XXXV
"One by one we watch them fall
Can't save them all, save them all
One by one they all fall down
Keep losing ground, losing ground
Save yourself"
"Save Yourself" -Claire De Lune
Harper didn't go to Eric's that night, she had too much to think about.
Eric, alone with his thoughts in his apartment, felt as though he was going to lose Harper no matter what. As leader of the faction and with a dedication to making the factions work the way they did, he had to make sacrifices. They were harder than he ever imagined when he met Harper, he never thought that it would come down to this. Perhaps somewhere in his mind, he imagined that it would be easier to get her to believe in what he believed in. Knowing now that Eliza was Divergent and that Harper was aware of it, he was questioning everything that she had told him. So, alone in his apartment with only the knowledge that tomorrow was going to be a long day, he drank by himself to get any shut eye.
Eliza was still atop the building hours after Harper had left. Though it was her and Harper's place to unwind and to talk, it had become a safe place for her and she found herself up there more often that she would like to admit. Anytime she was able to slip away from Klaus, she would bring herself here, look over the edge of the building and wonder what the world used to be like. Was it better? Was it anything like the way it was now? She would never know, the world would never be liked that again. After Harper's words of advice, she wondered if she would see her again. They had drifted in some ways over the years, both of them busy with their own things to tend to, but it never mattered how many months went by before they spoke, Eliza always felt safe knowing Harper wanted to keep her that way; safe.
"Eliza, babe, what are you doing up here?" Klaus's voice did not sound surprised as his words might suggest, but rather, that he expected her to be here. "I've never seen you up here before."
She had always wondered if he knew that she came here to be alone. Often times she found herself up here after a bad day with Klaus, which was more often than not. It was exactly in that moment, when he revealed that he knew of her place, that she realized she hated him so much. She wanted him gone, to disappear from her life. Knowing that she might be in danger, she stood up from the edge of the open building walked away from the opening. She'd been there for hours, but how long had Klaus known about this place? How many times had he followed her? How much had he heard over the last few years?
Eliza furrowed her brow in complex thought. "I come here all the time... why are you here?"
He cocked his head to the side and half smiled, he raised both of his hands in the universal sign of defeat, though he looked far from defeated. There was a glimmer of wickedness in his eyes even without the moon to illuminate it. He walked closer to Eliza, and she took a countering step back to keep her distance. "Why don't you relax, tell me what's on your mind?"
"I come here to get away from you," she hissed in a moment of bravery, wishing she had even a single weapon on her person. She had developed good marksmanship, but still lacked in hand to hand combat.
"Why didn't you tell me you were Divergent?" He admitted that he knew at last.
Eliza felt something inside of her sink. There was no way he could have known before this evening, the way he hated it, how disgusting he found it, she would have been suffocated in her sleep if he knew. She felt a great sense of worry and fear as she realized he had overheard her and Harper talking, which meant Harper was in danger. Acting impulsively, Eliza made a run for the stairs, and she knew that she could run faster than Klaus. He was large, better at fighting, but not as nimble and quick as she was.
But he anticipated her actions and threw himself against her. His shoulder made contact with her jaw and she spat blood as she flew through the air and landed on the hard, dusty floor. Groaning, she put her hands down on the ground to push herself up, spit and blood dribbling from her mouth. She hardly had a chance to get to her knees before Klaus crouched down and grabbed her chin, almost seductively, making that line between loving and dangerous disappear.
"Why do you think?" She spat blood at him and made him recoil. His hand darted to his eyes to wipe his face, and Eliza shifted quickly, using her heavy-booted foot to kick him in the jaw. He was thrown to the ground, and Eliza got to her feet to run once again.
Klaus yelled something, but Eliza's ears were ringing too loud to even hear, but she could hear his thundering foot steps coming behind her. He cut her off at the stairwell and blocked one of her punches, grabbing her wrist tightly in his hand and bending it back until she screamed in pain. Using her flexibility and small stature, she raised her foot and kicked him in the gut, then leaned down and bit his hand that was holding onto her.
Forced to let go and clutch his hand in pain, he looked up and watched as Eliza tried to find another way down. The only thing she could think of was the big gaping hole in the building. There were pipes and dead wires,, many things for her to clutch onto as she made it to a lower floor. Even if she made it to the ground, Klaus probably would beat her to the ground, but she might have a better chance.
As she lowered herself to grab onto something, she looked over at Klaus, and he was coming for her with rage in his run. She grimaced and knew that there was not enough time for her to find something safe enough to hold on to; the moon was not out tonight, and so there was no light for her to see. Right then, as Klaus was only meters away from her, she knew that this was it. But she wasn't going down so easily, if she was going, so was he. He plowed into her, and she did everything she could to clutch onto his clothing, his body, anything. If he didn't want to die too, he would have to bring her back onto the safety of the building. But when he slammed into her, the force brought them both beyond the edges of the building, and she felt her stomach twist with the sensation of falling. Only, this was no simulation, she wouldn't wake up from this. As she fell, attached to Klaus, she didn't scream.
A jolting feeling stopped her heart for a second, and she realized that Klaus was too stubborn to let this happen to him. He was holding onto a thick, white wire, the ends of it frayed. His sweaty hands were slipping on the rubber of the wire, and the weight of Eliza on him was too much for him to continue holding. He looked down at her and tried to shake her off. She was clutching onto his sleeve, dangling from his body. He shook and kicked; when he hit her in the jaw, it stunned her, and she released the hold on his shirt. Klaus watched in fear and odd satisfaction as Eliza fell, no scream coming from her lips. He lingered for a moment, until he could confirm that she was dead, even though he couldn't see the ground below, and then he pulled himself back up onto the flooring of the building. Panting heavily, he flopped down onto his back and lied there until the minimal amount of guilt disappeared, cutting off any moral compass that he had left.
***
When Harper was dressed and out the door of her apartment, she had a smile on her face knowing that Eliza was going to leave today. Though Eliza could be fickle at times, Harper truly believed that she was going to do it, if she hadn't already. The way her eyes were that night before, Harper saw that she was both terrified of leaving, and terrified of staying. The braver thing to do was leave, because sometimes the bravest thing was knowing that you had to save yourself before anyone else. She couldn't help anyone if she was a target, and so for the first time since she had started working with Jeanine, Harper felt relaxed.
That is, until she heard the chit chat.
Rumours and whispers were spreading through the halls, about some girl who had killed herself.
"Jumped right off one of the abandoned buildings."
"Some people can't handle the stress of Dauntless."
"Did she think it was brave to do that?"
"What a coward."
"Maybe she was pushed?"
"Yeah right, who goes to an abandoned building to fight with someone?"
"Well these days... You know, Divergents and stuff."
Harper ran as fast as she could, to the infirmary where there was a morgue. Her legs carried her there, but they felt as though the bones had been taken out, and they were just gelatinous. When she arrived, her heart throbbed, her breath was rising and lowering her chest dramatically. In the doorway, she felt as though she could no longer move. Something was holding her back, preventing her from seeing what she had to see to know. Not knowing was worse than knowing, and yet she couldn't take a single step. One of the nurses noticed her.
"You can't be in here, I'm sorry." She said gently, but firm.
"E... Eliza?"
The nurse's eyes opened wide, and then she cast her eyes down. "Come in..."
Something moved her legs, something got her to cross to the metal wall with twelve slots for dead bodies. She wondered how many of them were full, how many actually made it into this morgue? Death was not uncommon in Dauntless, though a lot of it happened while out on runs to other factions, when they lingered too close to the desperate Factionless. Suicides were common, too, as was murder, but a lot of it was overlooked, ignored. Because it was survival of the fittest and the most cunning, whoever got to the top would prevail, while others would perish. There was one morgue slot opened, and the body was covered in an off-white sheet.
With shaky hands, Harper grabbed the sheet and revealed Eliza's cold body. Her face was bruised, but there was no blood, she had been cleaned up since her corpse was brought in. At some point, the nurse left Harper to mourn the loss of her friend, and she was alone in the formaldehyde scented room, the silence only broken by the ticking of the clock on the wall. Eliza's lips were purple, her brown eyes open but empty, blank, gone. Harper shuddered, tears streaming down her face and landing upon Eliza's body, trailing down her paled flesh. Her chest heaved as she began to sob, leaning over Eliza's corpse as if she might still feel the hug, that Harper cared for her like family.
"I'm so sorry," she said, her lip quivering but somehow her voice did not waver. It would not betray her.
Eliza wouldn't reply.
"I failed to keep you safe, I promised you... and I failed." Harper straightened herself up and brushed hair from Eliza's face, holding her cheek. "I promised you..."
Feeling as though there was nothing left in the world to care about, feeling as though she had nothing left to lose, Harper had the realization of what she had to do. She knew where to go to start her search on who did this to Eliza, because she knew that it was no suicide. Eliza had been so sure that she would leave, and hopefully see Harper again when all of this was over, and then she wound up dead. It was no coincidence, and Harper was determined to find out who did this. She had a hunch, some insidious thought that was creeping into her veins, blackening her insides and solidifying what she had to do.
First, she had to find Eliza's killer.
Then she had to expose Eric and Jeanine.