DIVERGENT: Tobias (Watty Award Winner 2013)

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

My mind races as I try to formulate a plan. But I have no clue where we are being taken and I don’t know where we are exactly. There’s not much I can do now. There’s not much I’m sure of now. The only thing that’s certain is that I will protect Tris. She will not be harmed if it’s the last thing I do. Even if I die, she won’t…she can’t. Because the thought of Tris pale and still, never to dazzle me with those mesmerizing eyes again, is sickening and I cant take it. So long as she lives, everything will be fine.

All throughout the walk, I’m holding Tris, who’s too weak to stand on her own, and being urged forward by a gun barrel pressed against my back. In the distance I can make out a building. As we walk closer and closer I begin to recognize it though I haven’t seen it in years. The Abnegation headquarters. That’s where they’re taking us. It’s funny though. I doubt there isn’t one Abnegation member in there.

We reach the doors and enter only to be urged towards another door, this one guarded by two Dauntless soldiers. My eyes narrow at them until I realize that they are under the simulation. They don’t know what they’re doing. As we enter through the door, my eyes narrow again, eager to know who is responsible for all of this.

I’m not surprised. Sitting behind a desk is none other than Jeanine Mathews. Power hungry Jeanine. It seems we’ve interrupted a phone call though.

“Well, send some of them back on the train, then,” She says, into the mouthpiece. “It needs to be well guarded, it’s the most important part-I’m not talk-I have to go.” She snaps the phone shut and her eyes focus on Tris, like a hawk stalking its prey.

“Divergent rebels,” Someone from behind us says.

“Yes, I can see that.” I keep my eyes narrowed at her. She seems to calm about all of this. All of this killing. All of this control. It’s like she doesn’t even care that thousands of lives are in her hands. She takes off her glasses slowly and sets them down on the desk before she continues.

“You, I expected.” She says pointing to Tris. All the trouble with your aptitude test results made me suspicious from the beginning.” She says, her gaze locked on Tris. And at this moment, I just want to strangle her. She knows about Tris. She knew about Tris. But I don’t have much time to dwell on the fact. She turns her beady eyes onto me.

“But you… you, Tobias-or should I call you Four?- managed to elude me,” She says, in that calm, controlled voice. My eyes harden. “Everything about you checked out: test results, initiation simulations, everything. But here you are nonetheless.” The way she’s saying this just infuriates me. She acts like she knows everything. But she doesn’t. She only knows what her technology can tell her. She knows nothing outside of statistics and facts. She folds her hands under her chin and looks at me expectantly. “Perhaps you could explain to me how that is?” Yeah, right. Like I’m going to tell her.

“You’re the genius. Why don’t you tell me?” I hiss back, making my voice sound as cold as possible. But her mouth forms a smile, or maybe a sneer is a better description of it.

“My theory is that you really do belong in Abnegation. That your Divergence is weaker.” Her smile gets bigger. And I get pissed. Who the hell does she think she is? I bet it hasn’t even occurred to her that she is responsible for hundreds of deaths… deaths that are happening right now, even. And yet she just smiles? I just have an urge to spit in her face. I just spit words, though.

“Your powers of deductive reasoning are stunning. Consider me awed.” I spit at her, making my gaze deadly. I see Tris turn her head in my periphery. But I can’t meet her gaze, afraid of what she might think of this side of me. Of the cruel and heartless Four. And I can’t look her in the eyes right before I say this. I wouldn’t be able to say it then. And, for some reason, I think I need to say it.