CHAPTER 63

TRIS POV

I'm laying next to Tobias, who's sleeping peacefully, his arm still wrapped around me. I haven't been able to sleep, probably because I slept for practically 4 hours after school. Not smart of me at all.

I lift my head up and glance at the digital clock. 2:33. I sigh and flop my head back down, rearranging myself in the bed. I end up staring the the ceiling until I feel my eyelids grow heavy. They begin to close and I'm in that half sleep where my brain is still awake, but my body isn't.

All of a sudden, I hear a tapping at the window and my eyes fly open. I sit in silence for another 30 seconds staring outside when I hear the knock-knock-knock again.

"Tobias," I whisper fearfully, my brain reeling with crazy ideas.

No response.

"Tobias," I say louder, tapping him.

"Mmhmm," he says turning on his side just as somebody bangs against the window again.

"Tobias, someone's here," I say louder.

He rolls over, his eyes opening.

"What?" He asks sleepily.

"Someone's banging on your window," I whisper and I can tell my eyes are wide with fear.

His eyebrows furrow in deep thought.

"Who would knock at my window at like 3 in the morning?" He asks.

"I don't know. This is scaring me, Tobias."

"Aww, don't be scared. Are you sure you heard something?" He asks and I nod.

He quietly gets up out of bed and grabs a baseball bat from underneath his bed. He creeps towards the window and peers out, looking around for any sign of movement. How could someone get up by his window if we're on the second story? Well actually it's happened before so I guess I can't be surprised.

Tobias seems to have seen something or someone because he tightens his grip on the baseball bat and his face is set, no emotion whatsoever.

I, however, tighten my grip on the covers, and pull them closer to me. For some reason, I feel like it's Marcus coming to get me. I know it's weird and impossible, but I still have that feeling and I think I always will.

"You've got to be kidding me," Tobias mutters and places his bat against the wall. He opens the window all the way and sticks his hand out, pulling someone in.

I turn on the lights to see who it is and see Zeke lying on the floor, out of breath.

"What the-- Dude, why are you here?" Tobias asks, closing he window.

"I needed to get away from Uriah. He wouldn't let me sleep and was like running around, bouncing off the walls literally," he says standing up.

"Well, now I won't be able to sleep," Tobias says shaking his head.

"Well, oops," Zeke says sheepishly and then grabs his arm as if he is in pain.

"You're hurt," I say looking at his arm.

Zeke jumps and stares at me.

"No, I'm not. Wow, I wasn't expecting to see you here Trissy-poo," Zeke says with a small devious smile on his face.

I ignore what he just said and walk over to him. I take his right hand off of his left arm and before I look at what he is covering, I stare at him in the eyes. He looks worried and I look down at the opened wound.

Blood is dripping down his arm and there is a long slash from his elbow all the way down to his wrist.

"You're not here because of Uriah," I whisper.

He hesitates then shakes his head.

"Zeke who did this to you?" Tobias asks worriedly.

"It--- Tris don't touch it," Zeke scolds, his face pinched up in pain.

"Questions later, come with me," I say and lead him into the bathroom.

I begin pulling out different assortments of creams and moisturizers. I start to mix them together and I see Tobias standing at the doorway, looking confused at what I am doing.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Zeke asks.

"Do you really think I don't know what I am doing?" I snap.

"You sure it will work?" Zeke asks in a small voice.

I smile at him. "Positive."

He nods and leans over to grab onto the bathroom sink and I look at him under the bright light. He doesn't look too good. Way paler then usual and he has a bruise beginning to form under his eye. I grab his right arm, the not hurt one and make him sit down on the closed toilet seat.

I hold Zeke's arm steady and grab a glop of my mixture about to put in on his arm.

"Now, this might sting for a quick second, but it will feel better faster. I promise," I say and begin to rub it onto the cut.

His eyes shut tightly in pain and I do it faster because I know how traumatizing it is when you have to wait for what feels like hours for someone to rub it in for you.

"Okay done. All done," I say sitting back.

I wash off my hands and go into my bag where I have a bunch of gauze and ace bandages.

I quickly cut a piece of gauze and put it around Zeke's arm and wrap it tightly with gauze.

"That should be it. No more anything," I say soothingly.

"Thanks Tris, I owe you one," he says and I shake my head.

"You've protected me so many times. If anything I owe you one."

"Good job Doctor Tris," Tobias says coming in. "You've fixed the patient."

I smile and we all go into Tobias' room and Zeke sits down on the beanbag chair.

I crawl onto the bed with Tobias and pull the covers onto our laps.

"Zeke, what happened?" I ask.

"Eric. That idiotic fool came into my house. Apparently he moved a few doors down and he wanted to stop by and say hi even though it was 2 in the morning. Luckily, Uriah and I were up playing video games so we heard someone knocking. Who knows what he would've done if we were all sleeping," Zeke says angrily.

"Why'd he actually come though?" Tobias asks. 

"Umm.... Well... You see umm..." Zeke stutters, obviously stalling.

"What is it? Spit it out already," I say.

"Eric came because he needed to know where you were, Tris. He needed to know where you now live because he's planning something. I don't know what, but whatever it is, it can't be good," Zeke sighs.

"What! You didn't tell him did you?" Tobias practically yells.

"To- Four be quiet. You're going to wake mom and dad up," I whisper.

"Yeah, I definitely told him just so I could get beat up by you and oh yeah how could I forget. He just did this," Zeke motions to his arm, "for fun."

I look down. Everybody's getting hurt for me. Why can't I be like the rest of the girls? Normal lives, normal families, normal everything!

"Tris it'll be alright. Eric will never hurt you. I won't let him," Tobias says softly grabbing my hand.

I squeeze my eyes shut tight, hoping that I wake up being 9 years old again. But of course that's just not possible.

"Where's Uriah?" I ask Zeke.

"I left him at home. Told him to go to bed and lock up all of the doors and windows. I let him know that I had to tell Four just in case anything happened with Eric tonight although that's highly doubtful, considering it's going to be dawn in a couple of hours," Zeke tells us.

"Dude, you look exhausted. Here take the bed. I'll sleep on the floor," Tobias says getting up.

"No, no, no, it's your house and Tris needs the bed. I don't want to intrude," Zeke says awkwardly.

"Just take the bed. I know nothing will happen between you and Tris. You're lucky I trust you so much, otherwise I would have told you to get out of my room when my beautiful lady is sleeping," Tobias tells him and grabs his pillow and places it on the floor next to my side.

Zeke gets onto the bed, scooting to the very edge, the farthest he can get from me, and faces the other direction.

Tobias grabs a blanket and before he lays down, he shuts off the lights.

"Good night Trissy," I hear and Tobias' hand grabs my left hand, the one dangling off the side.

"Goodnight.. Four," I say slowly, remembering Zeke is in the room.

And with that I drift into the darkness...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A blaring noise awakes me and I jump. Tobias hits his alarm cursing silently and Zeke yawns. Oh yeah Zeke.... With his wonderful news... That Eric is coming for me.

"I hate that dam alarm," Tobias growls and I stand up, stretching.

Tobias wraps my in his embrace and we stand there for a while until he pulls away, his hand still lightly on my back.

"How do you feel today? Good day or bad?" He asks.

I consider this for a moment. My back doesn't hurt, but it doesn't feel like nothing ever happened to it either.

"Good," I decide and he nods ever so slightly.

"I'll get ready down the hall," Zeke says walking out of Tobias' room.

I go in the shower and let the warm water run down my back, waking me up. Eventually, I get out and put on some clothes, leggings and a white flowy shirt and a long black sweater over it.

I walk out and Tobias goes in. I quickly begin blow drying my hair and eventually out on a bit of concealer and mascara.

"How's your arm feel?" I ask Zeke as I walk downstairs.

"I don't know how you did it Tris, but the thing you put on it helped- a lot," Zeke says and I take a look at it.

He still has the long wound, but it has closed, significantly and although their are still some opened parts of the cut, it doesn't look as swollen.

"You should still wrap it. Some parts are open so you might get bacteria in it," I say and put gauze over his arm and wrap it again.

"Thanks little Trissy-Poo!" Zeke says jumping up and down, clapping his hands.

"No," is all I say and I walk away, grabbing a muffin.

Tobias comes down and we all silently walk out to his car to go that jail called school.

When we get there, I step out and slap my hand against my face.

"We have to stay in ISS today," I whine.

"No!" Zeke yells and dramatically drops on his knees.

"Why!" Tobias yells at the sky, dropping down next to Zeke.

The rest of our squad walks over and stares at them as if they are crazy, which they are, but I never said that.

The bell rings and we all groan and trudge into the ISS room.

We are greeted by someone new and I could jump for joy.

"Tori!" I squeal and jump on her, giving her a big hug.

"I just say you yesterday! Why are we so happy?" She questions laughing.

"Because it's you!" I yell and she smiles.

"Alright so I still have to do my job, so let's sit down and as soon as there's no one in the halls to hear us I'll tell you what we are going to do," Tori tells us.

We all sit down and Uriah starts freaking out.

"Oh my! I call dibs! It's mine! The chair is mine!" He screams like a little girl and jumps on the comfortable moving chair.

"No! I wanted that!" Zeke yells and begins to wrestle with Uriah.

"Nope, that's Tris'. I got it for her," Tori says wheeling it over to me.

I stick out my tongue at them saying, "haha, suckers!"

They both cross their arms and sit down, pouting and I begin to wheel around the room, spinning in the chair.

"Tris, please stay still for a moment at least," Tori says and grabs a bunch of packets from the desk.

We all groan and she sighs.

"I know, I know. But if you finish everything you need to by lunch time I'll get us out of here and we can go to the park or something," Tori says with a smirk.

We all gasp. Jeanine would kill us if she found out. Wouldn't that be funny to see her try.

Tori hands out the packets and by 12:13 I'm finished.

"Done!" I announce and I see Will, Marlene, and Shauna are also done.

"Alright, the rest of you better hurry. We only have a half hour until lunch time," Tori says.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We ended up sneaking out at school right before lunch and we take all of our cars to the park.

We're currently spread out on picnic blankets and eating sandwiches that Tori packed.

"Let's play hide and seek!" Uriah yells at all of us.

We all nod in agreement and he decides that he will be the seeker. I slip my hand into Tobias' and run towards a big pine tree with lots of branches.

"We're going to climb it," I say when I get to the base.

"I don't know, Tris, haven't you already learned your lesson with trees? Especially since it's winter, the  branches might be slippery," Tobias says looking up.

"Oh come on, don't be a baby," I say and begin climbing. The bristles poke at my face, but they actually smell quite good so that's a pro to this adventure. I sit on a sturdy, plump branch and Tobias sits on one across from me.

I slowly push the smaller branches out of the way to get a view of where everybody is. I see Uriah walking around aimlessly and Tori reading a book.

I glance over at Tobias who is trying to calm his breathing.

"It's okay, Toby. Don't be afraid," I whisper to him and reach my hand out to grab his.

He smiles tightly at me and composes himself.

"We're gonna be up here alllllll day," Tobias says dragging out the all.

"Since Uriah's so stupid is school, maybe he can be really smart outside of school?" I question.

I glance at Tobias and we both burst out laughing at the thought. A smart Uriah. Good one, eh?

A few minutes later, I take another peek through the branches and see that Uriah has rounded up Christina, Will, Marlene, and Zeke. So that means that the only people left are myself, Tobias, Shauna, Peter, and Lynn.

Still a long way to go.

"Ugghhhh, I'm cold Trissy. How'd I get you to convince me it would be a good idea to sit in a tree for well, nobody knows how long," Tobias groans.

"Technically I didn't convince you. I just started climbing and you were the one who followed me. Sooo," I say and hug my arms around my body.

"Is he almost done?" Tobias asks ignoring the statement I made because I mean he knows I'm right on that one.

I take another glance and see that he found Peter and Lynn. Shauna is the only one besides us who haven't got captured.

"Shauna's the only one left. Besides us, of course," I tell him and begin to rearrange myself on the branch.

"Why are you moving? No moving. We are not going to fall out of a tree again, missy," Tobias says with a small smile.

"My body's cramping I have to move. Gosh. Bossy today are we?" I question with a smirk.

"Well," he huffs and I begin to stand up.

"Seriously Tris. Be careful. We're high up," Tobias says, looking nervous.

I carefully step across with one foot to the branch he is sitting on and I wobble for only a second, but instantaneously Tobias's hands are on my waist, holding me tightly. I swing the other foot onto the branch and sit down against Tobias, him holding me close to him.

"You're so warm," I say and snuggle closer to him.

Tobias opens his mouth to say something, but all of a sudden we hear voices.

"I think they went up the tree, that would be a Tris move." Christina.

I look down and see 7 faces appear and then Christina points up.

"I was right. Ha."

"We found you, come down now. We need to just find Shauna," Uriah says looking around.

"You go first," Tobias whispers in my ear and I slowly move away from him and his warmth and begin to climb down the tree.

As soon as my feet touch the ground, Tobias jumps down from a couple branches up and breathes a sigh of relief.

"I hate trees," he mutters and I giggle.

We all begin to parade around, calling Shauna's name out and telling her she won and that she can come out, but no response. Wouldn't she have come out, now hat she knew she won? Where is she?

HOW WAS THAT? SORRY FOR THE GIGANTIC PAUSE, I'VE BEEN SO BUSY WITH SCHOOL UGH ITS TERRIBLE.

I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOYED!

BTW- HAPPY HALLOWEEN! COMMENT WHAT YOU ARE DRESSING UP AS!

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