Disclaimer: My name is not Veronica Roth. I am not a grown adult. My social security number isn't the same as Veronica Roth's. I'm not familiar with Chicago. All of those facts should lead you to the conclusion that I am not, in fact, Veronica Roth. (Or am I?... No. Kidding.)

A/N: Merry Christmas, you all (Or happy eighth day of Hanukkah, or just happy holidays, in general)! :) I had zero ideas for any sort of Christmas themed one-shot, so I just didn't write it. This is my present to you all instead... a DOUBLE UPDATE!
I've FINALLY gotten some time to write, because it's FINALLY winter break! No homework to stress about, just... pieces to learn on the flute, an entirely new instrument (piccolo) to pick up, driving lessons, volunteering hours, getting a job, and writing, of course. Okay, maybe it's not so carefree. Ugh, when did life become so complicated?

Anyways, let's dive right into the chapter!

"Initiate."

I resist the urge to shiver at the cold, hard voice. The familiar cold, hard voice.

Maybe I shouldn't have insisted on wandering the compound alone for a while. But the spiders took a lot out of me, and I just needed some time alone.

So much for that. "Eric."

Usually, Eric reminds me of a bad-tempered elephant. Large, loud, stomping on everything that comes in his way. But it is instances like this, when I watch him walk closer, placing every foot down gently, deliberately, making hardly a sound, which remind me that Eric has multiple faces. A loud, somewhat maniacal Eric is dangerous. But a quiet, stalking one, like the one that stands in front of me, may be even more so.

Right now, he is a hunter. And I am his prey.

"Tell me, Camilla," He emphasizes my real name, sending a shiver down my spine. "How is it that a Stiff can waltz into Dauntless initiation and outrank everyone else in the room?"

His lips twist up in a smirk, and I can tell he is probing for information.

Well, he already suspects that I am Divergent. He couldn't prove it in the simulations, so I'm guessing that this is his next attempt. He's trying to intimidate me, make me sweat and slip up.

Two can play at that game.

"I don't know." I shrug, trying my hardest to seem nonchalant. "Maybe I just belong here. I've always been brave."

Eric's face falls; clearly, that was not the answer he hoped for. But he recovers far too quickly. "Ah, yes, brave. I suppose you call taking your dear dad's abuse for your whole life brave?"

My heart starts racing. Of course he knows, idiot, he has access to your fear simulations. All the leaders do.

The fact doesn't make me feel better. It means that other than Tobias, Rowan, and I, there are five other people who now know about what Marcus did.

I want to freak out, but Eric is watching. He is observing, searching for my cracks. I may be fractured, but I can't let him see that.

"Maybe not." I take a deep breath. "But I think defying that same abusive father at every reasonable opportunity is."

A fascinated expression comes across Eric's face. "So you're not going to deny it? Interesting."

I roll my eyes; a bold move, but it helps me feel like I have some control over the situation. "You've seen my fear simulations, denying it would be pointless."

Eric hums in affirmation. "Good to see that you have at least some common sense. Better than the rest of you bloody Stiffs."

Anger starts to boil in my stomach. I want to defend my old faction, but I cannot. Eric would take it as a traitorous act, or, worse, a Divergent one.

Instead, I defend myself. "I'm not a Stiff anymore."

Eric laughs. "You're right. You're not. But just remember," He moves a little closer, so he can whisper loud enough for me to hear, "You're not Dauntless yet, either."

And with that, he abruptly straightens up, gives me a final smirk, and walks away.

But I can see the disappointment flashing in his eyes.

Cammi, one, Eric, zero.

It is only by pure luck that I ran into Tobias in the evening.

He looked more worried than usual when he grabbed my arm as we passed each other. "Chasm. Tonight."

And what could I do but agree? Honestly, the extra lines creasing his forehead worried me more than I'd like to admit.

When I walk down to our little spot in the Chasm, the first thing I notice is that Tobias is standing up, instead of sitting down, like usual. The second is the deep frown on his face.

"Hey, Toby."

He looks up, his face lightening a bit, whether from the sight of me or the use of his hated nickname, I don't know.

"Hey, Cam."

I stop beside him and set a hand on his shoulder. "What's going on?"

Just like that, the frown returns. He sighs. "There's something you need to see. Let's go."

"Wait!" I catch his arm to prevent him from walking past me. "Where are we going?"

Tobias' face is grim, and it sends shivers down my spine. "The control room."

The control room?! "What? Why? How are we going to get in there?"

"What I want to show you can only be accessed via a computer, and the only people who have personal computers are the leaders." He explains patiently. "So, we need to get into the control room. And I work there, so I'm sure I can convince whoever is on duty to take a break for a bit."

I take a deep breath. We're just breaking into the control room. No big deal. We're only trying to enter the heart of Dauntless security. "Okay, let's go."

"Hey, Jade." I crouch around the corner, careful to keep out of sight, and listen to Tobias talk to his coworker.

Faintly, I can hear a girl - probably Jade - respond. "Oh, what's up, Four?"

"Not much. Initiates are a pain, though." I have to stifle a laugh at that. Some initiates certainly are a huge pain.

Jade full-on laughs at that. "Oh, I'm sure. Transfers always are. Anyways, what can I do for you?"

"I was wondering if you'd like to take a short break." Tobias' voice is steady, and I am reminded of what a good actor he is. "I'm bored and can't sleep, so I'd be happy to cover for you for a while."

"Really?" Jade's voice is full of hope. I can get that - staying up for hours in the middle of the night to stare at screens isn't my idea of fun.

"Yeah, why not?"

"I… I don't know, Four." Jade falters. "Leonel always gets on my case these days, and-"

"Hey. Relax." Tobias pauses for a second before continuing. "Leonel won't ever have to know. And it's not like you're leaving the city undefended. I'll be here."

There's a silence, as though Jade is contemplating this, before the squeak of a chair. "Thanks, Four. I owe you one. I'll be back in about half an hour, okay?"

"Sounds good."

And then, I hear the tap-tap-tap of footsteps, thankfully fading away rather than coming closer. After a few seconds, Tobias' hushed voice reaches my ears. "All clear, Cam."

At that, I step out from around the corner and head towards Tobias, who is standing in the doorway of the control room. He steps to the side to allow me to enter.

As I step in, my eyes widen. I don't think I've ever seen so much technology in one place in my entire life.

The room is decently large. One entire wall, the wall directly opposite the door, is entirely covered in screens, showing different portions of the city. There is only one desk in front of this wall. The other two walls are lined with individual workspaces, consisting of a single screen, a desk, and a chair each, presumably for the control room employees. There are eight individual workspaces, and I find myself wondering if the fact that there was only one employee at this time of night is because nobody else wanted to take this shift, or because there wasn't anyone else available to take the shift.

Tobias steps in, too, shutting the door behind us. His lips quirk up in a smile as he sees me staring at the room. "Welcome to the control room."

I find myself mainly staring at the screens covering the walls in front of me. The scenes on each screen vary; some show hallways in Dauntless, and others show Abnegation streets, different areas outside the Candor and Erudite buildings, parts of the Amity farms, the fence, the factionless sector. "That's…" I swallow. "A lot of surveillance."

"Yeah. Seems a bit excessive to me, but that's not my decision to make." Tobias strides over to one of the workspaces, probably the one he usually works at, and starts typing, fingers flying over the keyboard. "Give me a second to pull this up."

While he does that, I observe the screens some more. The Candor and Abnegation sectors seem peaceful. The Amity screens are almost always moving, not due to people, but rather because of the wind shifting the leaves of the crops, or an animal doing the same.

The factionless sector, though, has to be the most lively so far. Even in the dead of night, several human forms can be seen in every camera of that area. However, one screen in particular catches my attention; it is of a road in the factionless sector, one that the Abnegation students usually had to walk along for a while to get to school. There is a huddle of factionless on the screen, mostly cloaked by shadows.

But it isn't their presence that draws my eyes, it is how they're standing. They're arranged in a circle, as though they are having a meeting.

I frown. The factionless are solitary people, since it's essentially survival of the fittest out there. So this scene - five or six factionless talking quietly, seemingly without hostility - it's out of place.

Suddenly, it seems like a cloud has shifted, because a dim shaft of moonlight illuminates part of one of the factionless' faces. It's a woman, with black hair, olive skin, and dark eyes. The half of her face which I can see is set in a scowl.

It looks almost like-

Evelyn.

I stumble backwards, taken off guard by this random factionless' resemblance to my mother.

It's a coincidence. It has to be. Mom is dead. She died when I was eight. I'm seeing things.

"Cam?" I whip my head around, only to see Tobias, who has stopped typing on the computer, and is watching me with concern. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," I breathe. "It's nothing."

Tobias doesn't look convinced, but turns back to his task anyways.

When I look back at the screen with the huddled factionless, it is dark once again.

I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I am being foolish; my mother was not the only person in the city with olive skin, black hair, and dark eyes.

I turn my attention to the rest of the screens. Most of the screens covering Dauntless are still, but I do see a few in which there are people, moving. And the Erudite screens-

Erudite still has their lights on.

It's not a lot of light - it seems like the main compound has its visible lights off, but some of the outbuildings are still lit. But no matter how little, it's still against the city ordinances.

The ordinances that Abnegation made.

I frown deeply. If the Erudite are violating city ordinances, now, then they truly aren't scared of whatever punishment Abnegation may dish out.

That's concerning. Because if Erudite won't follow the rules, then who is to say that the other factions won't start violating them, too?

"Hey, Tobias?" I call, my eyes still fixed on the dimly lit Erudite sector. "Have you seen this?"

There is a moment of silence, when he is presumably finding what I'm looking at, before he lets out a sigh. "Yeah. The Erudite started doing this weeks ago - they left one of their buildings lit, and nobody did anything, so they started leaving more and more on."

"Wait, the Abnegation aren't doing anything?"

"Nope. My guess is that they don't want to start a conflict over something this small."

"Why do the Erudite need those lights?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Cam." I hear the clicking of a few more keys, before Tobias speaks up again. "Alright, it's up. Come over here."

I finally look away from the screens and make my way over to Tobias. He stands beside the computer he's been working on for the past few minutes, looking more somber than usual.

"As you know, Abnegation publishes all the non-classified topics of their meetings online, for anyone to see, for the sake of transparency." I nod. The Abnegation believe that it would be selfish to keep the knowledge of what they are doing to improve the city to themselves, so they make it available for all the factions to see, unless it is absolutely necessary to keep it off the record.

"Well, in the latest council meeting, they hosted an Erudite representative, who demanded that Abnegation prove they aren't hoarding food, by accounting for all the food they've received in the past three years." He points to some text on the screen, which I assume is the list of subjects discussed during the latest council meeting. I squint at it, feeling my stomach sink with horror as the words confirm what Tobias is saying.

"But- But they can't do that." With the other factions, it would probably be easy - the Erudite could ask Amity, since they handle most of the production and shipping process. But Abnegation receives food for both themselves and the factionless. And they, like Amity and Candor, don't have to sign off when they pick up their monthly rations, because like the Amity and Candor are too kind or honest to take extra rations, the Abnegation are too selfless to. And it would be ridiculous to ask the factionless to sign off whenever they pick up supplies. So, there's no way to prove how much of Abnegation's total food supply goes to the factionless, and how much is used on the members.

Tobias nods. "Exactly. So when Abnegation fails to do that, they can accuse them of hoarding food, knowing that the Abnegation have no way to prove that they don't."

"Oh my god." Based on the expression on Tobias' face, I can tell that we've both come to the same conclusion. The Erudites' plans run deeper and more complex than either of us could have imagined.

We both knew the Erudite were trying to ruin the Abnegation's reputation. But I don't think either of us realized the extent.

Because if this comes out - if the Erudite start manipulating the Abnegation's selflessness to make it look like proof of their so-called crimes - then it won't matter how much the Candor preach innocent until proven guilty.

Because the Abnegation - my old faction - will be tried in the court of public opinion, where everyone is guilty until proven innocent.

A/N: Dun, dun, DUN!

So, firstly, I did a wee bit of borrowing from other stories for this chapter. One of Eric's lines, the one about Cammi doing well in initiation for a Stiff, was partially inspired by dhphg0201's Best Friend to Instructor fanfic, when Eric said something similar to Tris in chapter 11. And the bit about Erudite asking Abnegation to account for all the food they've gotten in the past few years was taken from Jojoboo90's Inescapable Passion, when Tris and Tobias discuss a council meeting in chapter 12. Both stories are on this website, and I highly encourage you to read them! Both of these authors are incredibly talented, and both stories are some of my favorite Divergent fanfics ever.

Secondly, this book will soon be going through minor editing. It won't be anything big; the events and their order will still be the same, and the story, overall, won't be affected that much. Mostly, I'll just be fixing a few minor plot holes and inaccuracies that I noticed throughout the story. Oh, and I'll be adding an epigraph (a quote that represents the book) at the start of chapter one, if you'd like to look out for that.

This is another short chapter, about the same length as the last one. I hope the fact that I have a double update in store makes up for that. Keep on reading for the start of the fear landscapes, coming right up! :)

Chao, mi brilliante lectores!