Memories of You

Chapter Eleven - Dreams and Nightmares

You guys are amazing readers. Thank you so much for your comments, votes, and follows; you really spurred me on to get this chapter out. I know how badly you guys want to know what happened. So here it is! Enjoy!

Once again thank you to Depecher who has been amazing helping me get this chapter out. You rock girl!

Tris' POV

Two years later

I feel completely free up here among the clouds. Everything below me looks so small from my plane, almost as if I can leave any problem I have on the ground and just focus on what's around me. The roar of the engines shuts out any troubling thoughts that I may have, but more than anything else, I feel closer to Tobias up here. It makes me feel like he can see me more clearly, almost touch me, and that he loves the woman that I've become. I want to believe he knows I'm not scared anymore, that I stand up for myself, and mostly that I'm living the adventurous life I yearned for because of him. I dreamt of becoming a Women Air Force Service Pilot, and it feels like I was destined for this job.

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about him. And while most of my friends have said that I need to move on, I just can't let him go — my heart just refuses to. They tried setting me up on a few dates to get my mind off him, but I've turned them all down.

Instead, I have now logged more hours as a pilot than some of the men. I've taken on some of the more dangerous jobs that others were too scared to take on, flying into impossible conditions. I've never been scared, though. I've already lost Tobias; if my life does end, it will just mean that I get to be with him sooner.

I think back to the letters I sent my parents and Caleb this morning, detailing my stint at Edwards Air Base in California, and I wonder what they are going to think about my adventures. It was a fairly routine mission, though there was an incident with a small earthquake. The Colonel said it wasn't a big deal, just enough to knock a picture or two off the wall, but I was still relieved when I finally left yesterday and would no longer have to wonder if a hole was going to open up underneath my feet.

I've actually never received a letter from them in return. It's not that I don't want to speak with them. I do, actually, but I would rather they not know my current whereabouts. As long as Marcus is still alive and not in jail, I really don't feel safe anywhere near them. That, and the fact that I'm still technically underage, is not something I want the government to find out. At least until the end of May, that is.

My current mission is to fly to Camp Lejeune with the Douglas A-20 and perform night target practice. I'll also be performing daily target practice as well, but will more than likely be using a different plane for that. There was also a mention of performing airdrops, but that isn't terribly difficult. The plan is to do this for the next two months. No specifics were available about why the training was needed, but there hardly ever are, and I honestly don't want to know.

I was slightly reluctant to take the mission, considering this was where Tobias had been stationed. It's not that I don't want to see the last place that he was alive; I'm just afraid they might have some of his belongings there, and I don't want to burst into uncontrollable sobs while holding his jacket. But I'm the only one skilled enough for this mission, since the other ten pilots that were even close to being qualified were on various missions across the country, so I took it on.

I look out and across the landscape on this early March afternoon, seeing trees that have just begun to turn green below me. I check my instruments and calculate that I should be there in about twenty minutes. I bank slightly to the right, but when I do, I hear a faint pop over the roar of the engines. I don't think much of it until I begin to see smoke curling up into the cockpit.