Hiya guys! As promised, here is the fourth chapter this Wednesday, and the fifth will be updated early this Saturday. This will be the last Wednesday update for a while – if everything goes according to plan – and updates will stick to every Saturday from now on.

I hope you enjoy this chapter and please review XxxxX

Chapter 4 – The Council Meeting

Tris's POV

On the way to the meeting, Tobias somehow managed to calm me down – he even got me believing that Sasha and Thomas were going to take their orders and not turn up. I don't have a clue how he did it, maybe he said the right things throughout the journey that allowed me to compose myself, but he did do it. And I felt as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders – probably for the best considering I was away into my monthly council meeting.

The actual council host a meeting every week, however we only attend once a month to catch up on the things that they have discussed throughout their sessions... Although, that might have to change bearing in mind what happened at this morning's Dissembly. I shall most definitely bring that point up, along with what had been discussed about aligning ourselves, yet again, with the current enemy.

As Tobias and I sauntered back through the orange-painted corridor that led to the Dissembly Hall after the long process of allowing ourselves entrance, we turned right halfway through the corridor and continued along that path until we reached a pristine white door presenting a gold plaque with the words 'Council Meetings' written on it in a font that I had chosen back when we first began to create this building. Tobias and I had tried to think up a spectacular phrase to have engraved on the plaque just like you would see in a really posh company's main building, but we ended up just going with simply 'Council Meetings'.

Knocking gently on the door, we were greeted by Lindsey Trooper, one of the quiet but extremely smart types – she was previously Erudite if that wasn't obvious. She had long gorgeous blonde hair that curled down below her hips and behind her black glasses were the most pure and wonderful blue eyes that I had always dreamt of having. Her skin was porcelain doll pale; however it made her full, red lips more defined.

"Good morning," she murmured, inclining her head as any other respective Divergent would do. She opened the door wider and we stepped inside. Directing a smile toward her, one in which she returned, we made our way to the head of the table where our seats awaited us as per usual.

The room was filled with the typical lingering scent of air freshener, and the sound of ruffling papers and rapid typing fingers shadowed the room.

As I sat down, I noticed that the two seats at the other end of the table were unoccupied. Lindsey saw what I was looking at and said, "They haven't bothered to show up today after the Dissembly."

I didn't have to say anything, Tobias answered for me. "It isn't that they haven't bothered such as they have instead followed the instructions given to them by their leaders."

Every person in the room stopped what they were doing – filing through papers, tapping pencils on the desk, typing on their laptops – and the room collapsed into silence. The only thing audible was the 'tick, tock' of the clock that stood in the corner of the room beside the window that viewed over the entire working progress of our Divergent faction.

"What exactly are you saying?" David Johnston, the one that had been sitting tapping his pencil on the desk, asked.

I replied, "We unassigned Sasha and Thomas their positions of council leaders along with their positions of council members. They will no longer be attending these sessions if they comply with the orders we have allocated them."

"What reasons have you to do that?" David questioned.

"I think that we should be the ones to question to you, David," I started. "What was this morning's Dissembly all about? You all know what would happen were we to reunite with the other factions, it would be a move taken too soon, a move that could affect what we've built here, and what we're still building."

Lindsey stood from her seat at the table with a fierce expression on her face. "We didn't discuss that, how dare you think that of us. We all know exactly what would happen, and that is why we told Sasha that we would not be considering that particular event. We thought that had been the end of it, and this morning we discovered that it wasn't. If you don't agree with them then you are on the same page as the large percent of us in this room, but that doesn't mean you have the right to start blaming us for what our previous leaders said and for what happened today."

I must say, I was taken aback. I had known that she was smart, but that was something else entirely. That was confidence, plain and simple, filled with fierce surety that I could not deny.

"I think that's the most I've ever heard you say," I smiled.

As if she had been under a spell during her whole speech, Lindsey's face turned to the usual kind-passiveness that I saw every time I passed her within our faction. She sat down with her hands in her lap and looked at me with anxious eyes but an expectant face.

"Thank you for putting us in our places, Lindsey," Tobias smiled.

"Yes, thank you," I added. "We are sorry if we directed any sort of prejudice against any of you, our false accusations have obviously caused some disruption within this council."

"Six, may I speak with you for a moment?" Tobias wondered.

"Excuse us," I said to the members of the council meanwhile answering Tobias's question.

We left the room and made our way along the two corridors that we had previously to reach the council meetings door. When we got outside, Tobias looked at me with the same emotion that had consumed me throughout the entire morning. Worry.

"They hadn't discussed it," Tobias stated.

"Which means that someone else did," I added.

"Not necessarily..." Tobias began, but he knew that too much optimism was worse than no optimism whatsoever.

"I'll find Sasha and Thomas, you finish this council meeting. I think it's for the best to call off all future council meetings until we get to the bottom of this particular turn of events."

"Consider it done. When you get Sasha and Thomas, meet me at the lake."

"Consider it done," I mimicked.

As I turned around to begin on my way to find Sasha and Thomas, Tobias's hand fell on my shoulder and his other on my hip, directing me back around to face him.

"Be careful," he told me as he placed a gentle kiss on my lips.

On a normal day I wouldn't have let him stop, but today wasn't a normal day. We both knew that something was going on, and in all honesty I was glad that we'd at least had the amount of time that we'd had in our new, safe faction before anything like this happened. We'd known that someday there would be a protest of sorts demanding that we reunite with the other factions, every person living in the Ditel had family in at least one of the five, and there was no doubt that each secretly prayed that one day they would once again be a part of the family they have been forced to leave.

But we had all been brought up the same, and we all had the same life motto.

Faction before blood.

"Careful is my middle name."