A/N:

I just can't stop writing in the divergent world. It's an obsession. Welcome to my third story in the divergent universe.

I hope you like it, please leave reviews to let me know what you think.

Prologue

Tobias/Four

I genuinely don't know what I'm going to do.

As I make the walk home from my aptitude test, my head is buzzing.

I have a huge decision to make and I'm not even sure I have the tools or intelligence to make it.

All I can think about right now is getting away from my father and for that I have to choose something other than abnegation.

Anything other than abnegation.

Only, I don't know if I can do that…I don't know if I can make a decision that is not based on my father's wants or needs.

I never have before and if I'm being honest with myself, I am terrified of his reaction.

I'm always terrified of his reaction.

I kick a rock and watch it go skidding down the street.

If I had any type of a friend, I would be with them going over and over my decision but here…here I only have myself.

Myself and my father.

The thought makes me feel sick.

I lean a hand against the concrete wall of the alley and breathe in deeply.

I cannot go home like this.

If I do, Marcus will suspect something went wrong in my test and I can't let him think that.

The fall out would be worse than any before.

"Beatrice! It isn't that hard! All you had to do was give up your seat!"

I hear voices and I press myself flat against the wall. I don't want to be seen. Abnegation members have a loyalty to my father that is beyond anything I could ever comprehend.

If I am seen he will be aware of exactly where I am within minutes.

I don't want that to happen.

"Why? Why should I have to give up my seat? I needed it just as much as he did! I twisted my ankle on the way to the bus stop." The second voice is full of irritation and annoyance.

"Beatrice!" the first voice scolds. "You need to start thinking selflessly, I don't know how many other ways I can tell you that! You should've given up your seat because it was the right thing to do."

"No, it was the selfless thing to do and maybe I'm not selfless, Caleb!"

"Beatrice." Caleb chastises again. I can see them at the other end of the alley now. Beatrice with her blonde hair pulled back into a perfect bun and Caleb, tall with dark hair and a hooked nose.

"Stop saying my name like that." Beatrice mumbles.

"I don't know how else to say it with the way that you're acting. What is the matter with you? In two years we're going to have to take our aptitude tests. Don't you want to get an abnegation result? Don't you want to stay with mom and dad?"

"Of course I want to—"

"You don't show it, Beatrice." He pauses and takes a deep breath.

"'I will be my undoing, if I become my obsession….'" Caleb starts reciting the abnegation manifesto.

I know it well and so does Caleb it seems

"I will forget the ones I love if I do not serve them—"

Beatrice cuts him off with a loud sigh.

"Therefore I choose to turn away from my reflection, to rely not on myself but on my brothers and sisters to project always outward until I disappear. Yeah, yeah. I know it too."

"Well maybe I should leave you alone for awhile so you can contemplate it a little harder."

Caleb turns and starts down the opposite direction.

"Caleb! Wait!" Beatrice cries after him but he is already too far away to hear her.

She leans her head against the wall and takes a deep breath. Her shoulders slump automatically and it's like I watch all the fight go out of her.

She looks sad and as an Abnegation member I know I should go over there and try my best to comfort her or offer myself to her in some way but I don't know how to talk to people in general.

I don't know how to talk to girls even more.

She turns her head my way and after a moment or two she squints her eyes and then peels herself off the wall.

"What are you doing?" her eyes are directly on me and I forget for a moment that I am in plain view.

"Who, me?" I say blowing out a shaky breath. I don't want to have to explain to her who I am, and even more so I don't want her to notice.

I keep my eyes trained on the ground in front of me.

"Yes, you."

"Uh…" I shrug a little bit.

"Were you listening to that entire conversation?"

"Not by choice. You guys were kind of loud."

She stares at me for a moment and something about her eyes remind me of my Dad's colleague.

"Are you…are you Andrew Prior's daughter?" I know the answer to the question before I ask it.

Her face is too familiar for me to forget.

"No." She says it so quickly that I know it's a lie.

"Did you just…did you just lie to me?" I tilt my head a little bit watching her. It isn't like lying is technically against the rules or anything, we aren't candor but at the same time lying is a characteristic that most abnegation don't have.

Lying is selfish.

Her cheeks turn a bright red color.

"What does it matter to you whose daughter I am?"

"I guess it doesn't."

I get it. I don't want to tell her whose son I am either.

She frowns a little and then crosses her arms over her chest.

"What are you doing back here?" she asks curiously and I shrug my shoulders.

"I needed some time alone. No one usually comes this way so I just thought…"

"How old are you?" She asks.

"Sixteen."

She does the math in her head quickly and then her eyes widen.

"So how'd your test go?"

I barely know this girl but something about her makes me want to tell her everything.

I just know that I can't.

"Fine."

She raises her eyebrows.

"You don't look fine."

She's far too intuitive for her own good.

"I got the result that I knew I'd get. Everything is fine."

She nods a little and looks as if she's going to leave, but then thinks the better of it.

"You have a choice, I think. Regardless of what your test says."

I smile a little and then let out a sigh.

"Or that's what they want you to think. No one really has a choice, Beatrice."

She watches me for a moment and then diverts her eyes to the ground.

"Please don't tell anyone what you heard. Please." I watch as a strand of hair comes loose from her bun and then I pull my eyes to hers.

"Sure. If you can promise not to tell anyone you saw me here."

She nods a little bit.

"It's a deal."

I reach out a hand and pull the tiny strand of hair behind her ear.

"I'll see you later, Beatrice." I turn to go, but she calls after me.

"Hey! You know my name; don't I get to know yours?"

I shake my head a tiny amount.

"Maybe some other time." I smile just a little and then continue my way down the alley and home with a strange buzz in my chest that I can't really explain.

Choosing Day

My Father nods at me and I know exactly what he is expecting from me, exactly what he wants.

I stare at the bowls in front of me and I am just as confused as I was yesterday.

Picking abnegation feels like a noose around my neck but what other faction is there for me?

Amity?

I'd feel just as stifled.

Candor?

I need the ability to lie.

Erudite?

The initiation test is too intimidating.

Dauntless?

Dauntless is a possibility.

My eyes dart between the two bowls.

The lit coals and grey stones.

I feel like I can't breathe.

Abnegation contains my father…but abnegation also contains a fourteen year old blonde girl named Beatrice Prior who sparked a little light inside of me yesterday.

I drag the knife along the inside of my palm and hold out my hand between the two bowls.

Am I dauntless? Am I abnegation?

Before I even have time to make a real choice, my blood rolls over my palm and onto the calming grey stones.

I hear the polite clapping from the abnegation and know that my choice has been made.

I am abnegation.

I am going to be haunted by my father for the rest of my life.

I turn towards my chosen faction and see my father, smiling. Of course he is smiling, everything is going according to plan and then my eyes fall on a flash of blonde hair.

She is clapping politely with her brother and parents beside her.

Maybe abnegation doesn't have to be a noose.

Maybe…just maybe something good could come from this.

Dinner

I sit at the kitchen table, my eyes fixed on the wood as Marcus talks to me.

"I want you to know that I'm proud of you." He touches my shoulder and squeezes just a little too hard.

"You're a man now, Tobias and I'm going to treat you as such."

I look up a little at his words.

Does this mean he's done hitting me because he doesn't think I'm selfless enough?

"I'm hard on you, Tobias because I want you to be the best person you can be."

Sure.

The best person I can be apparently needs to have a black eye.

"I've arranged it so that your community service can be with me, in my office."

My mouth immediately goes dry.

The initiation for abnegation is simply thirty days of community service and then a shared meal.

I thought, at the very least for thirty days I would have to be away from my father.

Clearly, I was wrong.

"…With you?" I say my voice sounding hoarse. "…Everyday?"

"Yes, Tobias. I'd like to teach you everything I know so that one day…you can follow in my footsteps."

It is clear to me now that I should have picked dauntless.

I can't do this.

I cannot do this for one more day.

I stand up abruptly and Marcus raises his eyebrows at me.

He doesn't have to ask me what I'm doing for me to know that I have to answer him.

"I…I'm just going to go up to my room. I don't want to disturb your work dinner."

"Tobias…" He says softly. "You're a man now and you need to start acting as such. My work dinner tonight…it isn't here and you're going to come with me."

Shock does not even begin to explain how I'm feeling.

Marcus never wanted anyone to know I existed.

Going to a work dinner would shatter everything he'd built.

"I'm going with you?"

"Yes."

I slowly lower myself back down to my seat.

"Where is it?"

"Andrew Prior's house. You might know his children, Beatrice and Caleb Prior."

Beatrice.

"No, I've never met them."

This is one thing that I can keep to myself.

One thing that Marcus won't touch.

The way that Beatrice makes me feel.

"We'll leave within the hour." He says simply and then he disappears up the stairs and into his room, leaving me buzzing and slightly confused.

Andrew Prior's House

There aren't too many differences when it comes to abnegation houses so when we enter Andrew Prior's house it's like entering my own.

His wife, Natalie meets us at the door and ushers us in gracefully.

She asks first if we'd like anything to drink, to which we both reply no and then she leads us to the dining room.

Beatrice is setting the table, her hair pulled into that perfect bun again. She looks up at me when we enter the room but she averts her eyes so quickly that I'm not even really sure that it happened.

"Beatrice, you know Marcus, and this is his son, Tobias."

She looks up at us again and then nods just a little bit.

"Hello."

Her brother enters the room amount later holding bowls of food to place on the table and Natalie introduces him the same way.

I can't follow anything that Marcus and Andrew say to each other after dinner. It's all work talk and I dread having to follow Marcus into the office every day.

Before I know it the plates are being cleared away and Beatrice and Caleb are heading into the kitchen for dishes duty.

I touch Caleb's shoulder on his way into the kitchen.

"Let me…you all have already done so much."

Caleb shakes his head. "No, No, I couldn't. You're a guest."

Classic Abnegation.

This could go on forever with me insisting and him denying.

"Please." I insist. "I need some time to reflect after dinner and dishes always help me do that."

Caleb nods instantly.

"Of course."

This way, Caleb is selflessly giving up dishes duty for me.

I follow Beatrice into the kitchen and she avoids my eyes as hard as she can as she scrubs the dishes and then hands them for me to dry.

"So…" She says quietly. "You chose abnegation. Was that your test result?"

I glance behind me quickly just to make sure my father and Andrew are still pre-occupied.

Their voices are still carrying into the kitchen.

"Yes." I say as I drag a towel across a plate.

"So you made the right choice then." She says quietly.

"My test was controlled." I say, biting down hard on my lip.

She drops a plate into the sink.

"What?" She looks up at me like she doesn't believe my words.

"I just mean…I don't know if I made the right decision."

She picks up the plate she dropped and starts washing it again.

"Why are you so worried?" I ask curiously.

"What makes you think I'm worried?" She presses.

I shrug.

"You're scrubbing that plate like it's done something terrible to you."

She lets out a sigh but doesn't respond.

"You have two years before you have to worry about it."

She stops washing in favor of looking at me.

"You heard that conversation with my brother. You know why I'm worried. I'm not even close to being a true abnegation member and I don't want to have to leave my family."

How strange, I think to have a family that you never want to leave.

"Maybe I could help you."

"Help me be better at selflessness? I doubt it, Caleb's been trying for years."

"Yeah…" I ring out the towel. "…but he's your brother. Condescension is part of the game. It won't be like that with me."

She looks up at me for a moment.

"I don't know. We might have to spend a lot of time together. It could be considered inappropriate."

It's true.

A male and a female that aren't family shouldn't be spending significant amounts of time together, especially since I am now considered an adult and Beatrice is still only fourteen.

"Yeah. It would be inappropriate. Unless we were courting." She drops another plate into the sink and it makes a loud clattering sound.

"Beatrice?" Natalie calls from the kitchen. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, mom. Fine!" She calls back.

She looks up at me, her cheeks burning red.

"Courting? You want to court me?"

I shrug a little.

"Well, I mean. Not now. When you're older, maybe. After your choosing ceremony."

She stares at me for a moment and then hands me the last dish to dry.

I dry it perfectly and then towards her waiting for some sort of response.

"What makes you think that I'll choose abnegation?" she asks.

I shrug my shoulders.

"I guess, I'm just hoping."

"Beatrice?" Caleb pokes his head into the kitchen.

"Mom wants us in the living room." She nods a little as Caleb disappears into the other room.

She looks up at me.

"I'll accept your help." She says quietly and then disappears into the other room with Caleb.