Chapter 35 - My Fight

— Tobias

My world is spinning in circles.

I'm tasked to call every squad leader individually and wake them from their slumber  to tell them to come and fight for an unknown reason. Then each squad member is to call each member in their squad and are to assemble in the training room.

Some don't respond the first few callings. It makes me worry.

We are only calling squads 11-25 right now, our leagues of middle strength fighters.

1-10 are the super sleuth range, we will call them next.

Any numbers after 25 are people deemed not perfectly fit to fight. I am grateful that Tris is still classified among these people.

My deepest fear is that they came back for her, that they don't want a fight, they just want my fiancée.

She's sitting across from my desk right now picking at her fingernails in anxiety. She's refusing to leave my side, and I'm not willing to let her leave my side.

"I guess this means we're not getting married today," she comments out of the blue as I hang up the phone. She doesn't look up from her hands, a piece of her ponytail loose and dangling in front of her face. She pushes it behind her ear when she looks up at me, her blue-grey eyes meeting mine and I instantly feel her fear.

I want to marry her.
So badly.

"As soon as this is all over, I will be yours and you will be mine."

"Legally," she chuckles knowing we both already are each other's.

"Legally." I smile.

"The main building is secure, but there has been a security fault at the Pire and the West side," Greg, another leader alongside Tobias comes to notify him. "The first ten squads that have been called are ready for action when deemed applicable, and notifications have been sent to members that we are on lockdown individually instead of over the intercom."

"Is there a plan of evacuation?"

"If an exit opens up, the squads of 26 and numbers higher will be assembled to assist in an evacuation of members, but that's if an exit can be secured."

I look at Tris, knowing she is part of the small squad of squad 26.

She will be called to fight, or at least be present in the field, despite her background of so-called distrust.

"Thanks for the update," I nod and Greg exits.

"You're not going out there," I comment bluntly.

"Tobias—"

"Beatrice, I am not loosing you. Especially on our wedding day."

"Tobias it's protocol. Besides, I'll just be leading evacuation."

"You and I both know that's not true."

They're going to need as many people as possible in the field.

There will be no people to evacuate because everyone will be deployed in a squad, everyone will be busy.

Tris's phone lights up on the desk, a notification coming through. She looks at it, then looks up at me.

She's been deployed already.

"Tobias, if there's any chance that any person can help or happen to know what these people want, it's me."

"Tris you don't even remember barely anything about these people!"

"Well at least the memory is somewhere in my head compared to everyone else being sent to fight."

She walks over to my side of the desk and I stand.

I'm not loosing her.

She grabs my shirt by the collar and kisses me tenderly and passionately.

I don't want to let her go.

"I'll see you soon, I promise."

— Tris

There's a passage from the main building to the training room. It's an isolated hallway that is unopened to the public and has no route other than each destination. It is only opened in urgent times, and this is its first unlocking since quite a few years past when there was apparently a bomb scare in one of the apartments.

There's many people in the hallway today, dim lights on the ceiling of the narrow stone walk that allow you to barely see the person in front of you.

Tobias would hate this.

As a leader, he will not be deployed, unless he becomes a dumbass and goes against protocol and goes out individually without a squad.

He will be fine.
My fiancée is not a dumbass...
I hope.

The hallway emerges into the weapons closet in the training room. It's a massive closet, I know from being in here many times while visiting Chris and helping her clean up days after initiation.

Arms wrap around me and I jump, turning quickly.

"I've been looking for you!" Her face is against mine as we embrace, her hair tickling my ears.

We are a part of the same squad, long explanation short, she had the option to go to a higher squad, one of the super sleuths, or stay with me and my league of "untrusted" people.

We fight together.

We always have.

I had encouraged her to move up in the squads when she had the option, but she continually denied. Being an initiation instructor, she's actually suppose to be in charge of a higher ranking squad. Instead, she is in charge of Squad 26, a league of people taken from the building mixed with strong people like Chris: people meant to watch us and make sure we don't take over.

In this moment in time, I'm glad to have her.

"We're uniforming now over there," she motions to the back corner where I also see Uriah, Marlene and Will.

I forget how many of us were affected by the building until times like this: times where we're isolated as if we are diseased.

I walk with Chris over to the corner and to my locker, pulling out my bulletproof vest and taking off my jacket to put it on underneath.

"I'd leave your jacket behind, if I were you," Will comes up behind me. "I heard they broke into the control room, and literally the first thing they did was turn up the boilers. Guess the custodial system has been lying to us and intentionally freezing us out, because the heat surely does work." He chuckles and I smile in response, placing my jacket in my locker where my vest was.

I feel as if everyone thinks I knew this was going to happen.

I already know that this won't end well for me.
No matter what I'm going to end up in Candor, needle in my neck, under a trial for this.

I mean, who looks more guilty than the girl with the brand of New York on her arm and palm?

"You ready?" Ian asks me, flashing a weak smile.

I look at him and I feel my eyes watering.

"Hey," he looks at me as if I'm a child. "You cannot put this on you. This weight, it's not on you kid. Hell, anyone in this room getting prepared to go out and fight these assholes will literally stand up for you in any fight, trial or physical. There's nothing you or anyone could have done to prevent this. Keep your focus, Tris. Now's not the time to get distracted."

I nod, still not speaking. He walks away and my squad starts to move into the training room to get weapons.

I think about Tobias, and I think about the night we shared just in the hours prior.

I don't want to loose that.

If that means I have to fight, be tried guilty for all this, and wait to be freed to be with him again, I will fight.

This is my fight.