Tobias sets the alarm to go off earlier than normal to allow us time to get ready for the day and have breakfast before we go to Candor for the rest of Jason's interrogation while I finally remove my black 3-inch high heels I accidentally wore while we were making love. I realize I just fulfilled one of his fantasies, and I wonder momentarily what other fantasies he has.
I lie in his arms, committing every detail of tonight to memory. This is one night I don't ever want to forget. Even though we had already decided to commit our lives to one another, he asked me to marry him when we were in the chasm. It was the perfect setting. I think it was natural for him to propose there, and I couldn't help but say yes. He owns my heart. I'd always heard that sentiment but didn't know what it meant before him. And when we made love tonight, it was earth moving. It's always been great being with him but tonight was spectacular, beyond special, beyond description ... we were one.
We lie naked in each other's arms, covered up by our thick quilt, talking about us and what we'd like in a wedding. We both want a simple ceremony with friends only, maybe my parents and Caleb, too. Soon I find myself yawning almost uncontrollably, exhausted from the stressful events of the day and our enthusiastic lovemaking. I lean up and give Tobias a tender goodnight kiss then roll to my side. He rolls with me, pulling me close to him. I fall asleep in his strong, loving arms, feeling his protective force all around me. A loud banging noise shatters the calm of the late December morning, and I open my eyes trying to figure out what it is I'm hearing.
"What is that?" Tobias asks, sleep thick in his deep voice.
"I think someone's at the door," I say as another loud knock echoes through our quiet apartment. He slides out of bed and heads toward the doorway as I look at the clock, 2:42 a.m. "Hey, don't forget to put something on." He looks down and realizes he was heading to answer the door without a stitch of clothing on. He goes to the dresser and pulls out a pair of sleep pants, slips them on, then hurries down to answer the door. I hear him grumbling about impatience as yet another knock booms through the silence.
"Tris," he yells after a moment. "Come down here. It's important." I slide out of bed, nervous energy spreading through me, and go to the dresser and pull on a pair of long pajama pants and a t-shirt. I grab one of Tobias' old sweatshirts so he can put a shirt on then I head downstairs. Standing in the middle of my living room is Dr. Parrish looking like an absolute wreck.
"What's going on?" I ask, handing Tobias the shirt, confused as to why the good doctor would be pounding on our door in the middle of the night.
"Asher Parrish was arrested tonight and taken to Candor to be interrogated under truth serum tomorrow ... or later today actually," Tobias says quietly, sliding the sweatshirt on over his head. He mouths the words thank you to me.
"What is going on, Four? Tris?" he says. "I think I deserve to know why he was arrested for attacks on Dauntless. He is my brother after all."
"Who notified you of the arrest?" Tobias asks.
"Nathan called me tonight and said he had heard that Asher had been arrested," he says. How did Nathan find out? I wonder if he and Dru know Cameron is wanted also. I didn't think any of this was public knowledge yet.
"Please sit down," I say to him. "Would you like some coffee? This could be a long night." He nods at me and collapses onto our loveseat looking physically and emotionally exhausted. Tobias and I go into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. "How much do we tell him?" I keep my voice down, making sure only Tobias can hear me.
"I'm not sure," he says, looking over his shoulder at our unplanned guest. "Hopefully we can figure that out rather quickly." When the coffee finishes brewing, I pour each of us a cup and Tobias takes Dr. Parrish his and sits down on the couch. I sit down beside him.
"I have to be honest with you, Doc," Tobias says. "I'm having trouble trusting anyone except for Tris, Will, Tori, and names I can count on one hand. We're going to ask you some questions to see if we can trust you or not. If you answer them to our satisfaction, we'll tell you everything that's going on."
"If you don't," I say, "you may end up in Candor with your brother." Dr. Parrish nods his head at us.
"How long has it been since you've seen Asher?" Tobias asks him.
"I really don't know. I've seen him twice since he unexpectedly chose Erudite at our Choosing Ceremony 20 plus years ago," Dr. Parrish says to us. "It's been at least ... five years I think."
"When I looked in Asher's file, I saw you two are twins. Were you close?" I ask him.
"We were extremely close until about ... eight or nine months before the Choosing Ceremony. Something happened and he ... withdrew. It was scary seeing someone I love go through that," he answers.
"Are you aware Asher was named the new leader of Erudite after Jeanine Matthews' execution?" Tobias asks. This seems rather obvious but it could establish whether he's telling the truth or not.
"Yes," he says. "I read it in one of their news reports. I'm very proud of my brother for rising to the top of his chosen faction but I made no attempts to contact me. I believe in faction before blood." Tobias stares in Dr. Parrish's worried eyes.
"I want the real reason you stopped being friends with Nathan Wright," Tobias says after a few minutes of chilling silence. Dr. Parrish takes a deep breath.
"It really didn't have anything to do with Nathan," he says slowly. "I just couldn't be around Dru anymore, and I didn't want my family around her either."
"Why?" Tobias asks.
"She's a very negative person," he says but it feels like he's holding something back. "I just didn't want to expose my family to her anymore. Sometimes people change. I changed."
"What relationship does your brother have with my aunt?" I ask. This question surprises him.
"I guess you would say they were each other's first love," he says. "I always thought Asher and Dru would get married but something happened, and he left for Erudite without a word, to me anyway. She stayed and married Nathan." Tobias and I look at each other. I nod slightly at him letting him know I think it's time to tell Dr. Parrish exactly what's going on.
"What I'm about to say doesn't leave this room, Doc," Tobias says. Dr. Parrish nods in agreement. For the next hour Tobias tells Dr. Parrish everything that has happened since we were named leaders including finding the well-hidden lists created by Eric and their connection to the assaults and deaths that have been plaguing Dauntless for the past few years and the fact that our names are on the first list; Hana's involvement in providing us detailed composite drawings of the two men who assaulted her; Zeke finding a screen grab of one of his mother's assailants on security footage following her a week before her attack; identifying Cameron in the inactive files and matching him to the sketches and photo grab as one of Hana's attackers; identifying Jason and Jared Grant, who are Erudite members, as Tobias' attackers; and Jason's interrogation under truth serum where he told us of Cameron and Asher's involvement as well as someone else named Ben Riley.
"Do you have any idea why they're doing this?" Dr. Parrish asks.
"We had an idea of what was going on but it was speculation until Jason gave me some information when I first talked to him in the infirmary," I say. "He told me whoever he's working with is angry the war on Abnegation was stopped. They not only hold Dauntless responsible but also my brother and me personally."
"Why would they blame you and your brother for stopping the war on Abnegation?" he asks, interrupting me. I pause for a moment wondering how much of this story to tell him. There's already a price on my entire families heads by Erudite fanatics, so I might as well tell him everything.
"My mom asked me to have Caleb, my brother, investigate the long-range simulation serum that was administered to us several months ago, which he did. When he found inconsistencies in what it did and what we were told it could do, he took his findings to your brother, who turned in Jeanine Matthews and her coconspirators to the Abnegation council. It seems like the only reason he did that was to take over her position at Erudite. I can't pretend to know why all of this is happening, Dr. Parrish. All I know is your brother is helping to kill people."
"Why these people?" he asks. "Why are you two on the list?"
"When I talked to Jason he blamed another group of people for his troubles ... he blamed Divergents," I say. At the word Divergent I see the color start to drain from Dr. Parrish's face.
"What do Divergents have to do with this?" he asks, his voice like ice.
"After eliminating all other commonalities between the names on the first list, we were left with divergence," Tobias says, exposing our secret.
"You and Tris are Divergent?" he says, dragging in an unsteady breath. I see his normally steady hands tremble slightly. I hope sharing our secret with him wasn't a mistake. "That's why I can't be around Dru anymore. She absolutely despises Divergents. You see, my wife and I suspect our oldest daughter, Avery, is Divergent ... just like my wife. Stella has learned to hide it well over the years but we made the decision to keep Avery away from Dru. We didn't want to give her any reasons to become suspicious of us, especially Avery."
"Do you know what caused Dru's feelings?" I ask.
"Yes. Dawson Andresen," Dr. Parrish says. Oh, there's that name again. The one in both Dru and Asher's files but has no file of his own.
"Did this Dawson person do something to them?" Tobias asks. "And what does it have to do with divergence?"
"Dawson was very open about everything, and he wasn't scared of anything. He told anyone who would listen that he was Divergent. Knowing what I know now about divergence, I think he was just saying that. Why? I have no idea. Living with Stella for 19 years and Avery for almost 16 has taught me what divergence looks like, and I now know it's nothing to fear. If Dawson did do something to Dru, I honestly don't know about it. I always thought he had something to do with why she and Asher broke up but Ash wouldn't tell me anything. Then he left. I was stunned. He broke my heart."
"Can you tell us what happened to Dawson Andresen?" I ask. Dr. Parrish looks at me dumbfounded.
"You really don't know?" he says.
"No, Doc, there's absolutely no record of any Andresen family living in Dauntless ... ever," Tobias says. "Tris has looked, twice."
"That's because he wasn't born in Dauntless. He came to live with his aunt when he was 5- or 6-years-old after his parents were killed," he says.
"Do you know his aunt's name and if she's still here?" Tobias asks. Dr. Parrish thinks for a moment then frowns.
"I know I should know who she is but it's not coming to me right now. The one thing I do know is it wasn't Andresen," Dr. Parrish says then his eyes light up. "I think I know where a file might still be located, Four. In the infirmary. Dawson died 20 years ago. His autopsy file and any other medical records should be in the records room. He was pulled out of the chasm about a month before our Choosing Ceremony. He was the same age as Asher, Nathan, Miles, and me. No one really knows what happened to him, but I always suspected he was murdered."
"By ..." Tobias prompts.
"I'd rather not speculate," he says, hanging his head. Something tells me he suspects his brother or maybe Dru was involved but he isn't willing to share his theory. "But he was despised in Dauntless. It could have been anyone who lived here at the time. Dawson was the definition of a bully. He was a big, mean brute. He belittled everyone in his path. People twice his age were afraid of him. The leaders were afraid of him. I can't think of a single person who actually liked him and called him a friend. None of us did. I also can't think of a single person who mourned his death. His death was the only time a public funeral wasn't held until a few months ago when the leaders were put to death."
"There was an infraction in Asher and Dru's file for an assault on Dawson Andresen," I say, and Dr. Parrish actually starts laughing, loudly.
"No way," he says. "There's no way in hell that Asher and Dru could have assaulted Dawson. He made two of Asher and Dru put together. I don't believe that."
"Unfortunately, there are no details as to why the infraction was put in their files," I say. "Can you think of anything else at all, anything that can help us? I don't know why, but whatever happened between Asher, Dru, and Dawson Andresen 20 years ago triggered what's going on in Dauntless now."
"I really can't, Tris," Dr. Parrish says. "But I tell you what, I'm going to go to the infirmary right now and look for his records." He gets up and moves towards the door. "Do you think my brother actually killed people?"
"I don't know," Tobias and I say at the same time.
"I'll bring whatever I find directly to you. If I don't find anything, I'll text you, Four," he says walking out our door. I look at the clock and see it's a little before 5 a.m., and there's still an hour left before our alarm is set to go off but neither one of us is tired anymore. I cuddle up against his side, and he automatically wraps his arm around me.
"Is something wrong, Tris?" Tobias asks me, pulling my chin up to look at him.
"I'm worried," I say. "I'm worried there are people out there right now who want my entire family dead, and we don't know where they are. I'm worried about what the interrogations today will reveal. I'm worried our secrets will come out. You distracted me very well last night, but now everything seems twice as bad." He pulls me closer.
"Are you upset I took you out last night?" he tentatively asks. I pull away from him and look into his eyes.
"How can I be upset about last night?" I say, looking at my exquisite engagement ring that sits on my left hand. "Last night was absolutely perfect on every level but we were pretending a bit, don't you think." Tobias narrows his eyes and frowns at me. "Pretending we didn't have a care in the world. Pretending there isn't a reason to be terrified we could lose each other. Pretending my name is not on a list that some faceless group of individuals wants eliminated."
"Pretending? No," he says shaking his head at me. "Forgetting, ignoring, overlooking? Yes, but not pretending."
"Isn't it the same?" I ask, sadness and fear creeping into my voice.
"Come here," he says pulling me onto his lap, so that I'm straddling him. We wrap our arms around each other and hold tight to the one thing we cannot lose, the other. "When we were in Stephanie's office yesterday and you said you wanted to marry me, I knew I wanted to propose immediately. I didn't care about the crisis hanging over our heads. I didn't mean to act like what's going on around us isn't upsetting, terrifying even, but sometimes we need to lock the outside world away and concentrate on each other. Don't you think?" I feel the familiar stirrings of desire deep in the pit of my stomach and know exactly what he means.
"Yes," I say, pulling him closer to me still. "I'm scared, Tobias, and I hate to admit it. It isn't very Dauntless to feel this way."
"I bet even the fiercest Dauntless member gets scared once in a while," he says in my ear, comforting me. "It's only natural. Why don't you go get ready for the interrogations, and I'll make us some breakfast while we wait for Dr. Parrish. He should be on his way back by now since we haven't heard anything from him." I pull his mouth to mine and kiss him gently, trying not to ignite the passion that's simmering just below the surface. When I can no longer breathe, I move away from him and head up the stairs to get ready. I shower, put on an outfit more suitable for my leader position, apply my makeup, and braid my hair then go back to Tobias. The smell of bacon and eggs is wafting through the apartment and my stomach growls. Just as I'm about to sit down at the island, a knock sounds at the door.
"I'll get it," I say. I open the door and Dr. Parrish is standing there with a rather thick file in his hand. "Come in."
"I can't," he says. "I've taken up enough of your time today. I'm sorry. I think this is what you've been looking for." He hands me the file, and when I open it I recognize part of its contents as being his missing personnel file. Someone hid it in the infirmary? Why would they do that? "I shouldn't have come to you in the middle of the night but I needed some answers. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me what's going on."
"Actually, we were going to ask you some questions about Dawson Andresen so everything worked out for the best," Tobias says, shaking Dr. Parrish's hand. "Remember, not a word about what we discussed with anyone. It's of the utmost importance." He nods then walks away. I close and lock the door behind him and open the file.
"Eat first, before it gets cold," Tobias says, taking the file out of my hand and closing it. I groan but he's right, another 15 minutes at the most isn't going to make the information disappear, not when it's finally sitting right here in front of me. I eat the fantastic breakfast Tobias fixed and try not to fixate on the file folder sitting on the island between us. It really isn't working. When I finally finish, I put my dishes in the dishwasher and quickly clean up the kitchen. When Tobias finishes, he goes upstairs to get ready for the day.
After the kitchen is pristine, I open the file folder and look at its contents. I wonder why it's so heavy. This is the thickest Dauntless file I've ever seen. I quickly realize there's more here than a normal file. I sit back down at my spot at the island and start sorting through the papers. The information before me is quite detailed. There are incident reports, which should be filed with the other incident reports not tucked away in the infirmary records room, medical records, personnel records, and much more. I finally see the reason why his records might have been misplaced. Max, our old Dauntless leader, was his cousin.