Drown [Eric Coulter] Divergent

Part XXXVIII

XXXVIII

"I don't know my name

I've turned against my own

I don't know who to blame

I'm turning into stone, turning to stone"

"Turn To Stone" - Godsmack

Eric watched over Harper in case she woke, but Max had clipped her hard enough to keep her knocked out. So, he did things that he needed to do, but he did not sleep. Even without rest, Eric knew that he had to pull this off flawlessly if he wanted to redeem himself in Max and Jeanine's eyes. They had put too much trust in him for him to fail now, especially over a lost cause like Harper. Still, his goal was to get her out of this alive, even if that meant sending her away, beyond the fences, to the factionless, anywhere but Dauntless. She might even seek safety among another faction, as it was unclear how the other factions would react to what was going to happen today.

He spent the last few hours that he had to kill cleaning up Harper's mess, otherwise known as Klaus. There was hardly anything left of him, his face and upper body ripped apart with bullets. Some of the bullets went straight through the thinner parts of his body, and penetrated the wall behind. 

Though there was so much going on and no one was going to find his body today, Eric still cleaned up for Harper. It was a careless job, he simply brought the body, rolled up in blankets, to the crematorium and that was swiftly dealt with, and everything that was blood stained he found a way to cover it. Shifting the couch to cover the main spill on the floor, but he ignored the walls. Anyone who glanced into this room wouldn't think that anything had happened, though Eric doubted anyone would come looking for Klaus anytime soon. When the time came, he would deal with it.

By the time he finished, he heard the communal shuffling beginning. Hundreds of Dauntless had dressed, put their shoes on, and were shuffling down the halls towards the trains as they had been ordered to do. The serum was working almost perfectly, with one small flaw; it still did not work on Divergents. Eric paid close attention to those who were walking around him, trying to see anyone who was faking it, anyone who was unsure of what they were doing. So far, so good. He had a few suspicions about certain people, but in this great hoard it was impossible to find any particular person.

***

Tobias had suspicions of everything, and they were being confirmed as he opened his door to see a group of black-clothing clad people walking in identical fashion. He was already dressed, and he quickly joined the ranks, and made sure that every single movement he made was the same as those around him. He could spot people he wanted to keep safe, which in reality was everyone, but the only people who Tobias could think of was Tris and Harper. He suspected that Tris was Divergent, and just hoped that she was smart enough to also feign being under control like he was now. But he could not look around, and he knew that she would be far away from him, because she was still in the Initiates dorm despite having finished her initiation only a few hours prior.

She was a smart girl, Tobias wasn't too worried about her. She would have seen all the other initiates doing the same thing, and she would have caught on. He made it all the way through the faction as they reached the train, and for the first time, the train was stopped and people were handing out guns to the serum-controlled Dauntless. Instead of running and jumping onto the trains, people were simply stepping into it. No one helped anyone else, the serum had them all working for one person, and one person only. Though this world was a lot of 'each person for themselves', it was normal to want to try and help people out. Maybe that's why the train was always moving before this, to help the people who might not make it.