Tobias

After wandering around for a while, I find myself on the rocks by the chasm. I shouldn't have reacted the way I did with Tris, but I need more time. If Zeke had told her about what was going on, it wouldn't all be the truth. But worse, some of it would be. She's not going to understand why I did what I did unless I explain it to her myself. Tris trusts me. I know that for sure after she let me help her this morning. I can't risk losing that trust just because I was a coward. I can't risk losing Tris just because I was a coward: she hates cowardice, I think more than anything else. I check the time and see that I've been down here for about two hours. I'm not concerned about missing work. We don't have the same rules or the same leadership anymore. I'm more concerned with Tris finding me here.

As I'm walking through the hallways, I hear a female voice calling my name, but it's not Tris.

"Four!" Nita calls, running up to me.

"What's up?" I ask casually.

"Is everything okay?" she asks. "You seemed distracted at breakfast."

"I was, but everything's fine," I sigh.

"Are you sure?" she steps closer and puts her hand on my arm. "Because we could go talk about it?"

"I'm fine, really," I say taking her hand off of me and walking away.

I wonder if Tris was right about her. I accused Tris of being jealous, but maybe she really did see something that I didn't.

"Yo, Four!" Zeke yells running up to me. "Are you coming tonight?"

"Am I coming where?"

"To the party!" he grins.

"I don't think so," I shake my head.

"Oh come on, dude. You need to unwind a little, relax. Come have some fun." he punches me in the arm.

"Yeah, alright," I sigh.

"Awesome!"

Zeke runs off, probably trying to convince more people to go to his party, and I just head back to the apartment. It's almost lunch time by now, so Tris shouldn't be there. I feel bad for avoiding her, but I just need more time. I slowly unlock the door and open it quietly. Just as I had hoped, Tris is nowhere to be found. I go to the bedroom and gather up some clothes. I'm just going to spend the rest of the day in the control room so I don't have to talk to anyone. As I'm finishing gathering up my stuff, there's a knock on the door. Great. I sigh and open the door, finding myself face to face with Caleb Prior.

"Can I help you?" I ask bitterly.

"I wanna talk to you," he states.

"About what?" I fold my arms.

"Beatrice."

"What about her?" I say, annoyed that he's dragging this out.

"I don't like the way you were treating her earlier," he folds his arms.

"Oh, you don't?" I start, "because I didn't like when you were assisting in her execution. Or when you allowed her to take your place in the Weapons Lab."

"Look, I know I've done a lot of wrong things. But we're not talking about me. We're talking about the way you were talking to and treating my little sister," he huffs.

"How many times do I need to say that she is not your little anything?" I stare at him. "More often than not, Tris can take care of herself. And when there is a time that she can't, that's what I'm here for. From the moment she got here I've been looking out for her, taking care of her, protecting her. When there were people trying to throw her into the chasm, I was the one that saved her. I'm the one that used my access to the cameras in the control room to check up on her throughout the day. You are the one who has actively participated in her almost being killed. I don't need a lecture on how you think I should be talking to her or treating her. If she has a problem with something, she can tell me herself. Otherwise, there's no problem. And either way, it's none of your business, so stay out of it."

He turns and walks out without saying another word. I'm not sure how I feel about him. Every part of me wants to hate him for what he has put Tris through, but only part of me does. Every time I see him, part of me sees the ways that he looks like her. They have the same nose, the same eye shape. And when they're mad, their eyes get darker. And when she's mad, her nostrils flare just slightly, and her skin turns a pale red color. I love her. But I need more time. I can tell by the way that she looks at me that she has a long list of things that she has decided don't add up or that she finds to be suspicious. She's always been too curious for her own good. I just can't tell her about Evelyn yet. Now I know how she must have felt about telling me that she was working with Marcus.

When I finally make it to the control room, there's no one to be found. The feed from the remaining cameras that we have is on the monitors, but other than that the place looks dull and uneventful. I sit down at a computer and start casually going through some of the files. Before I always had to fear someone catching me, but now I can do and look at what I want. As I'm digging around, I come across a folder titled "Prior." I hesitated before clicking on it, and when I did click on it, I wished I hadn't.

Pictures of Tris's father, Andrew Prior, begin to fill the screen. There are Erudite-released articles about his work in Abnegation, his loyalty to Marcus, and his family. Photos of the entire Prior family appear. In most of them Tris is very young, but even then I can see how miserable she was. I remember seeing her a few times when I would peek out the window. I always saw Caleb first. He always had a book in his hand and he was never paying attention to where his sister was. She was always at least three yards behind him. He'd stop to help an older woman, or to feed a stray animal, and when Tris would catch up to him, she'd brush past him like he wasn't there.

I remember seeing her play with Susan and Robert. One time, she and Robert were making something out of some wet dirt and another kid came by and smashed it. Not very Abnegation like of the kid, now that I think about it. Robert looked completely defeated, but not Tris. She got up, walked calmly over to the kid, and shoved him down into an ant bed. I can still hear the way she used to laugh when she would race through the streets, watching the trains filled with Dauntless pass.

She doesn't know I remember any of this. It took me a little while. When I first saw her, when I pulled her out of the net, she looked familiar. I didn't know if it was just because all Abnegation dress almost exactly alike or if I knew her from somewhere. It didn't take me long to figure out, though. The look in her eyes when she challenged me the first day in the cafeteria was the same look she gave that kid when she shoved him down. Maybe one day I'll tell her. Maybe. Or maybe I'll let it be my little secret.