Chapter 64 - Butterfly Effect
—Tris
Within ten minutes my apartment goes from silent to bustling.
Rose refuses to let go of my hand as she lays on the floor, her right leg seeping through the bandages I put on it.
Thomas is practically screaming in the other room, and I'm grateful that Shauna let's herself in instead of knocking when she arrives.
"Tris?" She calls.
"Back here!" I yell as Rose sobs. I put her head in my lap and hold her as I catch Shauna up to speed. She holds my son in her arms, his thumb in his mouth as he is happy to be held.
"People from the infirmary should be showing up soon. Can you wait for them and tell them to come back here when they arrive?" I ask and she nods.
"I know," I say when I see Rose is angry with me.
"You don't," she sobs angrily.
I mean, I actually don't.
But I kind of do.
I kind of really do.
"You know I do." I release her hair from its bun and wipe a tear from her cheek. She's trembling, and I worry it's not from fear but from blood loss.
She hasn't bled too too bad here, but she did bleed a lot at home between the bed and the shower.
I hear Thomas screaming from the other room, clearly upset with my choice to stay with Rose and leave him with Shauna. I feel a tear run down my own cheek as Rose closes her eyes in my lap.
"Stay with me," I can't control the shake in my voice when her hand is limp in mine.
-
Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect, Beatrice?
Derrick walks in a circle around me, staying outside the radius of my reach from the chains attacked to the support pole in the ground.
"One small, minor decision can change a whole complex of complications."
I shake under my skin.
I killed a man yesterday.
But if I didn't, that man would have killed many.
All these women I have been training with would have been sent to New York if I didn't kill him.
"The chaos theory revolves around a butterfly flapping its wings, something so small, yet it could cause a hurricane, maybe in the future."
"This drug," He pulls out of his pocket a powder. "Has a similar aim."
I hear people moving behind me.
They're coming to hold be down.
"One small decision, Beatrice." David is talking now. I snarl, not recognizing myself. "You couldn't let your brother sacrifice himself. And now you're here, destroying the program we have all worked so hard to form."
His hands are clasped in front of him.
"This is ultimately harmless. As long as you stay in this building, it is simply oxycodone. However, upon small effects, such as exposure to daylight, attempted relief through other means of medication, and cases of high blood pressure and release of adrenaline, the effects will be astronomical."
I look at Derrick, and he smiles at me, his stained brown teeth glaring at me.
"You brought this on yourself, Beatrice." He says. "One small decision, and the butterfly effect will make your life a living hell."
"Because there is no one to blame for the effect," he pauses, running his index finger down my jawline. "Except for you."
And the powder is jammed up my nostril as hands hold me back from convulsing and attacking.
I cry out.
"Only another seventy-two doses to go. That wasn't so bad, huh?" Derrick sits on the floor next to me, my nose bleeding.
"You turned twenty-one yesterday," he shakes his head. "What a way to be burdened, for the rest of your life." He does another circle before sitting again.
"When you're exposed to light brighter than a dim lightbulb, you will go blind. When you are given any medication other than this specific one, you will have terrible reactions to it. When your body decides to release adrenaline, your heart will stop. When put in a situation upon hearing above a certain decibel, you will loose your hearing. And whatever else fun David packed into that drug, it's all the butterfly effect, Beatrice." He says matter-of-factly, shrugging his shoulders.
"And it's all because of your decisions." He kicks me in the ribs before leaving and I cry out.
And the next thing I remember is waking up in a cell, my mother in the bars encased next to me.
-
"They're in the back!" Shauna yells and I hear movement in the living room.
What if I hadn't taken a nap and didn't see the text an hour late?
What if I called the infirmary three hours ago instead of relating to Rose and her distress?
What if I didn't let her shower?
What if I called Tobias the second Phillip was gone?
What if I pulled out my gun instead of my knife on Phillip?
Could I have avoided all of this?
Rose is in and out of consciousness—I can tell by her varying grip on my hand.
I wish Chris was here to be with her.
"You're not immediate family?" The woman from the infirmary asks and I shake my head no again.
They're not going to let me go with her.
"Rose, you're going to be okay. I'll find you the minute they let me, okay?" She shakes her head before slipping unconscious again and she is lifted onto a gurney. The one woman takes my information to let me know if she gets transferred to another hospital or the unthinkable happens. I thank her and close the apartment door to relieve Shauna of my screaming son.
I feel dazed as I sit in the chair in our living room and hold him to my chest. He stops crying upon recognizing me, but I've barely begun.
"Tris, you're scaring me. Do I have to have the infirmary come back to pick you up too?"
"No." My voice is hollow.
Shauna sits on the couch and stares at me, but I feel empty, blank.
How had I not been able to remember all of that until now?
"Oxycodone..." I say, the words barely past my lips.
I hear the door open and Tobias walk in. Shauna waves him over and catches him up quickly on the past events with Rose.
"Beatrice, give me Thomas." His voice is loud and I wonder if he's yelling or if I'm shrinking.
"I'm fine," I shake my head, blinking a few times before snapping back into reality. My son slips from my arms anyways, and Tobias goes in the fridge to get him his formula.
I let my head fall into my hands as I breathe deeply.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Shauna looks at me confusedly.
I sigh, leaning back and pressing the heels of my hands to my nostrils.
It's like I can still feel the burn of the drug entering my body.
"Can you feed him?" I hear Tobias ask Shauna before I feel his presence in front of me.
"What's gotten into you, Tris," he pulls my hands away from my nose, his deep blue eyes meeting mine.
"Have either of you heard of the butterfly effect?" My voice is still hollow, but I feel myself shaking. Tobias looks at me as if I have a second head growing, while Shauna makes a face of recollection.
"Lynn told me about that once. It was in some horror video game she played. All the people ended up dying because of one fatal decision..." her voice fades at the end.
"What are you talking about Tris?"
"Oxycodone. The drug they were giving me in the building. It was a manipulated version of Oxycodone, and it worked around this butterfly effect." My voice as shaking uncontrollably and sounds stale when it leaves my mouth.
Nether of them say anything.
"Why do you suddenly remember this?"
"My first dose of it was the day after I destroyed the New York program. I did that by the decision to kill the ambassador of the program which ultimately killed its funding."
"The butterfly effect," Shauna understands. " You killed him, killing him killed the program—"
"And it caused Derrick and his employees to spiral out and assault every female in the program before killing them."
"Oh my god," Shauna gasps as I let my head fall back into my hands. I feel Tobias's hands on my forearms, his thumbs rubbing small circles.
"And then it caused them to give me this drug, which gave the effect of making me blind if exposed to light, voided any painkillers other than itself, made me deaf if experienced a high enough decibel sound, and make my heart stop if my body produced adrenaline, along with effects that Derrick didn't even know about." I wonder if they understood anything I said through my sob.
"Why now?" Tobias asks.
"Rose texted me this afternoon while we were taking a nap. I didn't see the text until a hour later. What if I had seen it when she sent it? Or what if I called the infirmary right away when she asked me not to? What if all of these end up effecting her like my decisions have effected me?"
"Tris you can't beat yourself up over this. You saved her damn life." Shauna says and Tobias takes my hands in his.
"She's right. You made all the right calls, and Phillip was arrested only because you put him in the infirmary. Tris, you did good."
"But she was unconscious—"
"She's going to be fine," Tobias says.
"You didn't see her! She was bleeding out! She was—"
"She was hurt, Tris. And now she's going to be alright. The infirmary is going to update you and everything will turn out.
Eventually Tobias lets me hold Thomas again, and Zeke ends up at our apartment when Shauna isn't at their home once his shift is up. I lay on the couch, Thomas asleep on my chest while they update Zeke on the events of today.
He seems to understand the butterfly effect the most out of them and explains it to them better.
I can't bring myself to do it.
"I knew someone addicted to Oxycodone once. Don't let anyone ever give you morphine, Tris," he warns sharing a story of the same acquaintance who didn't realize how easily he would become addicted to morphine even after getting over his Oxycodone addiction.
Great.
I jump up when my phone rings.
But my heart sinks when I see it's not the infirmary.
And my heart sinks even more when I see that it's Chris.
"What if she already knows?" Shauna asks, meanwhile time is ticking down as the video chat request rings.
"I'm not here." I say and Zeke answers the call, bubbly and happy to see Chris and Will. I slip out of the room and go into the kitchen so I can listen.
"Where's Tris?" I hear Will ask.
"She's got a baby on her boob, leave her alone!" Zeke laughs and I roll my throbbing eyes.
I don't know if I'm relieved or heartbroken to know that Chris doesn't know about her sister.