Chapter 31

                                    

                                          
  Eric's blood boiled underneath his calm demeanor. The simulation had worn off once again. He remembered everything with painful clarity. His wife begging him not to let Jeanine hurt her. Him standing motionless as they grabbed her and drug her away from him. Her promise to love him no matter what.
No matter what.
  Eric had made a deal with Jeanine. He would lead the attack on Candor and bring her a fresh wave of Divergents, in exchange for keeping Rae alive until he could speak with her. It had all been a cover of course, because Eric planned to but a bullet through her calculating Erudite eyes the moment he saw her. Along with Sam, he had talked one of the Noses that was assigned to observe Rae alongside Jeanine in to keeping him informed in case something happened to her.
Nothing better happen to her. He thought angrily. Never in his life had he worked so hard to remain calm. He wasn't that shocked that Rae was Divergent. In fact, he had suspected it for quite some time. He just didn't care. He loved her, and he thought he could protect her. Yet, things spiraled out of control fast. Faster than he was prepared for. 
***
  Rae's chest felt heavy, as though someone was standing on it. She tried to draw a deep breath, feeling as though she was drowning, but she couldn't. For a few seconds, she heard no sound. Not even the steady beeping of the heart monitor she'd been hooked up to. 
Am I dying?
"Take her to the lab." Rae heard Jeanine's voice from beside her, along with the sound of something being wheeled toward her. She tried to open her eyelids just a little, but they didn't budge. 
  Her restraints were undone and she fell lifelessly forward into a pair of solid shoulders. Arms lifted her carefully and laid her on a flat surface, and she felt a push as she was wheeled from the room.
Dying sure takes a long time.
  Once they were out of the room, the person pushing her stretcher picked up his pace. He slowed a moment later.
"Good evening." A voice spoke.
"Evening." The voice above her answered.
Sam. 
  She tried to speak, but her words came out as a hoarse groan. He pushed he cart quicker again, turning once and then again. 
"Rae. Can you open your eyes yet?" She heard his hushed words somewhere close to her ear. 
  Somehow, he knew she was alive... somehow she was still alive. What was more, she found that she could, in fact, open her heavy eyes.
With blurred vision she looked up at Sam. 
"Rae." He called her name, bringing her senses ever so slightly back to attention. 
"Sam." She choked. 
  She didn't understand. Jeanine had told the Erudite woman to dispose of her. She had felt the injection in her neck and then her body relax into nothing. Jeanine had sent her away, believing her to be dead. She had heard the beeping of the heart monitor stop. 
"Rae, look at me."
  His hands were on her face, forcing her eyes to meet his. She let out a deep breath, and inhaled again. This isn't real. Or is it? Was she in another simulation?
"You have to leave here." His words were muffled, and they confused her. He was so insistent. Why? She was so tired.
"You have to go find Eric." The name hit her like a bullet, harsh against her foggy perception. 
Eric. Where was Eric?
"Where?" Her voice was weak.
"Candor."
  Rae met his eyes as his hands were still grasping her cheeks firmly. 
"Candor." She repeated, trying to string her thoughts together. The real ones. She remembered Sam telling her something before. Something important.
  "Your love is strong, maybe even stronger then all of this bullshit. All I've done is maybe given you guys a small chance. Trust in yourself and in him, Rae. With any luck he might learn to trust you too, before it's too late."
  She pushed herself off the bed, shakily, as Sam released his hold on her face. She rose slowly, looking up at him as she spoke.
"Is Eric there now?"
"They just left here. They attack after sundown."
  For a moment or two, there was nothing but silence between them. She looked around at the small deserted hallway they were in. 
"How am I alive?" She whispers. 
"I switched the serum. You were only given a paralytic serum, which I dyed purple. I unhooked your heart monitor by sheer luck while Jeanine wasn't looking. You're officially dead, Mrs. Coulter."
  She searched his eyes for the answer to the riddle he spoke. 
"All I've done is maybe given you guys a small chance."
  A chance. He helped her fake her own death. 
  But I am not dead. I'm alive. I'm ALIVE. Yet, I must pretend to be dead. If I'm dead, nobody will notice me sneaking off to Candor...
"How do I get him to trust me?" She begged, searching his eyes.
"I don't know about getting through to him. But if you can get close enough to inject him with this, you can counter any active serum in his body. I have no idea when it was last activated or how long his simulations last these days but they're getting longer. Use it, so that she can't activate anything that hasn't worn off yet." He answered. "Other than that... Rae I don't think he wants to be the way he's been. I think he's confused and also scared. It's not just his life he's trying to protect, it's yours too. This is just the only way he knows how. You changed him. I almost guarantee that if you can convince him to run with you, he will. Do whatever you've always done to calm him down, I guess.  It's always worked before, hasn't it?"
"This is nothing like before. I'm just supposed to walk into the middle of their attack, even though I'm also supposed to be dead, and profess my love for him? Then we just hope that we can kill everyone and manage to escape? To where?"
"Out there."  He raised his eyebrows and she immediately knew what he was suggesting. Outside the fence. "There's got to be something more out there. I don't think the fence is there to keep the dangers out. I think it's there to keep us in." 
  Rae was taken aback. She knew he may very well be right, but wrapping her head around such a large idea was difficult. There was a huge chance they wouldn't even get that far anyway. 
"You have to go before someone sees you." Sam urged as he brought a bag or from beneath the stretcher she had been lying on. Opening it, he handed her a hoodie which she put on and pulled low over her face. He then handed her a gun. She pulled the sleeve down over her hand to conceal it and nodded to Sam in gratitude. 
"I don't think this is going to work. I'm probably going to die before tomorrow. But... thank you, for everything you've done for me. For me mad for Eric."
"I'm sorry I can't do more. I don't know if it will work either. At least this way you can die trying and not die strapped to a table with a needle shoved in your neck though."
  Tears of gratitude filled her eyes and she just nodded.
 "There's extra ammo in the pockets of that jacket. Get out of here now and try not to let anyone see you. Oh, and before I forget... Four knows I'm on your side. He might help you if he can, if you need it. He and Tris are at Candor HQ as well."
***
  Max pulled their car off on to a covered side of the road slowly, the other cars following them doing the same. They were just outside Candor and it was almost completely dark. 
"We go on foot from here." Eric instructed the others as they all got out of their vehicles. The others nodded in agreement. Just then, a voice came through the radio at Eric's hip. 
"Mr. Coulter this is Beth at Erudite. You asked me to keep you updated on the Divergent girl we've been studying?" The woman's voice was quiet, as if she was trying not be be overheard. 
"Go ahead." Eric urged after ripping the radio from his belt. 
"Jeanine decided she was no longer needed, due to injury to her veins. They were very small, after all. 
"Were?" Eric asked as rage blurred his vision. 
"Yes sir. Jeanine has disposed of her. The body was taken to the lab and is scheduled for an autopsy first thing tomorrow morning."
  His fingers tightened around the radio as tears forced heir way into the corners of his eyes. He blinked several times, keeping them at bay and hoping that he might wake up to this all being a big, horrible nightmare. She wasn't gone. She couldn't be gone. 
"Eric. Come on, brother. Look at me." He heard Max's deep voice somewhere close to him. 
"She's not dead." Eric murmured. 
"She was Divergent, Eric. You didn't know. It's okay. She fooled us all, man. She worked for me and I didn't see it. She was a good liar."
  Eric finally met the man's gaze with fierce blue eyes.
"Do not talk about my wife like that." His voice was deep, low and deadly. 
"Hey, Eric, get ahold of yourself. We have a job to do. She's gone, okay? She made the choice to put herself in harms way. There's nothing you can do about it now. Just finish the job so that you don't go  following her to the same fate."
  He met the man's eyes a few moments before turning away. Leaning his hands on the car a moment he closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe. If she was dead, he would absolutely follow her to the same fate. And he was pretty sure that it would come sooner rather than later. 
  Rubbing his eyes vigorously, he turned back to look at Max and nodded. 
"Okay, lets go."
  They began to walk. It wasn't far to Candor headquarters, and when they rounded the last corner they saw people behind the glass front doors. 
"Let's get this over with." Max said, raising his gun and meeting Eric's empty gaze out of the corner of his eye. "The sooner it's over the sooner we can go back to having our own little piece of heaven away from all those Noses."
  Eric regarded the man a moment, expressionlessly searching for any sign of humanity on his face. 
"Sir," He began, following the other dauntless traitors in pointing his gun at the people moving beyond the glass doors. "Heaven was last weekend, drinking my morning coffee next to my beautiful wife."
  The glass door exploded, and Eric ran forward shooting at the crowd.
***
  Rae squinted against the darkness. It had taken awhile on her weak legs, but she had almost made it, unseen, to Candor Headquarters. Now that she was just a few minutes away, she had to figure out how to find Eric. He and a whole team were here somewhere, collecting Divergents. He was most likely in charge, so getting him alone and not being seen seemed impossible. How was she supposed to know if he had already entered Candor or not yet? 
  As if on cue she heard gunshots, followed by the sound of breaking glass. Without thinking, she sprinted forward until she could see the front doors of Candor. Dauntless traitors were pouring in through the shattered doors. She tried to find Eric's bulky frame, but it was too dark and too chaotic. They were stepping carelessly over the bodies that were strewn across the floor and Rae turned her back on the sight, tears filling her eyes. Jeanine was responsible for all of this. All these innocent lives taken because of one woman. Rae was finally free of her but Eric was still trapped. Forced into killing people for that hag. Her breath came fast and painfully, each one that left her heaving lungs felt like it stabbed her heart on the way out. This wasn't fair. This wasn't right. 
I didn't get enough time with him. She thought miserably to herself. 
  After several painful moments passed she finally forced herself to control her breathing, focusing on the gun in her hand. It had felt cold at first, but now it was warm as she gripped it tightly. She would find him, she had to. She had to stop him from being Jeanine's plaything. If it killed her, it killed her.
  She ran forward, half expecting bullets to greet her at any moment. She reached the broken glass doors unharmed, however, holding back a wave of nausea at all the fallen bodies of her chosen faction. She tried her best not to look down but it was impossible. There were so many that she had to be careful where she was going so as not to step on them. As tears fell freely down her cheeks, she noticed something. There was no blood.
  Then, something else happened. A figure rose from the floor and looked around.
"Tris?" Rae asked gently, and Tris whipped around. Rae put her hands up. 
"I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to find Eric."
"Stay away from me." She said, backing up.
"Okay Tris. We don't have time for this. Where's Four?"
"Why do you care where he is?" She asked angrily.
  Rae understood that to Tris, she was just Eric's wife. She probably my assumed Rae to be just as cold and ruthless as she had seen Eric be. However, Rae didn't have time to explain.
"I'm sorry, Tris, for everything my husband has done. But I have to find him now. I'm sorry. Please, be careful. Take care of yourself. And take care of Four."
  Tris's brows furrowed in confusion before Rae turned, leaving her alone in the entrance.
  Rae had never been to Candor before. So she picked the largest hallway and ran down it at a sprint. Straining her ears, she listened for the sounds of gunshots. Eric had to be around here somewhere.
***
                          
New chapter up already!!! Painfully close to the end guys. It feels bittersweet 💔