Chapter 43 - Worth It?

Tris

I feel my clothes partially cut and torn around my body.

I feel blood on every inch of my body from being beaten up in so many different ways. Every inch is sore, some spots worse than others though.

It's not that I can't open my eyes, it's the fact that I don't want to. I'm scared of my surroundings.

And the people in my surroundings...

I feel myself start to shake unintentionally. It sounds like everyone swarmed around me again. I can feel not only all of their eyes on me, but their hands on every inch of my body; and not in a comforting way.

A loud whimper or whine escapes my mouth. I don't think I've ever been so terrified. Only if this was a simulation...

Sadly, even I know it's not a simulation. If it was, I could find a way to escape.

But there's no way to escape reality; it's impossible.

You can wish and hope to escape reality, but there's no way out.

These people. They are just punching me, slapping me, and everything in between.

There's nothing else I can do for the pain, so I just scream at the top of my lungs as loud as I can.

I let all of my pain, terror, fear, regret, hope, and air out in that one loud, long scream. It's all I can do. Everything continues though, but I'm not surprised. They aren't going to stop; especially for a little girl's scream of pain. They don't care; and I don't expect them too.

"Hey. Hey! HEY! Get off of her! Everyone! Right now! I told you idiots, she's done for the day! Let her go and put those clothes back on her! She's going back to her cell!" I hear a voice I recognize as David's yell. Almost immediately all of the hands leave my body. I sigh a sigh of pain but relief.

Everything is throbbing. Some body parts more than others, but all in all, I'm in pure pain.

I hear voices yelling and people moving, but they're all muffled and all I hear is my deep breathing. I'm sure my vision would be spinning, but my eyes are closed so tightly still that I don't see the room and no light seeps through my eyelids. The darkness is comforting; well, more comforting than the people in this room and everything in the room.

I feel my body trembling and my breaths getting heavier. I think that I may be crying, but I'm not too sure. I can't comprehend much right now other than my breathing, the person putting clothes on me, and the darkness my eyes are creating. Everything else is a blur of terror and pain.

Soon enough, someone is unlatching the shackles from the wall. They take them completely off my bare ankles, but replace the ones on my wrists with handcuffs in front of me. They push me up against the wall but I stay laying against it; my eyes still closed.

But what scares me most is that like my mother, they left me wearing no bra or underwear.

I tell myself not to think about that, but I can help the thought haunting me in the back of my mind.

"I'll take her down." I hear David grumble. I hear footsteps coming toward me and before my brain even processes them my eyes fly open and I try to get away to the corner of the room. I don't make it far because of my hands tied together and only being able to use one leg.

David snickers and keeps walking toward me. I keep trying to get to the corner.

"Please no. Please no. Please don't. Please, don't. Please! No! Dont! Please! No! Please no!" I ramble as I crawl. The words seem to just slip out of my mouth.

He just laughs and stands over me. I feel myself grow wide-eyed as I scoot to the back of the corner.

"C'mon Beatrice. Time to go back to your precious family." He smirks.

I don't say anything because honestly I want to go back to my cell. I don't feel safe here, well, I don't feel safe anywhere, but I feel safer there than here.

He comes up closer to me and I flinch as his hands get close to me. He picks me up under my stomach like a dog again making me start to shake again.

He takes me out the door, to the left, then down the stairs. Then straight down that hallway and to the left. Then through another door, then down a long hallway, then another right, then left, and eventually I loose count on what's right and left. I just close my eyes and try to forget about the ongoing pain raging on my body.

My mind drifts off. Unsurprisingly, it ends up on Tobias. God I miss him so much. His voice, his smell, his presence. Everything about him makes me wish I were back in Chicago with him.

But there's still so many horrible things back in Chicago.

Or is there?

Did Chicago get better after all of those events at the Bureau? Was everything worth it?

I hope so.

I just can't help but wonder...

Since I'm alive, and my family, and my friends are alive.

Are the "bad" people alive as well?

Jeanine?

Eric?

Max?

I don't want to believe my thoughts so I push them away, and somehow my mind drifts to Evelyn, Tobias's mother, leader of the Factionless.

Well, at least she was leader of the Factionless. Who knows where or what she is today. Somehow, I can't help but wonder what or who she is. She never liked me, and I always got a bad wrap from her. It was probably because I was working at Marcus at one time.

I was always a traitor in her eyes. She was always one in my eyes as well though...

She's probably one of the few people Tobias does have left though; besides Zeke, Shauna and Christina. But if she treats him like a mother should her son, then maybe, just maybe, I can find some respect for her somewhere.

People do change.

I can't hold people for how they acted in the war, because war changes people. I can't just intitle her for that one period of actually knowing her.

Honestly, I wasn't the best person at that time either.

She probably thinks of me as the person that I was then, like I've always thought of her.

I'd love to start over some parts of my life. One main one being the relationship I made with other people.

I don't mean my good friends; I wouldn't change that for anything. I mean how rude I was to people and all of that.

I wish I could start all of that over.

Maybe, one day I can make that a reality.

But first I have to survive all of this.

* * *

I let out a groan as I'm thrown against the concrete floor back in my cell.

"Now leave her alone. You hear?" I recognize David's deep, raspy voice. It's dry like the desert but low like the grumble of thunder before a storm.

I hear the cell door lock back up and footsteps walk away. Then the door to my left opens then slams closed signaling that David has left the hallway.

"Tris? A-Are you o-okay?" I recognize Cara's cracking voice.

I want to tell her that I'll be fine; that we'll all get out of here soon. To just leave me be so she won't get hurt. That everything is going to be okay and that she shouldn't be worrying about me right now, but instead all I do is twitch a little.

All I do is lay there with my eyes closed, but not clenched tightly, loosely like I'm trying to fall asleep or calm down. I tell myself to just keep breathing through the searing pain that rages throughout my body and threatens to make me screech in pain. I can't take this much longer. I feel the life being slowly sucked out of me.

I just can't help but hope that when my time does come,

That I will I go quick and in the least amount of pain possible.

A/N-

Hi humans!

Sorry it's so short! I started writing, but then got a huge writers block for Tris's POV and got stuck! I didn't want to just leave this though and redo the chap with a different POV because I've got the pieces of this puzzle coming together real soon! Don't worry though, this fanfic will not be a short one and I don't plan on it ending any time soon! I don't want to plan ahead... I don't want to put any restrictions or goals on the future... I just want to write my soul out until I'm out of ideas! Lol.

9.38k reads! That number really shot up in the past week and a half! <4 <4

Until next time...

Stay amazing!

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