at me now, but she doesn't seem angry; she just smiles at me sadly. A single tear slides over her cheek.
I close my eyes and allow a small smile, not completely reassured that my breathing body is a gift. Any day of the week I would give my life in return for Uriah's.
But right now, I know that I must be thankful for what I have, and focus all my energy on fighting to keep what we have.