Chapter 26
Kazana has lived factionless her entire life, having been found by the rebels who strive to live without the faction system she becomes their new secret weapon. The plan is clear, choose dauntless, pass initiation, infiltrate the system, but what can she do when a certain leader sees through her façade? AU No War, One year after Tris' initiation.
Thank you for reading. I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this story.
Disclaimer: I do not own Divergent. My psychiatrist says if I tell myself that at least three times a day I'll soon believe it's true. (It's not. I do own Divergent. I own all of it. ALL OF IT!)
'Didn't she realize he was hooked? Whatever demons were dragging her down, he'd follow. Even if it destroyed them both.'
...
Of the 7.1 billion people inhabiting the earth, 2.7 million of those had lived in Chicago. That had been then.
Now there were thousands, tens of hundreds of thousands, which seemed in comparison a meagre sum. But readers think for a moment of yourself, of the number of those you know, and then of the number of those you know, trust and have even come to consider as irreplaceable.
They say when you lose someone you love, you feel it. It doesn't always make sense at the time, often it's simply a disturbance, an itch under the skin which nags, a tugging sensation at your psyche. It's only when you watch the life seep from their lips as a decayed blue pallor sets in that we know the feeling was real.
Does the hollow begin then? The chasm within oneself that spreads and destroys, inhaling memories and replacing them with death. Or is it before that? Before we really know they are gone, as the last breath scrambles from the stilling skin of their throat and no matter how far we are, how distant they remain, you just know. What once was there is not.
And what begins as awareness, the present ache in your chest that weighs a heavy reminder of their absence. It becomes a void, a place for you anger, anguish and resentment to seep together like a toxic elixir.
What does one feel then, when you have not lost them to death? But rather, you have lost them to time?
A strange numbing sensation was beginning to erase the pain Lisa felt as she wrapped a riotous curl once more around her finger and pulled. A nervous habit she had developed as a child, it was oddly calming to watch the blood swill trapped like a prisoner in her fingertips. She had been on her fifth coil when a fierce growling broke through the air; an unusual tremor shook the ground from its impact.
Lisa watched apprehensively as a black motorcycle sped through the gates and skidded to a halt beside her. The metallic surface was flecked with clusters of dirt, kicking down the break the leather clad stranger flexed his gloved fingers before removing the helmet, Lisa gasped.
"Eric!?"
"Where is she?" he countered, throwing the mask in to the dirtied snow.
His former initiate barely had time to withdraw her gun before he had it in his own hands, Eric pointed it directly between her eyes and teased the trigger warningly.
"Where is she?"
"You can't-," she began before roughened leather enclosed her throat in a bruising grip, squeezing the life out of her.
"Tell me."
Lisa's eyes scanned his face in disbelief; the hardened expression remained in place as he pressed the gun further in to her skin.
"H-haven't you done e-nough?" she wheezed, "You j-just can't leave her alone can you?"
Eric said nothing; inhaling deeply through his nose he tapped his finger once, twice on the trigger, a single brow lifting in question. Moments passed in loaded silence before the younger girl deflated before him, casting her gaze to the building ahead. It was long and ribbed like an enlarged vacuum tube; shallow, as though half the structure were embedded in the ground.
Reddened marks marred the skin of her neck as he ripped his hand away and stormed off in pursuit of a way in. Lisa caressed the bruised area and glared after his retreating form.
"You're a monster."
Eric did not cast a second glance as he tore open the door, but she did hear his voice like a solemn echo as it slammed behind him.
"I know."
Weathered fingers remained frozen in a desperate clasp on the door handle; Eric's gaze followed the arm down to a woman who lay motionless on the floor. The body was at present a hindrance to his progress and he took little time in shoving it aside to ascend the lightless hallway.
A glass tube shattered beneath his boot, the squealed scrape of glass against metal sounded rhythmically as Eric paced through the darkness.
Sloane always had been one for theatrics, it was one of the reasons leadership had evaded him so long. Dauntless had needed a commander not an exhibitionist. Eric observed the flickering lights ahead, strewn bodies and stopped before a severed head. The face was vaguely familiar, a stylist from their former faction, she bore Sloane's handiwork like a final flourish.
Eric's hands flew to his gun as shaky fingers encased his ankle; he looked down to see a suited figure dragging himself across the floor.
"H-help m-," blood trickled down his cheek as a glass shard protruded from his eye socket.
"The girl. Where is she?" Eric demanded.
The man's face split in to a grin, red saliva pooled out of his mouth as he laughed brokenly. Eric watched the dribble coat his boot as choked guffaws reverberated off the walls. Tightening his grip on the gun, he brought it down with force on the stranger's head and stood satisfied when the crazed man collapsed in a heap.
His attention switched once more to the skull hanging suspended amidst disjointed lights, Eric leaned in to observe Sophie's face with narrowed eyes. Removing a glove with his teeth, he ran his hand through her mottled pink locks and pulled away a single black hair. The long strand swayed in his grasp, he rolled it between his fingers for a moment before slamming the button beside him and watching the elevator doors click shut.
"Ground Floor," a mechanical voice rang out as the lift descended towards the lab.
When two titanium panels slid away to reveal the birthplace of Toma's discoveries, Eric was first hit with a sense of déjà vu. A master screen stood centre on in the room, surrounded by machines, monitors and vials filled with clear, fizzling liquid. The sight however was strangely empty; it was as though the vision remained incomplete. With cautious steps he made his way further in to the lab and stared at what appeared to be vitals on the screen.
Heart rate: 60bpm
Temperature: 37 °C
73048 Days 11 Hours 7 Minutes
The seconds ticked by, 25, 24, 23 until the 7 became a 6 and the 6 became a 5.
73048 Days 11 Hours 5 Minutes
Then he saw her.
Trapped within her gilded prison she stood within the momentous tomb with eyes closed in the deepest of sleeps. Only the delicate features of her face visible behind glass, Eric had barely taken a step forward when he felt the mouth of a shotgun at his temple.
"Oh Eric it's you," Sloane lowered the weapon and flicked a spray of sweat from his forehead. "Thought it was gonna be the bitch's fan club," he scoffed.
Sloane followed his fellow leader's gaze to where the young woman remained paralyzed within the capsule, a proud smirk spread across his face as he relished in the sight.
"Yeah took me a while to figure it out too, 'member the fear landscape? Course she's grown a little since then," Sloane slapped the smooth surface encasing her torso; Eric's eyes followed the movement unwaveringly.
"Except the tits," he laughed, "bug bites!" Sloane shoved him playfully. "Course you'd know better than I would ah?"
He sobered then, baby blues glittering as he watched Eric stare at the capsule, entirely void of emotion.
"Y'know she pleaded for me to stop? Fucking whore was so uptight back in the compound, never thought I'd see her loosen up. But damn you should have seen her cries," Sloane's tone was dripping with feral excitement. "Blubbering tears streaming down her face, 'please,' she cried," Sloane whined in a sore imitation of her voice, 'please I'll do anything'."
The scarred man continued on, clenched fists and painfully sharp breaths went unnoticed as he described the moment in meticulously false detail.
"And the best part is it's a win-win scenario. Either she wakes up and everyone she's ever loved is dead or those fucking idiots try and evacuate her and she dies," Sloane chuckled delightedly, "Everyone thought she was such so fucking invisible. You have no idea how easy it was, didn't even put up a fight. But damn if she didn't beg. Even cried out for you."
Eric's gaze snapped to his then, so chilling one could feel it seep through their vertebrae. Sloane jutted out his bottom lip and morphed his expression in to one of mock sorrow.
"N'aww," he cooed, "She actually thought you loved her."
Fresh peals of laughter echoed off the sterile walls but it seemed to Eric nothing more than distorted crows diffusing with the distant sound of her screams. Sloane was still laughing when rippled bone made contact with the tip of his nose, a fist sunk as though in slow motion in to the bridged structure, so deep it should have punched a hole straight through his skull.
He fell back on to the ground with a tortured scream, but was allowed no time to nurse his crushed nose before another fist slammed in to his head, it rebounded off the floor with a sickening crack. A gargled scream tore from Sloane's throat when the third punch crashed in to his mouth, slabs of bone were ejected from their fleshy abode and bathed in the masses of blood that pooled from his lips.
Eric's hands were no longer his, they did not hold the vulnerability of a human man, they were simply weapons which he would yield until there was nothing more to destroy. Even Sloane's blood smelt toxic, hot and relentless as it covered the breadth of Eric's body. Again and again he sunk his fists in to Sloane's face, pulverizing it with raw knuckles.
Soon the cries turned to nothing more than choked gasps, gargled wisps that barely permeated the air before another blow smashed in to his skull. There was no target, just a surface, one that bled and bruised and soon what was once structured skin, eyes, nose, a mouth, it became nothing more than a chaos of flesh.
Eric heaved out ragged breaths, unable to derive any measure of satisfaction from the sick like substance which had once resembled Sloane's face. Falling away from the body in disgust he staggered to his feet and caught the silhouette of a man in his reflection. The figure was the very embodiment of raw animalism as he stood hunched over the remains of his victim.
It was only when he saw her now that he felt their differences with searing actuality.
He, crazed, monstrous and very much alive.
And she, serene, exquisite…untouchable.
Eric approached the tomb as a man desperate to feel.
Kazana had forced that from him, and now as he gave himself to her willingly, she was no longer present to accept.
Even now Eric found himself relenting to the selfish impulses she evoked in him. Hot breaths fogged against the surface, obscuring his view, and desperate to see the still set of her lips he wiped the glass with a bloodied hand. Crimson smears stained her pale white skin; he could not fight a roar of outrage at the sight.
But it sounded wrong amidst such tranquillity, and though he wanted nothing more than to see her awake again he felt it almost a crime to disturb her.
"Little Bat," he murmured, falling against her tomb with his bloodied form. Eric dragged his fingers against the glass. "Come back to me."
No answer came.
Inhaling shakily he pressed his cheek against the glass and dragged his eyes away from the sleeping beauty. Beside them was a single platform, it appeared almost translucent under the lights. Eric cast his thoughts back to her simulation, to the infantile Kazana who'd stood elevated with such joviality before the paralysis set in.
"They built two," Eric breathed.
The monitor still glowed blue with Sloane's imprints as Eric entered the system and backed out of Kazana's file, memorizing each and every step in order to ensure his own. Of course if an imbecile like that could finalize such a process than why shouldn't he?
He thought back to the vitals on her screen, 200 years.
Eric stripped away his jacket and used the interior to wipe the clotted residue from his face, and with little time to spare he made sure to remove the blood hiding hers. He wiped the window with small careful circles until she could be seen just as she deserved to be.
Finally he stepped up on to the platform and tensed at the numbing sensation which entered his limbs.
There was no internal dilemma, no need to question the sanity of his decision. He wasn't doing this with mind of the future.
He was doing this because there was no life for him in the present.
'Encapsulation Activate.'
There was no life without her.
6 months ago
He was watching her again, that heated gaze like molten silver as the flames danced along his skin. It was an irresistible distraction, but one to which she would not yield. Kazana kept her eyes averted and allowed the needle to weave once more through flesh, one of the few places that remained unmarred by ink.
Eric proved to be a quiet patient as she tended to the wound along his lower abdomen. The towering fireplace cast the room in a singed glow; she knelt astride his lap, smoky sweet breaths tickled her ear as seconds ticked by.
Kaz inhaled shakily as he drank her in, a large palm delved in to her hair and it took every iota of strength not to close her eyes. Long fingers entwined in the dark strands, Kazana tied the thread in to a knot and shivered when a heated palm stroked down her cheek. She leaned in to his touch then, soaking in the sensation of his roughened skin against her lips.
Slowly her eyes opened, she took her time, as though in a trance. Kazana followed the contour of Eric's strong jaw, along broad shoulders and watched as powerful veins ran along his forearms, threading through naked skin. Then she blinked, staring through a daze at the inked creature on his wrist, right along the pulse point.
How had she missed it before?
"Little Bat," she murmured, looking up to meet his darkened gaze. "Why?"
"They're creatures of the night," he answered, their mouths were so close now, soft breaths peppered against her lips, she could feel his words sinking in to her skin. "It's when they go out to hunt that their bodies move entirely on sound."
That night in The Pit, he'd watched her dance. Had he thought of it then? Kazana tilted her head to gaze at the winged animal, small yet powerful along his flesh. Eric pressed a delicious kiss upon her jaw, teasing touches down her neck. But a thought niggled at her, his extensive knowledge, the momentous collection. It was only as his lips began to weave a tantalizing line past her collarbone that she spoke again.
"Those books," she whispered. "They're from Erudite? All of them?"
He groaned low in his throat against her flesh, a time like this and she wanted to discuss books? "Mhm," he ascended, but it was only as his mouth was a hairsbreadth away from hers that he paused.
"Almost," he murmured. "There is one…, one that I found elsewhere. It was nothing special, just a piece on fighting techniques, something like that."
She pulled away slightly as he leaned in once more.
"Elsewhere?"
His reply was delayed, hesitant. She watched his eyes flicker to the safe.
"It belonged to someone I once knew. I never got the chance to give it back."
Her dark gaze never wavered; it remained fixed, urging him to continue.
"I didn't know her really, nothing more than a glance," His eyes were distant. The body was there but the mind was not. It was as though he existed once more in world long ago.
"But I guess something about her just stayed with me."
It wasn't till much later, when Eric lay sleeping soundly, tranquil as she'd ever seen. Long after the flames had whittled always and the logs lay in cinders bathing her in soft smoke that Kazana spoke again. A whispered promise in to the darkness.
"You stayed with me too."