Flower Child

Chapter Forty Two

   I lead them through a hallway that leads to the pit, which is lit by small strips of light every ten feet. We pass into a lit spot and a gunshot rings out. I drop to the ground and shimmy towards the darkness just out of the ring of light.
"Is everyone alright?" I ask.
"Yes," Andrew answers.
"Stay here," I tell them.
I stand up and move to the side of the room, pressing myself to the wall in a dark spot between lights.
"Whoever's there," someone shouts, "surrender your weapons and put your hands up!"
I quickly move, keeping completely silent as I pass between the dark sections. Another shot rings and I stop on the edge of a dark area, letting my eyes adjust. When I see I'm my features turn cold as steel.
Peter.
The tension in his face tells me that he's awake. He searches the area, above, below, to either side of me. I know Peter, I know he doesn't plan on a negotiation, he plans to kill us on sight.
I don't think so.
I sprint towards him so fast that he can hardly register what is happening. I slam my fist into his nose and he yells, bringing his hands to his face. I don't let him recover as I send my foot into a sensitive area. He yells again, falling to his knees and letting go of the gun. It clatters to the floor at my feet and I grab it, turning the barrel to his head.
"Why are you awake?" I growl.
He turns he face up to me and I click the bullet into place.
"The Dauntless leaders... they evaluated my records and removed me from the simulation," he explains.
I glare deeply at him, "Why? Because they knew you'd have no problem murdering hundreds of people without a sim?"
"I'm not murderous!"
"My experience with you speaks differently, Peter," I growl, "Where are the computers that control the simulation?"
"You won't shoot me."
I raise my brow, "Really? You wanna know what happened to the last person that said that to me today?"
I shift the gun over to his arm and pull the trigger. He screams in pain as blood spurts from the wound. He presses his forehead to the ground and I put the gun back towards his head.
"Now that we understand each other," I snap, "tell me where the computers are before I shoot the other arm."
He lifts his face and I know I can add another thing to my list of things I can count on: Peter is not selfless. His takes a few shaky breaths.
"They're listening," he spits, "If you don't kill me, they will. The only way I'll tell you is if you get me out of here."
"Excuse me?"
"Take me...ahh... with you," he says with gritted teeth.
   "Take you with me?" I ask, "Take the person who tried to kill me... with me?"
   "Yes," he says, "If you want to find out what you need to know."
   I pretend it's a choice that I can actually make, but it's not, because every second I waste staring at the boy who tried kill me, is another Abnegation dead.
   "Fine," I spit the word out like it's poison, "but if you try anything, Peter, I promise you I will make you pay for what you've done, everything you've done."
   My tone is a promise of its own, that what I say is true.
   I hear footsteps behind me. I glance over my shoulder at the four of them. Tris nods to me, a silent thank you and a I understand. The rest look at me with wide eyes. Andrew pushes forward and takes off his gray long sleeved shirt, leaving him in a gray T-shirt like Caleb. He kneels down next to Peter and ties the fabric tightly around his arm.
   As he does this, he looks up at me and asks, "Did you really have to shoot him?"
   I stare at Andrew with a blank face, "For what he's done? He's lucky I didn't kill him the second I saw him."
   The words hang in the air and I can tell the Abnegation in everyone is uncomfortable, even I'm a little uncomfortable.
   "Sometimes pain is for the greater good," Marcus says after a moment to justify my actions.
   The words bring an image of Tobias cowering away from his father, This is for your own good. I can't help but stare at him with a gaze I can tell is unsettling to him. The words he spoke sounded like something a Dauntless would say, did he really believe them?
   "Let's go," I say, "Get up, Peter."
   "You want him to walk?" Caleb asks, "Are you insane?"
   I settle my stare on him, "Did I shoot him in the leg? No, so he walks. Where do we go, Peter."
   Caleb glares at me but helps Peter to his feet anyway.
   "The glass building," Peter winces, "The eighth floor."
   He leads us into the pit. The roar of the chasm sounds louder now that the room is completely void of life. I've never seen it this empty, even in the middle of the night there were still a few people wandering the place, but now, as I glance around, I see no signs of life anywhere.
   I lead them towards the path to the glass ceiling, my gun in my hand, the safety off. It may be quiet but I don't let my mind believe that we are any semblance of safe.
   "What makes you think you have the right to shoot someone," Andrew suddenly asks.
   We pass the tattoo parlor where I got all of my tattoos from Tori, where was she now? Has she murdered more innocent lives?
   "Dad," Tris says lowly, "Don't. Now is not the time to debate ethics."
   "Now is the perfect time," he says, "because she will, and so will you, soon get the opportunity to shoot someone again and if you don't realize-"
   "Realize what, Andrew?" I ask without turning to look at him, "That every second we waste trying to reason everything we do another neighbor of yours dies and another friend of mine becomes a murderer against their will? I've realized that, what about you?"
   "There is a right way to do things," he snaps.
   "What makes you so sure you know what it is," Tris asks.
   "Please stop fighting," Caleb chides, "We have more important things to do right now."
   I ignore the feeling that Andrew Prior is glaring at the back of my head and focus on each step I take. I don't know why I reacted so strongly, why I was so quick to defend hurting others for my own gain, it's not something I believe in, but in that moment, I couldn't help it. The Amity in me is screaming, revolting against my own mind, but I can't stop now, I don't have time for agony.
   We reach the metal staircase and I pause below it. I watch the shadows that pass over the glass, patrols. I count in between each shadow. They make their rounds ever minute and half and they stay there for twenty seconds before moving on.
   "There are people with guns up there," I whisper, mostly to Andrew, "The second we walk up there they will kill Tris and I, if I let them."
   I glance back at him and he is nodding slightly to himself.
   "Go," he says, "and may God help you."
   I nod slowly, once to myself and then to Tris. I slowly move up the steps, avoiding the areas that creak. I stop just before my head emerges. The shadows move and I wait until one of them stops. I step up and shoot within a second.
   The round doesn't hit the guard but the glass wall behind him. It shatters. I shoot again, dropping below the floor as rounds slam into it. The glass ceiling is bulletproof, smartly so considering the people that live in the compound. My own round finds it's target and the guard falls.
I carefully raise my head again to find my next target another guard runs down a hall towards me. Next to me, Tris pops up and fires, hitting the guard in his shooting arm. His gun falls to the floor and skids forward.
I launch toward the gun and Tris follows me. As my hand closes around the handle a bullet wizzes past my head, so close that I feel the air that separates around it. Tris is whirls her gun around, wincing as, I'm certain, her stitches rip. Her bullets hit true nonetheless.
A guard stands across the room and Tris and I point our weapons st him, two in my hands, one in hers. Then the unexpected happens, he jerks his head in a motion that says, go. He's Divergent, I realize.
"All clear!" I yell.
The guard ducks into the fear landscape room and disappears.
Tris and I slowly stand, her grabbing onto my arm for support. Her wound is open, she is losing blood, but I know that if I try to force her to stay back, she'll fight me tooth and nail, because it's exactly what I would do. We share a look of understanding and she lets go as the rest of our group appears.
   I give Tris my second gun to give to her brother. She presses it into his palm and an uneasy look falls over his features.
   "I think you and Marcus should stay here with him," she says, jerking her head at Peter, "He'll just slow us down. Make sure no one comes after us."
   I know what she's doing, because I'd do the exact same thing for my brother. Keep him away from danger, the very one that we are going to run head on into and, more than likely, not make it back.
   "I can't stay here while you go up there and risk your life," he argues.
   The sentiment reminds me of Taylor. He would always scold me for putting myself into danger for others, he would sometimes even do it while helping me replace a bandage earned from a stupid fight. Taylor hates violence, hates that I don't, but if it came down to it, I know he would do anything for me, even put himself in harms way to help me. One time, when we were little, some Candor kids were making fun of him for the way his hair looked and I stood up for him. The leader of the little group pushed me so hard that I fell back and hit my head. That was the first time Taylor had ever hit anyone besides when we would play fight in the living room. He punched the kid so hard that the kid's nose was pouring blood and Taylor spent more than a couple hours in the peace room at school.
   "I need you to," Tris says.
   Beyond those two I see Peter sink to his knees. His face glistens with sweat. A part of me wants to feel bad for him, but another remembers kneeling beside Edward as he screamed, remembers hanging over the chasm while I couldn't scream. I won't feel bad for him, he deserves worse than this, far worse.
   I turn from them all, "We gotta move."
   I don't wait to see who follows, I know who it will be, Tris and Andrew. I move towards the elevator on the side of the room. Andrew and Tris follow me inside of it while I press level eight. As the doors shut I lean against the wall, my eyes closed and my arms crossed over my chest. I listen to each ding as we get higher and higher.
   "Thank you. For protecting Caleb," Andrew says to his daughter, "Beatrice I-"
   The elevator stops and I straighten immediately. The doors open and two guards stand there, their faces blank, their guns drawn. I drop to the ground at the same time as Tris, shots going off instantly. The sound of bullets striking glass hits my ears and then the guards slump to the floor. One is alive, groaning in pain, the other is almost at Death's door. Andrew stands above them with his gun still held out in front of him.
   I quickly push myself to my feet and Tris stumbles to do the same. Guards run down the hallway on the left; under the sim based on the way they move in perfect sync. We could book it down the right hallway, but, if the guards are coming from the left, that's where the computers are. I'm suddenly getting jerked to the ground by Tris. She makes us fall between the guards her father just shot.
   "Lie still," she whispers.
   I do. I lie so still that I barely breathe. Behind us, Andrew leaps from the elevator and bolts down the right hall, drawing the soldier towards him. Tris puts her hand over mouth, likely to keep in a scream. It takes all of my self control as well not to yell because Tris and I both know, that hallway will end.
   I stare at the scene, unable to force my eyes away from it, tears blurring it at the edges. Andrew fires over his shoulders at his pursuers, but he is not fast enough. A shot hits him in the stomach and he lets out a low groan that sounds like a crashing wave in my ears. He leans against the wall on one shoulder in pure agony.
  With one hand, he holds the wound, with the other, he fires again, and again. The soldiers are under a sim, they keep moving even when they've been shot, the keep moving until their hearts stop. Blood pours over Andrew's hand and his face goes completely pale, but he fires again, and the last guard falls.
   "Dad," Tris wheezes.
   Andrew slumps to the ground, his eyes moving straight to his daughter. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but then his head falls, and his body goes limp.
   Tris presses her forehead to the ground and I feel a deep empathy rise in me. She has watched both of her parents die today, both times to protect her, and me. They both died to protect their daughter, but also to protect me because that's just who they are.
   I will forever be grateful for Natalie and Andrew, and I'll do whatever it takes to make sure their sacrifices will not be in vain, and I'll start by saving their daughter.
   I slowly get to my knees and Tris tries to do the same.
   "Stay here, Tris," I tell her sternly, helping her sit back against the wall, taking one of her hands in my own.
   "No," she whispers, "I... I have to help... I can't just-"
   "Listen to me," I snap quietly, my tears falling freely now, "If I don't make it back in thirty minutes, you get out of here, you take your brother to Amity and you live, Tris. Live for them, because they died to make sure you could go on. I'll take down the system, I promise you that, but you have to promise me two things if something goes wrong. One, promise me that you won't try to save me, that you'll get out of here and save yourself and brother. Two... promise me... promise me that you'll find my mother and brother in Amity and tell them... tell them that I love them, and that I died doing what I do best... protecting the people I love."
   Tris searches my face with tearful eyes for a long moment. So long, that I'm scared she'll refuse, that'll she'll force me to let her come, but then she nods.
   "I promise, Mor," she whispers, "Thank you, for everything."
   I nod once, squeezing her hand and letting it fall into her lap. I stand up, forcing my eyes from her's and down the hall that will seal my fate. I take a slow, deep breath in, let it out, and run down the hall. At the end, I turn right down another hall, that ends with only one single door. I open it slowly.
   The opposite wall is completely made up of screens. Each one is a foot tall and a foot wide, all lit up with a different image. The fence, the hub, the Dauntless infected streets of Abnegation. One screen shows Caleb, Marcus, and Peter on the ground floor waiting for me, another shows Tris slowly getting in the elevator to go back down to her brother. I have seen almost every single place on these screens.
  One screen though, is different, it flashes code. It moves by to quickly for my eyes to perceive any of it. It has to be the simulation, the orders, the link between the Dauntless soldiers and the evil plans of Erudite.
   In front of the screen is a chair and a desk. Sitting in the chair, is a Dauntless soldier.
   "Tobias?" I breath out.