ALL THE WRONGS • DIVERGENT ERIC FANFICTION

chapter 73 | too far gone

EMILY

I LEFT Venus asleep back at the holding room. It's about six in the morning now, and the sun reflects on every glass pane spilling early light across the pale floors. I was given the key to our holding room and I locked the door so Venus couldn't come to Eric's execution. There is a nursery It was his idea to stop her from watching him die. Yesterday, I told the Dauntless guards that I would join them in taking Eric to the execution room, the top floor.

Even I don't know why I did that - why I want to take him to his final place. A part of me wants to glare down at him like 'look who's all high and mighty now?' but another part of me knows that's insensitive. Venus loves him. At least she thinks she does. I hope she's right. I hope *she* doesn't hurt when *he is* shot in the head.

I'm wearing a guard's uniform - a version of the Dauntless uniform but more padded, like we're expecting traitors to burst into the compound at any moment. Except this borrowed uniform is baggy and awkwardly fitted - I don't trust it to save my life, or anyones.

We reach the door leading to the cells, an advanced solitary. When the door opens we burst through, holding our weapons out. I look from cell to cell, most of them are empty. I'm looking for Harmonie. I'm wondering when her execution is. Is it tomorrow? In a week? A month? I never got to say goodbye to her.

She just left.

We stop in front of a cell, and I barge past a stocky guard to get to the front. We don't say a word as a petite-looking girl unlocks the door, her knuckles red from the hold on her gun.

Before anyone else enters the cell, I walk inside, pulling the handcuffs from my back pocket. A part of me believes the guards had stopped in front of the wrong cell because the prisoner in front of me does not look like the intimidating man I know at all.

Eric is in the centre of the cell, his head down, his eyes dark. He doesn't look at me, I know he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to die. Although everyone he has killed didn't want to die either.

"Get to your feet." I say in the harshest voice I can muster. My eyes narrow as he doesn't shift. "Stand and face the wall!"

"No." Eric snapped in return but his voice was weak. His eyes scanned the ground in front of him. "Not... not yet."

Someone tries to get past me, like they can handle the situation any better. I clench my teeth and shove the other guard away, rolling my eyes.

Kneeling down in front of Eric, he slowly meets my eyes. I glare at him. Everything he has done seems to play in his eyes and I grimace, baring my teeth. "You deserve this." I grab his hands, pulling them closer so I can cuff them. As the metal clinks around his wrist, he says in a slow voice.

"Venus doesn't."

VENUS

AS USUAL, my nightmares wake me up. I don't scream this time as I jolt awake - there's one less thing to be scared of and that alone calms me down.

Then I realize it is the day of Eric's execution and I close my eyes, wanting everything to go away.

Only then, I realize how unfamiliar the silence is. I sit up and look around - the room is empty - not Emily or Aria is here.

Suspicion floods over me and I get up, straightening my jacket and rushing to the door. I pull on the handle that is usually open but it doesn't unlock. My eyebrows knit together and I try again, trying even harder to wrench open the metal door but it's no use.

I look around drastically, trying to find something, anything to open the door. My hands find my hair, the single bobby pin holding back the hair around my face. I pull it out and kneel in front of the door, fingers nimble as I try to modify the hair pin to fit in the lock.

My dark hair falls around my face as I attempt visualising the inside of the lock, closing my eyes, trying to concentrate. I've done this before. I know how to do this. Stop panicking.

It feels like hours before the door opens and I'm sweating and my gun is in the waistband of my jeans. I scramble to get outside of the holding room like it's going to lock me in again and I know exactly where I'm going.

The Candor executed a Dauntless traitor on the top floor, where I was put under the truth serum all that time ago. I run down the hall to the lift, but before I get there, I see a geometric clock hanging from the wall. It takes me a second to work out where the clock hands are, but when I realize that Eric's execution has already started, my heart drops in my chest.

I hope the lift isn't occupied, and let out a sigh of relief when there's no one inside.

This was Emily's idea. Or an idea that Emily was told, I know it. By keeping me locked in the holding room, I wouldn't have to live with the pain of watching Eric die. She tries to help, always has, but sometimes it doesn't work. I would always live with the pain, no matter where I am.

Aria is with Tris, or my brother, or the Candor playground for the rest of the children here. She has to be. I'm trying not to worry about her, trying not to worry about everyone. I just want everything to be beautifully simple, just want to never worry again.

I come to the realization that Eric will die. It feels real, suddenly, so real. There is no way to avert his fate, no way to stop it, unless I stop the person killing him.

It's a crazy thought, the most insane thought I've ever had. But somehow, it's the only way to stop the inevitable.

It really is true - the things you do for love are crazy.

I jam the pad of my thumb into the button on the top floor and pull my gun out of my pocket. I can already feel the blood on my hands, sticky between my fingers. Already feel my heartbeat pounding in my ears as everyone screams in fear at the bloodbath, the dead Candor on the marble floor. The feeling of my legs aching as I run hand in hand out of Chicago, over the wall, a new world. A new chance.

I've ruined this chance.

The bullet clicks into the chamber as the door opens, and everything is a red haze. All I see is Eric with the barrel of a gun pressed to his head and I know what I have to do. I made that decision ten seconds ago.

I hear a gunshot, my body flinching. My hand shakes and my gun drops to the floor. All I see is red.

It's the only colour I'll see for the rest of my life.

a/n - gUYS i'm literally so sorry like it's not even funny i haven't edited this fanfiction in something like 5 months and i feel bad i just haven't been inspired to write this and then I remembered why I started and read over this chapter (i literally wrote half of this four months ago but left it in my docs because it didn't sound good enough) and realized it wasn't as terrible as I thought it was ??? and decided to finish it off. susequently writing a few more chapters after this that i'm posting after.

it's official - i'm going to finish this like i planned to do longgg ago. i'm even gonna make a new trailer, because i've been really into editing lately. i haven't come this far to give up, i just hope ya'll are all still with me<3