I step down with one foot, pressing my weight into one of the crossbars. The bar creaks beneath me and comes loose, clattering against half a dozen bars on the way down and bouncing on the pavement. I’m dangling from the scaffolding with my toes swinging in midair. A strangled gasp escapes me.
“Four!”
I try to find another place to put my foot, but the nearest foothold is a few feet away, farther than I can stretch. My hands are sweaty. I remember wiping them on my slacks before the Choosing Ceremony, before the aptitude test, before every important moment, and suppress a scream. I will slip. I will slip.
“Hold on!” he shouts. “Just hold on, I have an idea.”
He keeps climbing down. He’s moving in the wrong direction; he should be coming toward me, not going away from me. I stare at my hands, which are wrapped around the narrow bar so tightly my knuckles are white. My fingers are dark red, almost purple. They won’t last long.
I won’t last long.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Better not to look. Better to pretend that none of this exists. I hear Four’s sneakers squeak against metal and rapid footsteps on ladder rungs.
“Four!” I yell. Maybe he left. Maybe he abandoned me. Maybe this is a test of my strength, of my bravery. I breathe in my nose and out my mouth. I count my breaths to calm down. One, two. In, out.
The wheel is moving.
Air wraps around my ankles and wrists as the wind gushes up, like a geyser. I open my eyes. I’m moving — toward the ground. I laugh, giddy with hysteria as the ground comes closer and closer. But I’m picking up speed. If I don’t drop at the right time, the moving cars and metal scaffolding will drag at my body and carry me with them, and then I will really die.
Every muscle in my body tenses as I hurtle toward the ground. When I can see the cracks in the sidewalk, I drop, and my body slams into the ground, feet first. My legs collapse beneath me and I pull my arms in, rolling as fast as I can to the side. The cement scrapes my face, and I turn just in time to see a car bearing down on me, like a giant shoe about to crush me. I roll again, and the bottom of the car skims my shoulder.
I’m safe.
I press my palms to my face. I don’t try to get up. If I did, I’m sure I would just fall back down. I hear footsteps, and Four’s hands wrap around my wrists. I let him pry my hands from my eyes.
He encloses one of my hands perfectly between two of his. The warmth of his skin overwhelms the ache in my fingers from holding the bars.
“You all right?” he asks, pressing our hands together.
“Yeah.”
He starts to laugh.
After a second, I laugh too. With my free hand, I push myself to a sitting position. I am aware of how little space there is between us — six inches at most. That space feels charged with electricity. I feel like it should be smaller.
He stands, pulling me up with him. The wheel is still moving, creating a wind that tosses my hair back.
“You could have told me that the Ferris wheel still worked,” I say. I try to sound casual. “We wouldn’t have had to climb in the first place.”
“I would have, if I had known,” he says. “Couldn’t just let you hang there, so I took a risk. Come on, time to get their flag.”
Four hesitates for a moment and then takes my arm, his fingertips pressing to the inside of my elbow. In other factions, he would give me time to recover, but he is Dauntless, so he smiles at me and starts toward the carousel, where our team members guard our flag. And I half run, half limp beside him. I still feel weak, but my mind is awake, especially with his hand on me.
Christina is perched on one of the horses, her long legs crossed and her hand around the pole holding the plastic animal upright. Our flag is behind her, a glowing triangle in the dark. Three Dauntless-born initiates stand among the other worn and dirty animals. One of them has his hand on a horse’s head, and a scratched horse eye stares at me between his fingers. Sitting on the edge of the carousel is an older Dauntless, scratching her quadruple-pierced eyebrow with her thumb.
“Where’d the others go?” asks Four.
He looks as excited as I feel, his eyes wide with energy.
“Did you guys turn on the wheel?” the older girl says. “What the hell are you thinking? You might as well have just shouted ‘Here we are! Come and get us!’” She shakes her head. “If I lose again this year, the shame will be unbearable. Three years in a row?”
“The wheel doesn’t matter,” says Four. “We know where they are.”
“We?” says Christina, looking from Four to me.
“Yes, while the rest of you were twiddling your thumbs, Tris climbed the Ferris wheel to look for the other team,” he says.
“What do we do now, then?” asks one of the Dauntless-born initiates through a yawn.
Four looks at me. Slowly the eyes of the other initiates, including Christina, migrate from him to me. I tense my shoulders, about to shrug and say I don’t know, and then an image of the pier stretching out beneath me comes into my mind. I have an idea.
“Split in half,” I say. “Four of us go to the right side of the pier, three to the left. The other team is in the park at the end of the pier, so the group of four will charge as the group of three sneaks behind the other team to get the flag.”
Christina looks at me like she no longer recognizes me. I don’t blame her.
“Sounds good,” says the older girl, clapping her hands together. “Let’s get this night over with, shall we?”
Christina joins me in the group going to the right, along with Uriah, whose smile looks white against his skin’s bronze. I didn’t notice before, but he has a tattoo of a snake behind his ear. I stare at its tail curling around his earlobe for a moment, but then Christina starts running and I have to follow her.
I have to run twice as fast to match my short strides to her long ones. As I run, I realize that only one of us will get to touch the flag, and it won’t matter that it was my plan and my information that got us to it if I’m not the one who grabs it. Though I can hardly breathe as it is, I run faster, and I’m on Christina’s heels. I pull my gun around my body, holding my finger over the trigger.
We reach the end of the pier, and I clamp my mouth shut to keep my loud breaths in. We slow down so our footsteps aren’t as loud, and I look for the blinking light again. Now that I’m on the ground, it’s bigger and easier to see. I point, and Christina nods, leading the way toward it.
Then I hear a chorus of yells, so loud they make me jump. I hear puffs of air as paintballs go flying and splats as they find their targets. Our team has charged, the other team runs to meet us, and the flag is almost unguarded. Uriah takes aim and shoots the last guard in the thigh. The guard, a short girl with purple hair, throws her gun to the ground in a tantrum.
I sprint to catch up to Christina. The flag hangs from a tree branch, high above my head. I reach for it, and so does Christina.
“Come on, Tris,” she says. “You’re already the hero of the day. And you know you can’t reach it anyway.”
She gives me a patronizing look, the way people sometimes look at children when they act too adult, and snatches the flag from the branch. Without looking at me, she turns and gives a whoop of victory. Uriah’s voice joins hers and then I hear a chorus of yells in the distance.
Uriah claps my shoulder, and I try to forget about the look Christina gave me. Maybe she’s right; I’ve already proved myself today. I do not want to be greedy; I do not want to be like Eric, terrified of other people’s strength.
The shouts of triumph become infectious, and I lift my voice to join in, running toward my teammates. Christina holds the flag up high, and everyone clusters around her, grabbing her arm to lift the flag even higher. I can’t reach her, so I stand off to the side, grinning.
A hand touches my shoulder.
“Well done,” Four says quietly.
“I can’t believe I missed it!” Will says again, shaking his head. Wind coming through the doorway of the train car blows his hair in every direction.
“You were performing the very important job of staying out of our way,” says Christina, beaming.
Al groans. “Why did I have to be on the other team?”
“Because life’s not fair, Albert. And the world is conspiring against you,” says Will. “Hey, can I see the flag again?”
Peter, Molly, and Drew sit across from the members in the corner. Their chests and backs are splattered with blue and pink paint, and they look dejected. They speak quietly, sneaking looks at the rest of us, especially Christina. That is the benefit of not holding the flag right now — I am no one’s target. Or at least, no more than usual.
“So you climbed the Ferris wheel, huh,” says Uriah. He stumbles across the car and sits next to me. Marlene, the girl with the flirty smile, follows him.
“Yes,” I say.
“Pretty smart of you. Like…Erudite smart,” Marlene says. “I’m Marlene.”
“Tris,” I say. At home, being compared to an Erudite would be an insult, but she says it like a compliment.
“Yeah, I know who you are,” she says. “The first jumper tends to stick in your head.”
It has been years since I jumped off a building in my Abnegation uniform; it has been decades.
Uriah takes one of the paintballs from his gun and squeezes it between his thumb and index finger. The train lurches to the left, and Uriah falls against me, his fingers pinching the paintball until a stream of pink, foul-smelling paint sprays on my face.
Marlene collapses in giggles. I wipe some of the paint from my face, slowly, and then smear it on his cheek. The scent of fish oil wafts through the train car.
“Ew!” He squeezes the ball at me again, but the opening is at the wrong angle, and the paint sprays into his mouth instead. He coughs and makes exaggerated gagging sounds.
I wipe my face with my sleeve, laughing so hard my stomach hurts.
If my entire life is like this, loud laughter and bold action and the kind of exhaustion you feel after a hard but satisfying day, I will be content. As Uriah scrapes his tongue with his fingertips, I realize that all I have to do is get through initiation, and that life will be mine.
Eric stands in the middle of the room, his posture so rigid it looks like someone replaced his spine with a metal rod. The sight of him makes me feel like all the air in the room is heavier, bearing down on me. At least when he was slouched against a wall, I could pretend he wasn’t here. Today I can’t pretend.
“Tomorrow will be the last day of stage one,” Eric says. “You will resume fighting then. Today, you’ll be learning how to aim. Everyone pick up three knives.” His voice is deeper than usual. “And pay attention while Four demonstrates the correct technique for throwing them.”
At first no one moves.
“Now!”
We scramble for daggers. They aren’t as heavy as guns, but they still feel strange in my hands, like I am not allowed to hold them.
“He’s in a bad mood today,” mumbles Christina.
“Is he ever in a good mood?” I murmur back.
But I know what she means. Judging by the poisonous look Eric gives Four when he isn’t paying attention, last night’s loss must have bothered Eric more than he let on. Winning capture the flag is a matter of pride, and pride is important to the Dauntless. More important than reason or sense.
I watch Four’s arm as he throws a knife. The next time he throws, I watch his stance. He hits the target each time, exhaling as he releases the knife.
Eric orders, “Line up!”
My mother told me that when I was learning how to knit. I have to think of this as a mental exercise, not a physical exercise. So I spend the first few minutes practicing without a knife, finding the right stance, learning the right arm motion.
Eric paces too quickly behind us.
“I think the Stiff’s taken too many hits to the head!” remarks Peter, a few people down. “Hey, Stiff! Remember what a
I smirk as Peter misses again. I can’t help myself.
“Hey, Peter,” I say. “Remember what a
The next time he tries and misses, Eric marches toward him and demands, “How slow
“What was that, initiate?” says Eric quietly, leaning closer to Al.
I bite my lip. This isn’t good.
“It — it slipped,” says Al.
“Well, I think you should go get it,” Eric says. He scans the other initiates’ faces — everyone has stopped throwing again — and says, “Did I tell you to stop?”
Knives start to hit the board. We have all seen Eric angry before, but this is different. The look in his eyes is almost rabid.
“Go get it?” Al’s eyes are wide. “But everyone’s still throwing.”
“And?”
“And I don’t want to get hit.”
“I think you can trust your fellow initiates to aim better than you.” Eric smiles a little, but his eyes stay cruel. “Go get your knife.”
Al doesn’t usually object to anything the Dauntless tell us to do. I don’t think he’s afraid to; he just knows that objecting is useless. This time Al sets his wide jaw. He’s reached the limits of his compliance.
“No,” he says.
“Why not?” Eric’s beady eyes fix on Al’s face. “Are you afraid?”
“Of getting stabbed by an airborne knife?” says Al. “Yes, I am!”
Honesty is his mistake. Not his refusal, which Eric might have accepted.
“Everyone stop!” Eric shouts.
The knives stop, and so does all conversation. I hold my small dagger tightly.
“Clear out of the ring.” Eric looks at Al. “All except you.”
I drop the dagger and it hits the dusty floor with a thud. I follow the other initiates to the edge of the room, and they inch in front of me, eager to see what makes my stomach turn: Al, facing Eric’s wrath.
“Stand in front of the target,” says Eric.
Al’s big hands shake. He walks back to the target.
“Hey, Four.” Eric looks over his shoulder. “Give me a hand here, huh?”
Four scratches one of his eyebrows with a knife point and approaches Eric. He has dark circles under his eyes and a tense set to his mouth — he’s as tired as we are.
“You’re going to stand there as he throws those knives,” Eric says to Al, “until you learn not to flinch.”
“Is this really necessary?” says Four. He sounds bored, but he doesn’t look bored. His face and body are tense, alert.
I squeeze my hands into fists. No matter how casual Four sounds, the question is a challenge. And Four doesn’t often challenge Eric directly.
At first Eric stares at Four in silence. Four stares back. Seconds pass and my fingernails bite my palms.