Alternate Reality: Life in a High School (Divergent Fanfic)

Chapter 29

My eyes slowly start to open. At first, all I can see is the bright light of the sun coming through the window. After a few seconds, my eyes adjust. I am laying on the couch in my living room. I look over to see Caleb totally asleep in the recliner across the room. Tobias is nowhere to be seen. I hope he is okay. 

"Caleb." I moan, to get Caleb to wake up. He slowly lifts his head. If I could wake him up like that, he wasn't really asleep. Caleb would sleep through anything. 

"Hm?" He replies. 

"What happened?" I whisper to him. 

"I got my face beat in for trying to escape, before they left." Caleb replies. Now that he says it, I can see the black eye starting to form around his eye. "When they left, I tried to make it to the bathroom or anyplace with a knife to I could cut the rope, but mom and dad don't have anything sharp in their room." He pauses and lets his head fall back to the recliner. "They also had mom and dad's door barricaded, so I couldn't even get out." 

"How did that work out then?" I ask. We are obviously not still tied up, someone must have let us go.

"Four got free." Caleb concludes.

"How?" I ask even though I'm pretty sure Caleb has no idea.

"How am I supposed to know?" Caleb snaps at me.

"Well Mr. Big Help, where is he?" I retort. I really don't want to put up with it. We are both in terrible moods and that never goes over well.

"Last I knew, he was out in the backyard." Caleb nearly yells at me.

I don't want to continue that conversation, so I drop it. I am greeted by a wonderful throbbing headache when I try to sit up. Why do I always get hit in the head?

I push my self up and walk into the kitchen. The sliding glass door leading to the backyard sits open. I make my way to the door and step outside into the cold air. The sun hasn't made it's way to our backyard yet.

I look over I very small backyard to see Tobias standing over one of the window wells. "What are you doing?" I ask him.

He looks up at me with angry eyes. I notice he has torn fabric wrapped each one around his hands. There is still dry blood all over his face, and his exposed back. "Why, are you up? You most likely have a concussion."

"That doesn't mean I can't walk. It means that I have head trauma, but I can still walk." I half smile. "What are you doing?" 

"I'm fixing the window." He sighs and looks into the window well. "I had to break it, because they locked us in the basement." 

"How did you get free?" I ask. He might as well tell me the whole story. "There was a nail, so I grabbed it and used it to get through the rope. I checked the door, but is was locked. The only other option was to get through the window, but the metal framing was rusted. I couldn't open it, so I broke the frame and popped the window off." 

He takes the fabric off, so I can see his hands. "The nail cut me a few times, so I used my sleeves to wrap them up once I found my tshirt from upstairs." His hands look terrible. The nail cut him more than a few times. "Anyway, I got out through the window well and in through your back door. It was unlocked. Then, I went to get you from the basement." 

"Then my parents and Caleb?" I finish for him. 

"Yeah. They barricaded their door shut." He finishes. 

"Where are my parents?" I ask him. 

"Asleep I think." He looks back up at me. "I told them not to say a word about this to anyone until we figure out what to do." 

"Ok." I reply. "You look terrible by the way." 

"I know." He sighs. I can tell that he is still really mad about the whole Eric thing. This was all more of an attack toward Tobias. Eric wanted to break him. 

"Hey." I walk toward him. "It will be okay." 

"I hope so." He whispers. I take his hand and lead him inside to the bathroom. 

I take the fabric off his hands and throw them away. I move his hands over the sink, and then dump a ton of peroxide over them. I finish by rapping his hands in a real bandage. I wet a rag and hand it to him so he can clean his face. 

I wrap is torso in bandages to cover up the slash marks, while he is cleaning his face.

"Tris. Let me see your head." He calls to me once he is done cleaning his face. I walk over to him. "Where did he kick you?" 

I point to a portion of my head that sides right above my ear. He takes my head in his hands and looks at the spot. "There is a really big welt, but thankfully no cut. What about the back of your head when he slammed your head into the pole?" 

I turn around, so he can see it. "There is a small cut here. Your  hair is stained red in this little cute spot." He replies.

"How are your ribs." He questions. 

"I think they are okay, they are not that sore." I sigh. 

"Good." He sighs again. 

I slump to the floor, and he does the same. He wraps his arm around me, and pulls me closer to him. "I just don't know what to do now." I whisper. 

"I don't know either." He smiles a little bit. "I know killing Eric isn't an option, so I just don't know." 

"I'm sorry for dragging you into this." I whisper. I can't help but feel at fault for getting so far into this. 

"It's not your fault." He blurts out. "Please don't say that. If anything I should have told you to stay away from boxing. I had a basic idea that Eric was a little crazy."

"I also dragged everyone else into it too." I cut him off. "Christina, Will, Uriah, Zeke, Marlene, Shaunna... I mean she is in the hospital now Tobias." 

"Tris, you didn't drag them into it. Eric dragged them into it because they are your friends." He whispers. "Please don't say it's your fault. It really isn't" 

"They practically tortured you Tobias. It's not fair." I continue. 

"They have done way worse to you Tris. I would do anything for you. It is not the first time I have been beaten to a bloody pulp." He pleads with me.

I let the subject drop even though I still feel at fault. "So what now?" I ask after a long silence.

"Your house is still bugged. We can't talk about plans." he sighs again. "We can go grab some breakfast and talk about it."

"That sounds great, but I am bleeding out the back of my head. What would we do about my parents and Caleb?" I ask.

"We can fix your head, and we could leave your parents a note. Caleb needs to stay here to make sure they don't talk to anyone. We can fill him in later." Tobias helps me up to my feet.

"How are we going to fix my head?" I laugh.

"The stain will come out with water, but my my thought was we should wrap your head and then you can wear your brother's beanie." He smiles.

"You can wear one of my brother's sweatshirts." I offer Tobias. "They are mostly blue, and grey. He doesn't have any black."

"Grey will work." He looks at his feet. "I love grey."

The weird thing about it is, I like grey too. It just brings a strange piece and comfort. Grey is like a reminder of how things used to be, simple.