A Sliver Of Light in The Night Sky

Chapter 8

My head hurt. It woke me up, and I fumbled for the medicine I kept in my nightstand for migraines. They were rare, but I didn't care; I just wanted to sleep.

My hand didn't find the brushed silver of the handle of the drawer on my night table. It streaked across what felt like cold concrete, dust all over it. I started, sitting straight up, and pushed off a dusty blanket. I was in a dusty room with a loaf of stale bread and a cup of water. Halfway through it, I realized it was probably drugged, and tried to make myself barf.

"Doesn't matter, Beatrice," came a nasty voice from the doorway. Melina. She wore a crop top and torn capris. "You'll still retain the poison, honey."

I growled, and flung myself at her. You see, that's when something weird happened: I hit what felt like an invisible wall, and fell on my ass.

"You. Can't. Touch. Me." Melina whispered.

And then I whimpered.

A/N OMG DON'T KILL ME. Did you pansycakes really think I would end it there. Here's the rest of the chapter.

Melina pulled the backpack off of her shoulders, and I pushed my body against the wall, as if it would give way so I can run.

I can't.

Melina's hair is curled to perfection, but still half of it is shaved. She pushed a bit away from her face, and pulled something from her bag, looked at it with utter satisfaction, and turned to me with an evil smile. It was a traditional knife, this time. "Now, Tris," she said, kneeling down to my level. "Be brave," she mimicked. When the blade traced my skin, I held back a scream.

The first one is always the hardest.

The Thursdays were the hardest.

Every Thursday, I stood, from my spot on the sterile white tile that covered the floor of the room that they moved me to for tests, and grabbed something from the floor that was most certainty not supposed to be there: a gun. I grab it, and exit the building-the Erudite building, from the sign outside-and go outside. I'll have a name in my mind, an appearance.

Jason, brown hair, blue eyes, tan skin. Nita, dark hair, brown eyes, light brown skin. Makayla, blonde hair, hazel eyes, pale skin.

Didn't matter.

What mattered is what I did after that, after exiting Erudite.

I'd kill them. No, I mean killthem, murder them, shot them, but no, not in the head, like, in the stomach. So they'd suffer.

No, I didn't enjoy it. I didn't likewhat I did to them. But, apparently Melina did. And that was all that mattered to Melina.

Sometimes-on alternate Mondays, and that's not a joke-Marcus, the founder of Erudite, would come in, and play with my hair. But then, it would speed up: his lips on mine, clothing on the floor. Screams of protest for me, and his possesive whispers.

My disgust.

Some days, I was aloud outside-or well, they made it look like outside, but I knew it was just another room, inside that horrible institution of a lab.

They'd hook me up to these big machines, another test. Anotherr day that I wished I was dead. Then, it had mostly been fears, facing them, realizing them, reanacting them. This was another, but a smaller fear than my usual ones, the ones that made me scream.

In this one, there was Caleb. He stood across from me, smiling a sickly smile, and held out his arms for me. I, homesick, hurtled myself at him, and he rested his chin my shoulder-he was much taller. His breath stirred my hair when he talked.

"Hey, Beatrice." He whispered, and he almost sounded like the real Caleb, my brother. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too, Caleb-" I started, but cut off with a gasp.

Cold metal through my shredded cream-colored sweater that Melina'd given to me after Marcus trashed my last one. Cold steel through my skin, between my ribs.

Through my heart.

"I heard you were a Wolfblood." Calebb said, lowering me to the ground. "I love you, Beatrice." He whispered.

I guessed my next fear was betrayal.

Some days were okay. I could survive, I could be okay, I could smile, even, though it was never that carefree, happy smile.

But some days were horrible, the pain of a thousand memories melding together in my mind, building and building until I wanted to scream, until I was hyperventilating, my eyes flooding tears, and it wouldn't let up, until I was huddled on the floor, arms around legs, knees to my chest, and haunted eyes staring, pointlessly, at the wall. Until I was rocking back and forth, tear-stains along my cheeks. Sometimes, I would see the cameras move, those days, and sometimes, on the worst of them, the door to my little room opened, and a man stepped in. He wasn't the older one, the one I'd learned to both expect and dread's visits, but a younger one, with dark blue eyes, and dark brown hair. He always wore black. He always saw me, panicking, near the wall. Tobias. Most of the time, I was clawing at my ears and screaming like a banshee, trying to drown out the cries of hundreds of deaths.

But he'd go to me, shutting the door behind him, and I'd see a glimpse of a face, a guy, about the same as the blue-eyed one, with coffee-dark skin, wearing black. I always forgot him.

When the blue-eyed guy came up the first time, I breathed faster, shoving myself backward with an animalistic cry, and he'd stop. He drop to the ground, and he'd crawl over to me, ignoring my sounds of protests, and wrap me in his arms. I'd waited, holding my breath, waited for the twist, the In Your Face, the cold reality that I would never really be embraced like this, truly.

But it never came.

He never let it come; the second time-I was still scared of him-he hugged me, but I couldn't calm down: it was the worst yet, really. Ever. He kissed my forehead, but I got more scared; his father had done the same thing, that morning.

It never ended good.

Then, he whispered in my ear, and I felt his lips against my skin: "It's okay," he'd said. "It's okay. You're okay. I love you, Beatrice, you're alright."

My breath had caught; Marcus never said "I love you," only "you're mine," over and over again. And I hadn't heard my name in months.

"Tris." I'd gasped, automatically. And he'd kissed my cheek.