Prior Rings

Chapter 3: Tobias - Conversations

A/N: Sorry to take a little while to post this chapter! I'm back from vacation now but am trying to catch up on everything, and I'm really far behind in my writing at the moment. In the meantime, thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! I really appreciate your encouragement. Thank you also to my great beta reader, Rosalie!

To clear up any confusion over Tobias' fear landscape, the landscape itself locked his muscles in place in order to force him to watch helplessly. He didn't freeze in fear in response to what he was watching. I just wanted to clarify that before continuing.

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Chapter 3: Tobias – Conversations

"Help me understand your reasoning, Tobias." Kevin's voice is as frustrated as I've ever heard it. "You learn that Tris kissed someone else, and you decide to go into your fear landscape? Exactly what were you expecting to see in there? Puppy dogs and rainbows?"

"It wasn't one of my better ideas," I mumble, holding my head in my hands as the rest of my body sags into the large leather chair in Kevin's living room. All the fury seems to have drained out of me, and I barely have the strength to sit at this point.

Kevin groans in apparent agreement. "Yeeaaah, it takes a special kind of masochist for that one." The comment should probably annoy me, but I'm too tired to care. Besides, he's undoubtedly right.

He sits back on his couch, his long limbs draped across it with that odd mix of tension and relaxation he conveys so often, and sighs. "Fine," he finally says. "What's done is done." It's a phrase we use in group sessions a lot. We can't change the past, so we just have to move forward as best we can from whatever happened. "Let's see what we can learn from it."

I nod. Out of all the people I could have asked to be my sponsor, Kevin was the one I knew I needed. Tall and tough, his dark skin covered in tattoos, he shows his Dauntless roots as much as the Erudite habits he adopted after choosing that faction a decade ago. Most people find him intimidating, but to me he seems familiar – and easier to be around than the rest of the group, with their Erudite mannerisms that remind me too much of Jeanine and all the reasons we fought a war.

Like me – like all of us in the group – Kevin was abused throughout his childhood. He joined the program after his girlfriend left him, becoming factionless to escape from him, and he realized he had become his father. Eight years later, he stays to help the rest of us, and maybe because the group just means that much to him.

My voice is low as I describe my fears, and what was different about them today. I don't leave anything out, and he doesn't interrupt.

"Marcus wasn't in the landscape at all?" he asks thoughtfully after I finish.

"No. Not in any form." I rub my temples. "I assume because he's dead."

Kevin shakes his head, leaning forward so his elbows rest on his knees. "That doesn't usually matter. The fear stays anyway."

We're both silent for a moment as he thinks further, absent-mindedly scratching the stubble along the side of his square jaw. "And you didn't hit anyone in it?" he asks.

"No. I couldn't even move during most of it. The landscape locked me in place so I'd have to just watch." An involuntary shudder passes through me at the memory of being held rigidly like that, completely unable to help Tris. I've seen the landscape freeze others that way before, but this is the first time it's happened to me.

Kevin nods, pursing his lips as he sits back again. "All things considered," he says slowly, contemplatively, "I'd have to call that progress."

I stare at him blankly, unable to form a response. It certainly didn't feel like progress.