Eric was tired. Within forty-eight hours of capturing the Divergents in Amity, Jeanine had ordered him to plan an attack on Candor. Attacking Candor would be much more challenging than attacking Amity since, along with Candor's own security, they were currently housing the Dauntless that hadn't followed him and Max to Erudite. He told himself these were the reasons he was spending so much time in the security room poring over the citywide feeds, but really his attention was always partially on the camera looking at the prison cells. Jeanine had killed four of the Divergents they'd bought in for testing already and she had the fifth currently hooked into the sim. Subject six was Dresden.

He tried to tell himself he wasn't sleeping because of all the work he had to do planning the attack. That was a lie. The truth was, every time he closed his eyes he could picture her as one of the bodies being rolled to the incinerator after she died failing to open the box. He told himself she deserved to die, but he just couldn't make himself believe it.

Shaking his head, he got up from his desk and headed down to the canteen in search of some coffee or an energy drink. He used to love Erudite energy drinks when he lived here, it was one of the few things he missed. His route took him past the cells and when he saw Max walking towards him he slowed.

"Guess she'll finally die for real this time. Subject six has been called up for testing." Max smirked as he walked past him and headed into the cells. Erudite had cleverly put the cells in the middle of the building making it impossible to escape undetected. Besides, it was only too easy to get lost in the maze of the building's corridors.

Max had been overseeing the testing with Jeanine while he'd been making plans for the raid on Candor. He'd only been in there once when Jeanine had summoned him for an update. She'd casually spoken to him as the Divergent had screamed and thrashed around in the box. She'd been watching the simulation on a screen, watching the Divergent fight for his life when he clearly didn't have a clue what to do with the blade in his hand. Jeanine questioned Eric about everything, how his leg was healing, if he'd co-ordinated with the head of Erudite security about the invasion, had he spoken to the tech department about the pins they'd be shooting in to everyone, and on and on. As she'd quizzed him, the Divergent had died and Jeanine had just nodded to Max who ordered the body disposed of and the next test subject brought in.

Eric felt his already painfully heavy heart drop as the reality of Max's statement hit him. Jeanine had killed another Divergent, subject five had failed and now she was ready for subject six – Dresden Coulter. She'd hurt him, betrayed him, and yet the thought of her being killed trying to open that fucking box shredded him.

Fuck! He still loved her despite everything. He knew in that moment as Max spoke, he still loved her. It wasn't voluntary, it wasn't something he could change it was part of him. He would always be in love with the warrior goddess that had taken that first leap from the ledge and straight into his heart.

Eric stood frozen as the guards escorted Dresden from the cells. She wasn't even fighting them as she walked handcuffed with her face stoic and head held high. Her test results might say Divergent, but in that moment she screamed Dauntless. Eric knew she wasn't stupid. He knew she understood she was likely walking to her death, but she did it with dignity. Dying wasn't one of her fears though, he'd seen them when he'd watched her final test during initiation.

Dresden sat on the other side of the room with her friend Lauren, another Dauntless born initiate, they seemed pretty inseparable. Every night at the Pit they would arrive together and leave together. Some of the guys wondered if they were in a relationship and during some pretty drunken nights they had occasionally gotten a little handsy with each other. But Eric knew better, because only he knew where Dresden was when she wasn't with Lauren in the Pit. She was kissing him in dark corners all over Dauntless.

Today was their final fear test and they were all being held in the waiting area as they waited to be called in one at a time from lowest to highest ranked. The screen in the waiting room showed the fear landscapes of the initiate undergoing testing and one guy, Luke, has already failed.

Eric just sat in there waiting until Zeke was called, leaving only he, Dresden and Four left. They were all really close in the rankings and barely a few points separated them. The quickest to get through the test would no doubt take the top spot. And Eric really, really wanted it. He needed to be number one to prove he wasn't worthless, useless, a waste of space.

"You look nervous." He remarked looking at Dresden who just flipped him off as she leaned back against the wall huffing out a breath. Currently ranked third, Dresden would be next to face the simulation. He'd wondered what her fears were and had even asked her a couple of times but she'd never told him. Usually she'd just shut him up by kissing him.

"York, Dresden!" Ty York stood in the doorway holding his hand out for his daughter. He was the Dauntless leader administering the tests. It wasn't like he could cheat and help his daughter with the serum pre-measured and people viewing the injection from all angles. Turning his attention to the screen for the first time, Eric sat forward in his seat. Finally he'd get his answer about what Dresden York was really afraid of.

She was falling from a great height but she couldn't see the bottom or top of the building. Panic threatened to take over, free falling to her certain death, but Dres knew she could find a way out of this she just needed to think. The grappling gun… she had a grappling gun in her hands and firing at the building she kept hold as she ran out of rope and swung towards the building. Bracing herself, she smashed through the window and rolled on to the floor of the room. Looking around Dresden recognised she was in Dauntless.

Eric was standing at the other side of the room, "Eric what are you doing here?" She asked running up to him, but he just looked at her like she was nothing more than an inconvenience. "Eric?" She asked reaching up to turn his face to look at her. But he just brushed her off.

"What don't you get about leave me the hell alone York. You're pathetic! Nothing more than a bit of fun during initiation. I can't believe you thought this was something." He laughed shaking his head, "You were nothing more than a piece of ass for me to take my frustrations out on."

"Fuck you Coulter… I don't need you, I've never needed you." Dresden hissed in his face slapping him for good measure before turning and leaving him in the room. She headed through the halls to her room.

The halls though they didn't end, she kept making different turns but always ended up in the same place. She was trapped, lost in a maze of endless corridors that all looked the same. What was that thing her father had once taught her… keep your right hand on the wall and walk counter-clockwise to find your way out of a maze? Marking the wall would also help and she'd be able to tell if she'd been the same way before.

Crouching down Dres picked up one of the rocks and scratched it against the wall. Sure enough it marked the chipping paint. Placing it in her right hand against the wall, she started walking in what she believed was a counter-clockwise direction. She was finally somewhere she recognised, outside her father's office, when she heard a scream from the training room. Dropping the rock Dresden ran.

Sprinting down the hall and bursting into the training room, Dres looked around to see everyone she loved hung from the rafters with their throats slit and blood draining from them into pools on the floor. "Eric." She whispered walking up to Eric's body which hung beside Lauren and her brother. She dropped her forehead to his nose before placing a kiss on his forehead and turning to walk out of the room. Her fear of losing her loved ones played out in front of her but she couldn't shut down she had a job to do.

Finally, she found a group of guards waiting for her in the mess hall with a young boy kneeling on the floor in the center of the room. One of the faceless guards held out a gun for her and Dresden knew she had to kill this innocent. Making the decision, Dresden took the gun and walked forward firing the bullet straight between the boys' eyes flinching as he fell backwards but never looking away.

As the screen went blank Eric bowed his head, he'd appeared in her fear landscape twice. The second time he'd felt honoured to know she cared enough about him that he'd been amongst her closest loved ones. But the first one, her fear that he would reject her and push her away, that hurt. He'd never said it but he thought she knew he'd fallen for her. He was in love with her.

How it had happened he wasn't sure, it was much quicker than he ever expected. He hadn't ever planned to fall in love, it just wasn't who he was. He'd never seen love, never had a reason to believe in it either. His parents certainly didn't love each other. But he did love Dresden and it warmed him inside every time she walked into a room. The way her smile could make even the shittiest day a bit better. The fact that facing his mother on visiting day hadn't seemed that bad with her at his side.

Clearly they wouldn't be the same fears she would experience if tested today, Eric thought as he watched her turn the corner, leaving him alone in this section of the corridor. She'd left him and considering her fear of rejection from him, he found it ironic that she'd been the one who'd done it. The thing was, it wasn't even one of his fears because he'd never even considered that she could do it. Even after only ten weeks of knowing her he'd been so sure she was the one he hadn't doubted her once.

It had been Dresden's decision to fake her death. To not to trust him. To leave him. Maybe now she deserved to really die.

"Four?!" Dres called through the door as she knocked repeatedly. She kept glancing up at the camera nervously, she had maybe another minute before Eric would get to the control room and find her if she stayed out in the open. "Fucking finally." She sighed barging past the still half asleep Four into his room slamming his door shut behind her.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Eric just killed that initiate Lyon…."

"Who?!"

"Lyon he was a Dauntless born initiate Lauren was training… he was just a fucking kid."

"Eric and I don't get along, that's no secret, but I still doubt he would just kill an innocent kid."

"Lyon had been doing really well on sims… his times were in the low five minutes. I saw Eric beating the shit out of him before shooting him. I just ran. I couldn't think what to do, Eric followed me he said the kid was Divergent. A danger to our society and had to be killed."

"What did you do?" Four asked a panicked look on his face.

"I just ran again… I couldn't think I just needed to get away from him. He's killing Divergents Four."

"We need to get you out of Dauntless!"

"What no?!"

"It's not safe Dresden… if he finds out he will kill you."

"No!" Dresden shouted, "I don't believe that. He loves me."

"He just killed a kid Dresden. A kid! Do you really think he would think twice about killing you? We need to get you out."

"What?!"

"You can't just leave though. Eric would never let you leave, he'd hunt you down…. We need to kill you."

"WHAT?!"

"I don't mean really… I am going to tell you a secret. My mother never died in Abnegation. I thought she did but certain members of Abnegation helped her fake her death and become Factionless to get away from my father. We can do the same for you! Fake your death to get you out of Dauntless. You can go and live with my mother and the Factionless. Eric will think you're dead. You'll be safe."

"I can't just leave him!"

"He is killing Divergents and maybe if you'd married just another mindless Dauntless solider you'd be safe but you married Eric. Dresden, you married Eric. And he is smart and perceptive and now he is hunting down Divergents. He's already taking initiates out and next he'll start working his way back through the records. And what happens when he gets to our initiation? When he sees that until your final test you were finishing your seven fears in under five minutes? What happens when he starts questioning you?"

"He wouldn't kill me, Four. I know he wouldn't kill me."

"Yes he would Dresden… you live in your little bubble where you refuse to see how vicious and cruel he is. You say he loves you but I doubt he has a loving bone in his body!"

"YOU DON'T KNOW HIM!"

"Just because I don't see him with rose tinted glasses doesn't mean I don't know what he's capable of. And I refuse to let him be the death of you. He is a killer Dresden, a cold vicious killer and I will not let you become his next victim."

The reality of Four's words hurt, he was right she only saw the good in him. Saw the man she loved and not his flaws. Dres wasn't naïve she knew that Eric killed, worse she knew he enjoyed it. But that didn't mean he would kill her, she kept trying to tell herself. But he could kill a kid. He didn't know Lyon though. That was what Dres tried to tell herself as she stood looking out of Four's window. Eric hadn't known the kid aside from meeting him with all of the initiates off the train. Eric had probably never even seen him. He would have been just another faceless Divergent to Eric. Easy to kill.

If that was the case though why did she feel so uneasy? Why couldn't see believe her own words and thoughts? Why couldn't she believe Eric would never hurt her? Tears pooled in her eyes as she leant forward pushing her head against the cool glass. "I have to go back to him…"

"No Dres that's going to get you killed."

"…and we will need to find a body. Eric will be suspicious if I 'die' and there is no body, he'll start digging. Especially since we've been fighting. If I can convince him I understand, that everything is okay between us, he'll believe I am dead when the time comes. It will hurt him more but he'll never have to kill me himself."

Because that was just it, Dresden wasn't stupid and she knew these orders to hunt for Divergent were coming from Jeanine. From Eric's mother. And Four was right, she hadn't understood, hadn't been careful during the final stage of initiation. Until Amar had taught her, she'd had no idea what she was doing in the sim was wrong. Really she was lucky Amar had caught it before she'd gone in to the final test. But it was still there in the files and Eric would find it. He would be forced to choose between his mother's orders and her.

Dresden was under no illusion that Eric loved his mother. He hated Jeanine, she knew that, but even now after being out from under her thumb for years, she still held so much control over him. Jeanine would want her dead and she would expect Eric to do it. That would be a direct order from both a faction leader and his mother to kill his own wife. It would tear him to pieces, but she could save him from that pain by doing this. She could save them both from the pain. She wouldn't live in fear of the man she loved and he would never be asked to kill her.

Dying really was the best option for them.

A/N Big thank you to DerbyGirl68 for proof reading this chapter for me :)