Finding The Courage

Part 69

Tris found us in the dorms when she got back from the fringe. She scanned the room looking for Christina or Four but Peter, Caleb and I were the only ones who occupied the room. Peter was sitting on one of the beds with a huge book in his lap and a notepad he was using to take notes. Caleb was reading his mothers journal that Tris had given him.

"Have either of you seen...." Tris trailed off as if she wasn't sure who she wanted to see. I bulked at the thought of her going to see Four. He was so adamant that he would end things with her for me but I knew better than to actually believe that.

"Four? I saw him in the genealogy room earlier." Caleb piped up.

"What room?" Tris had never seen the room before, Four and I had been the ones to meet Nita there and the others had probably found it on their own but Tris never really explored.

"They have our entire family tree on display in a room." I chipped in but didn't offer her directions or to walk her there. I was laying on my back on my bed staring out the window at the snow that was now falling.

"Can I get a piece of paper?" Caleb asked Peter and Peter ripped out the last page of his notepad to hand to him. Caleb began jotting down directions. "I found our parents' names there, on the right side of the room, on the second panel from the door." Caleb handed her the directions.

"Thanks, how's your nose?" Tris asked awkwardly.

"It's fine, brings out my eyes." Caleb shot back as a joke. "You were gone today right? Something happened with the Allegiant. They attacked one of Evelyn's weapon warehouses."

"The Allegiant? The people led by Johanna Reyes... attacked a storehouse?" Tris let out a chuckle that couldn't be anything other than disbelief.

"And Marcus but yea Johanna was there holding a gun it was crazy. The Bureau seemed really upset by it."

"Just a matter of time I guess." Tris answered back as she headed out of the room. The room went back to the silence we had been sitting in before Tris came back. 

I rolled off the bed and headed out to see Uriah. My heart ached for him and the idea of leaving him here to be cared for by the Bureau. I passed by the genealogy room just to see if Tris had made it there on her own and what I saw had anger buzzing under my skin. Tris was pressed up against Four lips locked together like it was their first and last kiss. I wasn't surprised of course I had told Four this would happen. I was angry that Four kept lying to me, trying to play the same game he had back in Dauntless. I couldn't think of any other explanation for his actions. He either loved both of us or he loved neither of us and it was just a game of cat and mouse until Tris found out or I gave in. I stormed past the room in a blind rage wishing for a gym to work out my anger in like I had back in Dauntless. I reached the hospital and sat with Uriah until the sky started to lighten again. I crept into the dorms and slipped into bed for a few hours.

Tris shook me awake a few hours later, in her hands she held two dresses. One was white the other was black. I followed her to the showers and waited for her to finish before I got dressed. She handed me the black dress.

"David said I would look better in the white and the black would suit your hair color better." I rolled my eyes but began to dry off and slip into the back dress. Both dresses clung to our bodies, sexy but still classy. The dresses were similar, both had low square necklines, and both had sleeves. My sleeves were solid and just as tight as the rest of the dress which stopped mid-thigh while Tris's sleeves were poofy and sheer. Her dress also ended mid-thigh. Her hair was still too short to style, I threw my hair up in a messy bun and pulled pieces of it out to frame my face. We stepped out of the bathroom after I applied a little light makeup for both of us, eyeliner and a nude lipstick for Tris and a more bold eyeliner for myself and a splotch of rosey lipstick. I felt like a show pony as we left the dorms after Tris snagged two pairs of heels that had been sitting next to the door. We slipped on our heels and marched through the compound to David's office. When David wheeled himself out of his office he looked awful, his eyes had dark circles under them that looked like bruises and he was incredibly pale.

"Hello girls, Eager are you? Right on time then." He greeted us. I disliked the way he looked both of over before turning around for us to follow him.

"How could we not be? It's our first meeting! Want help? You look tired." Tris answered for both of us. I obviously had been requested to come if David had picked out dresses for us but I had no idea where we were actually going.

"Fine, fine." David relented and let Tris push him. "I suppose I am tired, I was up all night dealing with the crisis."

"What crisis?" I asked in a voice that was covered in fake cheerfulness.

"Take a left, you'll find out soon enough." David responded. I trailed after them as he gave Tris directions through terminal 5, which contained no windows. I felt like I was being watched in the dark shadows of the dimly lit hallways.

"Here we are." David announced as Tris pushed him through a set of double doors. There were several other people in the room already, they were stirring cups of coffee with tiny sticks and most of them were David's age. Zoe was the only one I recognized and she gave me a strained smile when she noticed me.

"Let's come to order." David said as he positioned himself at the head of the table. Tris and I took seats next to each other that were lined along the edge of the room. Zoe was next to Tris. "Last night I received a frantic call from the control room. Chicago is about to erupt in violence again. Faction loyalists called the Allegiant have rebelled against the factionless control. However they are unaware that Evelyn has found stores of the death serum in Erudite headquarters. No one can resist the death serum and if they attack it will be catastrophic." The room erupted into chaos and I felt Tris tense as she stared at her feet. "Quiet, the experiments are already in danger of being shut down if we cannot prove that we are capable of controlling them. Another revolution in Chicago would only cement that belief in the mind of our superiors. We cannot allow that to happen if we want to continue to fight genetic damage." David paused and I caught Tris examining his face. "It is time to mass reset the experiment using the memory serum in the form of a virus. I think we should use it on all four experiments."

"Reset them?!" I exclaimed. Everyone turned to look at me, they seemed to have forgotten that two people from those experiments were in the room with them.

"Resetting is our word for a widespread memory erasure. It's what we do when the experiments are in danger of falling apart. The last one in Chicago was done a few generations before yours. Why did you think there was so much physical devastation in the factionless sector? There was an uprising and we had to quell it as cleanly as possible." David explained to us. I sat back in my chair in a stunned silence. Tris had a stunned look on her face as we took in the new information. I began to shake with anger, they never had any intention of saving lives, just saving their precious experiments. I growled softly and Tris rested a hand on my thigh softly to quiet me.

"When?" someone asked.

"Within the next 48 hours." David responded. Two days. We only had two days.