Ambivalence [p.h.] - EDITING

chapter 26 || i know how to split a leather bag open

A/N happy new year everyone! Here's the first chapter of 2017.

"Did it seriously only take us 15 minutes to go up there, go through a seven-part fear landscape, and come back down?"

I'm currently staring at a clock in the Pit (because I have yet to purchase a watch), which is telling me that it's only been a mere quarter of an hour.  I'm hungry, and I still have to wait another hour and forty-five minutes before I actually get any part of the piquant array of lusciously exquisite delectables.  To be put more simply, I will explode into a rage of inextinguishable fury if I don't have a piece of muffin, or cake, or anything that remotely pleases my tastebuds, in my mouth soon.  Even more simply, I WANT FOOD!

"Yes, Jaqueline," Peter says. 

"Sounds wrong, now. Calling me Jaqueline." I would have been more perturbed if Jaqueline hadn't sounded so sweet rolling when he said it. 

"I like it. But if you want, I can stick with Nose." Peter grinned. "It'll be just like old times." I groan.  Or grunt.  I'm so hungry, I can't even tell the difference. 

"Argh," I grumble.  "Let's just go back to the dorms.  Everyone else is probably there."

"Yeah, and probably stressing about getting thrown out into the ruthless wilderness, in which ravenous packs of the outcasts of society we like to call the factionless, beat you to death if you have a can of beans.  Welcome to Chicago," Peter jokes.  I roll my eyes at his antics and start walking off to the dorms.  If the other initiates are worrying about whether they're in or not (which seems pretty probable), I really don't want to get caught up in anxious shoulder harassment of being shaken back and forth or the resulting red marks from my friends having grips too tight for my comfort.  "Wait up!" Peter calls.

"You'll have to catch me!" I yell back, before taking off running.  Once I get to a hallway diverging (A/N ha, get it) into two pathways, one going towards the dorms and the other going... elsewhere, I make a quick decision to run into said uncharted territory.  I have, like, an hour; I don't need to spend my oh-so-precious time waiting around for other people to calm down. I instantly come to a halt when I hear voices from not far away.

"Do we have all the supplies? Serums, weapons, ammunition, all that good stuff?" Eric.

"Yeah," someone else, Max, confirms. "We inject everyone with it today except leaders and the two newbies. You told Jax and Peter what they're doing, right? And what the simulation is doing?"

"Of course," Eric replies.

"Either of them act suspicious?"

"No," Eric answers, confused, it seems. "Why would they?"

"The simulation won't work on Divergents. Only a Divergent would really know that. With this project, we win twice; the Stiffs are gone, and we weed out and eliminate the Divergents, since they'll be easy to spot. If either of them were Divergent, a tell-tale sign would be acting strange."

"They were both alright," Eric says strongly in our defence. "We've been injecting people all day. Tracking devices, we said."

"Good. Make sure to collect Jax and Peter after dinner." I hear Peter's footsteps coming. If he gets close, I'll be caught. I instantly leave, back to where I came from, as quietly as I can.

Peter sees me and stops running. I grab his arm and pull him out of the hallway, back towards the dorms. He looks at me weirdly.

"I'll explain after all this is over," I whisper, not bothering to put my safety in jeopardy. He doesn't question it. Instead, he follows me into the dorms, where all the initiates except Tris are trying to shake off their nerves and anxiety.