We stand in the only open gathering area located in Abnegations compound. In the very middle of it, a small open exodus with tidy short cut grass, surrounded by their monotonous concrete abodes.
The lack of seating here, being that comfort is a luxury that abnegation seldom allow themselves outside of their homes meant we all stand, in two groups across from each other.
Our accompaniment of Dauntless in their anonymous gear, standing at attention behind me in neat rows. Taking this visit far more seriously than the one to Candor with a force much larger.
Today there are 3 other squads along with our number 11. Excessive, but it is meant to be for Abnegation.
It is also meant to show that if Dauntless wanted to take the government from them, we could, by force. It is only a courtesy that Dauntless should choose the due process route, but someday soon if Abnegation does not relinquish the government willingly, it may come to it.
I study Marcus Eaton, along with the other leaders that form their collective. The three of them, at ease, not any bit uncomfortable by our show and number.
Wondering if Marcus knows his wife conspires against him. I've no doubt that all of them know she is alive, and that they all faked her funeral. It is possible they know she helped this come along.
I can deliberate her plotting on how to incriminate them in the worst ways. How they let it go unnoticed all this time is neglect on their part however.
My eyes travel to Andrew Prior among them, an Erudite transfer, from Jeanine's class. The husband of Natalie Prior former Dauntless transfer much before my time. Parents to one Beatrice Prior and Caleb Prior both almost of choosing age, a year after my own. I'd done a bit more research.
Then lastly to Alice Brewster. The youngest with no children, recently engaged to be married later this year. Born abnegtion. True Abnegation lineage before her. If there is such a thing as true abnegation at all. I've begun to doubt the validity of selflessness.
The Erudite with us had already been escorted into their singular office hub, the only building with a computer in their compound. The only building that should have a computer.
This time I had spoken to her on the way over. Implored her to install my own monitoring system, with the drive Lauren had created for me. She agreed. Even if it were to be reported back to Jeanine, I believe she would just consider it more preemptive behavior on behalf of the safety of the factions. I almost roll my eyes over remembrance of the thought.
I motion for the squads tasked with inspecting their compound to break off and carry our their job. Immediately some of them break left and right. They begin splitting and knocking on doors to begin searching. All of them know to be respectful and limit disruptions.
If they encounter resistance they are not to engage, only to report.
The Abnegation leaders expressions betray nothing. Marcus's face is the only one that doesn't display modesty. He now openly glares at me.
It is then that I think of the faction-less children and I glare back at him. My hands clasped in front of me tightly, my nails digging in.
They will be split half to Abnegation and half to Amity, Jeanine had agreed to having Erudite erect facilities to perform medical screenings for them before they are assigned to Amity or Abnegation, immunizations and a general health check-up.
I'd wished to be there myself to oversee the preceedings. Part of me still wonders if there would be a certain child among them. Unsure what I would do if he were.
I squash the thoughts and focus.
We stand unpeaking though several times it would appear one of them wished to initiate a conversation but thinks better of it.
I notice a woman and girl who looks around my age approaching from behind the leaders. Identifying them as Natalie and Beatrice.
Natalie's face is openly gentle as she touches Andrew Priors elbow. She bows respectfully in my direction.
He turns to her and they exchange whispers before she bows again. Apologizing for the interruption. Though she did not interrupt anything.
Beatrice takes in our force almost indignantly. Her eyes, larger than her mothers though they are almost identical, don't look Abnegation at all. They look accusing, and concerned.
"This is my wife, Natalie." Andrew says, giving a formal introduction. "And my daughter Beatrice. You've met my son previously."
I give them a curt nod, smoothing my features to not be as severe, I have my hair tied up and was not expecting to meet civillians today.
"Natalie. Beatrice." Greeting them by name, not supplying my own.
They duck and leave inconspicuously just as the Erudite exits their administration hub.
I check my watch finally, wondering what time the leaders squads would be returning to Dauntless.
At Erudite there are rows of white tents pitched outside their glass prison on the only patches of neatly cut grass, near their fountain. A decoration.
Examination tables, supplies and doctors work under them. Several of the faction-less children have already been dropped off for their check-ups.
They are wearing mismatched articles of clothing, some too large on their little bodies. Some sewn together to fit them. There are a handful already. Too many.
My squad does not wait for me this time and they leave, after I tell them to be alert and take it seriously, Henry just sighed. He had signed up for action, finding none yet.
The other squads already gone eagerly to their other assignments.
I make my way through the first tent, splitting up with the Erudite we escorted without a word, searching the patients futilely until I see Jeanine. She see's me also and beckons for me to join her at her station.
"You'll just feel a little prick and then it'll be over, it won't hurt a bit." Her voice is soothing to placate the young boy seated at her area. "I promise."
His face is dirty, streaks of dried tears down his cheeks. He just nods and she gives him his immunization, placing a gray bandaid on his arm. Gray for Abnegation.
I can only imagine they were all separated from their faction-less parents. Given up, possibly in the hopes they would have a better life, or the chance at one.
Not that they had a choice.
I wonder at Evelyn and Kirk's angle, this had to be a necessary move, a heavy and diffcult hand of many, to play against Abnegation. How many more would have to be played before they relent?
"And a little something for behaving so admirably." Jeanine adds with a soft smile, she hands him a cherry lollipop.
To that, his face brightens and he accepts it, ripping the plastic off it to put in his mouth immediately. He smiles, dimples appearing, already over his previous mood.
I shove my clenched fists into my jacket pockets, pressing one against my wound at the discomfort. I can almost taste it myself, my tongue becomes barbed and dry.
"Oh, well, I would have waited till after eating some regular food." She laughs lightly, slightly chastising the child. "Off with you, join the others."
The other children are already seated under another tent not far off where several Erudite are serving them trays of food. Some of the children like the boy already with their incentive candy in their mouth.
I scan them and search their faces but surely Charles would have been identified before then. If he were alive and hidden in faction-less that is.
I'm beginning to feel reprehensible over having the thought to begin with.
"Genesis." Jeanine greets, smoothing down the front of her neat blue suit. Her heels are much too high to be wearing them in the grass.
"Jeanine." I greet in return. She smiles pleasantly, as if working with children has lightened her overal demeanor.
The blue of her eyes is a subdued bright, and I wonder then if she had actually wanted her own at one point.
"Would you care to learn how to use some of our medical equipment?" She offers. "We can't allow you to use any of them on anyone however, you must be licensed."
The rest of the afternoon is spent learning about the different disgnostic equipment. Garrett and several other Erudite, one whose name in particular I caught briefly, Cara, showed me how to use blood pressure monitors and what the numbers mean.
They taught me how to use a stethoscope to listen to a heartbeat or to a patients breathing and a showed me a hematology analyzer that provides blood cell counts, determining blood type and other things within.
Then another device they use to scan the children to determine their true biological age.
Many of them are about 5-8 years old, less than a handful 10 or 11. Glaringly hidden for that many years.
Despite being unlicensed I was allowed to do several of the uninvasive disgnostics on some of the children. Checking their breathing and heart.
Instructed on what to listen for that would indicate an abnormality and if the child might need more medical attention.
No one heart beat sounded exactly the same though it may have been my imagination. It fascinated me. I had forgotten completely that I wanted to be back at Dauntless.
I met many of the children and though I did not give them the incentive lollipop, I understood the feeling of wanting to reward them for their bravery.
Facing something so foreign alone, their behavior in accepting treatment from complete strangers.
In a way it felt some of them should have been handed over to Dauntless but the leaders were vehemently against it. Even Candor's representatives declined.
The factions distaste for faction-less so deeply rooted even in the event of children, something that has never before happened.
I wonder how they will be recieved and treated. Part of me hopes majority of them go to Amity, though I know the agreement was for half.
Erudite ask them for their names and when they don't know it, they are given new names and then entered into the system by individuals with tablets.
They take their photos and fingerprints as each faction does to record their population.
Then they are documented as either Abnegation or Amity. Dependents until choosing age, where they may go to their true faction.
Once they eat their fill other Erudite help them to another shielded tent where they wash off and help get changed into new appropriate Abnegation or Amity colored clothes and then to yet another completely closed off tent where they are assigned sleeping cots until they will be delivered. There is even an open play area.
I listen and watch as Garrett handles one of them, a very young female, sobbing uncontrollably.
She cries for her mother.
There is a pit in my gut and I wonder if I had ever truly cried once in my life, even at a young age. For my own. What she would have done to me if I ever shed a tear before she thought to teach me, even then I was more receptive to knowledge and learning.
I shake my head at the thought and focus on Garrett.
He kneels to her level and sooths her, he doesnt lie to her and tell her that she'll see her mother again. "You're gonna go somewhere with pretty flowers and you'll get to see horses and puppies, even rabbits."
His face behind the glasses is genuine, his eyes are a warm brown and when he is smiling I suppose he is handsome.
"I doubt she knows what those are just yet." Cara tells him gently swatting his arm. She kneels infront of the child also and attempts to give her a lollipop instead of reasoning with her.
The crying girl is indignant and shakes her head as though nothing but her mother will calm her.
I remember during my single day on the job at the childrens center in Dauntless, what Shauna had asked a crying Hector, what it had meant when she did.
"Would you like. . .Uppy?" I ask.
My arms are crossed over my chest and I can tell my face is severe, the words come out so foreign and harsh though I'd not meant it to. My hair is still tied in a tight ponytail and I can only imagine I look ill.
I'd not known I would be allowed to work with the children more than just oversee them.
Garrett and Cara both look at me with utter bewilderment. Cara starts laughing uncontrollably and excuses herself from the tent.
Garrett just smiles and turns away from me to hide his face, removing his glasses to wipe at them. His shoulders move as though containing his laughter, unsuccessfully.
But the child holds her hands up, grasping at the air, her crying has not lessened, and her sniffles pitiable but she is indeed in want of uppy.
I move and uncross my arms to pick her up, the way the ladies of Dauntless taught me, placing her on my hip, on the side without the injury, with my arm across her back to secure her and my other arm to one of her legs.
Recalling from memory the proper way to carry a child and sooth them from their fits.
I had learned something mildly useful in that single shift I suppose, though something I find it hard to believe I'd be utilizing.
She lays her dirty wet face on my chest. I can smell her hair though it is not an unpleasant scent, woodsy and ashy.
"That is. . .Impressive." Garrett says, watching me intently as I sway slightly left and right in a rocking motion, not quite remembering the movements.
I see Jeanine a ways off as well, she watches me, though her expression is unplaceable, what she would make of it, I could not determine.
The girl calms down enough for Garrett to administer her immunization and put a yellow indicator bandaid on her arm.
"What is your name?" He asks her, leaning in close. I advert my gaze to not inspect his face closely.
"Emy." She answers, her hands clutch my jacket. She does not weigh much but my condition makes it increasingly difficult to support even her meager body.
"Are you okay Genesis?" Garrett asks noticing my growing discomfort his brows turn up in concern. "You may want to avoid lifting until you are adequately healed."
"I'm fine." I tell him, avoiding meeting his eyes still. "I'll take her to the next tent."
I only get half way there when yelling and a loud disturbance at one of the other tents closest to the road catches my attention.
Curiously I am diverted from my course. The girl does not mind. Her breathing has become even and calm.
I pull her hand away from her face several times when she puts her dirty thumb in her mouth, I wonder at giving her a lollipop after all.
"You're not seperating us!" Screams a boy, who appears to be just a bit older than the other children. "I'm not going anywhere without my sister!"
One of the Erudite tries and fails to restrain him, as he lashes out at them. He knocks equipment into the grass and kicks at the chair.
"I won't go." He says, and the tears start streaming down his face. "I won't go."
Jeanine is before him and she gently asks him what his sisters name is and attempts to sooth him in that same velvety voice. She tells him to have a seat, righting the chair herself and he obeys.
He tells her it's Maya. He was given an Abnegation mark, and she was given Amity.
Apparently his little sister is already through screening and is at the other tent, unaware of the situation altogether.
I bounce Emy on my hip and listen to their exchange. She asks what his name is. He tells her it's Owen.
"Please." He says to Jeanine. She dismisses the other Erudite and kneels in front of the boy, down on her knees in the grass.
Unexpected of someone of her stature, even some of the other Erudite eye her questioningly, if not respectfully.
"We won't separate you." She tells him. I hear nothing in her voice that would indicate a lie. She even begins opening the package to a yellow bandaid.
"Promise?" The boy ask, his voice is so hopeful. I frown.
"I promise." She tells him sternly peeling off the gray on his arm to replace it. "It was a mistake, and we don't make mistakes here in Erudite."
"Pinky promise?" The boy asks, he holds his dirty hand up with his pinky extended. I'm unsure if the promise is to not be seperated still or that Erudite don't make mistakes.
At first I think Jeanine wouldn't dare but her hand comes up, with her neatly manicured pinky out to curl around his.
"Pinky promise." She says and I hear the smile in her voice, and see the relief and utter admiration for her in the boys face. "Go join your sister."
He bounds off to the next tent and an Erudite with the tablet approaches Jeanine as she dusts the grass from her knees but her suit is already stained green.
"Correct it." She tells them. "Don't let it happen again."
She surprises me by being kinder than I had expected her capable of. I had stayed to hear if she would keep the promise, reprimanding myself for thinking she wouldn't.
It would seem, I had created my own identity for her based on our limited professional relationship and interactions.
I wonder at the type of woman she could have been if she weren't otherwise burdened.
As I had imagined of Eric it is not so hard to picture, and I find myself frowning deeper, remembering the sorrow on her face. Perhaps it was also longing for the life that she had lost. Maybe she too weighs all that she had sacrificed for her means to an end.
All that she had given up for the city.
Instead of making myself known as a spectator I head to the next tent where the boy Owen and his sister Maya hug excitedly, reuinited.
I think of Amar, and my chest becomes tight with discomfort. I decide it's time to return to Dauntless, my head too full of thought.
Emily detaches from me willingly without force and I sit her at a low table with others that seem around her age.
An Erudite brings her a tray of various foods and fruit and a carton of orange juice immediately and opens it for her.
When I move to leave she grasps my hand. "We're not going to see our mommy's and daddy's anymore are we?" She asks.
The other children look at me as well. Their eyes are large on their tiny faces and expectant, hopeful. Many of them have Abegation gray marks.
"No, you won't." I tell them. "Soon you will meet your new family, and when you are of age, you will choose the faction you truly belong to. There, you will learn that faction comes before-."
"Genesis." Garrett's voice interrupts.
Emy releases me and I turn to him grateful for the escape as their expressions seem heavily disappointed by my expletive.
"They're saying that may be the last of the children." He explains. "Jeanine insists the facilities stay posted til tomorrow in case any more are found but she requested Dauntless that you accompany the group to Amity ahead of schedule."
"When?" I ask, placing my hands in my jacket.
"Tomorrow." He admits, pushing his glasses back up on his nose. "If any more children are found they will be assigned to Abnegation."
"Very well." I reply simply, walking with him back to his station. "Has Amity been informed of the earlier date?"
"Yes, just now, they have assured that they will be prepared and awaiting you."
I nod acceptance. "I'll be leaving then." I say announcing my departure as if I needed to, checking my watch for the next train.
"Uh- well-" Garrett stammers looking to the side, I glance up at him with a raised brow. "Would you allow me to inspect your injury? You have been exerting yourself lately with the faction visits and tomorrow will be a long ride to-"
I bite back my immediate refusal and consider him. Under normal circumstances he would possibly have been my partner, in Erudite. He knows of my physical incapacity and yet still considers me. . .Compatible.
Though anyone else in Erudite would not. The way Erudite select relationships heavily determining.
"If you would." I say instead, and it surprises him, it takes him a moment to collect himself before he motions towards the entrance to Erudite.
I lay still, at a partial incline on one of their medical examination tables in a familiar room once more as Garrett's cold fingers press at different areas of my abdomen, around my wound, asking if there is any discomfort.
I answer no, though his fingers are frigid and I tense at every touch.
"Your temperature is slightly elevated." He comments. "Of all the injuries you've sustained. . .Are you sure you don't want to use an accelerated healing salve?"
"I am sure." I respond, staring at the ceiling. Unsure only of how thorough he intends to be. I remove the hairtie from my hair to lay my head back comfortably against it's rest. It had been digging into the back of my head.
I feel him wipe around the stitches and I know he will see that they have been redone, though he does not comment on it. "I would like to perform an ultrasound to view the condition of -"
"Very well." I say simply. With my hands back to my sides, preparing to lay still for longer if necessary.
Though I had wanted to return to Dauntless for several reasons, one of which I am sure I've already missed my opportunity of.
The other I feel, Amar is intentionally avoiding me.
"You don't have to oblige me." He says then. "I know that your time and attention is in high demand currently, if you need to be-"
"You needn't request my company under the guise of medical treatment." I interrupt, giving him a side glance.
His answering blush turns his entire face crimson. "Yes well, I had expected you would decline regardless."
I look back to the pristine white ceiling. Not admitting that his expectations of me are accurate, my unexpected acquiescence, still a new sensation to myself as well.
He begins preparing the equipment and donning gloves. Producing a gel to apply to my abdomen.
"Was there something that you needed?" He asks then, not quite accepting that I am not here for a reason.
"No." I reply simply. He smears the gel around my skin avoiding the stitches and removes the gloves, disposing of them. It is oddly of no noticeable temperature unlike his fingers.
Truthfully, I wish to ask him of Charles. But I don't bring myself to do it. I decide on giving him this much in recompense for our last encounter where I had acted harsly in response. It would seem it pleases him, easily.
He brings the ultrasound device to my stomach and presses it in, attempting to be gentle, gliding it across the gel, pressing in firmly below my wound and around it while watching the monitor showing my organs.
Nothing must be alarming or abnormal as he doesn't say anything about what he sees.
When he cuts the device off and stows it, wiping the gel off my stomach carefully, I glance at him once more.
He is smiling to himself with the same perpetual blush across his cheeks. I advert my gaze back to the ceiling allowing myself to get lost in thought.
How easily Garrett is pleased with just my presence and nearness even for mere moments. That my existence for that matter, when I am not even near him, was something of a factor for him.
That it appeases him enough just to know that I am alive somewhere with the possibility that he may see me again like this, however briefly.
If Eric knew that Garrett is exactly what he had suggested I could want for. Find in Erudite of all places even, given my physical incapabilities.
Someone who I could bare myself to, and would accept me. I'd imagine he would laugh.
Yet.
Here I am, I realize, thinking of him and the sound of that laugh he would have over this. Even comparing their touches, already admitting before that I prefered his harmful intent.
Already my previous thoughts of him, developed from my talk with Lauren is influencing my inexperienced subconscious. Without confirmation.
That sliver of infuriating distance would grow to the length between Dauntless and Erudite but would it appease him enough to have only just the possibility of seeing me again, in passings for brief moments as it does Garrett? Would it appease me?
My hand is up involuntarily as I touch my throat. A dangerous thought, unwanted, unreasonable, and harshly demanding.
I hear the sound of a sink and the washing of hands so I sit up. I'm pulling my shirt down back over myself when Garrett turns to me, trying not to smile but failing. The slight pinkish hue of his cheeks offputting.
"Actually, there is something." I say while standing and reaching for my jacket. "May I have a box of your incentives for the children and a bottle of lemonade?"
Garrett smiles widely. "Of course."
I snap my belt and holster back around my waist as he leaves the room. Letting out a deep sigh and leaning against the sink for support.
Max eyes the box and bottle of lemonade with disdain just as he had the book Jeanine gave me the day before. I hand in my weapon, in condition 4 placing it on the table, he retrieves it and stows it in the cabinet behind him.
"Has Eric returned?" I ask him without looking up from my work of putting the stray bullet back into the magazine and turning those in as well.
I hear the teasing smile in Max's voice when he responds. "He did, you missed him, they won't be back till tomorrow. Too bad you'll be heading to Amity then though."
"I see." I say tersely, placing the box under my arm and grasping the bottle, preparing to leave.
"Already feeling the separation?" He asks with a chuckle offering me a cigarette to which I refuse. "Had that kind of day?"
"There are more children than I anticipated." I admit tiredly only half feigning disappointment over Eric.
"How many?" He asks, seriously now, the teasing smile wiped from his face in an instant, the hands he had raised to light his fresh cigarett stalled.
"Too many. I would estimate around 30 or so, give or take."
He swears and shakes his head, the muscles in his jaw tenses and his brows furrow. "Fucking Abnegation, I swear. What the fuck have they been doing?"
"There was nothing reported out of the ordinary during the inspection of their compound." I say. "If Erudite finds anything in their files I don't believe it will be immediate." I don't tell him that I will be doing my own investigations into them.
"We should hope they do." He continues, still shaking his head, he curls one scarred hand into a fist and runs his fingers over the gnarled knuckes. "They are breaking too many rules. It's only a matter of time."
I nod and take a step towards the door.
"I'll let Eric know you were looking for him." Max says in dismissal. "That should brighten his day."
"Please do." I say simply, stepping out.
"This is awesome!" Joseph exclaims when I hand them the bottle and dump handfuls of lollipops onto the tabletop.
"These are all from Erudite?" Jade asks curiously, smiling. "Preview of what the future might be like?" She jokes.
I frown but her attitude of my transfering I find is reassuring. Her apperance and behavior not betraying otherwise.
"You aren't staying?" Gabriel asks biting the hard candy off the stick completely. He throws a fistful of them towards another table where Uriah, Lynn and Marlene sit.
They turn towards us and cheer excitedly, and begin making their way over.
"I am to visit Amity tomorrow, ahead of schedule." I reply, turning back towards the table having almost departed without conversation at all.
"Did you hear about the excitement?" Uriah asks everyone before I can dismiss myself again.
"No, what happened?" Jade asks, pushing the candy into her cheek. "With the faction-less?"
"Yeah-"
"Apparently a few of the squads were met with resistance, they fought back." Lynn reports interrupting Uriah.
"No way." Joseph says with a laugh. "The faction-less? Really?"
"Yes the faction-less, dumbass, I just said." Uriah jokes, pushing him in the shoulder, they laugh and begin punching at each other.
"Have any of you seen Amar lately?" I ask then, still standing a few steps from the edge of the table awkwardly.
"Not for a few days now." Marlene replies, sliding into the bench.
That is all I stay to listen to.
I sit infront of a large circular mirror in one of the tattoo parlor chairs that was pushed into Tori's apartment. Nearest to the doors that conjoin the shop and Tori's place.
It is more private here. No surveillance. She had suggested it.
Her apartment is sparse, the couch decorated with warm throws, coffee table with new stencils and abandoned mugs. The kitchen neat, and tidy with a vase of colorful flowers. On one of her walls sits the faction before blood placard, with each faction's symbol under it.
The very one that was posted in the shop now decorating her apartment.
A large black plastic cape is draped over my shoulders. Just like before when Tori had colored my hair a silverish gray.
Now my roots have grown, no harsh demarcation line though as they grew in the palest white blonde into the faded silvery gray but I had requested for her to strip the color from it completely.
In preparation for the fast approaching aptitude tests and choosing day.
Colored hair is a chracteristic of Dauntless. I've never gotten tattoos or piercings, perhaps that too was an unconscious decision towards my aptitude, dictating even my appearance.
Behind me Tori flits around the room, gathering her tools after claiming that the stripping process would require her to trim my ends due to over damaging the hair with removing chemicals.
I catch her looks in the mirror. Amar had talked to her. I shift my vision to stare at my reflection instead.
The girl before me fares better than before. Still pitiable. Weakened. No longer looks dessicated though. Closer to the living. Eyelids and the rings around them are just a slightly lighter shade of purple no longer dark. Cheeks less sunken.
Not much better but an improvement.
Tori reappears behind me and her gloved hands are in my hair in an instant, combing through to the ends. Her eyes watching her work intently, not raising to meet mine in the mirror.
"Have you seen Amar lately?" I ask. The main reason for the visit. I am sure she knew that, which is why she had suggested this setting.
"Not for a few days now." She admits, her expression betrays nothing. "He signed up to be in a squad and requested a transfer to wall duty."
"I was told." I reply, twising my fingers around each other under the cape. "Did he say why?"
To that question she becomes quiet for a bit too long, without looking thoughtful, she was told. Tori had been anticipating this, prossibly even going over and over in her head what the confrontation would be like.
In seconds, a blink of an eye really, Tori has a fistful of my hair and pulls my head back and in her other hand a pair of scissors, the sharp end pressed against my neck.
I don't react, though my body tenses instinctively. I breathe out and relax every muscle but I do not break eye contact with her reflection in the mirror.
"Do you remember George?" She asks, her tone taking on something venomous. Her dark brown eyes severe.
"Yes." I reply. George had been Tori's twin brother. Twins are very rare, not often forgotten.
He had been a Divergent. Somehow Tori was not, or she had escaped notice. They were both Erudite transfers.
"Was it you?" Tori demands the pointed edge a sharp prick against my skin. A pebble of blood blossoms at the contact.
"No." I reply without difficulty. For her to ask about it, knowing how long ago that was, she already knows the truth and when I speak it.
"Then who?" She asks, relaxing just a bit.
Then all at once her features break and become mournful. Her severe eyes become glossy and soft, with remorse.
She releases me before I can answer and throws the scissors to the ground, they scatter towards the wall. I watch her slump down onto the couch in the room with her head in her hands, face covered.
I pull the cape off and step down out of the chair turning away from the mirror. Approaching her carefully.
"Amar is convinced that the leaders and Erudite, Jeanine, are the ones behind it. That you're just caught up in it all." She says without looking up. "I know you couldn't have been responsible for George, that was years ago you were. . .But I'm just so fucked up over it, still. I can't let- "
"I am not so innocent." I tell her.
Tori looks up, her brows furrowed but her eyes are unaccusing, just tired. I can almost see myself in them. Just tired. "In your position I would have done the same."
"Would you?" I ask harshly, as if she could know what position I was, or wasn't in.
As if she would know what I had done and why. Like Amar she too assumes something of me.
"To protect someone I love? To get close to my enemies?" Tori asks back argumentatively. "Without a doubt."
My mouth that was open to argue back clamps shut. It may not be my exact reason but close enough to ring true.
Then I realize what Amar's may be trying to do, separate himself. The exact same as what I suspect Eric may be inconspicuously coercing me into. Though I'm unsure just yet, my brows furrow with agitation.
"Erudite is the true enemy, Gene." Tori says with surety as if my expression and brief silence were due to thoughts of that. "They control Dauntless with their influence."
"I would argue that Dauntless-"
"That was why we left, why we transfered but. . .Erudite. . .Jeanine." She continues. "We couldn't have known how it would follow us here, that there is nowhere safe for Divergent."
I mean to defend Jeanine. The weary, lonely woman so consumed by her work.
But understanding only goes so far, and though Tori believes us to be similar, even though not so different from Jeanine, I'd suspect she would not be accepting.
Only moments ago she held scissors to my neck over something that happened in my adolescence.
Though I may have been capable enough at that age. I keep my mouth shut. She had used the word, a blatant confession and my conditioning still seems to govern me.
"Do you know how far it'll go? How far they'll go?" Tori asks. "What's coming?"
"I have some idea." I admit, with a noncommittal shrug. "It is just speculation though." I relax my coiled body, and untense my muscles.
"Will you tell me anyway?" She asks, picking up the empty mugs and heading to her kitchen. "Some tea?"
"Yes." I sigh before taking a seat at her couch, all but slouching into it. The wrapping around my abdomen too tight and resricting my breathing.
"Sorry about your neck." She throws over her shoulder.
"I've had worse." I reply, putting my elbows to my legs and lacing my fingers together to put my chin on them. Forcing the wrappings to become more restrictive and uncomfortable.
There is a knock at her door, and Tori puts the two mugs on the table before moving to answer it. The mugs are steaming and smell like something floral and strong, I grasp one for the warmth in my now cold hands.
"Four." I hear Tori greet. "I'm busy right now, come back later?"
"He can join us." I tell her, though my throat is tightened as I say it. I grit my teeth and shake my head.