Heartless

Chapter 19: Goodbye

I sat up in bed, a sob escaping my throat, I knuckled my eyes and let my sight adjust to the dim room, which only had a wardrobe and a double bed in.

Groaning, I looked over to see if I woke up Eric with my nightmare but he was still sound asleep, though having a very vivid dream, he tensed up in his sleep and started mumbling something, I poised a hand over his shoulder to wake him up but as I went to shake him he relaxed and stopped muttering.

Carefully I slipped out of bed and grabbed a dark grey hoodie with a black Dauntless emblem printed on the back as well as some grey jeans and silently let myself out of the apartment.

The journey was a blur, I didn't really plan on going to the morgue at four in the morning but I'm guessing my brain had different plans.

A guy was sitting in a push chair at the front desk, he was leaning back with his feet propped up on the computer desk. Dosing. I felt almost bad to wake him. Almost.

I cleared my throat and his eyes flew open and he scrambled around in his seat until he had regained a normal sitting position.

"How can I help you?" He asked, probably a tad confused why someone was visiting a morgue at half four.

"I have come to say goodbye to Maddie- she died in the explosion a few days ago." I told him.

He typed all the relative information into the computer, "room eleven. on your left, I've unlocked it for you." He informed me, his eyes scanning the bright screen. 

I thanked him and pushed through another set of double doors.

Maddie's room was on the left, I pulled the stainless steel door open and immediately wrapped my arms around me in a feeble attempt to keep out a the chill of the freezer-like space.

A body was sitting on a tall metal table which stood in the middle of the room, a white sheet covered her in a sign of respect. I clasped the top of the sheet in a clammy hand and pulled it down enough to reveal her expressionless face, I looked down at her face- if I hadn't of know better I could have confused her for just being asleep- though when you looked hard enough you could see her lips were blue and face slack.

I felt a tear slip down my cheek. And then another. And another. "I promised myself I would not cry," I told her "I just can't believe you're gone. I keep expecting you to come bounding into the dining hall with a big goofy smile because you played a funny prank on Lynk." I smiled at the memory "I'm sorry, I'm sorry that we didn't have more time together, I'm sorry that we will never have that chance again." I whispered, tears choking me. "Rest in peace. You are the best friend I could've ever asked for." and covered her back up.

I turned down the hallway and came face to face with Eric, he was wearing a black hoodie and a pair of dark blue running shorts, he had a sleeping Evie cradled in one hand and the other were two large plastic cups filled with a steaming liquid, probably coffee. Eric passed one to me and kissed the side if my head.

"Couldn't sleep?" He asked.

I shook my head "neither could you." I pointed out.

He shrugged. "I heard that the sun rise from the roof is very nice."

Eric and I sat on the roof of the Bureau's main building and watched the sun spill over the horizon while sipping our sweet coffee's. We sat in silence. Not needing any words, our quietness conveying our emotions.

We met everyone down in the breakfast hall, we agreed that we would need to brush up on our skills for tomorrow so afterwards headed down to the gym- the Bureau had thought of everything, different types of guns hung on the wall like dangerous wallpaper, sparring mats were positioned at equal distances on the floor and they had colourful targets unlike the wooden ones of Dauntless.

Tobias took to teaching Caleb with a standard pistol and the rest of us milled around, testing out various other types of guns. I chose a gun similar to the ones we had in Chicago with a magazine and Eric chose one similar but swapping bullets for darts, he also strapped a pistol to his thigh as a precaution.

"Eric are you as good as Four?" Caleb asked, Eric raised a pierced eyebrow before unholstering his own pistol, pointing it at the target, looking away and firing. All of his shots landed in the bull. Smirking, I remembered him doing the same thing in Initiation.

I squared up to the target and took a shot, it clipped the edge of the middle ring.

"You better get some practise in Stiff!" Eric yelled from behind me, adopting his harsh leader tone, I looked behind me to see him smirking, I flipped him off and turned back to the target.

Moments later he was standing so my back was against his chest and he was adjusting my position, like when he first taught me, I shot again and got it perfect and he gave me a smug look and kissed the back of my neck, making me roll my eyes.

After lunch Christina and Tris went to get the explosives needed from a guy named Reggie, Matthew and Cara were looking over the maps of Chicago to establish a quick route.

Eric and I went back to the apartment, I put Evie down for a little bit and laid on the sofa, my feet hanging over Eric's lap as he read another book, he tossed a blanket over me. "Go to sleep for a bit. I'll wake you up for dinner." He told me, drawing patterns on my thigh as he immersed himself in the story, I sighed sleepily and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

.:.

Eric and I wandered down to dinner around seven, everyone was nearly done and we only bothered with a sandwich which was hastily ate in between feeding Evie her dinner.

After dinner we went and saw Amar, he gave us all a needle filled with some sort of serum and a individually packaged antibacterial wipe.

"What is this?" Christina demanded "I'm not gonna inject it into my body unless I know what it is."

Amar rolled his eyes. "Fine." He huffed "there is a chance you will still be inside Chicago when the memory serum virus is deployed. You'll need to inoculate yourself against it- unless you want to forget everything you now remember. It's the same thing you're injecting into you family members."

I nodded and quickly injected myself in the neck like the fear landscape serum. I had been injected so much it barely caused me to bat an eye. Evie cried a little when we done hers but she soon settled down with the help of the teething ring.

"Eric can you feed Evie and change her into clean clothes and nappy please." I begged, "sure." He called, I smiled to myself and jumped on the shower.

My mind wandered off to tomorrow. Once it was all over me and Eric can finally think of building a life somewhere, where it doesn't really matter what you are. Hopping out the shower, I changed into some joggers and tee shirt. I walked into Evie's bedroom and found her sleeping soundly in her cot.

I was already in bed when Eric had had his shower, and snuck in beside me, trying desperately not to wake me up.

"Whatever happens tomorrow I will always love you." Eric whispered, I flipped over and gently touched my fingertips to his chest and neck "I love you too." I mumbled and pressed my lips to his.

Only a few more chapters left. What did you think of the little brush up on skills and Sasha going to visit Maddie??

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