DAUNTLESS (Divergent sequil, no war)

Chapter 24

"EVERYONE GET OUT OF MY WAY!" I scream, it takes a moment, but slowly they separate, making a path. I fight my way through before they have even stopped moving and get to the front. I see that they have formed a circle around her. I feel Tobias behind me. "get them out of here." I say, my voice hitches as I talk and he does as I say without question or hesitation. He ushered them to the door and out of it as Zeke tries to enter. He pushes his way through and I find myself standing over Jessica's body with Tobias' hand on my waist and my own hand on Zeke' s shoulder. I have no words, but Tobias asks what I'm thinking.

"What happened?"

"We thought they were ready to go without the nets, to give it a try... No one had fallen off all day. She went first..."

"She went first?" I exclaim.

"Yeah... She did..." He stammers. I can't look at this any longer. I turn on my heals and run.

I don't know where I'm going till I get there, it's the hallway I went to after I fell out with Christina during initiation, the one I sat in thinking about Al's death on many occasions. It doesn't go anywhere important. It's quite close to the training rooms and acts as a bit of a short cut to them from the dauntless born initiate dorm but other than that not many people use it, most of the rooms here are disused. I don't know why, there is just no real need for them.

I fold myself up on the floor and lie there. How many deaths will I cause in this place? If I had just left her to it, if I hadn't had a go at her... If...

My hands shake as I wrap my arms around my legs. The caffeine hadn't worn off yet.

Oh my! I need to get back the meeting room. I can't believe I forgot about that! Well I can, I have just witnessed a death, but for some reason I now feel more determined to find out what is going on.

I storm in and slam the door open.

"I'm not in the mood to be humoured by you right now so just tell me what the hell has been going on!" It takes me a moment to realise that he isn't even here. "Where did he go?" I demand a sheepish looking Caleb.

"We took him to your holding centre, we wanted to wait until you were all back to continue the investigation." He pauses a moment to study my face before carefully and in a calculated manner he asks "What's wrong?"

"One of the initiates fell, she broke her neck." I watch the colour leave his face.

"How? Where? When?" I should really be careful about what I say, we tend not to share too much information with other factions, it stops them from wanting to interfere, but it's Caleb.

"It was a part of training. She was doing the course without the net. She just fell. She must have slipped."

"What kind of initiation do you lot do here now? I'd heard things had changed but I never imagined..." John starts.

"Don't even start that. This is safe, it's a massive improvement on last year so you want to be careful with what you say. When people train to be brave we have to make them face fears and dangers. How else can we train them?"

"Use the simulations..."

"Simulations are nothing compared to a real situation."

"People can't die in a simulation!" He yells back.

"Stay calm, everyone please." Caleb scorns us. "Tris," he adopts his 'I know better' tone "What was her name?"

"Jessica." I reply, her name catches in my throat then hangs in the air. John collapses to the floor.

"Jessica what?" Caleb demands with a little more urgency.

"I don't know... there are too many of them to know all of their last names too. Most of them don't even give them."