Thank you to the guest, Windchimed, mileyismyhorse and love eat write for your kind reviews, this chapter is for you.
Etta x


Chapter Two - Tobias

Tris turns around to face me but I don't release her from my arms. She smiles and reaches up, gently brushing her lips over mine. I kiss her back. Her fingers dance across my back, across my tattoos one-by-one. I like that she has me memorised. My fingers trace the contours of her face – I have her memorised too.

"Why here?" I ask quietly; she frowns, not understanding my question. "You could be anywhere, doing anything, so why come here?"

Tris shrugs, "I don't know, it just felt like the right place to be." She looks up at me, her eyes bright with enthusiasm, "What did you do on your first day as a Dauntless member?"

I give her half a smile. I'm still shy with her, unused to being this open with anyone. But I shared my fears with her, shared the truth about my past; I can share this too.

Stepping backwards, I tug on her arms, silently asking her to follow. She does.

We walk along the corridor, past the door to the initiation dormitories, through the Pit, and out into the city. The sky is pastel blue and the air is still; everything is, in fact, very similar to this day two years ago except that back then I was alone.

We approach the train tracks and I begin to run, laughing at the confusion on Tris' face. There is no train coming but I am running alongside the empty track anyway. The pounding of feet behind me tells me that she is following. Tris catches me up and grins across at me. She is fast, but I am faster. I pick up speed and we are racing.

Ahead of me the track bends sharply to the left. Here I stop and wait for Tris. I catch her in my arms as she tries to pass me, holding her up and laughing as she bends over and breathes deeply. It feels good to laugh.

When Tris looks up at me, her face is flushed with the exercise and her eyes are alive. Today she seems to radiate happiness and hope; I want today to last forever.

"You're beautiful." I didn't mean to say it out loud. Her cheeks turn a darker shade of red but she doesn't look away.

"So this is what you did? You raced an imaginary train until you couldn't run any further?"

"Something like that." Tris is silent, waiting for me to explain. She doesn't rush me; that is one of the things I like about her.

"After the rankings were released, people crowded me, wanting a better look at 'the guy with only four fears'. Some of them were hailing me as a Dauntless hero, others as some kind of freak. But for every person pushing to introduce themselves to me, there were two people watching me from a distance. I hated knowing they were looking at me, talking about me.

"Back in Abnegation, I had always tried to make myself invisible. And suddenly I was the center of attention. So I ran... Not very Dauntless," I pause, waiting for the snide remark or the look that says 'you're not what I thought you were' but it doesn't come. Tris is just watching me, waiting for me to continue; so I do. "Running was liberating. I ran so far I almost lost track of the way back. Maybe that was the point," I add bitterly.

"But you went back."

I nod, "Yes, I went back and slowly people lost interest. I don't get on well with people, I don't say or do the right things, so eventually even the ones who were desperate to claim me as a friend gave up and let me be."

"And Zeke?"

I smile; she has been paying more attention than I'd realised. "I met Zeke during initiation. You're right, he's a friend. He likes me for who I am, not for my ranking."

She links her fingers with mine and we continue walking in a comfortable silence. I am always aware of the contact between us. I can feel every brush of her fingertips, the smallest change in the pressure of her grip, the slight dampness of her skin. It is overwhelming at times but I always want more.

Carefully, we cross the train tracks and once on the other side we move away from them, following the route my feet took me on two years ago. Back then every turn was random and each street looked much the same as the one before. But since then I have run this route regularly. Now every bend has a purpose, every abandoned street is unique and all these details help to distract me from the life I have chosen.

We reach the fence. Beyond it we can see the Amity farmland and somehow, out there, the sky seems bigger than it does in the city. This part of the fence is far away from the main gate and the Dauntless patrols only pass by twice a day but there are cameras every hundred meters or so. I don't want anyone to see where we are so I keep us just clear of each camera's range - one of the benefits of working in the control room.

"What happens next?" Tris asks me.

"You mean tonight?"

"Tonight, tomorrow, next week, next year… I just want to know what to expect."

I want to tell her that everything will be fine. Better than fine because we can be together now, we don't need to hide our relationship. But there is so much we both still do need to hide, things that it will never be safe to admit.

I focus on facts. "Tomorrow you will move out of the dormitories into new the accommodation that has been allocated to you. Your room will be similar to mine; they are all pretty much the same. On Monday you'll choose your job and, because of your ranking, you'll choose first." She knows all this but she doesn't interrupt so I continue, "after that it will depend on your choice. You'll get a mentor who will work with you and train you for the next few months, and then it is over to you."

"Hmm." Her mouth is a thin straight line. Neither of us has mentioned the Erudite or what they could be planning. I didn't want to bring it up today but I can see that it's what Tris is thinking about, what she really meant by 'what happens next'.

"We will find a way to warn them," I squeeze her hand and she squeezes back, "but we need to be careful." The sky is still that same clear blue but the day has dulled with our change in mood.

It is twilight when we return to the Dauntless compound. We are greeted by the smell of Dauntless food and the distant rumble of Dauntless voices from the Pit.

Home. That's how she feels about this place, it's written all over her face. She belongs here in a way that I never have, and never will. I remember the promise I made to myself a month ago: to leave all this, to make my home among the factionless. But then I met her and everything changed.

A flash of colour in my peripheral vision catches my eye. It is a poster and as I turn to look I know that Tris has seen it too. The bright red letters are clear from here but we both step closer to read it.

The message is simple:

DIVERGENT
a danger to us all

My blood turns to ice in my veins. I look away but the words are burnt into my retina, I see them everywhere I look.

Tris raises her arm and I realise what she is about to do just in time to stop her from ripping the poster off the wall.

"No. You mustn't," I say. She struggles but I manage to drag her away.

"Let me go!"

"Wake up Tris!" I snap, shaking her by the shoulders. "It's a trap. You mustn't be seen to take it personally. They are watching, always watching." I shake her again but more gently this time, "they're watching you."