Becoming Determinant - Tobias' Story

Divergent Chapter 28 - Tris Visits Caleb

A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter and who sent me "get well" wishes! My cold apparently turned into a sinus infection, but I'm on medication now, so hopefully I'll be better soon.

"Divergent" Chapter 28 - Tris Visits Caleb

I spend the next few hours searching the compound for Tris, but she seems to have vanished completely. Christina and Will are looking too, so I follow them from a distance for a while, thinking that perhaps she'll talk to them even if she's avoiding me. But they don't have any more luck than I do. When lunch starts, I make my way to the dining hall and wait there through the entire meal time, but she never shows up. This is definitely not good.

Eventually, I wander up to the roof, figuring that even if she isn't there, I can use the height to look for her outside. It's the first time I've voluntarily looked over the edge of the building, and my heart hammers fiercely as I view the drop. It was much easier in my fear landscape, when Tris was holding my hand, but I force myself to look thoroughly from all sides of the roof anyway.

She's nowhere in sight. Come on, Tris, where did you go?

My last resort is the control room. I try to avoid it when Jeff is on duty, since I don't know him well and don't want to explain myself to him. But I'm worried now, and I'm out of other choices, so I take the stairs back down from the roof and cross to the elevators.

Jeff glances up when I enter the room, and I give him a tight smile. He's not a bad guy overall, as far as I can tell, but I don't want to risk letting him know who I'm looking for or why. So, I decide to see what he knows first.

"Anything unusual going on?" I ask, keeping my voice casual. It's a fifty/fifty shot whether he's noticed the situation.

He frowns a little and answers, "Not that I've seen. Why? Is there something I should know about?"

I hesitate, looking away. If he learns about this later, I don't want him to think I was hiding anything, but I also don't want to call his attention to this if he otherwise wouldn't notice it. I shift my weight, kicking a little with the other foot, and shrug.

"Not really," I say. "We had a minor incident with one of the initiates, and Lauren needs to follow up with her, but we're not sure where she went." Maybe if I put the focus on Lauren, Jeff won't be suspicious of me.

"I thought it would be fastest to check up here," I add.

Jeff shrugs, not really interested in the initiates. "Go ahead and look," he says, standing up from the computer and stretching. "I could use a break anyway." He grabs his empty coffee cup and heads out of the room. Good, that'll give me at least five minutes.

I search quickly, starting with the camera that caught Tris crossing the Pire. She doesn't know to avoid the surveillance equipment, so she's easy to follow. That's a problem long-term, but for now it works. I follow her until she leaves the building, the last image showing her heading in the direction of the train tracks. A sudden fear flits through me. She didn't leave the compound, did she?

I fast-forward through the footage from all the outside cameras, hoping to see her come back in at some point, but she doesn't reappear. A weight sinks into my stomach. She left. She'll be in serious trouble if Eric finds out. It's about the only rule Dauntless enforces on free time – initiates aren't allowed to leave the compound – and she broke it. And it's my fault.

My mind races through options as I return the computer to its regular monitoring mode, making sure Jeff can't see what footage I evaluated. He returns as I'm finishing, and I give him a tight smile, saying, "Got it. I'll let Lauren know. Thanks for the loan."