???????? | Divergent

The staircase leading up the Pit wall creaked underfoot as I made my way back to my apartment, it had been almost a month since Maddie had told me about the deliveries. They had been making five drops a week to the same warehouse in Dauntless, almost two hundred and fifty crates, no one needed that many extra supplies unless they were planning for something.

I shoved my cold hands into the pocket of Eric's hoodie and take a pause at the third level, my level, part of me just wanted to crawl into bed beside Eric and forget that this existed, but I knew my brain wouldn't let me rest, so instead I continued to climb.

My sense of direction was a little foggy, as I rarely entered the operating areas of Dauntless, and had only walked the fourth level once before as everything from four upwards was offices. I followed the hallway round a corner to find the last door tucked away.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness in the control room, where the only ghostly light came from the wall of screens in front of me, footage rotating through the compound cameras tucked discreetly into corners and away from prying eyes flashed up.

There were ten individual stations which held screens of their own, at this late in the evening only three were occupied.

A lady in front of me was absentmindedly flicking through feeds from Abnegation streets, whilst another person had the black and white marble lobby of the Candor headquarters displayed as they noted something in a dialog box. My brother was the third person, seated over the far side of the room, hunched over his screen with a pair of headphones covering his ears.

I slip behind the other Dauntless and make my way over, they were too engrossed in their own screens to spare me a second glance and the headphones they wore silenced any noise my boots made as I climbed the last few steps.

Silently, I peered over Tobias' shoulder at a shot of the Pit, he drummed a pen rapidly against the edge of his notepad, his eyes never leaving the computer for a moment.

"You're not supposed to be here." He stated as I pulled a chair out beside him, he didn't sound surprised, however, the feed changed to a view of the Chasm, I wondered how often he saw me sitting by the rails.

"No one stopped me." I leant my head against his shoulder and watched people move around like ants across the walkway. "So, this is where you hide out?"

"I like it, it's quiet." He admitted, pulling the headphones off and tossing them on the desk.

"I thought we had enough quiet." I sighed.

I find the dark stillness of the control room comforting, nothing stops in Dauntless, it's a tidal wave of sound and activity and brashness that slams into you and takes you with it, and it's only once you manage to stop you realise how exhausted you are for trying to keep your head above water.

"Our lives were suffocating." He corrected. "There's a difference."

"Everything was so silent it made me want to scream, no one ever said anything, but everyone knew." I murmured, there was no way other Abnegation leaders were unaware of Marcus, of his temper, all his children's little, clumsy accidents. "I just wanted the facade to break for once."

"I didn't say anything either, I should've." He pursed his lips and shook his head "I left you with him and naively hoped he would change."

"I hoped you would go, I wanted you to." I explained, I didn't hold Tobias' choice against him, I could never hate him for escaping. "I would've given anything to get you away from him."

"Always looking out for everyone else." He shook his head as it almost sounded like a sob broke his voice. "Will you ever learn when to save yourself?"

"Eventually." I smiled softly as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "I wanted to speak to you about something."