Chaos Creator

Chapter 5: On The Run

Four grabs the Erudite's woman wrist and yanks her forward. Her right temple has a quick greeting with the edge of the table and she falls to the ground. Time slows as I quickly unlatch my fingers from Daisy's death grip on my hand. The Dauntless Traitor turns away from me and aims his gun at Four but I grab my gun from my waistband and shoot him in the back of his head. A woman screams as the man falls to the ground, dead. Everyone ducks under the table as I shoot another Traitor. 

Six bullets left. 

He falls onto the floor, dead also. I glance around the room, and notice Stiff still sitting at the table.

"Stiff! What the hell are you doing?" I shout.

I'm not paying attention, and I hear a gun shot go off and then a sharp pain in my right ear. I drop under the table, holding my ear cursing. I pull my hand away, and see blood on my fingertips.

"Shit!" I mutter when I realize I've been shot in the ear. Someone whimpers , and I look up to see Daisy shaking in fear. Another gunshot goes off, which makes her flinch and me shoot up from the table. 

I look and see Four holding the Erudite woman by her neck, with a gun to her head. 

"Say another word," He says, "and I'll shoot."

She opens her mouth to speak, but then quickly changes her mind. 

"Whoever's with us should start running," Four says.

As a big group of Abnegation dressed in red and yellow gets from under the table and starts running, I pick a Traitor's gun from their corpse. 

Another gunshot goes off, and I see the Stiff push someone out of the way of the bullet. 

"Put the gun down," says Four pointing his revolver at the Erudite woman. "I have very good aim, and I'm betting that you don't."

She drops her gun and I point my gun in her direction, as I feel Daisy's shaky hand latch onto the back of my shirt. 

Four walks slowly backward with his gun aimed at the woman towards the door.

"Just shoot her." I say, and then I shoot her smack in the forehead.

Daisy flinches, and then we all take off in a sprint out of the room and in the center aisle of the orchard. I hear Daisy trip, and feel her small fingers let go of the back of my shirt. I turn around, and then quickly quickly lift her into a piggyback-ride-hold. I take off sprinting again into the night, and hear the sound of an engine turning on. 

Headlights flash through cornstalks behind our long line of sprinters. 

"Split up!" Marcus yells and I feel a rough hand grabs hold of arm. I can't see through the leaves crashing into my face. 

All I can feel is the adrenaline pumping in my body, and Daisy's breathing on the back of my neck. 

All I can hear are gunshots and the shouts of people being murdered behind us. 

We reach the fence, and find a hole to crawl through. I stop and see Four hold the fence up to let Stiff, an Abnegation girl, and Caleb crawl through. I let Daisy off my back to let her crawl and I crawl in after her. 

We start running again, following the train tracks into the city. Daisy trips, and falls on her right shoulder. Everyone stops, and then walks toward her at the sound of body smacking into the metal. 

"You okay?" I ask. She sits up onto her hands and knees and nods. 

"Yeah, I'm fi-" Before she can finish talking, she starts vomiting onto metal tracks. 

I rush over to her, and start rubbing her back as Stiff pulls the hair out of her face. 

"I'm sorry-" She tries speaking, but another round of vomit comes out from her throat. 

"Shhh, it's okay," I say. She finishes after a moment or two, and then takes some shaky breaths.

"Is she okay?" Four asks.

"I think she went into shock," I mutter as I pat her back. 

"I'm fine, just tired." She says into night air.

She sits on her bottom and lays down for a second. Stiff sits down beside her and silently pats her shoulder. I reach into my back pocket and pull out her black glasses. I place them gently in her shaking hand, and see Four move towards Stiff in the corner of my eye.

"What was that, Tris?" he says.

"What?" She asks weakly.

"You froze! Someone was about to kill you and you just sat there!" He is yelling now. "I thought I could rely on you at least to save your own life!"

"Please don't yell," Daisy gulps, breaks into a sweat, turns over and starts to throw up again. I smooth the hair out of her face as I see Stiff shoot up.

"Hey!" says her brother, Caleb. "Give her a break, all right?"

"No, she doesn't need a break." His voice softens. "What happened?"

"I panicked," She says. "It won't happen again."

"It won't," Stiff insists over the sound of my sister emptying her stomach.

She sits back up, and silently wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. She slips her glasses back on her face, and steadily stands up.  The adrenaline inside me starts to wear off and I feel a pang of pain hot my right ear. I sense a lukewarm fluid run down my jaw to my neck and hastily bring my hand up to touch it. 

"Shit," I mutter, staring down at the dark maroon color on my fingertips. 

"What?" Someone gasps behind me. "You're bleeding! You've been shot!"

"I've realized that," I hiss, and I bring my hand up to touch the bullet wound on my ear but Daisy smacks my hand away. 

"Don't touch it, you'll infect it," She says. She helps me onto my feet, brushes the back of her pants, and slips on a crooked smile.  

"You alright?" Four asks.

"Yep," She says with fake happiness. 

"Okay." He looks unconvinced. "We have to get somewhere safe. They'll regroup and start looking for us."

"You think they care that much about us?" Stiff says.

"Us, yes," he says. "We were probably the only ones they were really after, apart from Marcus, who is most likely dead."

I ignore the fact that Four casually talked about his father's death.

"Time to go," I say, and Daisy lifts herself back onto my back. 

And I took the first step forward. 

~*~

We follow the train tracks to the city. Daisy had fallen asleep on my back a while ago. Her arms stay loosely wrapped around my neck as I walk on the ties of the tracks. We hear a low groan on the rails and I turn around to see a small train quickly approaching. We move out of the, and watch the train.

"It's coming," Stiff says. "I think we should get on." 

"Even if it's run by the Erudite?" says Caleb.

"If the Erudite were running the train, they would have taken it to the Amity compound to look for us," Four says. "I think it's worth the risk. We'll be able to hide in the city. Here we're just waiting for them to find us."

I shake Daisy awake and lightly set her on her feet.

"Huh?" She says rubbing the sleep from her eyes. 

"We're about to jump on the train," I murmur over the sounds of the train coming. "Just do what we did last time, I'll help you up." 

We watch the first car pass and then start to jog beside the second car. Stiff jumps in, and I throw Daisy in after her. I yank myself up, and look up to see that we were not alone in the dark cart.

Factionless.