Hello, as you know I own nothing except new characters, events, ideas, and such. I make no money from writing and all rights go to the rightful owners. Outfits are on Polyvore, Noellamonster is the user. I share the profile with my daughter Monsterpanda. (Again, she is my real life daughter)
I feel my eyelids being brushed closed by Peters oddly warm hands, I'm breathing not deeply; not enough to satisfy, but breathing all the same. "Take the body to the lab," Jeanine says. "The autopsy is scheduled for this afternoon. I will have a nice look at their brains one way or another,"
"All right," Peter replies. Peter pushes the table forward. I hear mutters all around me as we pass the group of Erudite bystanders. My hand falls off the edge of the table as we turn a corner and smacks into the wall. I feel a prickle of pain in my fingertips, but I can't move my hand, as hard as I try. Is this what came after it all? Was I going to feel her cut me open, every little slice?
This time, when we go down the hallway of Dauntless traitors, it is silent. Peter walks slowly at first, then turns another corner and picks up the pace. He almost sprints down the next corridor, and stops abruptly. Where am we? We can't be in the lab already. I know my hand is still in Tris', I know that much.
Why did he stop?
I hear a series of beeps, and a slide—a locked door, opening.
"What di—" Tobias's voice. Pain overwhelming pain could be heard in my brother's voice, I assume he could see us covered behind Peter, assuming we are dead.
"Spare me your blubbering, okay?" Peter says. "They're not dead; just paralyzed. It'll only last for about a minute. Now get ready to run."
I felt Tris being moved then warm arms around me when a voice was heard "What is going on here?" Eric says.
"Your mother, was testing on my sister and Tris. Then ordered their death. But Peter,"
"I dyed a paralytic serum purple and switched it out with the death serum. Replaced the wire that was supposed to read their heartbeat with a dead one. The bit with the heart monitor was harder," Peter said with me in his arms, please don't bring up the baby, not yet.
"Damn that bitch, I knew she was sending me on a false lead. Take Ava and leave now," I felt his lips touch mine as my eyes fluttered open barely, but enough. "I will join you very soon love," he disappeared.
At first all I hear is the pounding of their feet, and my head snaps back painfully. I feel tingling in my hands and feet.
Peter shouts, "Left!" at Tobias.
Then a shout from down the hallway. "Hey, what—!"
A bang. And nothing.
More running. Peter shouts, "Right!" I hear another bang, and another. "Whoa," he mumbles. "Wait, stop here!"
Tingling down my spine. I open my eyes as Peter opens another door. He charges through it, and just before I smack my head against the door frame, I stick my arm out and stop us.
"Careful!" I say, my voice strained. My throat still feels as tight as it did when he first injected me and I found it difficult to breathe. Peter turns sideways to bring me through the door, then nudges it shut with his heel and sets me on the floor.
The room is almost empty, except for a row of empty trash cans along one wall and a square metal door large enough for one of the cans to fit through it along the other wall.
"Beatrice, Ava," Tobias says, crouching next to us. His face is pale, almost yellow.
"Tris," he amends, and touches his lips to hers, I cringe as she curls her fingers into his shirt and pulls him closer.
"Unless you want me to throw up all over you guys, you might want to save it for later." I say, my world was still spinning.
"Where are we?" Tris asked.
"This is the trash incinerator," says Peter, slapping the square door. "I turned it off. It'll take us to the alley. And then your aim had better be perfect Four, if you want to get out of the Erudite sector alive."
"Don't concern yourself with my aim," Tobias retorts. He, like me, is barefoot, so is Tris.
Peter opens the door to the incinerator. "Ava, you first." Helping me from the floor with rather gentle hands.
The trash chute is about three feet wide and four feet high. I slide one leg down the chute and, with Tobias's help, swing the other leg in. My stomach drops as I slide down a short metal tube. Then a series of rollers pound against my back as I slip over them.
I smell fire and ash, but I am not burned. Then I drop, and my arm smacks into a metal wall, making me groan. I land on a cement floor, hard, and pain from the impact prickles up my shins.
"Ow." I limp away from the opening and shout, "Go ahead!" I vomit, the smell overbearing, I made it even worse.
My legs have recovered by the time Peter lands, on his side instead of his feet. He groans, and drags himself away from the opening to recover, seeing me vomiting.
"Don't say I never took you anywhere nice," Peter jokes.
"Wouldn't dream of it," I say but he still holds my sweaty hair back until Tris rushes forward "What's wrong with her?"
"It's morning sickness, I remember my mom helping a friend when she was pregnant. Said it was horrible," he said as Tris took over the task of holding my hair, her small hands rubbing my back.
"I'm scared Tris, I'm so scared," I said a few tears coming out "Don't be, you have us, Chris, Uriah, Lynn, Marlene everyone," she whispered.
Tobias drops to the floor, landing first on his feet and then tilting forward to his knees, wincing. All the smells and sights and feelings of the world feel magnified. I was almost dead, but instead I am alive. Because of Peter.
Of all people.
Peter walks across the grate and opens the small door. Light streams into the incinerator. Tobias walks with Tris away from the fire smell, away from the metal furnace, into the cement-walled room that contains it.
"Got that gun?" Peter says to Tobias, I was with Peter as we walked.
"No," says Tobias, "I figured I would shoot the bullets out of my nostrils, so I left it upstairs." I laugh "You two are so much alike," Peter groans.
"Oh, shut up." I say "You guard the stiff, I will protect Ava, she doesn't have a gun," Peter said. I am a better aim than Peter.
Peter holds another gun in front of him and leaves the incinerator room. A dank hallway with exposed pipes in the ceiling greets us, but it's only ten feet long. The sign next to the door at the end says EXIT. I am alive, and I am leaving.
The stretch of land between Dauntless headquarters and Erudite headquarters doesn't look the same in reverse. I suppose everything is bound to look different when you aren't on your way to die.
When we reach the end of the alley, Tobias presses his shoulder to one wall and leans forward just enough to see around the corner. His face blank, he puts one arm around the corner, steadying it with the building wall, and fires twice. I shove my fingers in my ears and try not to pay attention to the gunshots and what they make me remember.
"Hurry," Tobias says.
We sprint, Peter first, I second, and next Tris and Tobias last, down Wabash Avenue. I look over my shoulder to see what Tobias shot at, and see two men on the ground behind Erudite headquarters. One isn't moving, and the other is clutching his arm and running toward the door. They will send others after us.
My head feels muddled, probably from exhaustion, but the adrenaline keeps me running. Peter pushes me behind his back and fires, as Tobias makes sure Tris
"Take the least logical route!" I shout out at them.
"What?" Peter says.
"The least logical route," Tobias says. "So they won't find us! Brilliant Ava," he smiled
Peter swerves to the left, down another alley, this one full of cardboard boxes that contain frayed blankets and stained pillows—old factionless dwellings, I assume. He jumps over a box that I go crashing through, kicking it behind me.
At the end of the alley he turns left, toward the marsh. We are back on Michigan Avenue. In plain sight of Erudite headquarters, if anyone cares to glance down the street.
"Bad idea!" I shout.
Peter takes the next right. At least all the streets here are clear—no fallen street signs to dodge or holes to jump over. My lungs burn like I inhaled poison. My legs, which ached at first, are now numb, which is better. Somewhere far away, I hear shouts.
Then it occurs to me: The least logical thing to do is stop running.
I grab Peter's sleeve and drag him toward the nearest building. It is six stories high, with wide windows arranged into a grid, divided by pillars of brick. The first door I try is locked, but Tobias fires at the window next to it until it breaks, and unlocks the door from the inside.
The building is completely empty. Not a single chair or table. And there are too many windows. We walk toward the emergency stairwell, and I crawl beneath the first flight so that we are hidden by the staircase. Tobias sits next to Tris touching her forehead to his, and Peter across from them both, his knees drawn to his chest I just slid down next to him.
"Why did you do it?" Tris says her eyes on Peter. "You want me dead. You were willing to do it yourself! What changed?"
He presses his lips together and doesn't look away, not for a long time. Then he opens his mouth, hesitates, and finally says, "I can't be in anyone's debt. Okay? The idea that I owed you something made me sick. I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I was going to vomit. Indebted to a Stiff? It's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. And I couldn't have it. I saved Ava, not because I owed her, which I do, but because she was just nice to me when she didn't have to be," he says.
"What are you talking about? You owed me something?" he rolls his eyes "The Amity compound the large blade of metal would have taken my head clean off, but you pulled me out of the way," he says to Tris.
"You're insane," says Tobias. "That's not the way the world works … with everyone keeping score."
"It's not?" Peter raises his eyebrows. "I don't know what world you live in, but in mine, people only do things for you for one of two reasons. The first is if they want something in return. And the second is if they feel like they owe you something."
"Those aren't the only reasons people do things for you," Tris says. "Sometimes they do them because they love you. Well, maybe not you, but …"
Peter snorts. "That's exactly the kind of garbage I expect a delusional Stiff to say."
"I guess we just have to make sure you owe us," says Tobias. "Or you'll go running to whoever offers you the best deal."
"Enough, Peter for whatever reasons you did it. Thank you." I say to him.
"So when can we get out of here, you think?" Peter says looking at me.
"Couple hours," says Tobias. "We should go to the Abnegation sector. That's where the factionless and the Dauntless who aren't wired for simulations will be by now."
"Fantastic," says Peter. "Not really, Edward is there. He thinks we have something," I groan "Yeah that's gross," Tris says her face contorting.
As we walk the streets Tris once called home, conversations sputter and die, and eyes cling to my face and body. As far as they knew—and I'm sure they knew, because Jeanine knows how to spread news—we died less than six hours ago. Now that we're here, and safe, I realize that there are cuts all over the bottoms of my feet from running over rough pavement and bits of glass from broken windows. Every step stings. I focus on that instead of all the stares "TRIS, AVA," someone calls out ahead of us. I lift my head, and see Uriah and Christina on the sidewalk, comparing revolvers. Uriah drops his gun in the grass and sprints toward me. Christina follows him, calling for Will.
"They both have been through a lot," Tobias says. "Both just need to sleep. They'll be down the street—number thirty-seven. Come visit tomorrow." Tobias says they also look at Peter who walks close to me.
"Okay. Tomorrow."
"I'm fine, I just need a shower. I need to see Tori," I say "You need sleep, even a Dauntless leader can only take so much. I will have Tori come to you," Tobias frowned at me.
Christina touches us both as we pass I grab her pulling her close "We need to talk, Cara should be here," she gives me a nod before we have to walk. I walk my back straight as everyone watches us walk, my eyes calm and collected even as Tobias marched us up the front walk of the gray house that belonged to Marcus Eaton.
Tori and Evelyn stand in the kitchen. "Ava," Tori says rushing forward "Tori," I smile back "We need to talk, away from her," I whisper low "Of course," she said.
I watch as Evelyn tries to touch Tobias, but he pulls away from her embrace, I am not sure if it is more for my benefit or if he doesn't trust her "Avalon, my dearest," I groan walking away.
Peter looks at me "Yeah long story," I mumble we walk up the stairs as Peter is showed by Bud a house he can stay in. I slid down the shower wall bringing my knees to my chest trying to stifle sobs, Tori brings fresh clothes in "Why are you crying?" I hear, I tried to hide my weakness behind the water.
I turned off the water, wrapping myself in the fluffy towel before stepping out seeing Tori, her hair had a little more gray than before. "I just been though a lot since I was in Erudite, Jeanine was determine to crack us. But all she mustered was to crack herself. I don't trust Evelyn, she just wants power, she has her own plans and we are a stepping stone to getting it,"
"I agree about Evelyn, Tobias does too. It is becoming clear, but we need them to take Erudite. But you seem like something else is bothering you," she sits on the counter.
"Jeanine, ran multiple tests on me, well we found out I'm with child." her eyes became round "Oh Ava, it'll be okay,"
She hugged me, it felt good, I missed Johanna "Will it Tori, we are at war. Eric is the father, I just want everything to go back to the way it should be,"
"That is what we are fighting for, I swear by the time you have this baby we will have our world back," I had to trust her, her hand was on my stomach where a small life was growing.
"Thank you Tori," I smiled she left me to dress. I stood in Tobias' room so Tris could use the shower, Tobias went in with her I raised my eyebrow at them as they passed me.
I lay in his bed, soon enough Tris is in it too "Hey, I have a plan don't worry." I say as I yawn "Good, we need one," I close my eyes when I wake I see Tobias in bed too. How can three of us fit? I feel awkward but I'm too tired to push Tobias out.
I fall back to sleep and when I wake next he is gone and I feel the need to vomit. I hurry, I swing my hair back, and it comes out yellow. I clean my teeth as Tris walks in "You okay?"
"Yeah, getting used to it," I say as we changed into Dauntless clothes walking back into Tobias room Uriah is sprawled across the bed facedown; Christina is with Will holding the blue sculpture above Tobias's desk, examining it; and Lynn is poised above Uriah with a pillow, a wicked grin creeping across her face. Marlene watches them with a smile.
Lynn smacks Uriah hard in the back of the head, Christina says, "Hey Ava, Tris,"
"Ow! How on earth do you make a pillow hurt, Lynn?" Uriah says.
"My exceptional strength," she says.
Uriah bounces on the bed a few times when he moves to the edge.
"So, the thing we're all not talking about," he says. He gestures to us. "You ladies almost died, a sadistic pansycake saved you, and now we're all waging some serious war with the factionless as allies."
"Pansycake?" says Christina, what did he just say?
"Dauntless slang." Lynn smirks. "Supposed to be a huge insult, only no one uses it anymore."
"Because it's so offensive," says Uriah, nodding.
"No. Because it's so stupid no Dauntless with any sense would speak it, let alone think it. Pansycake. What are you, twelve?"
"I can't believe you said it, I feel the need to punch you now," I say leaning against the wall.
"Okay, another thing I trust you not because I am a dauntless leader. But because you are my friends, I trust you not to tell anyone. We found out while we were being tested on, that I am pregnant. So Peter saved my unborn child and I can never repay him for that," they all looked at me Christina, buried her head in Will's shoulder, as Marlene eyes held tears.
"We got you," Uriah hugged me "I will teach the baby how to fight like a true dauntless," Lynn said.
"There's food downstairs," says Christina. "Tobias made scrambled eggs, which, as it turns out, is a disgusting food."
"Oh great," I say "Hey, I like scrambled eggs," Tris defended the food. "Must be a Stiff breakfast, then." She grabs my arm. "C'mon. Ava,"
Together we go down the stairs, our footsteps thundering, I hear voices in the living room—a chorus of them, in fact, joined by occasional bursts of laughter and a faint melody plucked on an instrument, a banjo or a guitar. It is not what I expect in an Abnegation house, where everything is always quiet, no matter how many people are gathered within. The voices and the laughter and the music breathe life into the sullen walls. I feel even warmer.
I stand in the doorway to the living room. Five people are crowded onto the three-person couch, playing a card game I recognize from Candor headquarters. A man sits in the armchair with a woman balanced on his lap, and someone else perches on the arm, a can of soup in hand. Tobias sits on the floor, his back against the coffee table. Every part of his posture suggests ease—one leg bent, the other straight, an arm slung across his knee, his head tilted to listen. I have never seen him look so comfortable without a gun. I didn't think it was possible.
I get the same sinking feeling in my stomach that I always get when I know I've been lied to, but I don't know who it was that lied to me this time, or about what, exactly. But this is not what I was taught to expect of being factionless. I was taught that it was worse than death.
I stand there for just a few seconds before people realize that we're there. Their conversation peters out.
Evelyn clears her throat. "Everyone, this is Avalon Eaton, she is my daughter and another of the Dauntless leaders and Tris Prior. I believe you may have heard a lot about them yesterday."
"And Christina, Will, Uriah, and Lynn," supplies Tobias. I'm grateful for his attempt to divert everyone's attention from Tris and me, but it doesn't work.
"Aren't you supposed to be dead?" he is one of the factionless men I see an adhesive on his arm "Supposed to be" Tris' smile looks forced, more like she was ready to hurt him.
"We don't like to give Jeanine Matthews what she wants, though," Tobias says as Peter hands me a can of Peaches "Eat," he says.
I eat a few, along with the scrambled eggs, as I thought they're not very good, I gagged a little passing them back to Tris who laughed "Gross," I yawned again.
"I don't want anyone knowing about you, no one," Tobias eyes falling on his mother because I don't lay claim to coming from her womb. "There's bread somewhere." He picks up a basket from the coffee table and hands it to me. "Take two pieces. You need it." Tris and I chew on bread.
The front door opens, and Edward enters. Today he wears a patch with a blue eye painted on it, complete with a half-lowered eyelid. The effect of the overlarge eye against his otherwise handsome face is both grotesque and amusing.
"Eddie!" someone calls out in greeting. But Edward's good eye has already fallen on Peter.
"Great," Peter says standing up He starts across the room, nearly kicking a can of food out of someone's hand. Peter just stands there waiting for Edward.
Edward stops inches from Peter's feet, and then jerks toward him like he is about to throw a punch. Peter jolts back so hard he slams his head into the wall. Edward grins, and all around us, the factionless laugh.
"Not so brave in broad daylight," Edward says.
Edward slams his free hand into Peter's throat, and presses the lines of the fork between his fingers, right against Peter's Adam's apple. Peter stiffens, blood rushing into his face.
"Keep your mouth shut around me," he says, his voice low, "or I will do this again, only next time, I'll shove it right through your esophagus."
I moved this was enough "Enough, move away from Peter now. If you chose not to I will force you to Edward," he looked at me.
He dropped the fork "Why would you protect him Ava?" he touched my arm "Don't touch my sister again," Tobias moved closer now.
"He saved Tris and I in Erudite," I took Peters hand and lead him back to the table were we sat seeing him walk across the room and sits next to the person who called him "Eddie" a moment before.
"I don't know if you know this," Tobias says, "but Edward is a little unstable."
"I'm getting that," I say eating another peach.
"I'm going outside," I stand as Evelyn tries to corner me into a mother daughter conversation.
The sun is beginning to set. The Abnegation sector is far from quiet. The Dauntless and factionless wander the streets, some with bottles in their hands, some with guns in their other hands.
Ahead of me, Zeke pushes Shauna in her wheelchair past the house of Alice Brewster, former Abnegation leader. They don't see me.
"Do it again!" she says.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes!"
"Okay …" Zeke starts to jog behind the wheelchair. Then, when he's almost too far away for me to see, he pushes himself up with the handles so that his feet aren't touching the ground, and together they fly down the middle of the street, Shauna shrieking, Zeke laughing.
"I have injected all the factionless, other than the few children they have." It was Cara, Will, and Chris with her "Good, I'm glad Evelyn let you," I smile.
"Well she was one of us at a time, it was only logical to inoculate her people against a new threat." Cara said.
"I wish it didn't come to this, it will only be active if she does what I believe she will do."
"A good decision," Christina said as we walked down the road.