Chapter 9

Tobias POV

When I came to I was sitting at the back of a moving car. Panicked I reached for my gun.

"Tobias relax, you're with us." It was Christina.

I looked around the car and found Caleb riding shotgun while Luke drove.

"What happened?"

"Caleb found you unconscious on the second floor with one of George's goons standing over you, Caleb fought him before he killed you."

I look at Caleb's sleeping figure on the passenger seat, he saved my life.

"Is he okay?"

"He'll be fine, he was probably just exhausted. He's not really used to fighting."

"Oh"

I was about to sleep again when I remembered Zeke and Hazel.

"Christina where's Zeke and Hazel?"

Christina bit her lip and she clenched her fists on her lap

"We… haven't found Hazel yet."

"What about Zeke? Where is he? He got shot, is he okay?"

"Tobias I think you should rest first. You probably have a concussion."

"No. Where's Zeke?"

Christina just looked at her clenched fists.

"Christina where's Zeke!"

"He's gone!"

She shouts but it was as if I didn't hear her.

I look at her to see if she was joking and I only find a few tears escape her eyes.

"He's gone."

She sobs and I just lean back on my seat, trying so desperately to comprehend what Christina just told me.

"His body's in the other car." I hear Luke say, "I'm sorry".

I couldn't believe Zeke was gone. He was the best friend I ever had. He never even called me Tobias, he said that was my Abnegation name and as far as he was concerned I was Dauntless to the core. That's why he called me Four when everybody else called me Tobias. I lost yet another one of my friends and this time it is again my fault. It was my fault Zeke came to the Fringe. He died because I was delusional and crazy enough to believe Tris was still alive. Because of me, my best friend is dead. If only I took his advice and just went to go see a doctor after I had that dream then we would never be in this mess in the first place and he'd still be alive, probably even proposing to Shauna.

We made it back to the Fringe and I got a shovel and started digging at an empty land a few miles away from the Fringe homes. It wasn't long before Caleb, Christina and Luke came to help me.

Once we dug a hole big enough, Caleb and I went back to Zeke's body and carefully lifted him to the grave we dug after wrapping him in a clean white sheet given to us by the Fringe people. We buried him and Luke placed a wooden cross at the head of his grave.

We just stood there and looked at Zeke's grave for a moment, nobody spoke. Then I felt Christina hold my right hand, I looked at her and found that she also held Caleb's hand with her right hand.

"It's my fault," I say as I pull my hand away from hers

"It's my fault he's dead. I took him out here in the Fringe and for what? Nothing!"

I was raising my voice now while Caleb and Christina just stared at me

"Tobias." Christina says softly.

"A big fat nothing!" I ignore her, "I risked all of your lives following some delusion that Tris is still alive and look where it got us! Zeke is dead, Tris was never alive in the first place and we don't even have any idea where they're keeping that stupid Fringe girl! Zeke died believing the delusion that Tris is still alive!"

After I said that I fell on my knees and buried my head in my hands, I willed myself to cry but no tears came.

"Your friend didn't die for nothing."

I looked up and saw Hannah standing just a few feet away from me.

"Tobias it wasn't a delusion. Beatrice really is alive."

"Will you just stop it?! I've already made my peace with Tris' death there's no need for you to feed me with the same bullshit that killed my best friend. Just leave me alone." I say and turn towards Zeke's grave again.

For a moment, they were quiet and for a second I actually thought they've left already.

"There's a reason Hazel looks a lot like your girlfriend. Hazel even had a tattoo of three ravens on her collarbone."

At the mention of Tris' tattoo Caleb, Christina and I turned to Hannah.

"How…" Christina starts.

"I was planning on not telling you this." Hannah says, "You are all strangers to me. But after what happened to your friend, I figured you had the right to know."

"What do you mean?" Caleb asks.

Hannah takes a deep breath before she looked at me, "When you asked me if Beatrice was the girl you saw in the Fringe I wasn't being completely honest. In a way Hazel is Beatrice, but not wholly."

"What are you talking about?" I ask and move closer to her.

"Clones. Hazel is Beatrice's clone."

"How is that possible? Clones are just science fiction. They're not real. Right?" Caleb adds the last part dubiously.

"Let me start from the beginning." Hannah looks at us, "I used to work for the Government. I worked there for half of my life, up until two years ago."

"What happened?" Christina asks.

"I found out what they were doing to Beatrice."

"T-they have my sister? What do they want with her? How did they get her?" Caleb stammers.

"I'm not entirely sure. I can only guess that they kidnapped her after she was shot."

That was why the security footage was tampered with.

"When I found out they had her I spent about a year trying to figure out a way to smuggle her out. Two years ago I saw my chance. So I took her. It was too late when I realized what I grabbed was a clone. Instead of taking Beatrice, I got one of her clones, Hazel. After that we stayed in hiding, I treated her like my daughter and I tried to keep her as far away from the Government as possible."

"How did you know it was a clone and not Tris?" Christina asks her.

"Because I saw two other clones on my way out. They were in a room and dressed just like Hazel when I took her. I knew she was a clone because there was no way the scientists would risk mistaking the real Beatrice for her clone. They had to have been dressed differently."

"What do they want with her?" I ask.

"The Government always takes the most promising GPs from each experiment and studies them more closely. I'm not familiar with the experiments done on the subjects or what made them special. But I do know about Beatrice. Most Divergents have two results in their Aptitude test, Beatrice had three. She was also able to resist both the death and truth serum. And that made..."

"Her a perfect test subject for the Government." Caleb supplies, "That's why they took her."

"Why would you risk your life to try and save Tris?" I ask her and she just smiles at me.

"Because she reminds me of a really good friend of mine. We used to be best friends until she left nearly twenty years ago then I heard she died in the Uprising in Chicago."

"Do you mean..." Muttered Caleb

Hannah smiles and says, "Her name was Natalie."