I own nothing!

Chapter 14

I bring her into the simulation room and nothing is said between us. She doesn't acknowledge my drunken confession from last night. She just smiles at me as I place my hand on her back and guide her toward the chair.

She has already started breathing heavily and I know that the last simulation affected her more than she would like.

I inject the serum into her neck and look into her eyes that are full of terror. I hate that I have to do this to her, but I have no choice.

"It's just a simulation, Tris," I say to her.

She just nods at me, and closes her eyes. The simulation takes her.

I go over to the computer and quickly attach the wires to myself so that I can observe.

When I enter her simulation, I can see that she is trapped in a glass box. She has a fear of confinement?

Through her glass case she sees the familiar faces of the other initiates, and me. I'm in her fear? This can't be good! She pounds and kicks at the walls around her with no effect. Suddenly the simulation me taps on the glass and points to her feet smirking. The case is filling with water. I really hate that I am a part of her fear.

"Hey!" she screams as she pounds on the glass. "Let me out of here!"

The water in the case rises fast and will overtake her. She looks around at the people present outside of the case and they are all smirking and laughing at her. She starts to bang and kick the glass harder as the water quickly reaches her thighs.

As she tries desperately to escape, I realize that this fear is more about not being in control than it is about the confinement. She has no control over what is happening and that seems to scare her more than drowning. She bangs frantically on the glass, trying to break it. But that is impossible in a simulation.

"Help!" she screams. "Please! Please help!"

The water is ready to overtake her and suddenly she stops fighting. Her eyes move frantically but she tries to relax her body as she is completely submerged in the water.

Through the glass I can hear her scream allowing the water to fill her mouth.

She hits the wall with the palm of her hand and I hear a crack. It can't be… that is impossible. I look toward her and see that the glass cracks where her palm made contact with it. She hits the glass again and there is another crack. She kicks hard and the case shatters spilling her out on the floor.

I look at her as she gasps for breath in the silver chair. I can't contain my surprise at how easily she manipulated that hallucination. I can't even manipulate it that easily.

She's Divergent.

She takes in another wheezing breath and sits up in the chair. Her hands shaking uncontrollably, she looks up at me.

My mouth must be hanging open in surprise.

"What?" she asks.

"How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Crack the glass."

"I don't know." I give her my hand and she stands up. She has already completely calmed herself down. I grab her arm with a sigh, and pull her down the hallway toward the dorms. I stop and turn to look at her.

"What?" she asks nervously.

"You're Divergent," I say.

Her eyes grow wide; there is a look of shock and terror at my declaration. She quickly composes herself and leans against the wall.

"What's Divergent?" she asks trying to sound innocent.

"Don't play stupid," I say. "I suspected it last time, but this time it's obvious. You manipulated the simulation; you're Divergent. I'll delete the footage, but unless you want to wind up dead at the bottom of the chasm, you'll learn how to hide it during the simulations! Now, if you'll excuse me."

I turn away and walk back to the simulation room. I have got to quickly change the results so it doesn't show that she manipulated anything. I need to protect her or she will not make it out of initiation safely. She needs to figure out how to hide her Divergence, and the only thing I can do to help is to delete the footage. I'll tell them that she became ill after injecting her with the serum. That is what Amar told them the first time I manipulated the simulation. It seemed to work.

I hack into the records from the aptitude tests and see that her results were manually entered as Abnegation by Tori. So Tori is the one that protected her the first time.

Since Tris was the last initiate today, I quickly run to the tattoo parlor to see Tori. She sits in the back of the room alone. I quickly go up to her to talk.

"Hey Four, ready for a new tattoo? I'm dying to get my needle on your unmarked chest!" she says smiling. Her demeanor quickly changes when she sees the look on my face. "What is it?"

"You gave Tris her aptitude test," I say frankly.

"You can't possibly know that Four, what are you talking about?

"Yes I do know that. I need to know what her real results were. If I don't find a way to help her, she is in trouble!"

"Erudite, Dauntless, and Abnegation," she tells me.

"All three, are you sure? That is completely unheard of!"

"I'm positive Four, I even tried to change the simulation to rule them out so that I could hide her obvious Divergence. I ended up having to delete the whole thing and log it manually. I told them the serum made her sick."

Suddenly the bell at the front of the parlor rings, it is Tris. Probably looking for answers from Tori also.

I turn quickly to Tori, "Please help her to understand this and what she needs to do to protect herself. She needs answers, and I can't give them to her. It has to be you."

I stand before she has a chance to say anything and duck out of sight so Tris doesn't see me. As I duck away, Tori looks my way and says, "You must really care for her!"

On my way back to the simulation room, I see Eric. He follows me into the room and closes the door behind him. What the hell does he want from me now?! I don't feel like dealing with this right now. I just want to clean up and go eat.

"Hey Four, how are simulations going?" he asks. "Nothing unusual happening with anyone is there?"

"Unusual? No, there is nothing unusual about a group of terrified initiates." I growl at him.

"Well, if you find that any of them are getting through the simulations too easily or are even changing it, you just let me know," he says this with such malice in his voice that it almost makes me tremble.

"Whatever Eric, no one can manipulate the simulation. The serum is designed so that it can't be changed." I say, "Now if you'll excuse me."

Eric scoffs at my apparent ignorance and turns to leave.

I clean up the room and finish logging the outcome of the tests into the computer. Today I have discovered that I have at least two initiates that I have to protect, Uriah and Tris. I was easily able to hide Uriah's results and when I walked back to the dorm with him, he seemed almost relieved that I found out. I told him about figuring out how to hide it to protect himself, much the same way I did with Tris. He nodded knowingly. Being from Dauntless, he has heard the stories about the mysterious deaths, the last one being my mentor Amar. His brother Zeke was also very close to Amar, so when he was found dead, it was a real shock and Zeke didn't handle it well. Uriah witnessed all of that. He also heard the rumors about Amar being Divergent. So he has a good understanding about how desperate his situation really is. All I can hope now is that Tori can break through to Tris and make her understand too.