Thank you to everyone for your patience. We continue to plug away at the story. I don't mean to worry anyone when their is time between chapters. (Thank you Plynne13 for checking up on me!)

Thank you to Windchimed for letting me borrow part of her world for mine. In her story "Determinant: One choice will change everything" we find out that Zeke and Uriah used Morse Code to pass messages without their mom catching them. It just sounded like too much fun not to include. (Just remember, that since Hana is the mom in question… the Morse Code is heard, but not understood as to what it is.) If anyone is new enough to Fanfiction that you DON'T know Windchimed's writing… you owe it to yourself to check it out. One, she's a very talented writer, and two, she has the BEST alternate ending to Allegiant I've read. If you read Determinant, be sure to read Prior Rings, too. They really do go together and give Tobias and Tris the happy ending we all wanted them to have!

Of course thank you to Bahrfamily for not just editing this chapter, but for real life. It was wonderful to meet you and the "characters".

Chapter 56 Brothers

Eli carries the crock pot for me as Ezekiel and Uriah race out of the elevator towards Taylor's. Part of me feels guilty that we haven't tried to prepare the boys to learn of their grandfather's death. They just think this is dinner at Grandma's and they are excited. Uriah is so excited that he runs right into someone walking out of an apartment.

"Sorry!" Uriah says quickly, looking up at the man. "You look a lot like Dad," he says without thinking.

I look at the man he ran into and realize he's right.

"You're Eli's boy, aren't you?" Zane kneels down next to Uriah. I want to pull our son away from him, but I don't know how to explain my reaction to the boys without telling the whole story of Jude, and how her ex-fiancé has always made me uneasy. As far as I know, the boys have never even heard of Jude, so this would be quite a revelation to them.

"I'm Uriah, and this is Zeke." He points to his brother.

"I'm an old friend of your parents'. My name is Zane."

I want to deny that we were ever friends, but again, I don't know how to explain this to my children without explaining too much of the past.

Ezekiel hasn't stopped for this exchange, but keeps moving towards Taylor's door. He bet Uriah his piece of Dauntless Cake tomorrow night that he would beat him to Grandma's, and a stranger isn't going to keep him from winning.

"We're going to Grandma's!" Uriah explains with a bright smile. As soon as he says this, he remembers his bet and looks up to find his brother. Realizing that Ezekiel is only two doors away from Grandma's, he suddenly stands up and takes off to try to catch up.

Eli and I stand there awkwardly with Zane, none of us sure what to say. Ezekiel's voice claiming victory and Uriah's "No fair!" spare us from having to say much.

"We need to go keep a war from erupting," I tell Zane as I move, with Eli on my heels, towards the boys.


"You distract Mom. Get her to your bedroom with the door closed." Ezekiel and Uriah are talking in the family room. I can tell from the volume of their voices that they still think I'm cleaning the bathroom.

"How?"

"I don't know, just come up with something to get her away from the kitchen. Do I have to think of everything?" Ezekiel grumbles at his brother. "And when you have her distracted, I'll grab the Dauntless Cake Angie just dropped off."

"And then we'll share it, and Mom will never even know about it!" Uriah's voice is louder with his excitement over the idea of the cake.

"Shhh!" Ezekiel cautions him. "Don't let Mom out of your room until I come to your room after I've hidden the cake in my room."

I shake my head as I listen to the boys plot. It's time to prove they can't put anything past Mom. I walk quietly back to the bathroom, then try to make enough noise as I walk back to the family room that they will hear me coming.

"Mom," Uriah comes up to me with an odd mixture of excitement and apprehension. "I was trying to put up a poster on my wall, but I'm having problems with it. Can you help me?"

I smile and put my arm around his shoulder. With his broad shoulders, it feels a lot like putting my arm around a smaller version of Eli- much more than it does with Ezekiel. "Sure. I can help in about ten minutes."

"What are you doing now?" Uriah looks anxiously at his brother.

"I need going to clean up the kitchen."

"I'll help you clean the kitchen after we hang the poster," he offers quickly.

I pretend to think. There is part of me that wants to see if I can get his help in cleaning the kitchen first, but if I do that, I'll see the cake that they don't think I know about. Then they won't be able to put their plan in action, and I won't be able to catch them doing it. "Okay, let's get the poster hung."

Uriah and I head to his room. Ezekiel hangs out in the family room. I assume he is waiting to make an attempt on the cake. When we get to Uriah's room, he closes the door behind us, and mentally I start picturing how long it will take Ezekiel to get to the kitchen, get the cake, and head towards his bedroom.

"I'm thinking of moving the poster behind the door," Uriah starts off, presumably to explain why he has closed the door behind us. He walks over to the wall across from his bed and points to the poster of a train that we gave him last year for his birthday.

I look at the poster where it currently is and then to the door that he wants to move it. "You won't be able to see it very well," I tell him looking at it critically. I listen carefully to see if I can tell where Ezekiel is.

Uriah shrugs. "I thought maybe I would put something else there."

"Like what?" I move to the door and look at it like I'm trying to figure out how to attach the poster, when really I'm listening for Ezekiel.

There is a slight pause while he tries to figure something out. "Your favorite saying on fear. The one that Ezekiel has painted on his bedroom wall."

"Fear God Alone?" I ask him.

"Yes," Uriah answers quickly.

I hear Ezekiel's soft footsteps in the hallway. "That's an idea. The only problem is, I'm not sure that God is the only thing you boys should fear."

"What else?" Uriah asks, puzzled.

"Your mom," I answer simply and quickly open the door "Ezekiel Pedrad. Put the cake away, and then you can both spend some time in your rooms."

Both boys look at me with their mouths open. "How'd you…" Ezekiel's voice trails off as he looks at my stony face.

"I'm your mom. I know these things. Now put it away and you can both spend some time in your rooms thinking about what you tried to do."


Eli glances at me and tries to hide a smile as Ezekiel and Uriah finish telling him why they were in their bedrooms when he came home. I grin at the fact that I outsmarted the boys. "I'm going to put on my shoes, and I'll be ready to go to dinner," I tell them and head out of the family room. I know he's proud of the boys for making the attempt to put something over on me, and since I won this round, I'll give him just a moment to let him ask the questions he isn't going to ask when I'm around.

"What made you think you could get away with that?" Eli's voice floats to me as soon as I start down the hallway.

"She was cleaning the bathroom. We were in the family room. She didn't even know Angie had dropped off the cake, and there's no way she heard us." Ezekiel tries to defend them.

"Boys." Eli's voice drops. I stop walking and strain to hear his words. "Let me tell you a fact of life. No matter how softly you speak, a mom's ears can hear you. The trick is not to talk."

I shake my head and start back to the bedroom to get my shoes,wondering the whole time what on earth Eli is about to teach them.


"Give me that!" Uriah leans over the table and grabs for the chocolate muffin Ezekiel holds in his hand.

"What?" Ezekiel tries to sound innocent. "This?" There is a glimmer in that boy's eyes that concerns me.

"Yes, give me my muffin!"

Ezekiel holds the muffin close to his face and takes a long sniff. "Mmm, does it smell good."

I look at Eli out of the corner of my eye. He's trying hard not to laugh at Ezekiel. I'm tempted to swat him. Ezekiel does not need to be encouraged to taunt Uriah like that.

Uriah lunges over the table at his brother. "You took that off my plate! Give it back!" Uriah's milk spills on the table.

"Uriah! Ezekiel! Cut that out this instant!" I decide one of us needs to step in, and Eli sure doesn't look like it's going to be him.

Ezekiel starts to put down the muffin on his tray, but Uriah grabs for it at the same time.

The results are disastrous. Before anyone can react, the chocolate muffin- the last chocolate muffin from the breakfast line- is on the floor.

"That was mine!" Uriah is furious. I try to snag his shirt, but he ducks under the table and comes out on the other side.

"Uriah! Ezekiel!" I yell at both of them, but it is too late. Uriah already has Ezekiel's shirt balled up in one fist and the other one pounds into his shoulder.

I try to decide if I'm better off going under or around the table to get to the two of them. Eli puts a hand on my shoulder. I look over at him, and he shakes his head.

He has got to be kidding me. I'm not supposed to stop this!

"Let Uri blow off some steam first," Eli whispers to me. "Zeke needs to learn not to taunt him like that. If you stop them now, all that is going to happen is that Uri's going to build up steam and blow his top even more later. Zeke's bound to do something else to ensure that happens."

I glare at Eli. This does not seem like a good idea to me.

Eli smiles indulgently at me. "They're Dauntless, Hana. You have to let them try it out. Ask Mom. Nick and I did it often enough."

"For how long?" I whisper back.

At just that moment, Ezekiel pulls away from Uriah and punches him in the face.

"Ezekiel!" This time it is Eli's voice that booms with Ezekiel's full name.

Both boys stop, and stare at their dad. It's rare that he finds the need to step in, and even rarer that he uses Ezekiel's full name, so when he does, it usually gets their immediate and total attention.

"You do not punch someone in the face. You chose to take Uriah's muffin, so you chose to face the consequences if something happened to it."

Ezekiel stands up and puts his hand out to help Uriah up. Uriah stares at if for a second, like he's not sure if he should trust his brother right now or not.

"Uriah." Eli's voice has a commanding tone to it. It's enough to get Uriah to take Ezekiel's hand so he can help him up.

Eli sits back down and starts eating. I look around certain that the whole cafeteria must be staring at us, but no one is.

Uriah climbs back under the table and sits next to me. I gently turn his face towards me to see where Ezekiel hit him. I run a gentle finger over it and he winces slightly. "If you have time, before school, you should really put an ice pack on that." I'm surprised my voice is so calm. All I want to do is put my arms around my baby and take him back to the apartment and take care of him.

I turn back to my food before I'm tempted to do just that.

I catch Eli watching me. He grins at me and goes back to eating. I must be acting like a Dauntless mother. Right now I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing.


"Tap, tap, tap." Ezekiel's finger randomly taps out a beat. I glare at him for a second. He taps out a couple more random taps and stops.

I turn back to the cookies I am making for our card game tonight with Amar and his grandparents- chocolate chip, as requested by the boys. As soon as my back is turned, the tapping starts again. I turn sharply. This time it is Uriah tapping. The glare stops him for a moment, but as soon as I turn back around it starts again.


"Are we going to do a joint birthday party again?" I ask Sultana as we get the milk and cookies for everyone to snack on during a break in our card game. Ezekiel and Amar have birthdays next month. They will turn nine and twelve respectively. The joint birthday party has been a tradition ever since Jazz and Rais died. I keep thinking one of these years Amar is going to decide he is too old to share a party with Ezekiel, but it hasn't happened yet.

"I asked Amar today. He thought about it and decided if it isn't too much of a little kids party, it's okay," Sultana says with a laugh.

"Did he have any idea of what he wants to do?" I ask, wondering what would work for both sets of kids.

"Amar had a couple of ideas. One was to go explore Navy Pier and the other was to play capture the flag there." Sultana answers.

I think for a minute. "Dare at Navy Pier? Would that count as exploring?"

Sultana puts down the milk she is pouring and smiles. "Sounds better to me than just letting them loose."


"Leadership was in the training room at the same time we were!" Uriah tells me excitedly as he and his brother and dad come back home from practicing with the punching bags.

"You should have seen Kayla!" Ezekiel sounds impressed. "She can really make the bag move."

"And then Wyatt and Max were sparring, and we got to watch!" Uriah chimes in excitedly again. He pretends to punch Ezekiel, but he's too excited to control it, and the punch actually lands.

Ezekiel rubs his shoulder then grins. "You started it!" He grabs Uriah around the neck and starts off by messing up his hair.

Uriah pulls away, straightening up his hair as soon as he's away from Ezekiel. "It was an accident, but this isn't." He charges his brother and the two of them are off, wrestling on the ground.

"Stop!" Eli snaps unnecessarily at the boys.

Ezekiel and Uriah stop their wrestling and look first at each other, then at me, and finally at Eli, trying to figure out what is going on. Normally, Eli is the one who doesn't care if they destroy the family room in their attempts to best each other. In fact, usually he's giving pointers to each of them, while I leave the room to keep from putting a stop to it.

"Boys, why don't you go to your rooms for a few minutes?" I say calmly when Eli doesn't add anything to his one word command.

Without a word, both boys scurry to their rooms.

"What is wrong with you?" I ask Eli as he restlessly paces around the family room.

Eli stops pacing and glares at me. "What do you mean?"

"You snapped at the boys for wrestling, which you never do, and now you're pacing around this room like a caged animal. Something is wrong." I walk to him, intending to put a hand on his arm. But he is radiating such anger that I'm afraid to touch him.

Eli studies me for a minute. His shoulders sag as he sighs wearily. 'I'm trying to decide if I need to talk to Natalie or not."

His answer catches me off guard. I don't know what I was expecting, but I certainly wasn't expecting anything close to this. Usually Eli doesn't want me to have anything to do with Natalie. Even when Evan broke his arm, it was my idea, not his, to see if there was any help that we could get for him. And although Natalie let us know about Abram so he and his mom could say good-bye to his dad, he didn't go out of his way to thank her; instead, he asked me to do it. I can't stop myself from asking. "Why do you want to talk to Natalie?"

With his left hand, Eli massages his neck as he answers me. "I saw someone tonight who has a tattoo of flames with an Erudite eye peeking out through them."

"Where was it?" I slowly sit down as my knees buckle underneath me.

Eli runs a distracted hand through his hair. "On his chest. Right where…"

Years. It's been… what, seven years since Marley described the tattoo of her attacker that way? After all these years, that tattoo shows up again. "Who?" I can barely get the word past the rapidly expanding knot in my throat.

Eli shakes his head. "I need to be sure before I accuse anyone of anything. Hana, it's not that I don't trust you… it's just so unbelievable, I need… If this is the person behind it, we are in trouble. Big trouble."

"Why?" I hold his brown eyes with my own. There is no laughter, no hidden smile, no tenderness in his look. Nothing in them to hide the concern in them. Nothing to lessen the terror I'm beginning to feel.

"He's in leadership, Hana. I have to be sure. We have to be careful about this. If I accuse him and I'm wrong or I don't have irrefutable proof that he was involved in the train wreck… It's treason."