The Uncontrolled Variable

Knowledge can explain almost everything. Almost.

Five years before Beatrice Prior ever makes her choice, twenty-two-year-old Mara Vale has already made hers.

Born into Candor but chosen by Erudite, Mara has spent years proving that she belongs among the faction's brightest minds. Her sharp tongue has caused almost as many problems as her intelligence has solved, but exceptional results have finally earned her a place working directly beneath Jeanine Matthews-the brilliant, uncompromising leader of Erudite.

They have worked together for a year.

They have disagreed for almost as long.

Now, a new project forces them closer than ever before: the study of those who cannot be neatly categorized, controlled or understood.

The Divergent.

What Jeanine doesn't know is that one of them has been standing beside her all along.

Mara knows better than to become fascinated by the woman who could destroy her with a single discovery. Jeanine knows better than to blur the line between professional interest and something far more dangerous.

Neither of them has ever been particularly good at backing down.

What begins with arguments becomes attraction. Attraction becomes an arrangement built on trust, control and willingly surrendered power.

And somewhere along the way, Jeanine Matthews makes the one mistake she never anticipated.

She develops a variable she cannot control.

Mara.

An AU blending elements of the Divergent novels and films.
Jeanine Matthews × Female OC | F/F | Slow Burn | Age Gap | Power Dynamics | BDSM | Divergent OC | Erudite