Chapter 8: Tobias – Decisions
When I wake up, the space next to me is cold and empty. For a split second, I panic, as if she's gone to Erudite again, and then I'm annoyed with myself. She just woke up first, that's all. It's hardly surprising, given I was awake for more than 24 hours. But it's also the first time that's happened since we escaped from Jeanine.
I hear her voice filtering through the door, talking with Christina, and I'm about to join them when I decide it's time to do something about the accumulated sweat and grime and blood coating me.
The water is ice cold, but I force myself into the shower anyway. It burns almost like heat on the bruises covering my mid-section. The Dauntless were certainly thorough yesterday. But I scrub myself clean, gritting my teeth against the frigid temperature and the pain. I even shave – it's probably a bit stupid, given how much my hands are trying to shake from the cold, but it's almost a game at this point to see if I can hold them steady despite everything else. It's a skill that's helped me too many times for me to abandon it now.
When I finish, I pull out some of the clothes we collected from Candor, selecting black pants and a white shirt. It feels like a good day for honesty.
For a moment, I stand in front of the mirror, evaluating myself. It's hard for me to look at my reflection without seeing aspects of my father in me. I suppose it's because mirrors were so rare growing up in Abnegation, so I only saw those features on Marcus. But it's a reminder I don't want. I stare anyway, willing myself to see past that, to see who I am. Not my father's son, or even my mother's. Not a child of Abnegation, or someone shaped by Dauntless. Me. Am I anything more than that?
As I stare, other faces slowly begin to form around me, and I try to define myself through my connections to them. I'm Tris' boyfriend. She's saved my life, and I've saved hers. I've bent the city for her, and I don't regret that. In fact, I feel stronger for it. I'm Zeke's friend. I kept his brother safe through initiation, during what was probably the most dangerous time ever to be Divergent, and I protected him through the battle in ways he never noticed. I was in Shauna's initiation class. I fought Eric to help her and carried her to safety after she was shot outside Candor. I was Amar's friend, until he disappeared, and I thought he was dead. I honored him by protecting the initiates after he was gone.
When I think of them, I feel like I could be the person I want to be, brave and selfless and smart and honest and maybe even kind, sometimes. But I know I'm also the person who killed at least eight people in the last two weeks, including Eric. I'm also the person who betrayed Tori. She was the first one to make me think I could leave Abnegation and seek safety elsewhere, and I turned on her.
And I'm the person who's terrified to leave the city when it needs me most. As I think that, I see the cowering boy my father beat, the one who watched as he hit my mother, the one who protects himself first, no matter the cost to others. I need to leave that person behind today. I don't know quite how, but I can't be him anymore if I'm going to leave this city with Tris. And I will do that.
I look directly into my eyes in the mirror and say the words I've said to every initiate before they face their fears, the words I said to Eric before I shot him. "Be brave."
And then I walk into the other room to join Tris and our friends.
They're gathered in a small circle, relaxing on a pile of blankets on the floor. Christina's leg is propped up, and she's leaning against Uriah, who looks somewhat uncomfortable with the contact. He's probably thinking about Marlene. He doesn't need to; I doubt Christina is looking for anything more than back support right now. She's still too hung up on Will.
Cara and Tris sit on either side of them, Cara with her hair neatly arranged as always, and Tris looking clean and wearing fresh clothes. She must have braved the cold water like I did. For a moment, my eyes take in her face, with her incredible eyes and those lips I love so much, and I wish we were alone.
"We're trying to figure out a rescue plan," Tris says.
I nod. "What have you come up with so far?"
"Not much," Christina answers. "To be honest, I think we're lacking motivation. I mean, how much are we going to risk ourselves to keep Caleb safe?"
"You know," I respond, "I'd think that would make it easier. When Tris was in there, the plan had to be perfect, but with Caleb – well, if he breaks a leg or something in the escape, these things happen, right?"
Tris laughs, and Christina grins too. "Hmm, I'm getting it now," she says to Tris. "I'm beginning to see why you like him."
"Sorry," Tris says, her eyes on me, "but he's mine." I smile too.
"No problem," Christina laughs. "He's too scary for me anyway." And then her eyes light up with a realization, and she turns to Tris, saying, "Faceless, unidentifiable male, my ass! It was–" But Tris punches her hard in the arm, and she stops mid-sentence.
I don't know what they're talking about, but judging by the red spreading across Tris' face, I can take a guess. And I don't like it. I don't like that Tris had that fear in the first place – that she saw me in her fear landscape and that she's afraid of being with me in a way I increasingly want. And I certainly don't like that she apparently told Christina about it. Zeke always complains about how women tell each other everything, but somehow I never thought Tris was like that.
My face must show my reaction, because Tris is stammering now, trying to explain. "No, that fear never really had anything to do with…anyone in particular." She's looking at the floor, discomfort obvious in her entire body. "I'm not sure you could really understand unless you grew up in Abnegation."
She looks up at me helplessly, but suddenly I'm focused on a single word. Had. Past tense. My annoyance vanishes, replaced by a mixture of hope and, oddly, amusement. The look on Tris' face truly is funny.
"I have no idea what you mean," I say casually. "As far as I know, people from Abnegation only have four fears, and they're all good, solid, manly fears." Christina snorts, and I continue, "People from Candor, on the other hand, are universally afraid of moths for some reason."
"Hey!" Christina exclaims. "That's not fair! Just because you saw my simulations doesn't mean you get to share them."
"Actually, it's very common to be afraid of insects," Cara states in a clinical tone. "It's probably a primitive fear we've carried forward from the distant past."
"Yeah, Four told me it was one of the best fears to fake," Uriah adds, "because no one would look at it closely."
The others all turn to stare at him, the beginning of the conversation forgotten now.
"What do you mean, fake?" Tris asks.
Uriah shrugs. "Well, my biggest fear was having the Dauntless leaders find out I'm Divergent. That was my first simulation. It would have been…kind of a problem if anyone else had seen it." He looks at me and adds, "So, Four deleted it and taught me how to fake another fear instead." He grins at Christina. "As far as my official records are concerned, I'm deathly afraid of spiders."
I've never seen Tris' face look so blank. After a pause, she says, "You can fake a fear?" at the same time Christina says, "You seriously needed a fake fear? Didn't you have any real ones to use?"
"Yes," I answer to both questions. "He just needed the computer to skip past his first fear and find the others. There's a technique you can use for that. It's kind of like how you can manipulate a simulation, Tris, by focusing on the image of a weapon and making it appear, or breaking a wall by thinking it's fragile. Or for that matter, like skipping some facts while under truth serum." I give her a pointed look. "You create a strong mental image and you project it to the computer. The computer focuses on it, and from there it moves on to other thoughts that are connected to that. So, if you provide a fake fear that leads to real fears, you can get it to skip the one you need to hide."
"That's…absolutely brilliant," Tris says. "Where did you learn that?"
The question has an uncomfortable answer, and for a moment I hesitate. But I've promised not to keep secrets from Tris, and there's no real reason to hide this from the others.
"Marcus taught it to me," I finally say. "When he was preparing me for the aptitude test. He was afraid I would show my Divergence, so he taught me some tips on manipulating the simulation. I never needed this one myself, but it was useful to Uriah."
For a moment, everyone is silent, and then Tris says quietly, "I wonder where he learned it." I never thought about that before, but the answer is apparent now, after last night. I don't bother saying it aloud, because Tris has clearly figured it out already, and the others don't need to know. He learned it outside this city.
After lunch, we focus again on how to rescue Caleb. I hate even thinking about the subject. It's a painful reminder of when Tris was in Erudite, and I was searching wildly for every possible way to retrieve her. It doesn't help that most of me would be quite happy to let Caleb die; I'm still far too angry at him. But someone needs to take charge of this effort, and if it's hard for me, it must be even harder for Tris.
"How did you get into Erudite two days ago?" I ask.
Tris, Christina, and Cara exchange looks, and then Cara says, "We found a ladder in the old school by the headquarters building, and we used it to form a bridge between the two buildings – connecting one window to another. Then, we climbed across it." As an afterthought, she adds, "It was Tris' idea."
For a moment, I picture all the people we shot making our way into Erudite, and I feel the full effect of not working with Tris during that battle. We could have entered the building together if I hadn't been too stubborn to listen, if I hadn't automatically dismissed what she said as my father's lies. But there's no point wallowing in guilt. As the Abnegation always say – said – I should let it remind me to do better next time. This time.
"I don't think anyone else knows you did that," I say, "so we could try it again."
"I imagine they found the ladder," Cara responds. "Either still between the windows or on the ground below, depending on whether or not it fell after Fernando died on it." Uriah winces at the description, but Cara continues. "Either way, they probably figured it out. Besides, that was the only ladder we could find."
"We could do something similar with rope," I comment, "if someone can tie it at the other end. Zeke, for instance." I hate asking Zeke for another favor, but I feel confident that he'd help.
"If only we had rope," Christina says caustically, but Tris' gaze meets mine, and we both smile.
"That, I can get," I say. "The harder part will be getting a message to Zeke. I'm not really welcome in factionless territory anymore, or Dauntless territory for that matter."
To my surprise, the others laugh. Uriah looks proud as he states, "That part, I can handle."