But Then I Met Her | ✓

Chapter 56

Everything moves in a blur. Dauntless soldiers shout, and I almost lose Tris in the crowd. I might at one point, but I'm not sure. I finally find Tris again, and see her leaning against her brother. My eyes land on the man with them, and I freeze in midstep, my whole body tense.

My father walks up to me and wraps my arms around me. I stay frozen, my arms tight at my sides, my face blank and my hands clenched into fists. Tris looks at me guiltily, a silent apology for forgetting to warn me. I swallow hard and lift my eyes to the ceiling.

"Son." He sighs. I wince.

"Hey." Tris says, coming to my rescue. She pulls away from Caleb. "Hey. Get away from him." She gets between me and my father, like in my fear landscape. My breaths blow her ponytail where they hit it on her neck.

"Stay away." She hisses.

"Beatrice, what are you doing?" Caleb asks.

"Tris." I say. I can face him. I'm older now, stronger. I try to tell myself that he doesn't scare me, that I'm Four, and I'm not afraid of him. Marcus gives her a scandalized look, but it's obviously fake. Tris sees right through it. "Not all of those Erudite reports were full of lies." She sounds completely menacing. She narrows her eyes at my father. I love her even more for that.

"What are you talking about?" My father plays dumb, but it doesn't get past Tris. What could her aptitude results have been? It had to be Abnegation and Dauntless, but she's too smart not to be Erudite, and- Could she have gotten all five? No. That's not possible. "I don't know what you've been told, Beatrice, but-"

"The only reason I haven't shot you yet is because he's the one who should get to do it." Her voice is cold, hateful. "Stay away from him or I'll decide I no longer care."

I slide my hands over her arms and squeeze. Marcus stares her down for a minute before looking away, and I let out a breath that I didn't know I was holding. "We have to go." I say, my voice slightly unsteady. "The train should be here any second."

We walk toward the train tracks. My jaw is clenched, and I stare straight ahead. "Sorry." Tris mutters.

Why are you apologizing? "You have nothing to be sorry for." I reply, taking her hand. My hand trembles a little, and I know that she can feel it.

"If we take the train in the opposite direction, out of the city instead of in, we can get to Amity headquarters." Tris tells me. "That's where the others went."

"What about Candor?" Caleb asks. "What do you think they'll do?" The Amity, I know, will not side with anyone. They will want to stay neutral. As for Candor, they could split in half by joining whoever's cause they think is right. They also could choose none, and be like Amity.

We wait next to the tracks for several minutes. Tris looks half-ready to collapse, so I pick her up. She rests her head against my shoulder, breathing deeply. I know that she's nervous, every part of her body tense and ready to act. Peter and Marcus are here- she will not relax until they're gone. Neither will I, then again.

My thoughts turn to my friends. How many of them are dead? Are they alright? What about Uriah? What did they do to him, since he's Divergent? I wish I knew. But at the same time, I don't want to know. What if Marlene, who Uriah has a crush on, is dead? What if Lynn was killed? Or Shauna got shot? Or Zeke or Lauren were killed by another anger-filled Dauntless wanting to take out their anger?

I don't know. I wish I did, though. Maybe knowing would help calm me down.

The train comes, and I set Tris on her feet. She slides her arm off of me, and the cold air hits me hard, almost knocking the breath out of me. Tris jogs next to the car, then throws herself in. She lands on her uninjured arm.

I sit next to her, almost guarding her from Peter and Marcus. Her enemy and mine. Well, I guess now, they're both of our enemies. The train turns. I feel Caleb watching me warily, but I ignore him. For a moment or two, I let my mind go blank.

I pull Tris against me. We bend our knees and heads as if that will give us some privacy. Her hair brushes against my face. "My parents," Tris says. "They died today."

So both Natalie and Andrew are dead.

"They died for me." She adds.

"They loved you." I reply. As if she needs me to tell her that. "To them there was no better way to show you."

She nods her head, her eyes tracing over my face.

I think of back in the control room, under the simulation. "You nearly died today," I say. Just the thought of it makes bile rise in my throat. "I almost shot you. Why didn't you shoot me, Tris?"

"I couldn't do that," she tells me quietly. "It would have been like shooting myself."

I didn't want it to be like that with anyone before- didn't want them to not do what they have to so that they stay alive. I lean closer to her, so close that when I speak, our lips brush against each other's. "I have something to tell you."

She runs her fingers along my hand and looks at me. Her eyes look blue now, like a summer sky, but with a storm on the horizon. No going back now. Be brave and tell her, you coward. "I might be in love with you." I smile nervously. "I'm waitng until I'm sure to tell you, though."

"That's sensible of you," She smiles back at me. "We should find some paper so you can make a list or a chart or something." 

I laugh. I move my head so that my mouth is right next to her ear, my nose sliding against her jaw. She doesn't seem to mind. "Maybe I'm already sure," I say, "and I just don't want to frighten you."

She laughs a little. It's a genuine laugh, not a fake one that I've heard so many times before. "Fine." I say. I'm not afraid of telling her any more. "Then I love you."

She kisses me as the train moves towards Amity and the dark places near it. We kiss for a while, and she doesn't seem to care that her brother sits three feet away from her. Tris takes the hard drive out of her pocket, letting the light reflect off of it. Marcus's eyes move towards it, no matter how hard I try to block her from his view.

She clutches the hard drive against her chest, leans against my shoulder, and tries to fall asleep. I hold her against me, trying to block her from the view of her enemies, deciding now, especially since Natalie is dead, that I will protect her until the day I die.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Abnegation and Dauntless are ruined, the members of them scattered. Our small group is like the factionless now, with nowhere to go. I don't know where we'll go from here, or what happens next, but I'm not afraid of it. We have no path, no visible future. But I think that we've just witnessed the start of a war.

I am no longer Four, the Dauntless prodigy, or Tobias Eaton, the broken Abnegation son of Marcus Eaton. I am not even the Divergent, though whatever name I should take then I'm not sure. I guess that now, since Divergence is more dangerous then ever, I will have to be the best of all of the factions. What I always wanted.

The only problem is, I did not want it like this.