If she chose Erudite

Chapter 6

Now I'm sure I've blown our cover and I cover my face with my hands. I feel two strong arms being wrapped around me but I don't respond to the hug. I don't know what will happen to us now, but I don't expect it to be good. We just lied a factionless 'leader' right in the face.

I wrap my arms around my mother and try to hide my face, to let the floor split open and disappear into the gap, to shut down everything around me.

"So, Beatrice," Evelyn's stern voice says, and her cold hand touches my shoulder. "What are you actually doing here?"

I pull away from my mother and look at Jane, who is looking speachlessly at me and she gives me a small nod, telling me to tell the truth.

"It was an project for Erudite initiation," I admit, "We wanted to check if the articles about you all being poor were true or not. And we thought this was the best way to get the truth."

I dare to look up at Evelyn and instead of a furious expression, I see worry, mixed with anger. She frowns and tells us to sit down, like she has something important to tell us.

"You know now that we aren't as poor as we seem," she starts, "but let me give you a reason not to give this information to Erudite."

Evelyn tells us about Erudite being not trustworthy at the time. The articles about Abnegation are only a begin, she tells us. She doesn't know their exact plan, but she knows it has something to do with Abnegation, the faction that rules the government. "Maybe there will even be a war," she predicts.

She also mentions Erudite hunting the Divergent, but she is kind of vague about that. She doesn't explain it to us and just makes us confused with this information.

Jane and I exchange looks while she is talking and silently agree that it isn't smart to give this information to Erudite. If they know how powerful the factionless are at the moment, they will target them. And that will only make this whole situation worse.

When she stops talking she looks from me, to Jane and back at me. "We won't use this information," I say simply but Evelyn's expression stays angry.

"That's good to hear, because if you do tell it, and that information reaches us, it won't be pretty for you either," she warns us.

"But what about the project? How are we going to do that?"

"You can just say that the old Erudite articles are true. Why would they have changed?"

I sigh and stand up, rubbing my forhead and pull Jane with me. "I think we should go back to Erudite now."

Jane and I walk back to the door, but a hand grabs my wrist. "You better not mention this encounter to Jeanine," are the last words Evelyn spoke to me. I look one last time at my mother and give her a small smile. She looks at me with a certain sadness in her eyes I've never seen before. "Bye, Beatrice."

The way back to Erudite is silent, and even though Jane must have questions, she doesn't ask them. I think she understands I need some time to rethink everything that has just happened.

When we reach Erudite we still don't talk to each other or anyone else. Fernando tries to start a conversation with us during dinner about our trip to the factionless, but we don't respond, we're just staring at our food and make some small talk about the weather.

After dinner I go straight to bed and stare at the dark blue ceiling, tracing stars in the air with my finger. I keep thinking about how I met my mother today, but didn't even have the chance to talk to her. She didn't look at me like I betrayed her, but like she was happy to see me.

I sigh and sit up. Not everyone has gone to bed yet and honestly, I'm not sleepy either. I throw my hoodie on and decide to make a small walk through the Erudite headquarters.

Almost all offices are already empty, locked and with the lights turned off. I try to open a few offices, because the offices are at the side of the building and have a good view at the navy pier.

After a few attempts, I have some luck and I find an unlocked office with a table, a closet and even an own toilet. I lean with my face against the window, making my breaths condense on the cold glass.

After a few minutes I use the toilet, because I really need to. Just when I'm done and want to open the toilet door again and walk back to the dormitory, the office door peeps and the lights turn on.

"Come in," a familiar voice says, Jeanine's voice. I know it's not nice to eavesdrop, but I'm curious and want to know what she's going to say.

I hear Jeanine starting the computer and telling the other person to sit down besides her. After a few moments of silence Jeanine  starts a sound recording and suddenly the room is filled with my own, quiet voice.

"After we joined Erudite, we were able to see all the articles that they brought out. We saw some articles about Marcus abusing his son, and we obviously think they're not true. I mean, Marcus is an Abnegation leader! They're just trying to denigrate Abnegation and we didn't want to be responsible for articles like this."

My eyes widen and my legs are frozen, shocked I try to clear my head. I listen to the rest of the sound recording and I realize this is the exact conversation we had at the factionless this morning. Someone must have recorded it and sent it to Jeanine, or... a microphone. Of course! It must have been on my clothes. I start to panick, because that would mean she could see me too right now.

Then I realize that I'm in my pajamas and a hoodie, and the microphone is on my other clothes, and they are still in the dormitory. A part of me relaxes, till I hear the other voice speak up.

"She saw our mother..."

It's the one voice I would recognize from a thousand other voices. The voice that would tell me to lend my toys to Suzan and Robert, the voice that would tell me to be silent during dinner, while our parents would talk.

Caleb.

"Yes, she did, and that was against the rules" Jeanine mentions. "But I won't make her factionless, if you help me."

My eyes widen more as I hear Jeanine talking about plans. War plans. War plans, first meant for Abnegation, but now for the Factionless, because of my visit to them.

She tells Caleb about how they are going to use the Dauntless soldiers with a simulation serum, to make them mindless soldiers, to make them do what she wants.

After she is finished, Caleb agrees to her plan. To help her preparing the simulation serum. I know he did it to protect me, but it feels like I just lost my brother.