Reawakening

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A knock comes harder to the door and we hear Zeke's voice. "Hurry up, lovebirds, it's time to move!"

After one sweet kiss, he sets me down and we file back into the room where the others wait, Tobias's arm protectively around my waist. Caleb glares at Tobias. I nudge him with my elbow and smirk. Tobias laughs slightly. "What, are you going to give me the 'you hurt my sister and I hurt you' talk, Caleb? I think hurting Tris is your specialty, not mine, but you couldn't hurt me if you tried. Now let's go."

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We made it out of Erudite with so little trouble that it made me nervous-- as if it was too easy. I don't stop to question it for long, though-- Uriah has come to, sort of, but he is disoriented, pale, and in a lot of pain. We need to get him back to Dauntless quickly.

Zeke carries his brother most of the way while Marlene handles Caleb with me as back-up. When Zeke gets too tired-- Uriah is not a small person by any means, and is actually taller than Zeke-- Edward hauls him the rest of the way, passing custody of Jeanine off to Zeke in return. All three traitors have their hands bound and tape over their mouths to keep them quiet.

I run to the parking lot, counting on the darkness and shadows, as well as my black clothes, to conceal me. My eyes scan the lot and I see a few blue cars that look like what Edward described; I press the unlock button on the little remote attached to the keychain a few times, and one car's yellow parking lights flash twice. That's the one.

I've never driven a car before, and neither has Marlene. I'm lucky that Jeanine backed into the space-- I don't have to try and reverse when I've never even driven forward. I put the key into the ignition and turn one way, then the other. It takes a couple tries to get it, but eventually the engine begins to quietly purr. Edward told me that the left pedal is the brake and the right is the gas, so I hold down the brake as I carefully pull back the shifter until the 'D' lights up, just like Edward told me.

When I tap the gas pedal for the first time, the car lurches forward and I yelp as I slam my foot down on the brake. After a deep breath to calm my nerves, I press the gas again very, very gently, and this time it smoothly begins to accelerate.

By the time I have gone around the block and reached the spot where Marlene and Uriah wait behind a dumpster, I've got the hang of it well enough that I'm confident I won't kill the three of us before we can get Uriah medical care.

Once I have helped Marlene lift Uriah onto the backseat and she has positioned herself so that his head lies in her lap, I carefully head toward Dauntless. As I drive, I gain confidence and speed up a bit.

Just at the south end of the Factionless sector, about halfway to Dauntless, there's a bump, a loud popping noise, and the car begins to thud and shudder as it moves. I ease down on the brake pedal. "What's going on?" Marlene asks frantically. I shake my head, indicating that I don't know. She kisses Uriah on the forehead and we both climb out of the car.

"I don't see anything wrong," Marlene calls to me from the passenger side. I, however, do see what is wrong. The front driver's side tire is flat as a pancake, and the rear one is gradually losing air.

"Flat tire," I call back. "Well, maybe two flat tires." I groan as I open the trunk. There is one spare. I guess we just have to figure out how to change the really bad tire and hope that the other has a slow enough leak to get us back to Dauntless.

Marlene finds a manual for the car in the glove box, and we begin to follow the instructions for changing the tire, but it's kind of confusing and neither of us have done this before. We're having trouble even figuring out how to jack the car up off the bad wheels. "Oh!" I say, pointing at the diagram. "We're missing a piece of this. I'll be right back." I walk round to the trunk again to search for the lever.