Duplicity [p.h]

chapter twelve || he's the enemy

A/N: um last chapter made me so mad too i sincerely apologize — but for all our eric haters you might like this one + the next one.

EVERY TIME I looked at him, he was always looking back.

I caught his gaze in the reflection of my mirror, watching him watch me — me, not my body — as I pulled on my jacket and laced up my boots. There he was, during the morning meeting, too; we were supposed to be reviewing the floor plans, marking out routes and all the exits while Max gave the briefing, but in the corner of my eye the only thing Eric studied was — you guessed it, lovely Reader — me.

If I'm honest, I might say I enjoyed it — but not because my blimp-sized ego needed stroking or because I was picturing seven different ways I could fill our consciousnesses with sin. It was because —

— Because I can calculate third derivates in 30 seconds and half-resist Erudite serums, break a bag open with my bare foot and stop a genocide with a few lines of code, but looking at myself in the mirror and liking what I see, feeling at peace with my heart and my soul and my mind, is a cross I'm much too weak to bear. I've never felt like I was anyone's first choice because I was never my own.

The last thing I wanted to do is rely on anyone else for validation. But when someone looks at you the way he was looking at me — like they'd choose you over, and over, and over again — it made me think that just maybe, I was capable of being loved, wholly and entirely. And if someone else could choose me, maybe I could choose me, too.

Maybe in another life, it could have worked out.

Perhaps it was because we were double agents taking a metaphorical crowbar to our morals, tactical warmongers hellbent on smiting our allies even if it meant self-sacrifice. Because our loyalties lay hidden in the cavities of our chests where nobody could find them, even if our hearts were pressed together in the dead of night. We could make guesses, of course — with the truth, with justice, with each other — and perhaps they were close. But in the end, maybe they were nowhere but with ourselves.

It was alarming how easily leading the new Dauntless came to me. I knew exactly what to do, exactly how to think, exactly where our next move would be. Sometimes I would lay fates down on their — on my targets without realizing I had a bloody bullseye painted on my forehead, too.

That's what I told myself the night Eric laid eyes on me for the last time.

Both of us were leading the second siege — though I argued it was because we were too recognizable, to crucial to the success of the later phases, to the mission in any way I could phrase it.

It was true; I was crucial to the mission.

Because if I did what I planned to do, weeks of planning would escape down the drain and reroute my faux-compatriots back to the drawing board.

Canister in hand, I resisted the comfort my body wanted to feel standing so close to Eric, stealing glances at the rise and fall of his chest while we waited for the signal from the roof above the Intelligence department. He's the enemy. He's the enemy. He's the enemy. He's the guy who brought a chocolate milk to the Leader meeting the days I missed breakfast.

It was hard to so vehemently despise him the way I was supposed to when he knew exactly where the birthmark on my back was.

The moon cut his face into clean lines, shedding light on the softest parts of him it seemed only I could see behind the perennial scowl he wore. If I did nothing, I would have the blood on my hands that belonged to my friends, to people like me. If it went wrong, I could pass the blame onto something— besides, these days I lied through my teeth as often as I breathed — but the building would still reek of death and my own guilt.