“Undoubtedly,” he replies. I don’t hear the sarcasm, but I know it’s there. It has to be.
I climb, and when I’m a few feet off the ground, he comes after me. He moves faster than I do, and soon his hands find the rungs that my feet leave.
“So tell me…,” he says quietly as we climb. He sounds breathless. “What do you think the purpose of this exercise is? The game, I mean, not the climbing.”
I stare down at the pavement. It seems far away now, but I’m not even a third of the way up. Above me is a platform, just below the center of the wheel. That’s my destination. I don’t even think about how I will climb back down. The breeze that brushed my cheeks earlier now presses against my side. The higher we go, the stronger it will get. I need to be ready.
“Learning about strategy,” I say. “Teamwork, maybe.”
“Teamwork,” he repeats. A laugh hitches in his throat. It sounds like a panicked breath.
“Maybe not,” I say. “Teamwork doesn’t seem to be a Dauntless priority.”
The wind is stronger now. I press closer to the white support so I don’t fall, but that makes it hard to climb. Below me the carousel looks small. I can barely see my team under the awning. Some of them are missing—a search party must have left.
Four says, “It’s supposed to be a priority. It used to be.”
But I’m not really listening, because the height is dizzying. My hands ache from holding the rungs, and my legs are shaking, but I’m not sure why. It isn’t the height that scares me—the height makes me feel alive with energy, every organ and vessel and muscle in my body singing at the same pitch.
Then I realize what it is. It’s him. Something about him makes me feel like I am about to fall. Or turn to liquid. Or burst into flames.
My hand almost misses the next rung.
“Now tell me…,” he says through a bursting breath, “what do you think learning strategy has to do with…bravery?”
The question reminds me that he is my instructor, and I am supposed to learn something from this. A cloud passes over the moon, and the light shifts across my hands.
“It…it prepares you to act,” I say finally. “You learn strategy so you can use it.” I hear him breathing behind me, loud and fast. “Are you all right, Four?”
“Are you human, Tris? Being up this high…” He gulps for air. “It doesn’t scare you at all?”
I look over my shoulder at the ground. If I fall now, I will die. But I don’t think I will fall.
A gust of air presses against my left side, throwing my body weight to the right. I gasp and cling to the rungs, my balance shifting. Four’s cold hand clamps around one of my hips, one of his fingers finding a strip of bare skin just under the hem of my T-shirt. He squeezes, steadying me and pushing me gently to the left, restoring my balance.
Now I can’t breathe. I pause, staring at my hands, my mouth dry. I feel the ghost of where his hand was, his fingers long and narrow.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“Yes,” I say, my voice strained.
I keep climbing, silently, until I reach the platform. Judging by the blunted ends of metal rods, it used to have railings, but it doesn’t anymore. I sit down and scoot to the end of it so Four has somewhere to sit. Without thinking, I put my legs over the side. Four, however, crouches and presses his back to the metal support, breathing heavily.
“You’re afraid of heights,” I say. “How do you survive in the Dauntless compound?”
“I ignore my fear,” he says. “When I make decisions, I pretend it doesn’t exist.”
I stare at him for a second. I can’t help it. To me there’s a difference between not being afraid and acting in spite of fear, as he does.
I have been staring at him too long.
“What?” he says quietly.
“Nothing.”
I look away from him and toward the city. I have to focus. I climbed up here for a reason.
The city is pitch-black, but even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be able to see very far. A building stands in my way.
“We’re not high enough,” I say. I look up. Above me is a tangle of white bars, the wheel’s scaffolding. If I climb carefully, I can wedge my feet between the supports and the crossbars and stay secure. Or as secure