Chapter 11

It feels like barely five minutes have passed when the door opens again and Gun-Guy and three others enter.

I can feel my heart starting to beat faster; sweat is forming on my upper lip. I am scared. It cannot be midnight yet. This cannot be the end.

"Get them up," Gun-Guys says. Two of the guys accompanying him walk toward Eric and drag him onto his feet. The last one heads my way before grabbing my arm and pulling me upright.

"Alright, let's go," Gun-Guy orders and motions for the others to follow him.

While they lead us through the corridors of the building I desperately try to get a look at Eric's face but he is walking in front of me and looking straight ahead.

He tries once to look behind him but one of his captors immediately presses his head back forward.

The moment we walk outside and into the night I start to shiver. It is ice-cold and foggy. Winter is well on its way.

It has always been my favorite season and now I really wish I had appreciated the last one a bite more.

Turning around a corner, we arrive at the old market place where a few more factionless are gathered, some carrying torches. Two of them also carry machine guns. Our machine guns, I realize, the ones we dropped when we were taken hostage.

"Free their hands and line them up in front of the wall," Gun-Guy says.

My captor draws a knife and cuts the cable ties in half. I rub my sore wrists while being turned around and led to the wall of an old bakery. A second later, Eric is shoved to stand next to me.

I have a hard time focusing. My heart is hammering wildly against my ribcage and my breath comes out fast in white little clouds due to the cold.

Moving to stand behind me, Eric puts his arm around me, just like all the times in the training room when he choked me, only this time, he puts no pressure onto my throat but uses the arm to pull me straight back against his front. I can feel the heat of his body through my clothes.

Trying to ignore the guns trained on us, I focus on the feeling of Eric's body against mine, on the feeling of his arm around me, holding me protectively. I bring my hands up and clutch his strong forearm.

"Ten minutes left," Gun-Guy announces. "Maybe Dauntless is simply cutting it close. Ruben, go to the train station. Jasper, go and keep an eye on the main road in case they arrive by car."

Two guys that I seem to remember from earlier today nod and then disappear in different directions.

"What are you doing, John?" Sean snaps angrily and steps forward. "She's mine. The leader's said I could have her until she bores me."

The arm around me tightens.

"Eric," I murmur fearfully, my voice only loud enough for him to hear.

"I'm ready," Eric's answer rumbles through my body. "Prepare yourself."

I am wondering how the hell one should prepare themselves for being killed when Gun-Guy – John – suddenly swings his fist and punches Sean straight in the face, causing my former fellow faction member to fall to the ground.

"I've had enough of you," Gun-Guy says, looking down at Sean's bleeding face. "First of all, they have about two minutes left. And second, I'm sick of all this shit, I want it to be over and get back to my heavily pregnant wife. I won't miss the birth of my child because you can't find someone to willingly fuck you."

Sean does not reply but silently gets on his feet and stumbles back to where the rest of the factionless are standing.

"John," Ruben comes back. "No-one jumped off the train and the next one arrives way past the deadline."

"Alright," Gun-Guy sighs and it is obvious that he is not happy. "Let's do this then."

He motions for the two guys holding the machine guns.

They step closer toward us and my heartbeat accelerates even more. I'm almost sure my heart is going to burst out of my chest at any moment.

I am starting to shake as I stare into the barrel. Although I earlier begged Eric to kill me rather than letting Sean get his hands on me, I now realize that I do not want to die. I want to see my family and friends again, I want to fall in love and get married and have kids.

Eric suddenly spins me around and wraps one arm around my lower back and places the other on the back of my neck, fisting my hair and forcing me to look up into his face.

"Hey, look at me, Stiff," he says, holding me pressed up against him, his voice deep and his eyes boring into mine, like there is only us and no-one else. "You look at me, alright? It's gonna be quick, you won't feel a thing, I promise. Just keep your eyes on me, baby."

And I do. I stare straight into his piercing gray eyes while my teeth start to chatter and the first tears spill over.

They say that before you die you can see your life flash before your eyes again. It is not true. The only thing I am confronted with while staring into the depth of Eric's gaze is regret. Regret that I will never find out what the hell there is between the two of us. Regret that I will never learn how soft his lips would feel against mine.

When the first gun shots ring out I let out a sob and Eric yanks my head against his chest, pressing my nose into his shirt while I continue to shake and cry and cling to him.

It takes me several seconds to realize that I am still breathing and cannot feel any pain and that there is an ongoing sound of gunfire around us, and suddenly Eric pulls me down to the ground with him.

"Stay down!" He harshly whispers into my ear before letting go of me.

I remain on the cold cobble stones, forcing myself to stop crying in order to clear my vision.

When it finally does, the first thing I see is Gun-Guy's dead body not too far away from me. His eyes are wide open and there is a bullet hole in his forehead and a puddle of blood surrounding his head.

It almost pains me. He might have been on the opposite side but he had been nice enough toward me and kept Sean away from me in the end, just like he had promised.

I blink a couple of times to get my focus back on the situation I am in. Looking around, I see several more dead factionless. Dauntless soldiers in their black uniforms and with machine guns are storming the old market place.

Slowly, I get back onto my feet. Leaning back against the bakery wall, I let my gaze travel across the market place again. I can see Christina and Four fighting one of the guys with a machine gun. Zeke and Uriah and Lynn are in hand-to-hand combat with some factionless.

From the corner of my eyes I see movement and my gaze flies back toward Gun-Guy's body and I freeze.

Sean is standing next to it, John's gun in his hand. Facing him is Eric.

I see Sean's mouth moving and Eric's jaw clenching before he tightens his fists and then gets down onto his knees.

"No!" I scream hysterically but just like I could not make out Sean's words they cannot hear me due to the noise around us. Before I know what I am doing I am running toward them as fast as I can.

It feels like I am moving in slow-motion. Sean takes a step toward Eric, only a few feet of space remaining between the two of them, and lowers the gun, pointing it at Eric's head.

I keep moving and then slow-motion is suddenly replaced by high-speed - I am right in front of Eric, hiding him behind me, and Sean fires, his eyes widening when he realizes what is going on.

Eric is yelling my name – my actual name this time – and grabs my waist, yanking me down to the ground.

Breathing heavily, I barely realize Sean running away or Four yelling my name and fighting his way toward us. I can only focus on Eric's face above me and the blind panic in his eyes.

"Fuck! You stupid, stupid girl, why did you do that? Shit!" he keeps mumbling, looking from my face to my lower body and back again, and I furrow my brows in confusion.

"You stay with me, baby, you hear me?"

Why would I not? I try to tell him that I am fine, that of course I am staying with him but all that comes out is a groan and then everything seems to rush back and hit me at once. The ongoing gunfire around us, people screaming, Four yelling my name again – and then, suddenly, I can feel pain in my lower abdomen, the most excruciating pain I have ever felt in my entire life, like I'm being ripped apart and burnt from the inside at the same time, and then there is an immense pressure on my abdomen and I scream.

"Sshhh, it's gonna be alright, baby, you're gonna be fine."

With all my remaining strength I lift my head and look down at my body.

My breathing quickens as panic begins to surge through me in waves, threatening to drown me.

Eric's hands are pressing onto my womb, blood is seeping through his fingers and my shirt is already soaked.

"E-Eric," I manage to choke out and his eyes immediately find mine again and now, at the latest, I know it is really bad because I have never seen such desperation and pain and panic in his eyes before.

"Tris!" Four is falling onto his knees to my other side. He glances at the wound and then looks at Eric. "Will and his team are in one of the trucks, we have to carry her-"

"We can't!" Eric replies, his voice breaking. "The bullet is still inside her, by moving her we could cause it to wander and do even more damage."

"We don't have a choice," Four replies. "She's bleeding out."

Eric nods numbly, not having taken his eyes away from me or my wound.

"You keep pressure onto her wound, I'll carry her," he says. "Put your hands on top of mine, the moment I withdraw you press down with everything you have, got it?"

"Yeah."

The edges of my vision begin to darken and the immense cold is sinking into my bones. I am freezing. And tired. Really, really tired.

"Keep your eyes open, Stiff," Eric orders, but his voice is laced with fear. Then his hands are beneath my shoulders and legs and he is lifting me.

The burning in my lower abdomen intensives and I let out a mixture between a groan and a sob.

"The bleeding's getting worse," I hear Four say.

I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open now.

"We're almost there, you almost made it, you need to hold on a little longer, Stiff, just a little while longer," Eric's voice seems to be very far away now, even though I can feel that he is still carrying me.

I try to say his name again but am not sure whether I have succeeded because my eyes fall closed and I succumb to the intense need to just sleep.

The first thing I'm aware of, even before opening my eyes, is the sound of a heart monitor regularly beeping to my right.

I slowly open my eyes and have to blink several times against the brightness of the white ceiling above me.

Where am I? What happened to me?

The heart monitor starts beeping faster and I turn my head toward it. My pulse is going upward, reaching 100.

"Oh my god, Tris!"

I turn my head in the opposite direction and find Christina sitting in a chair next me.

"It's alright," she says, her eyes filling with tears as she stands up and reaches for my hand. It is only when I follow her movement that I realize that there is a needle in the back of my hand, attached to the tube of an infusion. "You're in the infirmary. Do you remember why?"

I blink again, slowly looking around and recognizing the Dauntless infirmary. Turning my head back to Christina, I feel something against my nostrils and on my cheeks and reach up, but Christina stops me.

"Oxygen tubes," she explains. "Tris, what do you remember?"

Nothing. I remember nothing.

But then images start to slowly appear in my head. Factionless. Gun-Guy's dead eyes. Eric. Sean about to shoot Eric. Eric begging me to stay with him.

"I got shot, didn't I?" My voice sounds raspy, like I have swallowed sandpaper.

"Yes," Chris answers, the tears now freely running down her cheeks. "You lost a lot of blood. If Eric hadn't reacted instantly you would have died on the spot. You had surgery and they put you into an induced coma; Will's gonna explain it to you later."

"Is Eric alright?" I ask immediately. "Are our friends okay? What happened after I passed out?"

"Eric is fine," Chris replies. "He barely left your side the last couple of days. He even slept in here. When they told us that they were going to wake you up today he got Housing to give him a spare key to your apartment so he could get you some clothes. He wanted to be here when you woke up but Max sent him on an assignment to Amity. He was furious, to say the least. And the rest of us are okay. After you blacked out we arrested some factionless and killed others. Some even killed themselves. It wasn't pretty."

My head is spinning with all this information.

"What's going on with you and Eric?" she wants to know then. "You almost died to save him."

I am spared from answering, for now, because Will comes out of his office.

"Tris," he smiles. "Good to see you awake."

"Hey, Will," I return his smile. "I guess you sewed me back together?"

His gaze darkens. "Literally."

Chris squeezes my hand. "I'll let you two talk. But we are so not finished, Tris."

"I know," I sigh, squeezing back. "Thanks for being here, Chris."

I watch her leave and then, when the door closes behind her, turn my gaze back toward Will.

"Okay, so, how bad was it really? The whole truth, not Chris's softer version."

"You died."

I blink and the heartbeat monitor accelerates again as I try to process what Will said.

"Come again?"

Will sighs and sits down on the chair next to my bed.

"The bullet missed your right ovary only by inches. It completely shredded your appendix and then got stuck in your intestines. When Eric and Four brought you to us the bullet moved and damaged an adjacent blood vessel. By the time we brought you back here to the infirmary your abdomen was already filled with blood. We had to suction the blood, remove the remaining pieces of your appendix, get the bullet out of your bowels and, due to the damage caused, remove about three feet of your intestines before sewing them back together. Your heart stopped when I got to the removal of the bullet."

"Oh my god," I whisper, shaking. I really died? Why do I not know that? Why did I not feel it happen?

"We were able to revive you, but only just. We lost several crucial seconds when I had to threaten Eric to sedate him if he did not leave."

"What?!"

"He refused to leave your side, even during surgery," Will explained, shaking his head in displeasure. "And when you went into cardiac arrest he started screaming at us, threatened to kill us all if we didn't do our jobs. I told him he was the one keeping us from doing it and that I would have him sedated if he didn't leave right now. So he left. When we were done, we gave you a blood transfusion and put you into a coma so you wouldn't feel the pain and to keep you from moving so you wouldn't rip your stitches."

"How long was I out?" I croak. Never in a million years did I think me saving Eric would end this badly. Actually, I did not think at all. I just acted. As always.

"5 days," Will answers. "Eric's been here constantly until Max sent him away this morning."

I nod, feeling slightly dizzy. This was all too much.

"When can I leave?" I ask. I want to go home, I don't want to stay in the infirmary a minute longer. I have spent too much time in here since joining Dauntless anyway. Must be a record.

"I'd like to keep you here for another couple of hours and monitor your vitals. If everything's fine, you can leave tonight. We'll provide you with a wheelchair –"

"No," I interrupt him. "Absolutely not."

"I had to sew your bowels back together, Tris-"

"Then give me crutches, I don't care, but I will not sit in a wheelchair," I cross my arms defiantly in front of my chest.

"Fine," Will sighs before getting up. "You're way too stubborn, you know that?"

I only grin at him.

Several hours later I am finally back at my apartment. Four, Zeke, Uriah, Lynn and Marlene have just left and I am more than ready to just fall into bed and sleep again.

I am surprisingly tired for someone who has done nothing but sleep for the last five days.

I slowly walk with my crutches toward my bedroom. With every movement I can feel a slight pull at my stitches but Will warned me that this would happen. It is almost like that time I got my belly button pierced and was surprised to find out how often you used the muscles in your belly. The only difference is that back then, I was not scared of ripping myself apart on the inside and bleeding to death again.

Arriving in my bedroom, I throw open the wardrobe doors and change into my shorts and spaghetti top.

Closing the wardrobe again I am about to walk over to my bed when I realize that I have not taken the pain killers and antibiotics Will has given me. One in the morning and one in the evening, respectively.

Letting out a slight whine, I make my way back to the kitchen and grab a glass, fill it with water and then, cursing heavily, try to get it to the table, where my pills are, without dropping it or me falling over.

Stupid crutches.

I have just put down the empty glass on the table when I hear the sound of a key being put in the keyhole.

I turn my head toward my door just as it opens and Eric appears in the frame, staring at me with wide eyes.

"Hi," I whisper, not knowing what else to say. He keeps staring at me with those piercing gray eyes of his and I cannot look away.

I almost died. Or remained dead or whatever. And I never would have seen him again. I remember that thought I had when we were about to be executed, about regretting never knowing what his lips might feel like.

"Eric," I say, my voice breaking.

He moves forward, his face set and full of determination, and then he grabs my waist and buries his hand in my hair and then his lips are suddenly on mine and he is kissing me, his tongue prying open my mouth to softly glide against my own.

I barely hear my crutches fall to the floor when I let go of them to fist my hands into Eric's shirt and return his kiss with everything I have.

His lips are even softer than I imagined and he is a glorious kisser. I feel like my entire body is on fire, like there are thousands of tiny little butterflies in my stomach. I press myself closer to him, his body hot against mine, his scent in my nose, and it feels like home, like safety, like we are just meant to be.

Eric's hand leaves my hair and wanders to my cheek and then downward, along the side of my breast, and my breathing hitches and it seems to drive him wild. He kisses me with even more passion as he grabs the back of my thighs and picks me up and places me on top of the table.

I groan – both in ecstasy and in pain.

With one last slide of his tongue against mine Eric draws back, his face inches away from mine, while I stare up at him with wide eyes and quick, shallow breaths.

He smirks at me, his pierced eyebrow slightly raised.

"Glad you're still alive, Stiff."

And then he turns around and just leaves.

My mouth drops open in complete bewilderment as I remain sitting on the table and watch as my apartment door falls shut behind him.