Allegiant - Alternate Ending

Chapter 53 - Tobias

The next day I take a truck from the compound. The people there are still recovering from their memory loss, so no one tries to stop me. I drive over the railroad tracks toward the city, my eyes wandering over the skyline but not really taking it in.

When I reach the fields that separate the city from the outside world, I press down the accelerator. The truck crushes dying grass and snow beneath its tires, and soon the ground turns to the pavement in the Abnegation sector, and I barely feel the passage of time. The streets are all the same, but my hands and feet know where to go, even if my mind doesn't bother to guide them. I pull up to the house near the stop sign, with the cracked front walk.

Tris's house.

When I reach the front door, my feet freeze. What the hell do I want to achieve with this? It makes no sense that I think she is here, but I had to leave the Bureau. I had to leave the place where she was last seen. I could no longer just sit still and wait until she would come back to me.

I walk inside the small, barely furnished living room. It's quiet here, no sign of life. I go sit on the couch and hide my face into my hands. Soon there will be new people living in this house, the people who decide to stay here instead of going to the city outside the fence. Tris's house. The thought makes me sick.

This house will be taken over by some strangers and Chicago will be just like Milwaukee: a city without factions.

I hear the door crack open and my eyes shoot to the hallway. Christina is in de doorway.

"Matthew told me you stole a truck to go to Chicago," she says. "I had a feeling this was where you would go."

I stare out the window. "I just hoped she would have been here."

She sits down next to me, and for a few seconds we say nothing. I remember hating her the first time I met her, because she was a Candor, because words just dribbled out of her mouth unchecked, careless. But over time she showed me who she really was, a forgiving friend, faithful to the truth, brave enough to take action. I can't help but like her now, can't help but see what Tris saw in her.

"You should not give up hope," she says eventually. "Tris is brave, she will be fine, and there isn't any prove yet she is gone."

She looks at me and continues. "But you should try to accept the fact that she might not come back."

I stare angry at her because it seems like even she, just like Caleb, is giving up on everything. But in her eyes I see what I always saw in Tris's eyes: hope and perseverance. She is not giving up, just like me. My anger fades away and I sigh.

"I know Zeke is still weird around you," she says, probably to change the subject. "But I can be your friend in the meantime. We can even exchange bracelets is you want, like the Amity girls used to."

"I don't think that will be necessary."

Christina chuckles and stands up from the couch. "Well, should we get back to the Bureau then? Maybe they have news about Tris."

I push myself up from the couch and follow Christina through the hallway. The sun has slipped behind the buildings of Chicago, and in the distance I hear a train rushing over the rails, but we are moving away from this place and all that it has meant to us, and that is all right.

***

Back at the Bureau everything looks very peaceful, the snow that whirls across the windows and forms a small pile along the window frames give the building a safe appearance. Christina and I walk through the hallway to the hotel, until we bump into Matthew.

"So, did you find anything that could help you?" Matthew asks.

"Not really," I tell him. "But it was nice to go back there for once."

He nods and starts tapping the screen in his hands. "I'm sorry, I haven't found any information either, yet." He taps me on the shoulder and walks away.

In the hotel I stumble straight to my bed. The sun is still up, it's around 2pm I suppose, but the weariness I didn't have the last few days suddenly feels like  it's coming at me at once. I put my head down on my pillow fall asleep in a few seconds. My dreams are filled with a small, blond haired girl that I can never reach.