Disclaimer. I do not own Divergence. This chapter will loosely follow the book. Any passages you see that are familiar are most likely not mine.

"Your brother wasn't very selfless. In fact, he liked to take and take." Natalie Prior says wistfully. "Caleb? Selfish?" Natalie shakes her head. "No, not Caleb. We never told you but your father and I had another child before you two. His name was Eric." AU—in which Tris is related to Dauntless leader, Eric. Eventual Four/Tris.

My head is spinning. The room is spinning. Nothing makes sense to me. My mind relays the facts.

I am Tris Prior.

I am Abnegation-born, Dauntless-initiate. Divergent.

I am the daughter of Natalie and Andrew Prior.

I have a brother named Caleb.

On Visiting Day my mother came to visit me.

She confessed two important things to me:

One, she was Dauntless.

Two, I have another brother named Eric.

Eric. Cold. Ruthless. Calculating.

My Dauntless leader.

My brother.

—

"Mom," I say. "Mom, how do you know where we're going?"

She stops next to a locked door and stands on her tiptoes, peering at the base of the blue lamp hanging from the ceiling. A few seconds later she nods and turns to me again.

"I said no questions about me. And I meant it. How are you really doing, Beatrice? How have the fights been? How are you ranked?"

"Ranked? I say. "You know that I've been fighting? You know that I'm ranked?"

"It isn't top-secret information, how the Dauntless initiation process works."

I don't know how easy it is to find out what another faction does during initiation, but I suspect it's not that easy. Slowly, I say, "I'm close to the bottom, Mom."

"Good." She nods. "No one looks too closely at the bottom. Now, this is very important, Beatrice: What were your aptitude test results?"

Tori's warning pulses in my head. Don't tell anyone. I should tell her that my result was Abnegation, because that's what Tori recorded in the system.

I look into my mother's eyes, which are pale green and framed by a dark smudge of eyelashes. She has lines around her mouth, but other than that, she doesn't look her age. Those lines get deeper when she hums. She used to hum as she washed the dishes.

This is my mother.

I can trust her.

"They were inconclusive," I say softly.

"I thought as much." She sighs. "Many children who are raised Abnegation receive that kind of result. We don't know why. But you have to be very careful during the next stage of initiation, Beatrice. Stay in the middle of the pack, no matter what you do. Don't draw attention to yourself. Do you understand?"

"Mom, what's going on?"

"I don't care what faction you chose," she says touching her hands to my cheeks. "I am your mother and I want to keep you safe."

"Is this because I'm a—" I start to say, but she presses her hand to my mouth.

"Don't say that word," she hisses. "Ever."

So Tori was right. Divergent is a dangerous thing to be. I just don't know why, or even what it really mean, still.

"Why?

She shakes her head. "I can't stay."

She looks over her shoulder where the light from the Pit floor is barely visible. I hear shouts and conversations, laughter and shuffling footsteps. The smell from the dining hall floats over my nose, sweet and yeasty: baking bread. When she turns toward me, her jaw is set.

"There's something I want you to do, she says. "I can't go visit your brother, but you can, when initiation is over. So I want you to go find him and tell him to research the simulation serum. Okay? Can you do that for me?"

"Not unless you explain some of this to me, Mom!" I cross my arms. "You want me to go hang out at the Erudite compound for the day, you had better give me a reason!"

"I can't. I'm sorry." She kisses my cheek and brushes a lock of hair that fell from my bun behind my ear. "I should leave. It will make you look better if you and I don't seem attached to each other."

"I don't care how I look to them," I say.

"You should," she says. "I suspect they are already monitoring you."

She's about to leave. I can see it in the way she moves. The way her eyes glisten yet harden in resolve.

"Mom," I plead. "I'm desperate. I don't know when I'll get to see you again."

Her expression softens, and she pulls me into a tight hug. "Oh, Beatrice. You're making this so hard."

I say nothing as tears run down my face. I thought being put into Dauntless would set me free. I'm in more danger now than ever.

"Okay, let's go somewhere a little more private," she says. And leads me down a series of hallways, hallways that take me places I've been yet hallways I've never walked. They almost feel like hallways that are rarely taken. Secretive.

She takes me to the training rooms and briefly scans each corner of the room, and then looks satisfied. Before we take a seat in a hidden corner, she locks the door by putting an abandoned rod through the door handle.

The way she handles things... the way she acts, moves quietly, looks around, I can tell she's familiar with the place. She was Dauntless. She had to be.

"Were you Dauntless?" I blurt out.

She smiles at me knowingly, not giving me answer which in itself answers my question. As she sits down, she asks, "What's your first real question?"

"What does it mean?" I start. "Being what I am?"

"It means you can't be controlled by one faction. You're unknown, and people don't know how to approach that. It scares people, and fear drives them to do dangerous things. Ask me a different question."

I stick to the topic. "Am I going to die?"

She sighs and looks at me with her hands in mine, or mine in hers.

The silence says a lot. "I don't want to," I whisper, like a confession. A dirty little secret. It felt wrong to say something so openly. It was unlike the Abnegation in me.

I look at her, feeling guilty.

"You can't let them know, okay? You are no longer bound by Abnegation, so indulge in this act of selfishness and protect yourself." She pauses as if contemplating something. "Your brother wasn't very selfless. In fact, he liked to take and take." Natalie Prior says wistfully.

"Caleb? Selfish?" I imagine Caleb helping the elderly when no one asks. Offering his bus seat to a Candor man. Scolding me when I didn't lend my jump rope to a lonely girl on the playground. I imagine the hidden books in his rooms. Staying late at school. Dropping his blood into a metal bowl filled with water. I try to erase the images out of my mind.

My mom shakes her head. "No, not Caleb. We never told you but your father and I had another child before you two."

What? What?

"His name was Eric."

I stay silent, shocked. I don't know how to respond to that.

"Shocking, I know. We don't like to admit this but your father and I were very selfish at this point of our lives." I almost laugh out loud at this. My parents are the most selfless people I know.

She continues, "We weren't married yet, and I was expecting. So we married after, but I was far along. We didn't want our first child to be born into a faction where he was talked about in closed doors and bedrooms. Abnegation may seem very selfless on the outside, but there are people inside who are not what they seem. The first year after Eric was born, we tried to keep him hidden. We succeeded, but we noticed that even if we were to take Eric out to the public, he wouldn't blend in right. We had old books in the house. He kept opening the books and trying to read it. Thick, heavy books. Not just the children books.

"He was showing signs of Erudite. We thought maybe this was due to karma. We indulged in a selfish act and were paying the price. Then there was this couple that your father knew from Erudite."

As I'm sitting there shocked, I wonder how my father knew people from Erudite. All these things I'm learning about my parents at this one time.

"He was Erudite-born himself. A couple that he spent many hours studying and learning with. They couldn't have children, so he reached out to them and they took Eric in. For the first few years, we visited each other in secret. Eric was growing beautifully and fit into Erudite well.

"After a few more years, the tension was beginning between Erudite and Abengation. We didn't want to risk it, nor could we afford anymore acts of selfishness. Your father had just recently got the position on the council. We tried to forget about him. We didn't talk about Eric again. We didn't settle on an agreement but we felt like we had to pay for our sins." She pauses. "I think about him too often." She finishes softly.

All I can think is that I have a brother who is not Caleb.

I don't have the heart to say what my mind is thinking.

Instead, I hold my thoughts for a moment and hug my mother. "Where is he now, Mom?"

"All I know is that he is no longer with Erudite. On the day of his Choosing Ceremony, he transferred."

Eric who is my Dauntless leader was Erudite-born. Is he my brother? I wonder if he remembers anything from his earlier years. Was he smart enough to detect his foster parents weren't his real ones? Was he smart enough to find out who his real parents were? Does he know who I am? Not Tris Prior, Abnegation-transfer, but Beatrice Prior, sister to him?

I thank her while she gets up and says she better leave now before we seem more attached than we should be. Before it seems as if I prefer her over my faction. My blood before faction.

The next week flies. Events that are so dauntless make the week pass by quickly, thankfully. I have no time to think about my newfound brother. Edward is stabbed in the eye (by Drew and Peter). He and Myra leave to become factionless. I go zip lining—invited by Uriah. I reject Al's show of affection, and I may have ruined that friendship. The first round of initiation flies by, and the second approaches rapidly. Simulations.

I'm running. Running on a deserted, dry field alone. Underneath a flock of crows cawing loudly, swarming the air above me.

I'm screaming. I can feel the pecks of beaks and sharp pangs of talons digging into my shoulder. I'm sobbing and saying something that sounds like I'm begging, and I barely have room to think. All I can do is feel. Feel pain and agony ripping through my body. I'm helpless to the attacks of the crows.

I try my hardest to swat them away, yet another flock comes for more, scavenging.

"Help!" I hear a voice, and then I realize that voice belongs to me. My throat is scratchy, vulnerable. My mouth is dry.

And then I hear another voice. Four's.

You stay in the hallucination until you calm down.

Be brave, Tris.

I'm trying. All I can focus on is the pain, and I can't control myself from breathing so harshly. I've been in here for hours. How much longer will I last? I focus on my thoughts and breathing. I breathe in and out, in, out.

And then I wake up in the metal chair.

Forget my breathing exercise. I spring out and gasp for breath. I can still feel the pecks of death from the flock of birds, and I try to rub the pain away from my body, to bring protection from future harm.

"It's over, Tris, it's over." Four reaches out to me, but in the process I swat it away.

As he explains fear and overcoming it and thinking logically, I focus on the feel of his fingertips on my back leading me out the back door, his warmth seeping through my shirt. I look at the warm smile on his face, reaching his eyes.

We walk side by side, and it almost feels normal, comfortable. I'm aware of his presence, sending me strength, and I inch closer to him.

Then he says something interesting. "It wasn't always like this, I'm told," he says, lifting a shoulder. "Being Dauntless, I mean."

"What changed?" I ask.

"The leadership," he says. "The person who controls training sets the standard of Dauntless behavior. Six years ago Max and the other leaders changed the training methods to make them more competitive and more brutal, said it was supposed to test people's strength. And that changed the priorities of Dauntless as a whole. Bet you can't guess who the leaders' new protégé is."

I can. The answer is obvious. But I can't bring myself to admit it out loud. Who else? Eric.

My brother.

I look at Four. "So if you were ranked first in your initiate class, what was Eric's rank?" I need to know something about my brother. What made him the way he is? What is growing up in Erudite, becoming smart yet arrogant? Or did something else change him?

"Second."

"So he was their second choice for leadership." I nod slowly. "And you were their first." Is that what set him off?

"What makes you say that?"

"The way Eric was acting at dinner the first night. Jealous, even though he has what he wants."

Four doesn't pry. I must be right. Truthfully, I'm glad he doesn't say much else. How else can I respond to my sudden interest in Eric? Just smile and laugh and say, oh nothing, it's just I've found out a week ago that he may be my brother.

So I sniff the remaining tears away, wipe my face one more time, and smooth down my hair.

"Do I look like I've been crying?" I say.

"Hmm." He leans in close, narrowing his eyes like he's inspecting my face. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Even closer, so we would be breathing the same air—if I could remember to breathe.

"No, Tris," he says. A more serious look replaces his smile as he adds, "You look tough as nails."

That one comment warms me.

Nothing special happens the rest of the day. Peter is his typical self. He reads from an Erudite newsletter that slanders Abnegation, and Molly gives them an inside scoop of me as if she knows everything. Everything they say are lies. To get my mind off it, Christina convinces me to go see Tori who gives me another tattoo on my shoulder. It is a Dauntless seal, a circle with a flame inside it.

Christina convinces me to wear a top that shows off my shoulder and collarbone, as well as line my eyes with black pencil. I don't argue. I like the way it makes me look.

And, I think Four and I flirt a little by the chasm. His words echo in my mind, You look good, Tris. Even though he was intoxicated himself, and the expression on his face tells me he has no idea what he's saying, those words make it easier to fall asleep at night.

—

The next day, I'm no more prepared for my second fear simulation than I was for my first. I try to stay focused and practice controlling my breathing.

I open my eyes to my own reflection, yet it's faint. I reach out to myself and am met by a glass resistance. I look around me, finding myself in a glass box. I'm trapped in it.

My heart beats faster. I don't want to be trapped. Someone taps on the wall in front of me. Four. He points at my feet, smirking.

There is water at the bottom of the glass box. The water comes at a steady pace and by this time I am ankle deep in water with more to come and nowhere to go. I see my friends standing outside the box, laughing and pointing at me, watching me suffer. I see Four, standing there nonchalantly.

The water is at my thighs. To no avail, I try to pound my fists against the glass. The glass is thick but I think frantically that maybe I can break the glass. I keep banging and find myself throwing my entire body weight against the glass. It's not working, and the only thing I can think is I'm going to die.

And then I stop. I remember faint words about a simulation and something not being real, my mind, I control it. I slam my palm against the glass and I hear a crack. There's a line in the glass. I can break free. I continue with another shove, and then I kick.

I gasp, sitting up. Again, I'm in the metal chair. My hand reaches to grab my throat, and I still feel the pressure of it closing up with no air. Four stands to my right, but instead of helping me up, he just looks at me.

"What?" I ask.

"How did you do that?"

I look at him questioningly. "Do what?"

"Crack the glass."

"I don't know."

He pulls me up and out of the chair, half leading and half dragging me out of the room. We walk quickly down the hallway, and I demand what he's doing.

"You're Divergent," he hisses at me, dropping my arm.

I am shocked. Did cracking the glass make me apparent? Is this where I die? I recover quickly. "What's that?"

"Don't play stupid," he says. "I suspected it last time, but this time it's obvious. You manipulated the simulation, you're Divergent. I'll delete the footage, but unless you want to wind up dead at the bottom of the chasm, you'll figure out how to hide it during the simulations! Now, if you'll excuse me."

He walks out, and I feel scared and nervous. My heartbeat is in my throat. I think of my mom who wants me safe.

All I know right now is that for now, I can trust Four. And for the moment, that's all I need.

That night as I lay in bed I find it hard to sleep. Coming into Dauntless has arose more problems than I thought possible. I think over everything I've learned in the past month.

I am Divergent. No one can know this, not even my friends.

My mother is Dauntless-born.

I have a brother named Eric.

One of my leader's name is Eric.

I think I like my initiate instructor, Four.

And the most important, I fear for my life.

The next few days and nights are spent in fear. Fear from being discovered, fear from my simulations. Fear is awoken in all of the initiates; it's visible when we're eating and our hands start to twitch and jerk. The way our conversation has died down. We get lost in thought, eyes wide.

When I come back into the dormitory, I notice a crowd huddled together. I wonder if it's Peter again, poking fun at me and my old faction. Instead, I find myself standing next to Will to get a good peek. There's a board with Eric standing beside it.

My heart leaps. I need to get a chance to talk to him without him biting my head off. I need answers.

"What's going on?" I ask Will, whispering.

"Rankings for stage two."

And I'm in the first slot, I realize. Once Eric flips the chalkboard around, I see my name at the top. Peter is second.

I'm happy, and at the same time, I'm scared. I could be the next Edward, eyeless. And suddenly I think about how my fear simulation aren't the only thing that will keep me from falling asleep.

Peter says something about how he won't lost to a Stiff. I faintly register it as I see Eric walk out of the room. I wonder how I'm going to approach him and get him to stick around to talk to me.

Will defends me, and when Peter storms out, Will is cautious and wary, asking if what Peter says is true. I want to laugh because Peter has done exactly what he wanted. Driven my friends away from me. But I protest. What can I tell them to make them reassured? If I tell them I'm Divergent, I'm dead for sure. If I say nothing, I risk losing my friends.

"She's not lying," Christina says, but her words don't support me the way they should. They make me feel weighted and heavy, and she also leaves the room, Will following after her.

It is just me and Al left in the room, and I think about his name in the last slot. I reach out to comfort him but touching seems intimate, the Abnegation in me, so I hesitate and drop my hand to my side.

"Al…" I begin, and he doesn't say anything, head in his hands.

"I just," he says. "I just want to be alone."

I nod, thinking that there is nothing else I can do to help him, and I walk out of the room as well.

—

Later that night, as I'm attacked by Peter, Drew, and Al, Four saves me. I am still in Four's apartment, laying in his bed as he sleeps soundly on the floor. I realize how thankful I am to him, and how I have much more to worry about than my rising feelings.

I think about Al, my friend, who attempted to kill me. My hatred for him grows at the thought continues. I think about Peter and Drew who are cowards, blinded by jealously.

I think about before my attack, hearing Eric talking to someone else. He's targeting Divergents. Me, possibly Four. I have yet to determine if Four is like me. If Eric is my brother, what does that change? Could he be searching for his real family? Does he know his Erudite parents aren't really his?

I sleep, surrounded by the smell of Four.

The next few days pass by in a blur.

When Al tries to ask for forgiveness, I tell him I will kill him if he tries to come near me again. And then later that night, he jumps into the Chasm and kills himself. Eric provides a speech talking about Al's bravery, which I find stupid. I don't know what to feel exactly. Relieved that Al's gone or sad because he was, at a point, my friend?

And Four offers relief by allowing me into his fear landscape which I accept gladly. I learn that Four has four fears, and his real name is Tobias. Tobias Eaton, son of Marcus. Abnegation-born. My head spins again as I relay the facts. The world seems so small. It seems so much more possible that Eric could be my brother.

When I go through Lauren's fear simulation as my final learning test, I transform her fear of kidnapping into my fear of Peter, Drew, and Al attacking me over the Chasm. Tobias stops it, calling me pathetic and I react. Something inside me snaps, and my hand shoots out and I slap him across the face. I run out of the room, out of the compound, and hop onto the next train and ride.

I eventually get off the train which leads me to Erudite and I visit Caleb, who seems to be a true Erudite as I see him, blinding by knowledge yet not being provided enough knowledge. I relay my mother's words to him, and he genuinely looks shocked and hurt to hear that she came to visit me and not him. I call him stupid and let him know that Erudite refuses to allow Abnegation into their compound. Then I'm talking to Jeanine who questions me and questions me, trying to figure me out. I suspect she already thinks I'm Divergent, and all I can tell myself is to be careful with my actions and my words.

When Jeanine allows me to leave, I arrive back in Dauntless with Eric waiting for me by the door.

I think to myself that this could be my chance to get some answers about my brother. Could it be him?

His still posture leaning against the doorway is enough to draw fear.

"Welcome back, Tris." He says after cracking his knuckles.

"Eric."

He slowly walks toward me, and he does a good job scaring me

"Have you never heard the phrase 'faction before blood'?"

I have seen Eric do terrible things. I have heard him say terrible things. But I have never seen him like this. He is not a maniac anymore; he is perfectly controlled, perfectly poised. Careful and quiet. For the first time, I recognize Eric for what he is: an Erudite disguised as a Dauntless, a genus as well as a sadist, a hunter of the Divergent.

"Were you unsatisfied with the life you have found here? Do you perhaps regret your choice?" Both of Eric's metal-ridden eyebrows lift, forcing creases into his forehead.

Before he can continue, I interrupt while I have the chance.

"Are you satisfied, Eric? Truly. Are you satisfied?" It sounds like I'm interrogating, and maybe I am, but I need to make him stumble and I need answers.

"Who do you think you are, Stiff? Do you think that you get to be the one to ask questions around here?"

"No!" I shout, alarmingly. I don't want to this to go wrong. "Please, hear me out. My mother visited me during Visiting Day—"

"I'm very tempted to call you a traitor right now, Tris." Eric states deeply.

"Wait, please, give me a second. I just have one question. Were you Erudite-born?"

I can tell I've pierced something in Eric's mask, but his recovery is quick that I barely see it. He laughs loud.

"What? Do you think I was originally from Amity? Maybe Candor?" He crosses his arms in front of his chest. "Don't humor me."

"Abnegation, possibly?" I whisper, looking directly into his eyes. He says nothing but stares at me with a blank face, trying to figure me out.

"If you say one more word, Stiff, I may be forced to consider your rank. Or, because you seem to be so attached to your previous faction…perhaps I will be forced to reconsider your friend's ranks."

"I," I begin, hearing a door start to creak open. "Am I right?" I say quickly.

He looks at me hard.

And then Tobias walks in.

"What are you doing?" He asks Eric.

"We've just finished," Eric responds. "I don't need your help, Four." He sounds more like the Eric I am familiar with. His expression changes like a switch he can turn on and off easily. Then he turns and walks out.

I've lost my chance of asking.

Then I think of the look on Eric's face in that brief moment I've caught him by surprise.

Or have I?

To be continued...