Hello, I own nothing but new characters and events. Alessa is a surprise character that you'll see in my daughters' story when she starts posting it. I make no money from writing and all rights go to the rightful owners.

I did pushups to keep my mind focused then moved to the window seal for pull ups. Doing this stuff makes me feel better but how could this happen? Tris was going to die, Four was going to die, my unborn child was going to die and Eric wouldn't know. I watched them take Tris a while ago, it should have been me, and I just hoped they didn't hurt her.

I just have test run, it was confirmed it's Eric's but I wouldn't let her see how far along I was, I killed an Erudite women who go too close. The doors open and Peter stands in the opening with a gun "Come on Ava," the usual malice in his voice was gone.

"Where to? I'm tired of her tests already, no serum she injected me with has worked," I say, I was tired period.

"Yeah, she isn't understanding that. Why did you save me twice?" his voice low with his gun at my back.

"Peter, I may not like you because how you acted while we went through initiation together but you don't deserve to die. Even you can change, maybe there is someone who can love you despite you being an asshole," he stiffened behind me. "Is there someone?" I tried to stop but he pushed me forward.

"My sister. She stayed back in Candor, I practically begged her to come to Dauntless with me. Eventually she said she would but as you can see it was a lie. I saw her again a few days ago…she's divergent. Tori told her to leave Candor, go to Amity. I didn't know any of it. She's like you, all 5." My eyes widened, I didn't know he had a sister let alone one who's divergent like me. "She's still in Candor, her name's Alessa."

The only thing that distinguishes one hallway from another, here, is their length. I decide to label them according to how many steps I take before I turn. Ten. Forty-seven. Twenty-nine.

"You'll make it back to her after all this and you'll find someone to settle down with. Have crazy babies with." I was sure of it, maybe Alessa could join her brother in dauntless.

"Yeah, I don't think a girl would find my personality welcoming," he says.

"Your personality has nothing on Eric's and he landed me," Peter snorts a little, we walk between the Erudite lab tables. That's when I realize where I am, and where we're going: back to the room Jeanine showed me. The room where I will be executed.

This time the execution chamber is not empty. Four Dauntless traitors mill around in one corner, and two of the Erudite, one a dark-skinned woman, one an older man, both wearing lab coats, stand with Jeanine near the metal table in the center. Several machines are set up around it, and there are wires everywhere.

I don't know what most of those machines do, but among them is a heart monitor. What does Jeanine plan to do that requires a heart monitor? Or was this for Tris?

"Get her on the table," says Jeanine, she sounds urgent she wants me dead as soon as possible. "Or ask me," I say to them. I lay on the table trying not to stress myself out hoping against hope something will happen and we will be safe.

"Peter even if I don't make it out, just know there is someone who can love you, someone other than your sister," I whisper his dark green eyes bore into mine, they were speckled with blue flecks. Peter pulls black straps across my body to keep me firmly pressed against the cold steel table.

"What the hell is going on?" I demand, I knew she was off, I mean she was going to kill me while I carried her grandchild.

The door opens again.

Tobias walks in—limps in—flanked by Dauntless traitors. His face is bruised and there's a cut above his eyebrow. He does not move with his usual care; he's holding himself perfectly straight. He must be injured. I try not to think about how he got that way.

"What is this?" he says, his voice rough and creaky.

From screaming, probably.

My throat feels swollen.

"Ava," he says, and he lurches toward me, but the Dauntless traitors are too quick. They grab him before he can move more than a few steps. "Ava, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I am just having fun with Peter here," I say trying to sound like nothing is wrong. "Are you?"

He nods. I don't believe him.

"Rather than waste any more time, Mr. Eaton, I thought I would take the most logical approach. Truth serum would be preferable, of course, but it would take days to coerce Jack Kang into handing some over and he has taken a liking to Avalon, as it is jealously guarded by the Candor, and I'd rather not waste a few days." She steps forward, a syringe in hand. This serum is tinted gray. It could be a new version of the simulation serum, but I doubt it.

I wonder what it does. It can't be good if she looks this pleased with herself, she always wears this face, and I want to cut it off her.

"In a few seconds I will inject Avalon with this liquid. At that point, I trust, your selfless instincts concerning your little sister, who is with child, or should I have Tris brought in? But I assume they will take over and you will tell me exactly what I need to know." His eyes linger on mine I give a small nod.

"What does she need to know?" I say, interrupting her.

"Information about the factionless safe houses," he replies looking at me.

My eyes widen. The factionless are the last hope any of us has, now.

"Don't give it to her. I'm going to die anyway. Don't give her anything."

"Remind me, Mr. Eaton," says Jeanine. "What do Dauntless simulations do?"

"This isn't a classroom," he replies through gritted teeth. "Tell me what you're going to do."

"I will if you answer my very simple question."

"Fine." Tobias's eyes shift to me. "The simulations stimulate the amygdala, which is responsible for processing fear, induce a hallucination based on that fear, and then transmit the data to a computer to be processed and observed."

It sounds like he's had that memorized for a long time. Maybe he has—he did spend a lot of time running simulations.

"Tobias, listen to me for once. Don't do it, she is Eric's mother, she is willing to kill her own grandchild. Don't you give her any information," our eyes meet.

She taps the syringe with her fingernail.

"Fear," she says, "is more powerful than pain. So is there anything you'd like to say, before I inject your sister?"

Tobias presses his lips together.

And Jeanine inserts the needle.

It begins quietly, with the pounding of a heart. I am not sure, at first, whose heartbeat I'm hearing, because it's far too loud to be my own. But then I realize that it is my own, and it's getting faster and faster.

Sweat collects in my palms and behind my knee, everything is a blur Eric isn't really here, but there he is blood pooling around him.

Then I focus this is real, this isn't real I chant now I see Tobias is fighting the Dauntless traitors by the door.

I laugh "Sorry Jeanine, I know how this upsets you. But another serum failed," I breathed as Peter gave me a look.

"No, not again. This was so much stronger," her voice was heard "It failed, you failed again," I took another deep breath seeing Tobias with a faint smile. Jeanine nods, and he runs to me. He wraps one hand around mine and touches my hair with the other. His fingertips come away wet with tears. He doesn't wipe them off. He pulls back, his fingers wrapped around my fingers for as long as they can be until the Dauntless traitors pull him from my grasp to escort him elsewhere. My hand falls heavy on the table "We will be okay, all of us," he whispers I want to believe him.

"Take her back to her cell," her voice was deranged at this point.

I watched as Tobias and Tris ran off down the hall, Peter was on the floor, I was fresh out of the shower. It's been another day, I hated this, the not knowing what was going on with Tris, but Peter tells me it's about the same with me serums.

I felt ill, hours later when Peter took me from my cell we walked passed the Erudite labs. I smiled seeing Jeanine with claw marks down her face "Tris was upset," Peter alerted me, I smiled. We walked in seeing Caleb, I forced my eyes to move from his.

"The serums don't seem to work, on you nor Tris. And we can't figure out exactly why," she said her lips pressed together, I just watched her, a few older Erudite looking harassed.

"This is not about you. It is not about me. It is about keeping this city safe from the people who intend to plunge it into hell!"

"I may have agreed with that, but the way you have gone about it was wrong taking away a persons will power goes against everything. I don't like Evelyn, the factionless, beyond the wall, but I also don't like you. I could tell you the answer, but I won't, you are an emotionless robot," her watery grey eyes narrow like she wants to attack me, but she is smart enough not to, I assume she attacked Tris before.

I had one chance "Take Avalon back to her cell, I have made my decision," she said but I moved Peter never should have let my arms free, I spun on my heel Jeanine ran but I wasn't headed for her, Caleb.

My hand came down on his throat "Hey traitor," I slammed his head onto the floor, I punched him "Get her now," Jeanine says her voice tense.

But even when his arms came around me I kicked Caleb in the face, his eyes rolled back into his head "That was for Tris!" I yell as Peter drags me out.

"Calm down," he says as we reach the hall way "I think I'm going to be sick," he sighed pulling me into a bathroom. I vomited into the toilet, I was shocked beyond anything when my hair was moved. I just vomited and cried until I felt better, I felt fine after vomiting.

"God damn it," I kicked the door making it come off the hinge half way "That sick bitch," I snarl "But thank you Peter, for helping me," I smile "Yeah, you know," he said looking around we walked out back to my cell I could see Tris and Four looking out watching Peter guild me into my cell.

I am sweating and pale, Tris looks just as bad, Tobias had blood on him "Try and rest, you look ready to faint,"

"I feel that way," I sigh, he closed the door. I do sleep dreaming of a time where this is all over, we're alive and happy. But I wake in a cold sweat, I stand stretching making myself decent, time is nothing here. I do some training exercises I stop when the door opens.

Peter's eyebrows, which usually turn up in the middle, are furrowed.

"What happened?" Whatever it is, it can't be good.

"Your execution has been scheduled for tomorrow morning at eight o'clock."

"My execution? Well I can't say that I am surprised, she can't deal with her failure," I say.

"She said that she will continue the experiments on Tobias instead of you. You and Tris will die at the same time," he says.

All I can say is "Oh," he leaves and I just sit what more can I do, I can cry, I am sure I will. But I made this choice, I have to live with the repercussions, at least Eric will find love again, he is still young.

I suppose that now would be the time to ask for forgiveness for all the things I've done, but I'm sure my list would never be complete. I also don't believe that whatever comes after life depends on my correctly reciting a list of my transgressions—that sounds too much like an Erudite afterlife to me, all accuracy and no feeling. I don't believe that what comes after depends on anything I do at all.

I smile a little, I am brave enough to do this as tears fall like a waterfall, and I sob my head against the wall as my knees are pulled to my chest.

It was early when a set of clothes are brought in, black pants and a shirt but I refuse them the Dauntless Traitor walks out. I stay in my Dauntless clothes a few silent moments later, Peter tells me it's time to go.

"Well, then let's not keep the she beast waiting," I say to him. "How can you crack jokes?" he furrows his brows.

"Better than breaking down at the reality of the situation, my best friend, myself, my unborn child and next my brother are going to die." I say to him as a female grabs Tris walking her next to me.

"Hey Tris," I smile.

"Are you okay?" her eyes were on me "No, and neither are you." I shrug, her eyes were pink and puffy. She did cry.

We turn a corner and I hear muffled shouts. At first I can't tell what the voice is saying, but as we draw closer, it takes shape.

"I want to … them!" Tobias. "I … see them!"

I glance at Peter. "We can speak to him one last time, can't we?"

Peter shakes his head. "There's a window, though. Maybe if he sees you two he'll finally shut up."

He takes me and Tris down a dead-end corridor that's only six feet long. At the end is a door, and Peter is right, there's a small window near the top, about a foot above my head.

"Tris! Ava!" Tobias's voice is even clearer here. "I want to see them!"

I reach up and press my palm to the glass with Tris. The shouts stop, and his face appears behind the glass. His eyes are red; his face, blotchy. Handsome Tris always says, but he looks like a potato. My big potato brother. He stares down at me for a few seconds then to Tris, and then presses his hands to the glass so it lines up with ours.

He leans his forehead against the door and squeezes his eyes shut.

I take my hand down and turn away before he can open his eyes, Tris waits a little longer, but my eyes prickle with tears. We walk away together hands clasped together "I beat the shit out of your brother," I sniffled.

I hear rumbling somewhere ahead of us—the sound of a crowd. The next hallway is packed with Dauntless traitors, tall and short, young and old, armed and unarmed. They all wear the blue armband of betrayal.

"Hey!" Peter shouts. "Clear a path!"

The Dauntless traitors closest to us hear him, and press against the walls to make way for us. The other Dauntless follow suit soon after, and everyone is quiet. Peter steps back to let us go ahead of him. I know the way from here.

I don't know where the pounding starts, but someone drums their fists against the wall, and someone else joins in, and we walk down the aisle between solemn-but-raucous Dauntless traitors, their hands in motion at their sides. The pounding is so fast my heart races to keep up with it.

Some of the Dauntless traitors incline their heads to Tris all do it to me as Dauntless leader—I'm not sure why. It doesn't matter.

We reach the end of the hallway and open the door to our execution chamber.

"At least we aren't going to die alone," I mumble "Together," she says.

"No better way," Peter watches us the whole time.

I open it.

Dauntless traitors crowded the hallway; the Erudite crowd the execution room, but there, they have made a path for us already. Silently they study me as I walk to the metal table in the center of the room. Jeanine stands a few steps away. The scratches on her face show through hastily applied makeup. She doesn't look at Tris as we walk in.

Four cameras dangle from the ceiling, one at each corner of the table. I sit down first, wipe my hands off on my pants, and then lie down. Next is Tris, we lay together hands clasped tightly.

The table is cold, frigid, seeping into my skin, into my bones. Appropriate, perhaps, because that is what will happen to my body when all the life leaves it; it will become cold and heavy, heavier than I've ever been. As for the rest of me, I'm not sure. Some people believe that I'll go nowhere, and maybe they're right, but maybe they're not. Such speculations are no longer useful to me anyway.

Peter slips an electrode beneath the collar of my shirt and presses it to my chest, right over my heart. "Don't try and cope a feel," I smile. He rolls his eyes as he does the same to Tris.

He then attaches a wire to the electrode and switches on the heart monitor. I hear my heartbeat, fast and strong. Soon, where that steady rhythm was, there will be nothing.

And then rising from within me is a single thought:

I don't want to die, I don't want my child to die.

Burning and boiling inside me is the desire to live, but also a desire to save others from the pain of losing loved ones and almost losing Hec, Marlene, and Kee was a blow to Dauntless.

Jeanine steps forward with a syringe full of purple serum. Her glasses reflect the fluorescent light above us so I can barely see her eyes.

Jeanine holds my head steady with one hand and inserts the needle into my neck with the other. I watch as she does the same to Tris, I want to knock the needle from her hand.

She presses the plunger down. Peter leans forward and looks into my eyes.

"The serum will go into effect in one minute," he says. "Be brave, Ava" "You too Stiff,"

My heart begins to race.

All the muscles in my body relax at once. A heavy, liquid feeling fills my limbs. If this is death, it isn't so bad. My eyes stay open, but my head drops to the side. I try to close my eyes, but I can't—I can't move. I wish I could have seen Eric one last time, tell him I was having his child.

Everything goes quite, the last thing I see is a tear make its way down Tris' cheek.

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