Ahead of me I see the Hancock building bending into the sky, its base wider than its top. The black girders chase one another up to the roof, crossing, tightening, and expanding. I haven't been this close in a long time.
We enter the lobby, with its gleaming, polished floors and its walls smeared with bright Dauntless graffiti, left here by the building's residents as a kind of relic. This is a Dauntless place, because they are the ones who embraced it, for its height and, a part of me also suspects, for its loneliness. The Dauntless liked to fill empty spaces with their noise. It's something I liked about them.
Zeke jabs the elevator button with his index finger. We pile in, and Cara presses number 99.
I close my eyes as the elevator surges upward. I can almost see the space opening up beneath my feet, a shaft of darkness, and only a foot of solid ground between me and the sinking, dropping, plummeting. The elevator shudders as it stops, and I cling to the wall to steady myself as the doors open.
Zeke touches my shoulder. "Don't worry, man. We did this all the time, remember?"
I nod. Air rushes through the gap in the ceiling, and above me is the sky, bright blue. I shuffle with the others toward the ladder, too numb with fear to make my feet move any faster.
I find the ladder with my fingertips and focus on one rung at a time. Above me, Shauna maneuvers awkwardly up the ladder, using mostly the strength of her arms.
I asked Tori once, while I was getting the symbols tattooed on my back, if she thought we were the last people left in the world. Maybe, was all she said. I don't think she liked to think about it. But up here, on the roof, it is possible to believe that we are the last people left anywhere.
I stare at the buildings along the marsh front, and my chest tightens, squeezes, like it's about to collapse into itself.
Zeke runs across the roof to the zip line and attaches one of the man-sized slings to the steel cable. He locks it so it won't slide down, and looks at the group of us expectantly.
"Christina," he says. "It's all you."
Christina stands near the sling, tapping her chin with a finger.
"What do you think? Face-up or backward?"
"Backward," Matthew says. "I wanted to go face-up so I don't wet my pants, and I don't want you copying me."
"Going face-up will only make that more likely to happen, you know," Christina says. "So go ahead and do it so I can start calling you Wetpants."
Christina gets in the sling feet-first, belly down, so she'll watch the building get smaller as she travels. I shudder.
I can't watch. I close my eyes as Christina travels farther and farther away, and even as Matthew, and then Shauna, do the same thing. I can hear their cries of joy, like birdcalls, on the wind.
"Your turn, Four," says Zeke.
I shake my head.
"Come on," Cara says. "Better to get it over with, right?"
"No," I say. "You go. Please."
She offers me the urn, then takes a deep breath. I hold the urn against my stomach. The metal is warm from where so many people have touched it. Cara climbs into the sling, unsteady, and Zeke straps her in. She crosses her arms over her chest, and he sends her out, over Lake Shore Drive, over the city. I don't hear anything from her, not even a gasp.
Then it's just Zeke and me left, staring at each other.
"I don't think I can do it," I say, and though my voice is steady, my body is shaking.
"Of course you can," he says. "You're Four, Dauntless legend! You can face anything."
I cross my arms and inch closer to the edge of the roof. Even though I'm several feet away, I feel my body pitching over the edge, and I shake my head again, and again, and again.
"Hey." Zeke puts his hands on my shoulders. "This isn't about you, remember? It's about her. Doing something she would have liked to do, something she would have been proud of you for doing. Right?"
That's it. I can't avoid this, I can't back out now, not when I still remember her smile as she climbed the Ferris wheel with me, or the hard set of her jaw as she faced fear after fear in the simulations.
"How did she get in?"
"Face-first," Zeke says.
"All right." I hand him the urn. "Put this behind me, okay? And open up the top."
I climb into the sling, my hands shaking so much I can barely grip the sides. Zeke tightens the straps across my back and legs, then wedges the urn behind me, facing out, so the ashes will spread. I stare down Lake Shore Drive, swallowing bile, and start to slide.
Suddenly I want to take it back, but it's too late, I am already diving toward the ground. I'm screaming so loud, I want to cover my own ears. I feel the scream living inside me, filling my chest, throat, and head.
The wind stings my eyes but I force them open, and in my moment of blind panic I understand why she did it this way, face-first-it was because it made her feel like she was flying, like she was a bird.
I can still feel the emptiness beneath me, and it is like the emptiness inside me, like a mouth about to swallow me.
I realize, then, that I have stopped moving. The last bits of ash float on the wind like gray snowflakes, and then disappear.
The ground is only a few feet below me, close enough to jump down. The others have gathered there in a circle, their arms clasped to form a net of bone and muscle to catch me in. I press my face to the sling and laugh.
I toss the empty urn down to them, then twist my arms behind my back to undo the straps holding me in. I drop into my friends' arms like a stone. They catch me, their bones pinching at my back and legs, and lower me to the ground.
There is an awkward silence as I stare at the Hancock building in wonder, and no one knows what to say. Caleb smiles at me, cautious.
Christina blinks tears from her eyes and says, "Oh! Zeke's on his way."
Zeke is hurtling toward us in a black sling. At first it looks like a dot, then a blob, and then a person swathed in black. He crows with joy as he eases to a stop, and I reach across to grab Amar's forearm. On my other side, I grasp a pale arm that belongs to Cara. She smiles at me, and there is some sadness in her smile.
Zeke's shoulder hits our arms, hard, and he smiles wildly as he lets us cradle him like a child.
"That was nice. Want to go again, Four?" he says.
I don't hesitate before answering. "Absolutely not."
We walk back to the train in a loose cluster. Shauna walks with her braces, Zeke pushing the empty wheelchair, and exchanges small talk with Amar. Matthew, Cara, and Caleb walk together, talking about something that has them all excited, kindred spirits that they are. Christina sidles up next to me and puts a hand on my shoulder.
"Happy Choosing Day," she says. "I'm going to ask you how you really are. And you're going to give me an honest answer."
We talk like this sometimes, giving each other orders. Somehow she has become one of the best friends I have, despite our frequent bickering.
"I'm all right," I say. "It's hard. It always will be."
"I know," she says.
We walk at the back of the group, past the still-abandoned buildings with their dark windows, over the bridge that spans the river-marsh.
"Yeah, sometimes life really sucks," she says. "But you know what I'm holding on for?"
I raise my eyebrows.
She raises hers, too, mimicking me.
"The moments that don't suck," she says. "The trick is to notice them when they come around."
Then she smiles, and I smile back, and we climb the stairs to the train platform side by side.
Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can't escape that damage.
But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other.