"You- You aren't Gene." Her green eyes widen, swirling with fear, confusion and then narrow with rage.
Her light tinted lips curl back into a vicious snarl over her pearly white teeth.
But she takes a step back, towards the wall until her thighs touch it and her gloved hand shoots to the top of the brick as if to steady herself or keep from falling over the side of the building.
Out of instinct I take a step forward, with my free hand extended outwards, open and low. I move the knife hand closer and positioned the same with only my thumb and index wrapped around the handle to suggest I won't use it.
Kat. Female. Dauntless-Born. 16. 134 lbs. 5'5 height. Narrow build. Green eyes, orange hair.
I profile her.
"Don't come any closer." She hisses, her eyes flick behind me as if judging her chances at escaping. "What have you done with Gene?"
Or perhaps she was expecting me to walk out at any moment. To her I must not be Gene.
It's apparent she doesn't recognize me under this faceless mask and heavy form concealing clothing.
I'm about to answer her but my tongue feels heavy.
Who does she think I am? Obviously she knows the mask means someone hostile. Something dangerous.
The expression she conveys is extreme loathing, brows furrowed, and a slight twitch in her nose from the way her teeth are bared. Her eyes sharp and severe.
But she's trembling and the white smoke of her breath comes often.
"Are you here to kill me ?" She asks spitefully, her words come forcefully with spittle. "You're the one killing Divergent, aren't you?"
Her hands ball into fists. My ears twitch, an involuntary reaction to the word.
"Well, here I am, asshole." She opens her hands and gestures, palm up, as if to say she's the only one here.
"Just fucking try it. I'm not afraid of death and I'm sure as shit not afraid of you."
I flex the fingers that I unknowingly re-curled around the knife handle, deliberating. A cold sweat breaks out over my skin and in a matter of seconds my clothing begins to stick to me.
A second passes, and another.
If I'd not used the mask I may not have gotten such a blatant confession. That doesn't explain how she can easily and automatically associate the mask with the disappearance of Divergent though.
She was informed, had to be.
Which furthers the likelihood of her imminent fate. They've set her up to die. Set her up for me. A target.
Why else would they have provided my mask? It should have been obvious.
But "I can still choose."
I think about how she must have been expecting me. Waiting for me.
Falen might've told her to run, gave her the thought that she could. Probably even told her that I would meet her here. Did he think I would run as well?
Was he trying to give me that choice?
But then Is that why Eric put a tracker in me at the last minute? Did he think I would? Had he suspected it?
I take a measured step forward and she clambers up onto the wall behind her, her boot slips when she misjudges the height due to the powdered snow on the lip, and her stomach slams into it, her feet lift off the ground as she sways over.
Panic blooms forcefully through my chest, and it overwhelms me faster and more forcefully than I've ever experienced before.
But I don't move. My feet and boots melded to the very spot I stand.
If she falls I won't have to do anything, but, if she falls… She regains her balance and clutches the brick tightly.
I breathe and realize that my hand is up as if to push her, or… To grab her away from the ledge.
My heart is beating loudly in my ears.
I move to hold both hands up, one hand open with the palm out and the other curled around the knife. In my mind I will myself to say 'Don't.' I hear myself say it.
But my mouth does not move, and my voice does not come out.
Kat watches me with both hands gripping the wall, shifting her boots as if balancing and readying herself to stand. Her breathing is even more rapid and her eyes blazing beneath her disheveled orange bangs.
My breathing is noticeably heavy, the hot air fills my mask, only escaping out the sides. My eyes burning hotter despite the fact that they are the only things fully exposed to the frigid elements.
Fever aside, I feel the shiver beneath my skin has little to do with my temperature or otherwise.
I slowly - cautious to her position on the wall - begin to move my hand towards the mask, keeping the knife raised with only my pointer and thumb secure around it, the rest of my fingers open again.
"Don't." She hisses acrimoniously. "I don't want to see your fucking face." My hand freezes over the mask. "I don't care who you are, you're a murderer underneath and I won't give you the satisfaction, I won't give you anything."
She stands quickly, wobbling and I step forward with my hand out again. The words stick in my throat, prickling up like knives and acrid bile. My tongue bristles.
I could let her fall, I could make her jump. If I don't kill her, someone else will.
Will it be Max? Will it be Falen? Will it be Jeanine? Will it be Garrett? Will it be Eric? Who will it be ?
I suddenly realize that I'm asking myself. As if I've already decided that it won't be me that does it.
I've already chosen.
She regains her balance once more by gripping the wall again and I lunge forward, sprinting the distance between us. "Fuck y-" She releases the wall as soon as I move, but her eyes widen as she begins to fall over the side.
The wrong side. I flick the knife blade inward against my sleeve and grip her jacket above the elbow with my free hand. My boots slide against the slush on the ground till they hit the wall.
I use it as leverage to wretch her back onto the roof, gritting my teeth at the pain that dredges down my spine and through my shoulder, down my arm.
"Don't fucking touch me!" She screams as she falls to the ground flailing, slapping my hand away, she catches me with a boot to the abdomen, knocking the air from my lungs and I slam into the wall behind me, sending a burst of sparks across my vision at the impact.
I pant and lean against the wall to support my weight and watch her kick herself away from me on the roof.
She looks over her shoulder towards the exit and then back at me as if refusing to turn away from the danger but unwilling to fight.
Run. I think, as she scrambles up, the white slush spraying around her boots and her hands as she slips back down, her eyes snap back to mine.
Run. I push myself up and take a step away from the wall, towards her, and I flick the knife back around, grasping it tightly within her view.
She will run, if I chase her away, she won't come back. I'll give her no choice.
Her eyes widen at me and she falls back down onto her backside, kicking herself away once more, the hood of her jacket falls back as she drops onto her elbows and then back to her hands.
Get up and run. She doesn't. Instead Kat shuts her eyes and covers her ears, bringing her knees close to herself. Curling herself into a ball.
Like… Like a child.
The sounds of air being sucked in sharply, transformed into rasping, shattering sobs fill my muted ears through my thick furred jacket hood. She is crying. Kat the Dauntless, the Divergent, is crying.
No. She's not just crying.
I almost step closer and kneel to hear what she's saying, but I stop myself. She says something. Her voice comes out muffled and incoherent through the wet sounds of her tears.
I step back as she raises her head, her eyes sunken and weary, her cheeks, soaked with fresh tears that don't stop coming. Her entire face scrunched and drawn down in a painful grimace as the sobs rake her form like it's tearing her apart.
The noise of her crying is so loud, so ear shattering, so foreign. I shut my eyes and bring my hands up as if I could cover my ears but she says something, barely audible. It's a whisper.
So quiet that I lose it in the sounds of my own heavy breath. I open my eyes and watch her lips as if I could read them. Orange tinted lips. Trembling, drawn open as she continues to gasp in air.
She says it again, a little louder this time-but it still doesn't register. It's like a message coming from somewhere else, and I can't make it out.
But I need to.
"I hate you!" She screams loudly, her voice screeching through my ears. All the blood driven up into her face and the tendons of her neck standing out hard and long.
I blink, and take a step back.
"Because of you- because of you ." She sobs, shaking her head violently. "Because of you I hate him. You made me hate him." She rocks forward, slamming her fists into the ground.
I swallow thickly and unknowingly take another step away. What is this? I don't understand. I made her hate him ?
"He didn't leave me. He wouldn't have left me. You took him." She accuses. "Because of you I thought I wasn't enough, and I thought he left me… I thought he never…"
Graham.
"But it was never him, and it was never me. It was you!" She screeches, she pulls herself forward onto her hands and knees, attempting to pushing herself up on shaking limbs. "If it weren't for you… He would've stayed with me, and…"Her strength gives out once more as she collapses in on herself, clutching at her chest.
The way her gloved hand curls into a claw is as if she could rip into her chest cavity and tear out vital organs.
But I don't understand why I can feel it in mine, digging into my lungs making it difficult to breathe.
"He'd be here." She cries hard. Harder than I've ever heard anyone cry before. "You- You took him away from m- me, but you didn't just do that… You made me hate him and - and - I -"
I watch her mouth and her face as it becomes peaceful, as if everything is spread out before her eyes finally compressed into a single moment of sharpness and clarity of mind.
That's when she speaks again, without looking at me, with no recognition of me. She's not speaking to me anymore. "I loved him. . .I love him."
She drops onto her hands and knees as if crushed. My fingers uncurl and it falls, landing in the snow with a soft sound and I take a deep breath in, allowing myself a blink.
There's the weight of the world, the weight of words and the weight of a knife. They could all weigh the same, but I've never quite felt a weight that couldn't be lifted.
It happens slow-and I expect a crash that never comes.
I look in her eyes, and see myself reflected there, a creature of violence, a brutal thing, a sad thing.
Then another blink and time shifts, I look at her hands, steady, grasped around the knife. And I watch, as even now. That edge of a moment. That fragment of a second, I know-that shadow between thought and action.
The imprint of a memory, branded into her brain, the mind already apologizing for the actions of the body.
The flicker of that apology all over her face.
She uses her weight and pushes downward on the handle of the knife as hard as she can, the ribs between which the blade is jammed acting as a fulcrum and I feel as it twists downward.
The warmth in my abdomen spreads.
I think of a thousand things. Coffee, cake, her frigid toes, the feel of her hand in mine, the sound of her breathing, flashes of orange and green, the smile on her lips when she has her face pressed against one of my pillows and the slow way her eyes would close as she fell asleep.
I feel something large inside myself, expanding, filing up in my chest like something that had been planted a long time ago finally blooming.
"I'm sorry."
Her eyes go wide.
The sound of her gasp sung together like that of a quiet breath. She stumbles back, her hands releasing the handle of the knife and she glances down at her work, her hands shaking violently.
I blink once, a slow blink. The measure of time capricious. Arbitrary to the flow between the state of before and after. A second. An infinity. Can fit within.
It's then that the remains of memory come as patches of color, or deceptive fragments of images that are shuffled so by time I can't seem to reassemble them into any coherent picture.
"I'm sorry Katherine."
I feel the cold wetness on my knees and a cough building in my throat. The world tilts sideways, she tilts sideways.
I'm weightless for the briefest of instants and then the impact of cold spreads along the side of my body.
My mouth is full, as if I'm a cup being knocked on its side. I cough and vomit forth a spray of blood that spills from the bottom of the mask, down my jaw, my neck, into the scarf.
I sputter, my airways blocked, a futile breath and my lungs fill to bursting, overflowing.
"Gene." Crying. "Oh god, Gene." Her voice is brittle. I feel a wetness on my cheeks and a blur as that same wetness pecks my eyes.
I blink once and she's over me, I can see orange. Like a blurry sunrise. Or a sunset.
That burning light at the beginning and end of the day. A fire. A flame. My Dauntless.
Something feels right, warm. It's the kind of warmth you feel all the way through you.
I feel it in my toes, and behind my eyes, and in my knees, and in deeper places still.
I feel an arm draped under my shoulders and a slow rocking back and forth. It's like a dream.
Like a dream where you find yourself underwater, and you're drifting, swaying in that warm infinity.
You don't need to breathe, and you can stay under the surface forever.
Her hand is so cold on my cheek. I think. I think her forehead is on mine. I'd be able to see her-If I could keep my eyes open.
I tap the desk idly, drumming my fingers along the wood and I glance at the analog clock on the wall above the multicolored alphabets strung along the rim of the blackboard.
Welcome students. It reads in chalk.
The clock reads 1:26 P.M.
I cross my arms and lay my head over them like a pillow as the girl with green eyes and blonde braids continues to build a colorful block wall around the edges of my desk.
She stacks another block, higher, obscuring her face from view. When she's done, which will be in 3 more blocks, she'll knock it all down and start again. There are 44 blocks total. She takes her time fitting them together.
They all do the same thing. I know this individuals name is Katherine though, she's the only one that builds on my side. Literally, reaches over her desk to place them on mine.
I would think we were too old for these kinds of activities. But I guess our Erudite teacher doesn't think so.
I turn my cheek and watch the clock instead, so I won't need to watch them tumble for the 3rd time. I can hear them though, clattering all around me against the hollow wood desk.
Another hour and 34 minutes.…
The Abnegation always sit in the front of the bus, Dauntless wherever they want but Candor and Amity always sit on opposite sides.
Erudite always sit in the back away from Abnegation. There is a division among our factions and I've only begun to study it.
I stare out the window while listening to the cacophony of other inter-faction children around me.
I always felt the best part of school was the commute, but I find myself anticipating the day we no longer ride the school bus and ride the train instead. A marvel of metal and innovation.
The other Dauntless born leap from seat to seat across the aisles and I feel the weight being applied and leaving the leather next to me. I listen to the loud protesting metal of the bolts in the floor and thuds of their boots.
All mixed in to the Erudite babble, Amity singing and Candor' arguments. I sigh.
"Hey Gene, doesn't that look like a giant metal butt with turds on it?" I recognize her voice as a hand shoots in front of me to press a finger against the window at the metal bean shaped sculpture outside of school.
There are older Dauntless climbing it and settling on top.
Turds?
I raise my brow at her, a 'giant metal butt'? Did she call me Gene ? I'm not sure when we were even formally introduced or when my name was shortened.
"My name is Genesis."
"I dont care." She just smiles till her eyes squint, I notice she's missing one of her front teeth.
The feel of soft skin sliding between my fingers and the clammy pressure as it closes around my hand sends an electric ripple up my arm and my hair stands on end.
"What are you doing?" My voice is condescending and sharp above the roar of the wind through the open cab door and I snap my eyes up to hers.
I search them for any signs of pain, a grimace or flinch at the contact, even though she was the one that initiated it.
I keep my fingers open but hers curl around and press between my knuckles.
"Isn't it obvious?" Katherine laughs. "We'll jump together."
"Did you fall or did the floor need a hug?" Kat asks snarkily.
I sweep my leg behind both of hers and she falls backwards onto her backside with a shocked expression as she probably didn't expect me to be on my feet in an instant.
"I'm not sure, why don't you ask?" I reply evenly before licking the inside of my cheek where she landed a rather powerful punch.
She rolls onto her stomach and actually asks the ground if it would indeed like a hug.
I shake my head and sigh exasperatedly, turning to stalk off the mat.
"The ground said YES!" And before I can turn she tackles me from behind and I 'hug' the mat once more with my face.
"What do you think?" Kat asks, she's late for breakfast. Jade gushes over whatever it is and says it makes her look older, more wild. "Gene? What do you think?"
"Mmhmm." I answer with a dismissive wave without looking up from the tablet as I go through the read-only logs for munitions and equipment signed out for patrol and wall duties.
I can't find anything out of the ordinary or a correlation between the missing equipment and the names listed as having been on duty at the time.
But if I can't, I certainly doubt the twins can.
An arm wraps around my neck and pulls me backwards, breaking my focus with the brief sensation of falling.
"It's my choosing day tomorrow bitches!" Amar yells into my ear.
I scowl and stand, placing the tablet under my arm and I ignore when he asks them 'what's 'up her butt?'
A flash is caught in my peripherals and the tablet is yanked from beneath my arm. I turn sharply to see Kat smashing the device on the concrete ground in the middle of the canteen. It shatters into pieces scattering away.
Her hair is bright orange and I blink at it, finding that I am far more bothered by her hair rather than her blatant disregard for government property. Orange?
"Your hair." I say, unable to stop the bubling laugh that escapes my mouth. I cover it, but it is implacable.
She purses her lips at me and furrows her still blonde eye brows before crossing her arms over her chest, but, at my expression she begins to laugh as well.
I don't believe I've ever laughed harder, or… At all really. It is a painful sensation. I clutch my stomach tightly and press my palm into the table.
Falen glowers and slams his fist down onto the wide desk, before crumpling the report from Warren. "Tell me exactly what was going through your fucking head when you tho-"
"I wanted to see how Gene's knife throwing was going." The male twin answers with a complacent shrug, interrupting Falen. "Warren let me join them and I guess… I didn't hear when he said to stop throwing."
"Oh and I'm going to assume Genesis just happened to be standing right in front of a target." Max says with heavy sarcasm and a barking laugh.
I try not to shift uncomfortably in my seat when the leader Reid's watery blue gaze rakes over me, she hasn't said a word, but, that's normal so I'm uncertain why I'm so uncomfortable.
"She wasn't in front of the target." The twin answers with a laugh.
Falen raises his brow at me but recognition flashes over his face and he slams a fist into the desk again.
"Do you not fucking understand anything?" He roars. "You give Dauntless a bad fucking name, that's why you aren't ever going to be a fucking leader!"
"Fine by me." He says with another shrug, he picks at his teeth with his pinky nail.
It only lasted a second and it was more of a peck so I don't believe it counts, but Kat's face becomes flushed and she wipes her lips.
It could also be the alcohol she consumed before the dare however, as my temperature was elevated also.
I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand and listen to the laughter of the others.
Gabriel slings his arm over my shoulders and they hand me the bottle next.
I take a gulp immediately even though you're supposed to drink before you do the dare and I've yet to even hear it.
The rim of the glass is cold and the alcohol burns my tongue and throat before settling hotly in my empty gut.
It might have been wise to consume some food before alcohol, but I'd missed dinner.
"Alright Gene, I dare you to…" Kat searches the circle and I take another sip and wonder when they'll mature mentally.
I sigh and drink deeply.
The summer air is thick and heavy, scorching the bean shaped metal beneath me and I run my fingers over the engravings. The ones left by other Dauntless that climb up here and deface public property.
I take a moment to appreciate the fact that this statue is here for all to look at, especially the Erudite but, only Dauntless see it from this view.
Max's name is carved into the metal and I even find Falen but I can't picture them up here, I can't picture them in the wake of their teens, big enough to climb but still small enough to even be interested in climbing.
I find many names. Amar, even Lynn and Uriah who drew 'greater than' arrows pointing at Ezekiel's. I won't carve my name though, at least, not yet.
"You guys suck." Kat exclaims with her hand cupped to amplify her voice. Amar mocks her and taunts her till she swears and complains, using more profanity than I care to know.
I sigh and lean back with my elbow behind me and my boots crossed, contemplating the heat as the precipitation from my beverage runs down the side of my face.
From the loud tinks, I take it she's begun throwing the bottle cap at us. It's not as if I didn't offer to help her up. Her determination is admirable though.
We could probably give her the unopened soda. It is hers. Motivation Amar said. He wants to be an instructor.
I'm sure she'll get up here eventually. Up on the 'giant metal butt.'
"Hey, Hey Gene." I feel Kat kick me under the covers. "Gene I know you're awake bitch." Another stronger kick in the lower back.
I contemplate feigning a snore, or feigning sleep so that I may actually get some.
Instead I turn over and fluff my pillow before dropping my head on top. "What." I say flatly.
Even in the dark I can see the mischievous glint in her eyes. I receive no answer just a grin.
The silence that follows is filled with Jade's soft snores and I sigh before sliding my hand under my pillow.
"What is it Katherine." I say exasperatedly enunciating her name carefully.
She laughs out loud till Jade stirs and grunts, she covers her mouth and the silence becomes filled with her muffled giggles and Jade's disgruntled complaints.
"Goodnight Genesis." Kat whispers with equal obnoxious enunciation before turning over. I turn onto my back and pull the covers up to my chin before twisting my fingers together over my abdomen.
"Goodnight Katherine." I say loudly obnoxiously once more and she laughs again.
"Ugh you guys shut the fuck up." Jade complains with a thick and sleepy voice.
Kat starts laughing louder with the occasional snorts, and I listen till she settles with a sigh.
"Goodnight Gene." She says barely louder than a whisper.
With a curl in the corners of my lips, I close my eyes.