Four

Six Weeks Post-Disappearance

I stare at myself in the mirror, not recognising the person before me. Small chunks of brown hair float down onto the floor. The scissors make the same sound over and over. Snip snip snip. I look at my Mother's reflection, her lips pursed and a tight knit in her brow from concentration. She catches my eye and gives me a lopsided smile; I only see this smile when she looks at me.

"All done." She practically whispers, so only I can hear. When Father is home, her voice barely raises above a murmur. She's too afraid.

All too soon she snaps the cover back across the mirror. I turn to look at her, but she's gone. Instead, Tris is stood in front of me. She doesn't wear the secret smile my mother only shares with me. She looks terrified, like she wants to be anywhere else in the world than here. The fear in her eyes makes me reach for her immediately, but when I get to her, she disappears.

I startle awake, from my recurring dream. I was back in my old Abnegation home, with their plain clothes and plain walls, only allowed to look into a mirror during the monthly haircut. They are the only happy memories I have of my Mother, before she died. It was the only time we were practically alone together, a time when we could talk more freely than when my Father was there. I know he hurt my Mother, but only because he inflicted the same pain on me until I defacted to Dauntless when I was sixteen. Her cause of death was never determined.

It's been forty-two days, one thousand and ten hours, and precisely three million six hundred thousand seconds since I last lay my own eyes on Tris.

I remember her from my childhood, mostly because the children in Abnegation stuck together in school. We were ostracised and mostly kept to ourselves unless anybody else was in need. I couldn't believe my luck the day she jumped down from the initiate entrance and fell onto the net before me. I have to admit, I did give her special treatment and training during her initiation – but I just couldn't help it. I could feel myself slipping further in love with her everyday.

I thought we had defacting to Dauntless in order to seek a safe haven in common, but I was obviously wrong. Where I found my home, she mustn't have found anything. Where I found a place I could finally be myself, she felt as if she couldn't fit in.

I knew the only way to get as far away from my Father as possible was to defact. I couldn't join Amity, I was brought up around too much pain and suffering to be able to live peacefully there. I couldn't seek help in Erudite, I may be fearless but I am certainly not the sharpest tool in the box. Joining Candor certainly wouldn't help matters, everybody knows that unless you are used to telling the truth every second of the day, you don't stand a chance there. I knew as soon as I saw members of Dauntless jumping off the train at my first day of school that I could be like them. See, I used to look at life with the glass half full. All the years of abuse and hurt my Father caused me, I learned to grow a thick skin and become tougher than anybody else I have ever known. So during my initiation, when I went into the fear simulator, I only had four fears. The lowest they have ever seen, hence my nickname. I was no longer Tobias Eaton, who got pushed around by his Dad for not sitting up straight enough at the table. But Four, who wouldn't take shit from anyone.

But now Tris has disappeared, and I don't have a clue where she has gone. I've spent the last six weeks trailing the control room computers, the streets, her old home and anywhere else I would have guessed she would be hiding. I thought I would be the first to predict where she would run to, but I was obviously wrong.

I pull myself out of bed, not sure I have the strength to carry on through the upcoming day. Beads of sweat are dripping their way down my forehead, towards my temples. I walk into the kitchen and turn on the faucet, splashing my face with icy cold water in hopes this will wake me up some.

I look around at the apartment both Tris and I shared. Our bed, the creaky floorboards and even the dull light that casts an eerie shadow over everything in the room seems infinitesimal without her here with me. It doesn't even matter.

I know deep down that this is my fault; I should have known something wasn't right. I should have known she wasn't happy. How could I have missed all the signs? Where are you Tris?

There is a small part of me, deep down in my subconscious that keeps niggling at me. A thought that I daren't even think about, let alone even consider to be true.

What if she's dead?