Chapter 1:

Tris' POV:

A/N: Hello! Umm... Well, here's a new story! I was on Google+ and on the community "Fanfiction For Teen Novels" someone requested this, so here it is. Thanks for the idea!

DISCLAIMER: I own absolutely nothing besides the parts I included and the clothes on my back.

Bent at the waist, I shove my shoulder into the double doors, and they squeak across the floor as their seal breaks. I breathe clean air and stand up straighter. I am there, I am there.

But I am not alone.

"Don't move," David says, raising his gun. "Hello, Tris."

I freeze where I am, his gun trained on me.

"How did you inoculate yourself against the death serum?" he asks tersely.

I blink at him, still dazed.

"I didn't," I say.

"Don't be stupid," David says. "You can't survive the death serum without inoculation, and I'm the only person in the compound who possesses that substance."

I don't say anything. I'm not lying, but of course not one would believe me. Just the fact that I'm standing upright is impossible, nothing more.

"I suppose it no longer matters," he says. "We're here now."

"What… what are you doing here?" I say, shaking my head, trying to make sense of everything.

David says, "I knew something was going on. You've been running around with genetically damaged people all week, Tris, did you think I wouldn't notice?"

Honestly, I didn't care. But, now that I'm being held at gunpoint by the person I was supposed to distract from all of our plans, I don't think there's a choice. I can't just quit now.

The people in this compound see me as someone who makes sacrifices for the greater good. A hero. However, our perspectives are different. I have plans, he has plans.

"Wh…" I trail off, not knowing what to say.

"Your friend Cara was caught trying to manipulate the lights, but she very wisely knocked herself out before she could tell us anything. So I came here."

"Alone?" I muse. "Not very smart, huh?"

"I may be in a wheel chair, but I have death serum resistance and a weapon. There is no way you can steal four viruses while I have you at gunpoint. I'm afraid to say you came here for nothing, only the expense of your life," he picks at his cuticles, then looks at me menacingly. "The Bureau tries to avoid capital punishment, but I can't have you surviving this."

I stifle a smirk. He thinks I'm going to steal the weapons that will reset the experiments, not deploy one of them. Of course he does.

Although I'm free of the death serum, mind is strewn, and I still feel the weight of the death serum, making my shoulders hang loose and my knees feel weak. I search the room for the device that will release the memory serum. I was there when Matthew described it to Caleb in painstaking detail. A black box with a silver keypad, marked with a strip of blue tape with the model number on it. I spot in on the counter along the left wall, only a few feet away. But I can't get it now; I'll have to wait for the right moment.

"I know what you did," I say. I start to back away, hoping that the accusation will distract him. "I know you designed the attack simulation, that you are the one who was responsible for my parents' deaths—my mother's death. You killed them. I know."

"I am not responsible for her death!" David says spontaneously. "I told her what was going to happen. I gave her the chance to get her loved ones to a safe house. She was foolish, and didn't know the difference between making sacrifices for the greater good and acting priggish, and it killed her."

There was something about his reaction. It was too loud and too sudden, as if the question hit a sore spot in him.

"Did you love my mother? I ask. "All the time she was sending you correspondence… the fact that you forbade her from staying there… the reason you rejected her updates after she married my father… it's because you had feelings for her, didn't you?"

His breathing hitches and he doesn't move. He sits still, like a statue, as if the question will fade if he gives it enough time. That's all the answer I need.

"I did," he murmurs, as if it's a secret that is kept between only him and the spirit of my mother. "But that time is past."

I nod curtly. That's why he welcomed me into his circle of trust, why he gave me opportunity after another. Because I wear my mother's hair and speak with her voice. Because I am one of the only things left of my mother, while he's spent his life grasping her but coming up empty.

I hear footsteps out in the hallway. The soldiers, I presume. I need them to. I hope they wait until it's clear of the death serum.

"My mother wasn't a fool. She just understood something you can't. She knows what the true meaning of sacrifice is, and that's why she's not here right now," I don't feel like crying as I say it; don't feel my throat constricting, my lip wobbling. I am honoring her in my own way, making the choices she'd want me to. "My motives aren't clear to you. I didn't come to steal anything, David."

I lunge toward the device. I hear Caleb's voice as he repeats the code Matthew told us. I begin to press them into the keypad, and the gun goes off. Pain jolts through my body and spreads like a virus. I let out a cry as I get the numbers in.

"Tris," I hear Matthew's tremulous voice. "Tris!"

A gun goes off again, but I feel nothing. It's either that I I'm too numb, or the bullet wasn't for me.

The green button, I hear Caleb say. I slam my hand down on the green button, and slump to the floor.

From under my lashes, I see Matthew scrambling towards me, dropping the gun that was in his hand. He shot David.

"Tris, can you hear me?" he asks. All I can manage is a soft moan. "You have to hold on, Tris. You have to hold on. The medics are coming. You'll be alright."

I look to David, and he is slumped in his chair.

And my mother walking out from behind him.

I know she's not truly alive—I'm probably hysterical from loss of blood or if the death serum has confounded my thoughts or if she is here in another way.

She kneels next to me, across from Matthew. She places her hand on my cheek, frigid from death.

"Hello, Beatrice," she says.

"Am I done yet?" I ask. I'm not sure if I actually say it though.

"No, my dear child. You have so much to live for," she says, her eyes bright with tears.

"Tris," Matthew says. "Tris, stay with me."

I suck in a breath, focusing more on my mother than him.

"You've done so well, but there's so much more to do," my mother says. I nod.

I don't hear the medics come in, or feel Tobias pick me up and race me to the hospital. Heck, I don't even know if it actually happens—I'm too far gone to notice.