5

Milwaukee is relatively quiet at dawn, when we step out onto the platform. The sky overhead is somewhat blue, but still shrouded in gray. Always gray. In Abnegation it meant forgetting yourself; in the skies it can mean forgetting the sun. A teenager walks down the street, wrapped in warm clothes. He casts me a glance then scurries off, the worn soles of his shoes slapping against the pavement. I had not realized it was cold, but I guess it is. My breath comes in puffs, like the warmth in me is escaping bit by bit. I know it won't happen, but I wonder what it would be like, if breath by breath the heat in me dissipates into the air, leaving me empty, leaving me cold. I suppose that's what dying is like.

Johanna leads the way out of the station, with me by her side. George and Amar follow closely, weapons at the ready, yet concealed carefully. We don't want to raise distrust. They have chosen four other guards, who hover near Matthew, Cara, Christina, and Caleb. Altogether I suppose we form an interesting group. I wonder how the typical city dweller would regard us, a hodgepodge of disbanded factions, some with scars, others with tattoos. I suppose the only thing we have in common is that at one point or another, we have all been selfless, kind, honest, smart, and brave. Brave? I glance over at Caleb, wondering why I still can't bring myself to forgive him completely.

Much has changed since I first laid eyes on him. He doesn't keep his hair as carefully and neatly swept now, and he doesn't don the blue clothes he used to. He looks older, more worn, sadder. But he looks happier, free of the confines of the old system, free to pursue his heart's desire. However, the Erudite in him and Cara still show, in their manners and the way they talk. I don't know why I keep wanting him to be more, to have been more, when he was always simply just this way. Caleb the Erudite, the selfish, the traitor. But also Caleb the smart, who loved his sister, who tried to do the right things in the end, who just didn't do them for the right reasons.

Is it really the thought that counts?

We are picked up by a bus, a private one, with blacked out windows that let us see out, but don't let the outside see in. Inside, it is filled with seats, soft and plush and white. I walk to the back, where Amar and George help their four subordinates load the luggage. They are young, some are younger than me, and look nervous, being outside of the fourth city. I wonder if they've ever thought about their chances of returning.

They notice me and smile, although perhaps all they know me as is the assistant to Johanna Reyes, with the strange nickname. Perhaps they know nothing else, know nothing of what I sacrificed and what I lost, for the ideals of my faction, for being Dauntless. I can't help but imagine them working the jobs that once belonged to my old faction, and imagine them striving for the greater good, filled with courage and responsibility.

Filled with the purpose of doing ordinary acts of bravery.

We all pile in, strangely silent, all taking in the sight of this foreign city, with its skyscrapers and smoke and bustle. The buildings here are old, but I can see the care with which they were designed. Near me, Cara's eyes eat it all up. She's probably envisioning a blueprint in her head.

The road is hilly and as it rises I see, in the distance, the remnants of a shoreline where the great lake would have been. Now that it's been drained, the great expanse looks like an empty reminder of the power and destruction humans have caused.

A lasting testament to the folly of my kind, "genetically pure" or not.

We arrive in one of the many tall buildings, and Matthew tells us this is the Center. It's made of red brick, and I wonder how it has withstood all this time. Near the top, the glass winks in the pale light, and the color reminds me of how her eyes always used to look just before I kissed her.

It hadn't occurred to me, until now, that this is where her mother was born.

Now is sunset, orange and clothed in smog. But still the light breaks through the gray, spilling through the windows like the yolk of an egg, bathing everyone in its glow. Christina sits, swirling a glass of something clear and fizzy, and to my surprise Caleb sits near her and they talk, hushed and quiet and soft.

George and Amar have gone off, probably securing whatever information they can come across. Johanna sits at a table, silently writing, making plans, words and thoughts and actions that we need to put into play. Her hair, touched with gray, burns golden with the rays of light, and her scar, beautiful and fierce, glows just as brightly.

Cara and Matthew are quiet, sitting side by side on a soft leather couch facing the window. The sun slowly sinks, and as I stand up, I see the small glimmer of the stone she wears around her finger, and their hands intertwined. He leans over to point to a building in the distance, and whispers something to her. Cara smiles, one of her rare genuine smiles, like the radiant sun, and Matthew puts his hand against her face, brushing away a loose strand of hair.

I turn away, because I don't want to intrude on their moment, even if just with my eyes.

There is a can on the pavement. I resist from kicking it. The noise of the city is strangely comforting, maybe because it is so foreign and unfamiliar that it's like the sound of the water in the Chasm, a blur of soundwaves in the air. Although we speak the same language, the city itself has such a dissimilar spirit that the way the people here move, talk, and walk seem obscenely different.

Christina and I make our way through horde of the busy, stone-faced commuters, meandering here and there. In a huge city like this, I doubt anyone would know to target us, but the cold metal of the gun against my body still reassures me. She looks up at me, and I smile down at her, slipping an arm around her back. I know she doesn't need me for protection, but sometimes you want to give the people you love things they don't even need.

We finally find the address written on the paper Christina holds. It is another tall building, where outside, men in black suits scurry with their fingers in their ear. Off to the corner, I see someone selling newspapers, with a mangy dog beside him. I see him pause to scratch it behind the ear, and both pairs of eyes close in ecstasy.

We appraise the structure in front of us, where people inside seem serious, too serious to notice the world around them. I see the man with the dog staring at us, and when our eyes lock, he speaks.

"Looking for someone?"

Christina and I walk up to him, slowly, carefully. This is a city of strangers. And friends. And perhaps, enemies too.

Christina nods, looking him in the eye. "Our friend wrote and told us he worked here."

"They don't let you in without a pass." Under the hair that dusts his lined cheeks and the raggedy clothes he wears, I see a man with sharp grey eyes that dart back and forth, from Christina's face to mine. He ventures to ask. "Where are you from?"

"We live in Chicago," I say, wondering why he'd bother to ask.

"Peter Hayes?" the man volunteers, and Christina and I share a look, wondering how this man knew Peter.

Before he takes our brief silence for confirmation, I ask him what his name is.

He breaks into a short cough, the dog whining by his side, nudging its head against his leg.

"Name's Nicholas Wright. But they all call me Old Nick. I been selling newspapers here for ten years. One day Peter comes, and he buys the morning post. And he gives me a sandwich." Old Nick reaches down to pet the dog. "Soon after he comes, always with something for me and for Mary Jane."

Suddenly he frowns. "He got moved though, to higher up. New York. But," here he pauses and leans in, as if the office workers drowned in their own busy world would notice and hear, "He got thrown in jail."

"What for?" exclaims Christina, although I wonder if the fact really comes as an appalling shock.

Old Nick shrugs, his gray eyes pools of indiscrimination. "Murder."

Ooh murder. This is getting curiouser and curiouser! R& R please. Every comment means a lot to me :3