foot, wincing, and consider kicking her in the shins. Uriah stares at his reflection in the elevator doors and pats his hair down.
“What floor?” the girl with the shaved head says.
“One hundred,” I say.
“How would you know that?”
“Lynn, come on,” says Uriah. “Be nice.”
“We’re in a one-hundred-story abandoned building with some Dauntless,” I retort. “Why don’t you know that?”
She doesn’t respond. She just jams her thumb into the right button.
The elevator zooms upward so fast my stomach sinks and my ears pop. I grab a railing at the side of the elevator, watching the numbers climb. We pass twenty, and thirty, and Uriah’s hair is finally smooth. Fifty, sixty, and my toes are done throbbing. Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, and the elevator comes to a stop at one hundred. I’m glad we didn’t take the stairs.
“I wonder how we’ll get to the roof from…” Uriah’s voice trails off.
A strong wind hits me, pushing my hair across my face. There is a gaping hole in the ceiling of the hundredth floor. Zeke props an aluminum ladder against its edge and starts to climb. The ladder creaks and sways beneath his feet, but he keeps climbing, whistling as he does. When he reaches the roof, he turns around and holds the top of the ladder for the next person.
Part of me wonders if this is a suicide mission disguised as a game.
It isn’t the first time I’ve wondered that since the Choosing Ceremony.
I climb the ladder after Uriah. It reminds me of climbing the rungs on the Ferris wheel with Four close at my heels. I remember his fingers on my hip again, how they kept me from falling, and I almost miss a step on the ladder. Stupid.
Biting my lip, I make it to the top and stand on the roof of the Hancock building.
The wind is so powerful I hear and feel nothing else. I have to lean against Uriah to keep from falling over. At first, all I see is the marsh, wide and brown and everywhere, touching the horizon, devoid of life. In the other direction is the city, and in many ways it is the same, lifeless and with limits I do not know.
Uriah points to something. Attached to one of the poles on top of the tower is a steel cable as thick as my wrist. On the ground is a pile of black slings made of tough fabric, large enough to hold a human being. Zeke grabs one and attaches it to a pulley that hangs from the steel cable.
I follow the cable down, over the cluster of buildings and along Lake Shore Drive. I don’t know where it ends. One thing is clear, though: If I go through with this, I’ll find out.
We’re going to slide down a steel cable in a black sling from one thousand feet up.
“Oh my God,” says Uriah.
All I can do is nod.
Shauna is the first person to get in the sling. She wriggles forward on her stomach until most of her body is supported by black fabric. Then Zeke pulls a strap across her shoulders, the small of her back, and the top of her thighs. He pulls her, in the sling, to the edge of the building and counts down from five. Shauna gives a thumbs-up as he shoves her forward, into nothingness.
Lynn gasps as Shauna hurtles toward the ground at a steep incline, headfirst. I push past her to see better. Shauna stays secure in the sling for as long as I can see her, and then she’s too far away, just a black speck over Lake Shore Drive.
The members whoop and pump their fists and form a line, sometimes shoving one another out of the way to get a better place. Somehow I am the first initiate in line, right in front of Uriah. Only seven people stand between me and the zip line.
Still, there is a part of me that groans, I have to wait for seven people? It is a strange blend of terror and eagerness, unfamiliar until now.
The next member, a young-looking boy with hair down to his shoulders, jumps into the sling on his back instead of his stomach. He stretches his arms wide as Zeke shoves him down the steel cable.
None of the members seem at all afraid. They act like they have done this a thousand times before, and maybe they have. But when I look over my shoulder, I see that most of the initiates look pale or worried, even if they talk excitedly to one another. What happens between initiation and membership that transforms panic into delight? Or do people just get better at hiding their fear?
Three people in front of me. Another sling; a member gets in feet-first and crosses her arms over her chest. Two people. A tall, thick boy jumps up and down like a child before climbing into the sling and lets out a high screech as he disappears, making the girl in front of me laugh. One person.
She hops into the sling face-first and keeps her hands in front of her as Zeke tightens her straps. And then it’s my turn.
I shudder as Zeke hangs my sling from the cable. I try to climb in, but I have trouble; my hands are shaking too badly.
“Don’t worry,” Zeke says right next to my ear. He takes my arm and helps me get in, facedown.
The straps tighten around my midsection, and Zeke slides me forward, to the edge of the roof. I stare down the building’s steel girders and black windows, all the way to the cracked sidewalk. I am a fool for doing this. And a fool for enjoying the feeling of my heart slamming against my sternum and sweat gathering in the lines of my palms.
“Ready, Stiff?” Zeke smirks down at me. “I have to say, I’m impressed that you aren’t screaming and crying right now.”
“I told you,” Uriah says. “She’s Dauntless through and through. Now get on with it.”
“Careful, brother, or I might not tighten your straps enough,” Zeke says. He smacks his knee. “And then, splat!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Uriah says. “And then our mother would boil you alive.”
Hearing him talk about his mother, about his intact family, makes my chest hurt for a second, like someone pierced it with a needle.
“Only if she found out.” Zeke tugs on the pulley attached to the steel cable. It holds, which is fortunate, because if it breaks, my death will be swift and certain. He looks down at me and says, “Ready, set, g—”
Before he can finish the word “go,” he releases the sling and I forget him, I forget Uriah, and family, and all the things that could malfunction and lead to my death. I hear metal sliding against metal and feel wind so intense it forces tears into my eyes as I hurtle toward the ground.
I feel like I am without substance, without weight. Ahead of me the marsh looks huge, its patches of brown spreading farther than I can see, even up this high. The air is so cold and so fast that it hurts my face. I pick up speed and a shout of exhilaration rises within me, stopped only by the wind that fills my mouth the second my lips part.
Held secure by the straps, I throw my arms out to the side and imagine that I am flying. I plunge toward the street, which is cracked and patchy and follows perfectly the curve of the marsh. I can imagine, up here, how the marsh looked when it was full of water, like liquid steel as it reflected the color of the sky.
My heart beats
