1.

People in the cities of Chicago were living the nightlife to the fullest. Some were partying, getting drunk or doing what some people would call having fun, while some people found fun in staying home, watching TV or reading a good book. However there was one person who was not having fun this night.

The young man was trembling, holding a kitchen knife to defend himself from his assailant. Sweat was falling down from his temple and down on his rough cheeks. The young man might have been bigger in appearance, being both larger and broader than his assailant, however the young man wasn't a true fighter. He could never bring himself to harm another human being, even if it was to save his own life. Which is why the assailant used his hesitation to his or hers advantage and swiftly grabbed the knife out of the young man's grip. The young man continued trembling, moving backwards to get away from the assailant. He continued doing so until his back stumbled into the kitchen counter. He knew that he was going to die, but he begged for life. He begged, cried and shouted for the assailant to spare his life, but the assailant wasn't listening. Instead he or she hit the young man with a hidden object and the young man fell down on the floor. The assailant checked to see if the young man was truly unconscious before he or she dragged the body to the bathroom and shut the bathroom door.

Tris Prior was lying in her bed, trying to get some sleep before she had to go to work the next morning when she heard shouting. She forced her eyes open, looking confused around to see if she was imagining the shouting. The shouting had stopped as soon as it had begun and she waited to hear that it was truly nothing, however it was then she heard a loud thump from the apartment above hers. And it wasn't an ordinary thump either. It wasn't a thump of an object falling down, it sounded like a heavy body that fell on the floor. Now confusion and sleep was long gone from her mind. She leaped out of the bed and headed out the door. Still wearing her pajamas she took quick and light steps up the stairs. When she reached the apartment she knocked gently on the door.

"Al?" Tris said concerned. Al was her neighbor who was living in the apartment above hers. She didn't know him on a very personal level, so they weren't friends or anything despite living in the same building for two years now. Al was kind and warm guy, but he seemed to have a major crush on her, which made her more than a little uncomfortable. But that didn't make her less worried about those weird sounds coming from his apartment. "Al, it's me, Tris. Is everything okay? Please answer me Al. Are you okay?"

No one answered. She knocked once again when she realized the door was open. If she ever thought this situation didn't seem wrong before then she definitely did now. After taking a deep breath she entered the apartment.

The apartment was in darkness and when she tried turning the light switch on, nothing happened. She tried to hear if Al was asleep or anything, but was disappointed by the silence in the apartment. Silence was more frightening than anything she could imagine. Because in her mind, silence comes with death.

She looked around to see any movements in room. Then she began moving around the apartment. First in the kitchen area, there was nothing except for the smell of burnt dinner. Then she looked around the living room and still found nothing. It was then she saw the light coming from the bathroom. She considered this suspicious behavior that Al would leave only his bathroom light on, even if he needed to take a leak in the middle of the night. So she decided it was best to check it out despite having this disturbing feeling in her stomach that something was terribly wrong. She walked slowly towards the door and gently opened it.

The first thing she noticed was that the floor was wet from the running water in the bathtub. The water was ice cold, meaning that either someone had taken a cold bath or someone was using this water for something else entirely. Tris moved towards the tub, which was covered by a green shower curtain, and pulled it away. The sight that met her grey-blue eyes was both heart breaking and terrible to see. Al was lying in the tub, underneath the water and wasn't breathing. His very dark brown eyes were open and empty. His lips were blue, his body was staring to swollen because of the water, and his body appeared almost inhuman.

"Oh my god," Tris whispered. She wasn't calm despite appearing very calm. This wasn't the first dead body she has seen, but seeing Al lying there in the tub reminded her of bad memories. Memories that killed her very being from the inside, the heavy guilt she had worked so long to suppress from her life. Now it was starting up again and Tris couldn't continue standing there, watching a dead Al. When she snapped out of her turmoil, she realized that she didn't check if the killer was still in the apartment. She left the bathroom, her barefooted feet was still wet as she searched through the entire apartment for another human being other than Al and herself. When she cleared the apartment for intruders, she thought over what she was going to do with this situation.

She knew what she had to do, so she ran out the apartment to get the manager and call the police. As she ran down the staircase, there was one thing she knew for certain. She was definitely not going to get some sleep now.

The cops arrived a few minutes later along with the ambulance. People gathered outside and some stayed inside Al's apartment to gather evidence and take a look at the body before taking it back to the morgue. The medical examiner was a pretty young woman in her late-twenties with dark skin and eyes. Her black hair was in a bob styled manner that tickled her slightly rosy cheeks. She was tall with long slender legs and a willowy frame. While she was examining the body, one of the medics closes Al's eyes to make him look like he was asleep. Tris never saw the point in doing so, because it doesn't change the fact that he is dead and it look even more obvious in doing exactly that. She leaned towards one of the living room walls; observing everything that was happening in front of her and at the same time was lost in her own thoughts. It wasn't until one of the detectives on the case tried to catch her attention that she snapped out of it.

"Miss Prior, I presume?" the detective said politely, holding a notebook and pen in his hands. "I'm detective Pedrad, and I'm here to take you statement."

Tris nodded and explained everything that had happen up till she called the manager and the police. While she gave her statement she took a good look at the detective in front of her. Detective Pedrad was tall as well, but everybody was tall compared to her short stature. He had a lot in common with the medical examiner; both had dark skin and dark brown eyes. However the detective skin was more bronze than brown and his hair was brown as well.

He only asked a couple of questions on her statement which she had no problem answering. Everything seemed to be going well and she was getting prepared to leave and get some sleep. However it wasn't until she heard the voice of someone she hadn't expected or wanted to see ever again that made her freeze on the spot she was standing on.

"What do we got?" a man said, and all of Tris's hairs just stuck up. Of all the people in the world she didn't want to see, it had to be the first person on that list. Luckily that certain person didn't see her due to her having her back towards him, which meant she had to get this witness statement over with and get the hell out of here before that certain someone noticing her. Detective Pedrad took his attention away from her for a second and to answer the question:

"The victim's name is Albert 'Al' Price, 28 years old, works as a secretary for a law firm in Candor. Our first witness on the scene called it in, saying there was a body here. No one saw what happened, but she told us that she heard suspicious noise and then heard a heavy thump. So she decided to check it out and found our victim."

The man, though she didn't see him directly, she saw through the reflection on the picture glass that he scratched his chin before saying: "What is the cause of death?"

"Instant examination, death by drowning," the medical examiner said. "However I need to take a further examination before I can conclude if this was a homicide or not."

"Good," the man said and went into the bathroom to take a closer look at the crime scene. Tris saw this as a perfect opportunity to run. She quickly asked if detective Pedrad she was free to go and when he allowed her to do so, she bolted out of the apartment like the devil was chasing her. She ran down the stairs, barely avoiding crashing into one of the police officers or medics. When she got to her apartment, she quickly shut and locked the door before going into her bedroom. Finally crying out the emotions she had been keeping in the entire night. All she wanted now was to be left alone and forget this night had ever happened. Of course lady fate and lady luck was definitely not on her side.

Lead detective Four was in a squatting position, overlooking the crime scene to its every detail in order to find clues of foul play, but there was nothing that was indicated of such despite the unknown circumstances. Normally it was clear if it was a homicide or a suicide attempt, however until Christina determined what the cause of death was he had to treat this case as a suspicious death until he was told otherwise.

"Four?" Zeke said. He turned to look at his best friend and fellow detective, who were standing by the bathroom door waiting impatiently. "Christina is on her way back to the morgue to examine the body and CSU have already gone through the entire apartment including the crime scene."

"Did they find anything?" Four asked, standing up. If the Crime Scene Unit didn't find something he could work with at the moment, it would mean he had go home and continue in the morning. And though he liked to work and really didn't have anything to return to back home, it didn't mean that everyone else in his squad had the same none-existence life he had outside his job.

"Yeah, they found a fingerprint that didn't belong to the victim. And according to the manager and our witness the victim lived alone, never had family or friends over and was no indication he was in a relationship with anyone. But they will have to analyze the fingerprint and check it against the criminal database to see if we got a hit. They will probably not begin examining the evidence before tomorrow, but we will have some police officers here to guard the scene until we release the crime scene."

"Alright, if there is nothing we can do till the morning I guess we should go home and get some sleep before we start up again," Four let out a deep breath. Zeke nodded to his decision and he waited for Four to be next to him before they left the bathroom. He was restless and knew that when he returned his apartment there was no doubt he wasn't going back to sleep. It was then he remembered he had forgotten to ask Zeke something. "Hey, I forgot to ask. How was taking the witness's statement?" Four knew that Zeke usually didn't like taking witness statements, since most of the facts they were giving him were either inaccurate or it was simply not mentioning.

"It was okay, she was very thorough and straight to the point in what happened," Zeke said. Normally Four wouldn't find this kind of answer odd, but he could hear in Zeke's tone that there was a 'but' in his reply.

"But…?"

"But she sounded like she knew how we operated and how we do our jobs, kind of like she was a know-it-all from Erudite," Zeke said with an annoyed tone. Four could understand his friend's annoyance. If there was one thing he hated were people from Erudite acting like they their jobs better than they did.

"Great," Four said sarcastically. "Another one of those locals from Erudite, who has been reading and watching too many police shows, and now thinks they are the experts. Do they honestly believe we are new at this? So who is this pain in the ass who can possibly be a hindrance in our investigation?"

"You can talk to her yourself," Zeke snorted and pulled out his notebook to find the name. "A Miss. T. Prior lives in the apartment below this one. Apartment 224."

If nothing caught his attention before then hearing that name certainly did. He turned look at Zeke, almost trying to see if he was pulling his leg or not, but it seemed Zeke wasn't kidding at the moment.

"What did you say her name was?" Four asked again, hoping that it was all in his imagination.

"T. Prior, in other words Tris Prior," Zeke's answered and was starting to look at him like he was insane. However Four was definitely not insane if it was this person was the same person he was thinking about at the moment.

"What did she look like?"

"Narrow face, short body, gray-blue eyes and long blond hair. She was kind of pretty, but not the major beauty if you know what I mean. Anyway why do you ask?" Zeke asked, now was seriously starting to get curious why Four even cared what the witness looked like. Four could understand why Zeke was wondering, but he didn't want to reveal too much information until he was a hundred percent certain it was her.

"I think I'll go and talk to her before I go home," Four said determined and began walking out the victim's apartment. He didn't care that now wasn't the perfect time in doing so, but if he was right about who she was then he most certainly wasn't going to let her go a second time in his life.

A knock on the door interrupted Tris in her emotional turmoil. She lifted her head up from her pillow, looking towards where the sound came from and she knew who it might be at the door. It had to be him; it just had to be him. The only person in the world who understood her yet hurt her so much that it felt like she was drowning in water.

The knocking continued and she was mentally snarled that the disturbance. Was it too much to ask to be left alone? However she knew that she couldn't ignore the knocking forever, knowing that if there was one thing that haven't changed the last two years since she had last seen him then it was that he was persistent. So she got out of bed and headed to the hallway by her front door. She checked her appearance on the mirror that was hanging on the wall on the left side of door. Her eyes were still red and puffy, but not too bad that anyone would ask about it. Her hair managed to remain straight with few hair strains sticking out here and there, so in order words she was presentable, but just in case she pulled her fingers through her hair and pushed backwards. She took a deep breath and put her hand on the handle. Tension and most of all hesitation was literally going through her mind and body. However she needed to be brave and face her fear, so she opened the door with a great force.

Standing in front of the door was a man with dark blue eyes and dark brown hair. He also had a distinctive hooked nose that she actually considered handsome on him along with everything else. This tall and muscular man was observing her as well, but his face remained expressionless just like she remembered the last time she saw him.

"Hello Four."

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I know that I shouldn't really be starting a new story right now, but I wanted to see if this story might be interesting to some of you. This is also my first try in writing a crime/suspense/mystery story, so I hope you like it.

If this story gets good then I will continue writing this, but if it is not in anyone's interest then I might remove it. Since I basically I will be writing on my two other stories for now, but I will take it upon me to write on this one once I'm done with my soon ending story for another fanfic. But let me remind you that you guys needs to like it in order for me to do so.

And let me clarify something, the five factions are in this story changed to five cities in Chicago. The idea of the factions remain, but it is the values that determine how the cities are. The people don't have to be a specific person with the same values to live in one of these cities, but those values are important to the people that lives there.

Anyway please review, favorite and/or follow this story. Hopefully you like it so I can continue writing this.

xXrebelgirl07Xx