Everlong (Peter Hayes from Divergent)

Chapter 8: Almost Dead

"Alright, everybody! Line up!" Eric's voice booms over everyone in the Pit, making me flinch with the harsh noise.

I look through the crowd, searching for Peter until I finally find him and lock eyes with him. My eyes have a million questions concealed behind them, all whizzing past my irises as fast as they can, all alarmed and confused. People all around me start to shuffle and attempt to organize themselves in the beginning of lines around the room.

'What's going on?' I mouth to Peter.

'I don't know.' He mouths back to me, throwing a dirty look over his shoulder as a tall Dauntless woman with red hair shoves into him.

In the fuss, my head gets slammed against someone's shoulder but I don't see who. I curse and my vision goes blurry from the impact and it takes a few seconds before I can see clearly again. When I look up again, Peter is gone. Something is wrong.

My heart is pumping as fast as it did before I jumped into the Dauntless compound on my first day. People crowd around me, pushing and shoving their way into lines. It takes only moments for chaos to turn into order as precise lines are made all around the Pit and I find myself in one of them. Every few seconds, I take a step further to the front of the line, but am too far behind to see what awaits me. The seconds go by quicker than I would like so it is sooner than I expected when I stand before Eric's intimidating figure. I don't have time to process.

"Peter tried to talk us into making an exception for you." Eric laughed, adorning a smile that resembled the muzzle of a wild dog and was too wide for his usually harsh facial features. I'm surprised he wasn't foaming at the mouth. "Can you guess who lost that battle?"

He injects something into my neck, making me jump back in pain. Instinct and self preservation prompt me to grab his wrist to try to stop him but it is too late. The needle is much larger than the needles they used for the serum during initiation. But something rings in my head: what he said about Peter. Did Peter know about this? Is this a horrible thing and he tried to protect me?

"What is it?" I demand.

"A tracker." Eric sneers but there is something off about the way he answers. There's a little too much joy in his tone for it to be a simple tracker. It has to be something more deadly. He pulls his wrist out of my grasp harshly, making my wrist snap back in retaliation. "Watch yourself. Peter won't always be there to protect you."

I walk away as quickly as I can, throwing my head back over my shoulder to look once before I leave. Eric's eyes follow me out of the Pit, not leaving my retreating figure even as he injects the "tracker" into the red haired woman who bumped into Peter earlier. There is no humanity in his glare.

{***}

"Lana!" I hear Peter screaming.

I blink my eyes multiple times, shaking my head and adjusting to my surroundings. It feels like there's a thick black cloud of confusion raining down on me individually. In a way, I feel like I'm coming out of a coma I'd been in for years. For a few moments, I attempt to regain my wits and take in the situation in front of me but it's so bizarre that I almost can't fathom it. Peter's yelling doesn't really help me either.

I look down at the gun in my hands that is pointed right at Peter's skull, cocked and ready to fire a bullet right into his brain. Everything before this moment is a blur but here I am, pointing a deadly weapon at the love of my life.

Immediately, I drop my gun to the ground. I'm surrounded by a crowd of other Dauntless that seem to be waking up just as I am. Standing next to Peter are a boy from Erudite and a man from Abnegation who I recognize as Marcus Eaton. My head hurts from the strain of trying to figure out what is happening and why we're here in this position in the middle of the Dauntless compound. It's all so... surreal.