I knock sparingly on the door of Jade's family apartment and wait.
I had cleaned my own thoroughly and when I had finally gone out, to the canteen per routine for dinner it was there that Marlene said she had not seen Jade since earlier that day.
After about a minute I check my watch. I'm simply here to let her read the note. Then dispose of it.
"Oh hey Gene." It's Sean who answers her door and he gives a half smile. "She's in the bathroom… Let me… Uh, you can come in." He mutters before holding the door open for me to enter.
I've never been in her apartment before. I know it is shared with her elder brother and her father but both work on the wall and are often not around.
I step inside. It is crowded by furnishings, a large dining table that seats four, a couch, potted plants, paintings without frames on the wall, several woven rugs and long curtained windows with a view of the adjacent brick building, a design flaw I suppose.
Sean hurries around me and I stand at the door not venturing further into the room. It would seem like trespassing, even being this far inside feels forbidden.
"Hey, Jade." Sean calls through the bathroom door while knocking. Her voice cracks when she answers him. "Gene's here… So… I'm gonna run down and grab some food. I'll get you something alright?"
"Alright." Her pinched voice could be heard even from this distance and my jaw tightens as I swallow thickly.
"I'll be right back…" Sean says to me while rubbing the back of his head, he looks around nervously and I nod, he leaves the apartment and I remain glued to where I stand.
I wait and while I wait, I take in the rest of the room. There are so many trinkets and keepsakes, as well as family photos along the shelves.
I even spy ceramic plates and pottery set out as decoration. The difference in our apartments is striking. I find myself wondering what the point of it all is.
The dining table even has an embroidered cloth over it and a table placement, a basket with nothing in it though it looks as if there should be something to fill it at least.
On the very edge sits a large box labeled confiscated. My eyes narrow and I clasp my hands together in front of me.
Before I can think better of it, curiosity takes me and I step closer to the table, attempting to see into the box by craning my neck.
The bathroom door opens and I straighten immediately, then I realize I may look too stiff and formal.
Jade looks at me, holding a towel to her cheek, her hair is wet and her eyes drift to the box and then back to me. Recognition dawning.
"Please don't make me give it back!" Her voice comes rushed and she hurdles herself between me and the table the towel lost and her arms out in front of it to protect it. I am instantly confused. "I know I shouldn't have it, and I know we aren't supposed to keep anything but Gene, they'll just burn it all anyway!"
I blink at her, and I realize then, what the box contains. She fears that I am here to take it.
Her eyes are pleading and bloodshot, the gleam at the corner of them threatening me with fresh tears and her fingers tremble as they clutch at the box protectively.
I must still be tired, because my mind stays empty and I try not to sigh when I speak.
"They will notice it is missing." I tell her, a warning. It is evidence. Erudite would want to study it. "How did you get it?"
She gradually releases the box as I cautiously make my way closer.
"Well uhm… Eric… Actually… He said not to tell you… Or show you because you might not approve…"
I frown, because as usual he's right, but then I'm also reminded of his intentions and manipulative nature.
Most individuals only do things for one of two reasons. More often than not, they expect something in return. Or they get something out of it.
Instead of saying anything I retrieve the note from my pocket and hold it out to her, gesturing for her to take it.
When she receives it her brows slant upwards. She unfolds it hurriedly but carefully as if it holds all the answers to her questions and would tear or disappear forever if handled too roughly but if that were the case it would have burst into flames at my touch.
"Have you read it?"
I shake the illogical thought from my head before sliding my hands into my pockets and she takes that as my answer, though I had skimmed it.
The note was written before she left Dauntless. I've received her last words and anything prior, well, it would have been amended, this is not meant for me.
At first I think about leaving, but then I watch as her eyes scour the page. They glaze over and sure enough tears spill from them and heavy noisy sobs rack her shoulders and her body as if shaking her apart.
But through her sobs, she laughs and her eyes light up, though the tears don't stop and they run down her raw cheeks and drip from her chin.
When I'm sure she's reached the end I prepare to leave and give her time to recover herself and myself from her uncomfortable raw display.
She laugh a melancholy laugh, steadying herself. I twist my fingers together as she begins, unexpectedly, to read aloud.
By the time anyone reads this I'll be long gone. Don't worry about me, and don't wait up.
I leave my make-up to Ash so she can cover up her ugly personality and I leave my BB gun to Uriah for reasons. That's it for the people not our age.
Jo-jo & Gabe, I'm only writing your names so you know I haven't forgotten you yet.
Have a drink for me, have a ton of drinks for me, cause you'll be drinking anyway, it's Dauntfest.
Don't forget me either, not til you black out
To Jade, Jay Jay.
She pauses and her fingers crumple the edges as they curl into it and the fit threatens to take over once more.
Don't cry for me. I made a choice, that was only mine to make. It had nothing to do with you.
If you thought you might find an apology in this letter, you won't. I'm not sorry.
Crying about it will only make you look weak and you know that Gene won't like it.
Be mad instead, anything but sad.
You were the J that came before my K in the alphabet, the sweet to salt, the drinks to dare, and the icing to cake, which you know is the best part.
She nods her head to herself as if agreeing.
If Gene is with you when you read this I want you to show her what we made. I know I said we wouldn't, but if not now, I don't think she'll ever get a chance to see it.
Her voice breaks all over again and she looks up from the note, and points to an adjoining room with a trembling finger, but her expression looks like she's unsure.
To Gene. Genesis. Your first thought will probably about be how we did it, but you might hurt yourself trying to figure it out.
She continues reading as I turn to head towards the open door, but the closer I get the more my knife wound feels like it expands inside me, turning me inside out.
The truth is, I took a couple of blocks every day. I snuck them out in my pockets. That's not all though, Gabriel, and Jade and even Joseph, everyone started taking blocks too. It became our game.
I lean against the door frame and stare at the far wall. A layer over where it should be, children's building blocks. From ceiling to floor.
With every color in mismanaged sequence with no pattern whatsoever. Not following the alphabet.
One would wonder if the school had blocks left.
I clutch the thick fabric of my jacket around my throat. I'd not known what to expect from simply skimming the note.
Before long, we built this entire wall with them and I just thought, wow. It's beautiful.
Cause you know it's not about the blocks. It's about how we built this thing, together, without you ever noticing. Or maybe you did, but you let us anyway.
I turn to Jade and it's the tears that stream down her face quietly, not with the accompanying trembles and shakes, or the sobs and tearing noises that I find unsettling.
In my mind I would ask of her, where is your rage ?
For if it were revenge, she could have it in my death. They could all have it in my death. Should have, and would have had it, but that was stolen from her, as I had stolen from her.
I'm still here. Like a statue, erected in the landscape of their grief. Built to mean something but now unrecognizable and warped, where you no longer know what it was supposed to be.
Jade appears next to me in the doorway, and we stand shoulder to shoulder. My breaths come calmer than hers as the silence descends over me.
"I think the page is torn at the bottom. . ." Jade says, her fingers pinch along a feathered edge that I had not noticed.
After another moment she says. "Stay for a while." nudging me with her elbow, and it is not so much a request. So I do.
"Oh my god, do you guys remember this?" Jade asks for the 20th time. It would seem the box were bottomless with what she could produce from its depths.
This time it's an empty pack of cigarettes and she launches into a tale of how it was aquired, and why, though really, it's just an empty pack of cigarettes.
Sometimes someone else will cut in to add their part of the stories and I find that I can hardly remember most of them.
There was a lot I wasn't a part of, by choice.
A collection of bottles begins to litter the still snowy ground around us. It is officially the last night of Dauntfest. I've missed all of it.
But I've not come out of it unchanged.
The barrel everyone stands around, gives us warmth and timber to burn everything from the confiscated box, including the letter.
Which Jade did not let anyone else read.
After their retelling of stories or a memory, they toss it in the fire. I watch quietly, intently as they are accepted. The flames dance and reach, crackle and retreat.
Their voices rise and fall around me.
I take a gulp of my drink, a straight burn on my tongue and down my throat as arms circle my waist from behind.
Eric places his chin on my shoulder, his cheek scratchy against my jaw and neck.
"Seems like we've both had a busy day." He says to me, the low volume of his voice thick with amusement. "I was going to report that stolen."
I'd suspected as much. I implored her to hand the box over to me, all its contents and the letter before tomorrow, before it is noticed missing.
When it would have been turned over to Erudite.
She said she would burn it before anyone else could. I weighed the consequence of its destruction or its return and found either acceptable as long as it was tonight.
"They disguise themselves well. Do you really not suspect that she could be one too?" He asks, quieter now. "Wouldn't it be easier if their divergence were discovered sooner? Before they-"
"Like with your brother." I say it before I can think better of it. It comes out without inflection, but also without accusation.
He laughs ruefully in response. His body shakes us both with it. The sound light and familiar in my ears.
No one looks to us. Their voices continue to drape us in an acoustic blanket. Sounds of their bottles clinking, and reminiscence drown out our silent exchange.
I've seen Eric's fears. What hides within that darkness. I know it, roughly; I recognize its shape. But the full dimensions of his pain remain murky, perhaps unfathomable.
He was right in our differences, I'd not assumed he implied also, our similarities when he had said the very thing to me. He had been brutalized, by pain, loss, and burden. Purpose came afterwards for him.
Resentment borne possibly, from the "carefree life" that was wretched from his grasp and now forever out of reach. That he would blame Falen, and be put upon the path of vengeance against him.
Perhaps not for his brother, but for himself. His way of antagonizing me, possibly due to the fact that I had been a tool to the cause. A tool he now wishes to use against Falen.
His laugh settles with a sigh and his grip on me loosens, he straightens up when I shift in his arms to lay my head in the crook of his neck and with my free hand I cup the side of his cheek, bringing my cold fingers just up to the bottom of his ear, my thumb along his tensed jaw.
He relaxes just a little but I know he recognizes a danger.
"You turned out to be just a bit more interesting than a rock." He admits, still amused.
At that moment a loud noise sounds out like the flipping of a switch and murmurs of excitement and awe erupt as the wheel that had only moments before been a dark ring against an equally dark sky looming behind the compound. With Its metal frame shining and glistening, frozen, with icicles like fangs hanging from every rung.
Was now illuminated, brighter than everything else. Brightening too, the sky above it and around it. Reflecting off the buildings that surround it.
Eric turns with me in his grasp. A thought gets lost in my head, and a cold inhale caught between my lips. Unfulfilling in my lungs.
The lights explode with color and design in rapid flashing patterns from the middle, outwards, then back in.
The ice that holds it in place now reflects the lights, turning it into a glistening kaleidoscope.
Every color, blinking in synchronized succession to form flowers, mandalas, stars, rings.
But just as soon as it is lit, it begins to flicker and lights begin to burn out. People complain and whine audibly and soon all the lights are out once more.
"I take it you'll be otherwise occupied tonight?" Eric asks, referring to the voices still chattering animattedly.
"Yes." I reply.
"Tomorrow then." He says with a shrug before releasing me. I watch him walk away, wondering just how much pain and rage he has contained and restrained within him.
When I had asked for some measure of civility, I hadn't known what it might've taken for that much of it already.
For him to stand amonst his enemies. No wonder he treats me as such, because I am, I had always been.
I gasp more in surprise, and try to stabilize the drink in my hand to not spill it over others that stand around as I'm lifted off the ground from behind.
"Gene! Did you see it?!" Amar yells directly into my ear, he presses his cheek to mine and spins me around. His arms grasped tightly around my wound. I feel it more than before. "Wasn't it amazing?!"
When he puts me down I stumble, slightly dazed.
"Are you alright?" It is Four and his long spidery fingers close around my wrist as if to steady me. "You look like you're in pain." He says but his expression is flat.
"Come on Gene!" Amar yells, linking his arm through mine, he seems to have not heard Four. "Coming?!"
Four brings his cup to his lips, his eyes never leaving mine though he releases my wrist only after I twist it in his grasp.
I stand with many others, of which include Bud, Tori, Four and even Travis. On a second story rooftop overlooking the back grounds that we had just occupied.
Nearly all of Dauntless is outside below us now, spread apart in groups. The security lights illuminate the entire area.
Not far off in the throng of people stand Max, Falen and Eric with the other leadership candidates.
Everyone talks animatedly around me, awaiting the fireworks.
Everyone except Four that is. No matter who is taking, I feel his gaze on me and though I have my jacket, a scarf and gloves on, I feel the coldness inside, radiating outwards as I deliberate ways to stave off his attention.
My actions must be deliberate from now on, weighed, calculated, and I don't want to have to factor in Four's interference as well. Not with Eric's aversion to him.
A glance at my watch confirms only a few minutes away.
I pull my sleeve back down over it and tuck my hands in my pocket, tapping my boot in the snow.
"Somewhere you need to be?" Four asks, but his tone is unplaceable. His gaze travels from my face and then to my boots and then to the direction of the leaders where Eric is.
The sound of a speaker crackling, quiets everyone down to lowered whispers and I don't need to answer Four because our attentions are brought to crowds bellow.
"My fellow Dauntless! This year was certainly not a dull one!" Falens voice booms over the distance. "Nor was it an easy one. We have faced new challenges, we have overcome them! We have lost, but we bounce back stronger than before!"
Cheers errupt around us and the stomping of boots and claps begin. Thump thump clap. Thump thump clap.
"We've gained new brothers, new sisters, soldiers, warriors, protectors, instructors, and new leaders!"
Stomp stomp clap. Jade and Gabriel make their way to me, expressions bright with excitement as they place their cups along the wall to clap along to the rythm.
"With them we bring in the new year with strength, prosperity and unity!"
I stare at the leaders, at Falen standing tall and proud. At Eric not far behind him, the look on his face unplaceable.
At Max, Paul and Candace, how they all stand straight with their hands clasped together infront of them.
"With them we will face the unknown tomorrow with bravery, and courage!"
Stomp Stomp Clap. The vibrations of the stomping blend with the trembling of my skin.
"We stand together! We stand Dauntless!"
"HOORAH!" Everyone erupts with noise together at once.
Amar turns to me with the same excited smile and imediately afterwards they begin with a cacophany of their voices, the countdown. To end the year.
The security lights all shut off, bathing everyone in a thick moonless darkness.
"10. . .9. . .8." They sound off in perfect unison.
I feel a hollowing shifting feeling in my gut, and I realize I am clutching it. Putting pressure on my wound.
"7. . .6. . .5." Jade, and Gabriel roar the numbers pumping their fists at each one, I feel her lace her free arm through one of mine.
I close my eyes, taken suddenly by a memory. Of arms laced through both of mine, a cold breath in my lungs. A drink in my hand.
Jade's voice to my left and Kat's to my right.
"4. . ." I hear them, her, so acutely as if her voice is the ony one counting down, close to my ear. Impossibly close.
"3. . ." The volume becomes lower, almost like a warning. The hairs on my body raise, muscles tensing, coiling, bracing for an impact.
"2. . ." A whisper now, urgent and sharp. Imminent.
"1"
I'm being shaken, chaos has insued. Screams and yells of excitment not louder than the booms of explosives being set off. Their whisting rise high into the sky. The crackle and pop into a deafening thundering roar.
"Do you think Kat can see them? Wherever she is?" Jade's voice, hopeful and excited trying to speak over the noise.
"No." I reply too softly for her to hear.
My heated forehead is pressed against a cold concrete wall. The sounds of celebration and the exlosives echo from far away.
I shift to get the coldness on my cheek and I lean into it, positive the weakness in my limbs would make it difficult to stand otherwise.
My vision becomes blurry and I feel consciousness slipping in and out of blackness.
"Are you okay?" A deep voice, it sounds concerned. "You don't look-"
"I know how I look." I say harshly, pushing myself away from the wall to face it.
It is Four.
"I know it's none of my business but…Are you hurt?" Four leans in closer his earlier expression now cautious and uncertain. "Did Eric hurt you?"
I run a hand through my hair, focusing on grasping hold of consciousness and reigning it back into place with some success.
"No, but you're right." I answer, pulling my sleeves over my hands and my collar back into place before sliding them into my pockets. "It's none of your business."
He holds his hands up as if he meant no offense, but steps in front of my path back into the compound.
"What happened to your friend?" He asks next, at his question I turn to head back out into the chaos.
Four grabs my arm and forces me around to face him again, pushing my back against the wall. I'm too slow to react and he pins both my arms to my chest.
I push back and manage to free a hand, curled into a fist but he dodges the punch I send towards his cheek before recapturing my wrist and pinning it to my shoulder, slamming me back into the wall.
The pressure creates a dull ache in my abdomen, and he moves a leg between mine when I plant a boot on the wall to push off it but he puts his weight against me, crushing me against the concrete.
"She isn't faction-less is she?" Four asks with accusatory verve.
I open my mouth to answer and my voice comes out soft. "No." My gaze falls from his when his expression softens.
His brows knit together and tilt upward.
I don't want to see it, that moment, where he begins to piece together the wrong things. When he makes assumptions and some false identity for me.
When he assumes I look like shit because of her. That I am a victim. That I'm effected, in pain, because of her.
He pushes himself away from me, dropping my arms but before I can register what he's doing he begins to grasp at the hem of my jacket the wrong end of the zipper which is at the top.
I push his hands away but he does not even need to lift it, because my wound has bled through the fabric, his hand comes away, his fingers dotted with crimson.
"You're bleeding." He states with confusion.
This time he lets me shove past him.