Rediscovered Love

Chapter 1

  Karen's POV

The air reeks of oil fumes and rain. A cough shreds through my throat. It jumps from alley wall to alley wall, and escapes up into the rolling dark clouds above. I wish I could escape this fate too. But I'm not my cough; not a mere sound wave. I am a solid, made up of billions of cell structures, and it is consistently true that I will remain here for some time-- here in this alleyway where the factionless roam like animals in a concrete zoo, bound within the walls of laws set forth by those in factions.

I stare down at the shimmering asphalt. My abrased hands, which were once soft from the luxuries of my faction appear rougher already. Crimson glows in its threatening shade as pebbles and mud shroud my hands in uncleanliness. I stand and glide my hands over my pants, wiping away the impurities, despite the fact that they will surround me for the rest of my life. There's no point in trying to clean my hands if I'm now factionless. 

A shadow flashes by the corner of my eye. A shiver rolls down my spine and empties itself throughout the rest of me. It makes me reconsider what my name means for those rejected from faction life. As Jeanine's assistant, I put many of those people in their current place, and aided in Jeanine's final judgment of their friends and family members. What will they do to me once they figure out that I am who I am? 

"Who are you?" I turn towards the sound. A man, much older than me stands in a corner crafted by empty boxes, far down the alley. He holds a piece of dull, rusted metal. Clearly he doesn't know I was Jeanine's partner. Not if he's asking who I am. "I'll ask again: who are you?" He shouts. His vociferation bounces from wall to wall. 

"Jordan," I reply. It's not an Erudite name, which puts me in a even better situation. I shuffle towards him, and he raises the metal blade.

"Why are you wearing those clothes?" He hollers. I can see the sweat rolling down his red, anxious face. His greasy locks hang down his face. He's nervous; Terrified of me for some strange reason. It means I have the upper hand in this situation. I need to make sure that I remain in such a position. At the same time, if he finds out that Erudite let one of their test subjects go, he may either think of me as a trap, or demand that I allow access to the labs. Which means I obviously will lose my power.

"If you come, drop all of your weapons in front of you, and slowly take a few steps away. I'll tell you what to do next."
"No way!"

"Then-" Remembering I don't have Jeanine behind my back anymore hits me like a train. I don't actually have the upper hand in this situation. My opponent does. He has a weapon. I literally have nothing; except for the clothes on my back and myself. I don't even have a faction anymore. No home, no family. I'm all alone.

The factionless man sneers. His yellow, uneven teeth glow against his face smeared with mud. "Lost cause?" He asks. "Get used to it now that you're factionless." He lowers the knife with the smallest smile. "Follow me."

"Why should I?"

"Because I have a knife." There's a certain humor in everything he does despite the desperation of the situation. I'm sure he was born Dauntless or Candor. I start towards him, and we tread through the shadows of Chicago.

We walk in a silence that only allows you to hear the pattering rain and crunch of pebbles. "You looked terrified for a moment back there," I pipe up, glancing at his face. He reeks of decomposition. I need to get used to that though. We arrive at a dilapidated warehouse. It stretches towards the sky, it's rusted beams becoming fingers. Concrete dust piles around the building in chunks of rock large enough to maim, and pebbles small enough to be ignored by most. 

"You'll learn that while being a part of the factionless community is safer than being alone, no one can be trusted entirely," my escort responds after our walk.

"'Factionless community'?" I murmur. He doesn't elaborate, but instead leads me through a sizable opening in one of the walls. 

Everything the factions know about the factionless is wrong.

In faction school, you learn that by becoming factionless, you are outcasted from society; without community and all alone in surviving within the wall. Rather the factionless are an entire body. The people everyone believed were alone, actually banded together to form an unofficial faction. Hundreds of rooms deck the warehouse interior; each one acting as an apartment for a small group of individuals. In the dim lighting and old structure, the area does seem uncleanly and disorganized. Yet, there are people all about utilizing learned trades- Some mold scraps of metal to form necessities. Others knit and stitch patches of cloth to form clothing. Within the hoards of unfailing "failures" is a myriad of familiar colors- red, yellow, blue, white, grey and black- decorate the scene. People wear whatever they can. There are no standards as to what they can and cannot do. The factionless are free. Those who we thought could not do anything useful for society have created their own in which they can be successful.
Amazing.

Despite the hollering voices and screech of mechanics, the man's hack is loud and clear. "You'll get tired of it pretty quickly. Follow me, Jordan." It suddenly occurs to me that I don't know his name.

"What's your name?" 

"Jake." We head to what at first seems like nowhere at all. Jake makes so many turns among the maze of bodies that it's difficult to figure out where we're going. Then, like curtains falling away to reveal a stage, the factionless part to reveal a woman. She's quite beautiful actually. Her hair, the color of fertile, rich soil hangs down her back. Freckles dot her face and arms. Somehow while the people around her appear so filthy, she remains nearly spotless in comparison. Yet, she's short and scrawny from a lack of nutrition. Her icy blue eyes bring not a sense of coldness, but a chilly demeanor, and contrast to her warmer physical attributes. Age and adversity has made her bear a completely different self. But, I can still recognize her: Evelyn Eaton.