Brick by Brick (BDTW #2)

Chapter 7

Alright. Hello everyone. It's been awhile since I've updated! I've finally transferred all my files from my old computer to my new one so I am extremely happy because I can work on this, Fandom University and Awoken whenever I want which is perfect! Hopefully I'll be able to update more in the next few weeks, I had just soooo much this week: 6 tests, 4 projects and a french oral (yes I speak french. Comment allez-vous ce soir?) Thankfully I studied well and I'm pretty sure I did good on all of them. Anyway, enough chit chat, here's chapter 7!

When I wake, I feel a hand stroking mine.

It takes a moment for me to stir and open my eyes, and my hearing isn’t the best because my brother’s lips are moving but I can’t hear what he’s saying.

“…okay?”

“What?” I croak.

“Are you okay?” he repeats.

I shrug. “I’m not dead, am I?”

He smirks. “I guess not. But you scared the hell out of me before,”

I frown. “Yeah. Sorry. Scared myself too.”

There a beat of silence before he says slowly, “What happened. In Erudite.”

I sigh and touch three fingers to my forehead. “A lot of things happened. Things I won’t forget anytime soon.” I sigh. “I’ll tell you one day.”

His Adam’s apple bobbles as he swallows loudly. I feel like there’s a block between us, like even in a few days things have changed and we can’t act the same around each other. We’ve both matured in a matter of hours and sights of war.

I purse my lips. “How bad is it out there?”

“Pretty bad,” he replies. “It was hard to make it out. They didn’t notice we were gone.”

“We?”

“Yeah.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Tris and I. We escaped because we were Divergent. The serum didn’t affect us.”

“I didn’t know you were Divergent.”

He nods his head, a minuscule gesture, then releases a long breath. “There’s something else.” He says, like he just wants to get it out of the way. “Quite a few Abnegation managed to escape with us. We were lucky we got out. But…”

“Yeah?” I edge him on.

“Marcus is here.”

There’s a beat of silence before I react and say, “Oh,”

I’m not sure how to feel about it. Angry, of course. Confused, a little. Terrified? A lot. I’m scared out of my mind right now.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” he says lowly. “I left you once, I will never leave you again.”

I nod, but still, tears are forming in the corners of my eyes and my face melts. “I’m scared, Bass,” I say as my voice cracks.

I collapse into his arms and he hugs me tight against him. “I just can’t accept the thought that I might not be alive tomorrow,” I sob.

He squeezes my shoulder. “I know,” he whispers. “I know.”

+   +   +  

“Do you even have a plan?”

We’re meeting in the room where I woke up, all standing around the table I lay on before. By we, I mean me, Bass, Tris, Jackson, Tris’s brother Caleb, Andrew Prior, and my father. I was rather relentless on having my father a part of this discussion but Andrew insisted.