heyy! i'm back with a new chapter, extremely sorry for the long extreme over a week wait!
i kinda sat down today with nothing for this chapter and i was like "welp my break is over so i gotta get my butt back to work" so i sat down and scribbled out all of this. i think the end is a bit of a cliffhanger :D soooo hope you enjoy this!
Alsoooooo i'm in the process of creating a new story, a sequel for the story Before I Die. GO READ BEFORE I DIE IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY IT'S A AWESOME BOOK
I may or may not be able to post another chapter this weekend, I'm so so so sorry! I hope you understand, I'm super busy this weekend.
I hope you all had a lovely Memorial Day weekend, and thank you for reading this chapter!
please enjoy and let me know your opinions on this chapter, i'd really love to hear them!
- Ain
p.s i'm interested in looking for a beta reader, if you know any that are super awesome please let me know in the reviews or PM me, thanks!
Chapter 8 - Illegitimate
Tobias POV
"Bro, you look so depressed man." Zeke nudges me and I grip onto the side of the train tighter, not wanting fall out as I look out into the sky. I can still feel Tris's warmth buzzing on my fingers, on my lips, and I close my eyes. I wish I didn't leave her. I wish, for once, I could hand all of this over, all this responsibility, and never face it again, so I wouldn't have to be in danger, Tris wouldn't be in danger, and we would be happy in Dauntless. Sometimes, I curse this war, and Max, and Jeanine, and Eric, and for the factions and all this hatred and jealousy that caused this. Actually, I curse it a lot.
"What else do you want me to do? Raise my hands up and go 'omigosh it's such a cute day'," I scowl, not in the mood for jokes in my already dark mood. Zeke doesn't know how to take a hint, of course, and bursts out into laughter, Lauren grins a little, and Bud chuckles at us. Christina also has a small smile on her face and Cara raises her eyes.
"I do not, see you doing anything even close to that, ever." Bud informs us before grinning and turning back to the other side of the train.
I turn around as well and feel the wind whipping my face, and feel the cold air brushing my skin, raising my senses. I'm somewhat surprised we didn't bump into factionless on the train, considering what happened last time.
"This is so boring." Zeke groans. "You should've chosen something more exciting, like a exciting run from death and Erudite.
I smirk. "You'll get excitement later. Trust me."
I realize we're nearing Amity. The familiar smell of apple fills my nose and I breath in deeply, and feel peace wash all over me. If only the rest of this was going to be this peaceful.
"We're nearing the Amity orchards." I announce, and everyone turns to watch the orchards get nearer. I watch Cara's face as she scrunches her face up, her eyebrows furrowed together.
She turns towards me. "Wouldn't it be easier to go to Amity first?" she blurts out, and everyone raises their eyebrows and I do too.
I see everyone behind her exchanges looks. "Why?" Lauren asks, in her quiet but bold voice. "Our mission is to go to Erudite. Right?" she asks, turning towards me as well, but I'm deep in thought at Cara's suggestion, confused.
"Erudite is sure to know that we would retaliate." Cara says, tossing her hair, gaining more confidence. "They've probably upgraded the security, in all sense of reasonableness. If they have, then we have lost all hopes, because it'll be easier for them to detect us. It would be safer to go to Amity and try to determine who the mystery girl that Tris detected in the cam and try to figure out what connection she has to this. That way we'll be armed with more information when we approach them."
"That's a very Erudite way of you to think." Zeke says, teasing her and Cara rolls her eyes at him. "If you'd like to go on a suicide mission to Erudite and take them out, be my guest. But I was - am - Erudite. They will definitely be prepared for retaliation after this."
Bud nods thoughtfully. "I have to say it, but she's right. And it would be more useful for us to go to Amity, because it seems that this mystery girl seems to have something involved with Erudite in the security cams that had to do with faking Amar and George's deaths."
All eyes turn towards me, waiting for me to decide what to do, whether to change the plan or go to Erudite as planned. But my mind was already made up, and the Amity orchards were getting closer. "We should definitely go to Amity." I say, and everyone nods, and Zeke elbows me.
"You want to jump first, pansycake?" he teases, and I roll my eyes, before gently shoving him out the train, and I hear his squeals as he tucks and rolls. Bud quickly runs and flies out, followed quickly by Cara and Christina and Lauren, who guide Cara with jumping. I close my eyes, feel and hear the wind whipping through the open train door, on my ears and hair, and I jump.
It's just like how I remember. I tuck and roll and smell the soft grass, and the sweet apples again, and I watch as our ride slowly fades out of the tracks and circles back around to the city.
I call out to the rest of my group behind me. "We need to go find Johanna." I call, and they all brush the grass off themselves and we regroup under one of the trees. I frown at a spot where the grass had stained the front of my pants but I brush it off.
"When we find her, I will talk. Do not say anything unless she asks you a question directly. Got it?" I say sternly, locking eyes with all of them slowly, my eyes staying on Christina the longest.
She rolls her eyes. "Worried, Mr. Scary Face, that I'm going to say something blabbery? Trust me, don't you think you taught me self control after you scared the shit out of me on day one of initiation?"
Zeke snorts. "Of course you did that Four. What did she do, dump sparkles on the ground?"
Now it's my job to roll my eyes. "As a matter of fact, she said something quite rude for a initiate to say to their instructor, so I chose to put her in her place."
Lauren laughs. "Oh boy, at least you only had her to worry about being rude. I had a bunch of Dauntless born blabbers, including your brother, Zeke."
Zeke rolls his eyes but I interrupt him before he can retort. "We're going off track and we're on a time crunch. Figure out who the Amity girl is, and if she's still at Amity we can interrogate her about the Erudites at the Dauntless compound, then get out of there as fast as we can."
Bud grins and no one has anything else to say as we turn and walk towards the Amity compound, but then I realize a better place where Johanna would be. The greenhouse. At least, that is where Marcus took me to visit Johanna where I was younger.
I switch directions and we trek across the orchards, and someone behind me reaches up to grab a apple, I don't know who. The gravel crunches beneath us, and it's silent otherwise, besides distant laughter filling the air. I wonder if Amity has made good on their promise to keep this as a safe house.
I open the greenhouse door and the wet, humid air rushed at us, and I can smell the greenery in the air. I inahale quietly, my heart thumping. I didn't exactly leave a good impression on Johanna; then again, I don't really care for impressions. I glance around before spying Johanna crouched behind a bush which looked as if it contained some sort of fruit, and she was rhythmically picking them and putting them into her basket.
"Hello, Four." Johanna says as I head over to her, without looking up. "Please hand over weapons."
I nod at my group and they drop their guns, knives, and other things to the ground. I remove the knife and one of my guns as well, but keep my other gun hidden under my shirt.
Johanna looks up and she smiles warmly at my group. "Welcome to Amity." she greets, and offers the basket of fruit she was carrying, to which I decline.
She shakes my hand, and I nod at her, as I grip it uncomfortably and try to move it up and down. Behind me I hear Zeke snicker and I roll my eyes at him.
"This is Christina, Candor transfer to Dauntless." I say, gesturing to her. "Then this is Lauren, Zeke, and Bud, Dauntless born, and Cara, Erudite born."
Johanna nods at all of them and greets them with a warm smile. "Welcome to our compound safe house. Feel free to stay as long as you would like, as long as you oblige to our rules. Though Four, I did not expect you to return so soon, after your last rather...controversial visit." I half snort at that and behind me I hear Bud and Zeke chuckle. Controversial was putting it mildly, considering we left while being fired at.
"Actually," I interrupt her. "We're here for something else. Erudite recently attacked the Dauntless compound and..." my voice trails off. Actually, now thinking about it, it is a awful idea to tell a Amity leader about strictly Dauntless confidential plans.
"We are here to look for something. Or someone." I say, changing strategies. "What I say is completely confidential between you and my group. Can we trust you?"
I hear murmurs from behind me, probably Cara or Christina complaining, but I didn't really care. We were desperate for information anyway. Trusting Amity wasn't the worst we could ever do. Trusting Erudite was far worse anyway.
Johanna nods, touching my shoulders, and I tense up instinctively. "Of course. You can trust me, I promise." She closes her eyes and her fingers gently reach up to trace her scar on her face, hidden under her hair, and I, for a second, wonder what happened, but I try to shake that off for now.
"We witnessed a security camera from about two years ago of a suicide, and the suicide was faked. The man of the suicide is alive, and he informed us that he did not actually attempt to fake a suicide, meaning someone else other than him faked it, with him having no knowledge. On the camera, we witnessed a Amity figure, and we were wondering if she's still here, and if we could interview her for a few moments." I glance behind me and see Zeke smirking at me, and I smirk back at him.
Johanna raises her eyebrows and I mask on my Four face again. "I can not help you do that. It's stated on every faction manifesto-"
"Abnegation is dead, and what we're doing is trying to save us." I say quietly. "Please help us, and let us go through the files.
I notice her hesitation.
"But...?" I press and she exhales. Johanna locks eyes with me, and I see something in it.
Desperation?
Fear?
I brush off my instincts. But something is telling me, screaming at me, something wrong, something is off, something is not right. Something in her eyes is telling me she's hiding something.
It feels the same way like when i was under my simulation and Tris stopped fighting me. Wrong, wrong, wrong, something is wrong.
I ignore it for now. I can see her mentally warring with herself, debating whether or not to let us.
"I can offer you our faction files, but you have to be discreet about it, and avoid detection." Johanna says quietly, in a cold tone I've never heard her use before.
"We can do that." I say coldly, locking eyes with her as well. "I escaped Erudite capture and detection once, remember? Even when Amity promised protection for us here as a safe house."
I've hit the mark. Johanna flinches.
"All of the Abnegation members were killed because you could not enforce your no violence policy and your no conflict policy." I say in a low voice. "Forgive me for acting cold, but the faction I was born to is dead, thanks to Erudite and their guns on this compound. The least you can do is help us, after their deaths. You at least should've offered them bread, don't you think?"
I let out a quiet laugh and I can almost feel my friends behind me exchanging looks. They were not here to hear their screams, and cries, and shouts for help.
"And I didn't do anything. I just kept on running, and I didn't look back, keeping strong, while every scream was a knife dragging slowly through my skin. Every body hitting the ground. If it had been Tris though, who had gotten shot." I let out a ragged breath. "You better enforce your conflict policy here, if you want to keep this place a safe house."
I turn. "Come on." I say. "Johanna is going to let us search through the files." I lock eyes with each of them, and they gather their weapons and tuck them back into their hidden spots. Johanna doesn't object, but instead silently watches us with a similar, far away, fearful, desperate look in her eyes from earlier.
I give Johanna a look that showed her there's no room for arguing, and we head out of the greenhouse, not looking back to check if she was following.
I am surprised Amity has a control room. With so much of their faction relying on peace, it was disturbingly surprising that they also had cameras tracking everyone's movement, even though they have no guards at doors, no locks, and seem completely trustworthy. I once called them stupid for their trustworthiness. Now I can see that trust always has boundaries.
There's always a end to trust.
"The files are in here." Johanna says, dragging me out of my thoughts. "They are sorted by gender and age. Twelve and under children are here," she gestures at the folders, "thirteen to sixteen are over here, sixteen to twenty-one over here, twenty one to thirty here, thirty to fifty here, and fifty and older here."
She points at each set of folders and I have to clench my jaw to keep it from groaning. I was not eager for hand searching them, and behind me, Christina is not hesitate to let out a groan.
"So many files." Zeke grumbles, and I roll my eyes. "Isn't this what you wanted, Zekey? Some excitement?" I tease him and Bud laughs again.
Johanna leans against the door and silently watches us from the corner.
"Don't bother checking the twelve and under folders," I say. "Me and Bud will go through the thirteen through sixteen year old folders. Zeke, check the thirty through fifty folders. Lauren and Christina, go through the sixteen to twenty-one. Cara, search through the twenty-one all the way to thirty. Only go through the females, we already confirmed that she's a female."
Everyone nods. "Bossy much?" Zeke teases me, and I smirk at him. "You asked for excitement, I gave you it." I say, and stride over to the folders and we divvy up the work before starting on the first one.
I separate our stack of folders in two stacks. "You take this one," I hand one to Bud and he mutters something under his breath that sounded pretty similar to "fuck Amity for having paper folders." To be fair, I also wanted to swear that as well.
I open up the first folder and several papers fall out. One was a copy of someone named Fiona's birth certificate, one was their travel documents, one was their faction documents. She didn't look like the picture Tris had recalled of her. Tris had told me the Amity girl had dark, warm brown skin, and long black hair that had jade green woven in into a single braid. And I definitely trusted Tris's memory.
Setting down the folder, I reach for the next one, and we settle into a post. Scan picture, check age, and if doesn't match, set into next folder. We've worked through nearly seventy, when Bud stops, and I glance over at the sudden movement.
"What's wrong?" I ask, my heart thumping. I'm not sure why; but I can feel the excitement rising, that he had found something.
"Is this her?" Bud leans over and shows me his folder and I grab it. Novali Reyes, age fourteen; birthday was last month. Dark skin, smiling eyes, loos hair woven with jade green.
Recorded parents...Johanna Reyes and unknown.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I feel my heart pounding from shock, and fear, and so many factors I can't even think about. I'd be surprised if someone couldn't hear it. I try to calm my racing heart as I take deep breaths in.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
And then my top blew.
"You had a daughter you never told us about?" I shout, and I watch Johanna. I feel everyone's eyes on me, and out of the corner of my eye, I see that Christina's jaw has dropped from shock, and Zeke's eyebrows are knit together with confusion.
I watch Johanna like she is a wild animal, like a crazy person, like someone I should fear. But really she should fear me. Because if anyone knew from experience, I can explode.
Her eyes are like a brown pool of blackness, and I can't read them. I feel my own eyes harden like steel.
"You knew, didn't you?" I repeat again. I hear my voice softer. But I don't know why. She knew who we were looking for. She let us waste hours in here, hoping we wouldn't find her daughter. But why the fuck, I had no idea. Why would Johanna's daughter be involved in whatever was happening? Why was Johanna's daughter witnessing the 'deaths' of Amar and George being faked?
But the question that creeps into my mind the most is: why is Novali's father listed as unknown?
I watch as Johanna transforms. She stands up straight, but I can see that she is ready to break, snap like a twig, crumble like a house of dust.
She laughs bitterly, and I can hear the resentment and remorse in it, filled with anger and sadness and depression. "Of course I knew! My daughter was taken from me two years ago, of course I knew that wasn't coincidental! What a scandal it was, a Amity, of all factions, having a illegitimate daughter." she laughs again, and the sound seems to bounce off every wall, echoing through us. I catch something she says.
Illegitimate.
Johanna has a illegitimate daughter.
We exchange looks of confusion. I feel my emotions overwhelming me. Hatred for not being able to protect Abnegation and Tris when we had to run from Amity; sympathy for her hurt; confusion for why she had a daughter, because I knew she wasn't married; anger for withholding vital information from us when we desperately needed it.
"Why was she in Dauntless?" Zeke asks.
"And why was she 'taken from you'?" Lauren adds, using quotation marks. We all look at her for a answer.
Johanna smiles bitterly, and I can see years creep into the lines on her face, exhaustion lining every inch. My heart is pounding as I anticipate her next words, but I cannot be prepared as the words, "Because her father is the dead faction leader of Dauntless." slip out.
