I follow her until we reach a platform. She sits and down shuffles over to make room for me. Taking a deep breath, I hoist myself up and crouch as far away from the edge as I can, my breathing heavy. I notice that she hangs her legs over the side. Does she have a death wish? I don't understand how she can be so calm.
I wonder why, if she isn't scared of heights, her legs were shaking so much before.
"You're afraid of heights," she says, without looking at me. "How do you survive in the Dauntless compound?"
Barely, I think to myself.
"I ignore my fear. When I make decisions, I pretend it doesn't exist."
It's the short answer, I will admit, but she doesn't need to know the length of it now.
She turns to look at me, and I have time to study her face for the first time, without distraction. Her features are refined and a little childish, like her frame. Her hair is long, and strands of it are blowing around her face. She isn't overly pretty, but somehow the collection of features are intriguing, and I want to know more about her.
She's been staring back at me for a while now.
"What?" I say, quietly.
"Nothing." She quickly looks away, as if shaking a thought from her head. Her eyes have a determined look in them again.
"We're not high enough," she decides, after observing the city.
She looks up to the top of the Ferris wheel, calculating new climbing possibilities.
"I'm going to climb," she announces finally, standing up pulling herself up on one of the bars above us.
"For God's sake, Stiff," I say, exasperated and impressed all at the same time. Inside me, though, my heart sinks. I thought it would come to this.
"You don't have to follow me," she says, but I can sense the challenge in her tone.
She pushes herself up to the next bar, and the next, swaying for a second.
"Yes, I do," I say, without realizing that I'd said it aloud. I wonder how she will read it. For the first time, I also wonder whether we will make it out of this thing alive.
She continues to pull her self up, bar by bar, and I see that her arms are shaking. She steadies herself and stands on one of the bars before looking down, straight to the ground. Insane girl.
This time, however, when I look into her eyes, I see fear. I see her thinking through what would happen if she were to miss the next bar. And that snaps me into action. She needs me, I think. So I grab a bar with each hand and pull myself up, climbing after her. Stupid, stupid, I think to myself. I can't believe I'm doing this. She continues up for a while, then stops, looking out across the horizon, scanning the city for signs of the other team. She stretches out an arm.
"See that?" she says.
I wait until I've caught up to her before turning to look. She's so tiny; my chin is right next to her head. I wonder if she can feel me breathing.
There, on the horizon, I a tiny light. Eric's team.
"Yeah," I say, and despite the circumstances, I can't help breaking out into a grin. The crazy girl has done it.
"It's coming from the park at the end of the pier," I say. Eric was trying to be tactical this time, I think. Well, not tactical enough for the Stiff. "Figures. It's surrounded by open space, but the trees provide some camouflage. Obviously not enough." I regard her with a bemused smile. Who would have thought.
All she says, though, is "Okay." She turns her head to look at me, and I suddenly realize how close we are. Her eyes are mesmerizing. I can't turn away.
"Um," she says, clearing her throat. "Start climbing down. I'll follow you."
My ears burn red, and I start down straight away. I still can't stop my hands from shaking. Why did I do that, I think. Why didn't I just move down? I concentrated on the hand holds, focusing on where my feet are going to go, to get away from this thing, closer to the ground…
Crack. My head snaps up straight away, my ears ringing with the clanging of the fallen bar, making its way to the ground. The Stiff is hanging from the scaffolding by her bare hands, her legs swinging in the breeze.
"Four!" she yells out, her voice stricken with panic.
I think fast. She's on a Ferris wheel. I can't climb up – that would make the problem worse. And if I climb down and run for help – well, she can't hang on for that long. Then I have a thought. It's a long shot, but it's all I have.
"Hold on!" I shout, "Just hold on, I have an idea."
I make my way down, disregarding the careful method I had been using before. Footholds and handholds meld into one. I just have to get to the bottom.
I feel my heart beating fast and take deep breaths, Eric style, to keep myself calm. She's counting on you. Control yourself.
I reach the ladder and starting sliding down, nearly missing a hand rail in the process which makes my heart skip a beat. When I feel my feet hit the solid dirt, I almost cry with relief. Then I sprint to the controls of the Ferris wheel. Everything is locked away in a small booth, with a glass window for ticket sales. I step back, find a reasonably-sized rock and smash the window. I climb lithely in, taking care not to cut myself on the edges. I'm not careful enough, though; my eyebrow is nicked and a trickle of blood comes down the side of my face. I wipe it away and look around.
"Come on, come on," I mutter, then my eyes fall on the lever that I'm searching for. Without thinking, I heave it backwards. It creaks and gives way. There is a dreadful moment of silence in which nothing is happening; if this doesn't work, I don't know what –
I hear a wheeze from the Ferris wheel, and I leap out of the booth. There she is, hanging in midair, a tiny silhouette impossibly high in the sky. The wheel slowly starts to move.
I heave a sigh of relief and watch as she gradually moves towards the ground. I run as close to the wheel as I dare. I hear her laugh with relief – a welcome sound.
The wheel speeds up, and I trust that she has the sense to calculate her jump carefully. Too soon or too late, and she'll be swept up by the scaffolding. But I trust her instincts. I trust that she will make it.
The wheel continues to come, picking up more and more speed, before finally her figure drops, in the dirt, feet first. She collapses as soon as she hits the ground, rolling away from the following car, finally safe.
She does not get up, though; she stays curled up, her face in her hands. I run up to her, and wrap my hand around her wrists. Gently, I pry her hands from her face.
She looks up at me, her eyes full of perfect trust. I am overwhelmed by the whole situation, as she must be right now; I am overwhelmed by her bravery.
"You all right?" I ask, pressing our hands together. She does not pull away.
"Yeah," she says in a small voice.
Of course she is.
I start to laugh, and after a second she does too. She sits up, and suddenly we are as we were before; eyes close, I can feel her breath on my face, and there is nothing more I want to do than kiss her.
But I don't. I stand, and pull her up. The wind of the Ferris wheel tosses her hair around.
"You could have told me that the Ferris wheel still worked," she said, half accusatory. "We wouldn't have had to climb in the first place."
I am annoyed that I didn't think of it, either. "I would have, if I had known," I say. "Couldn't just let you hang there, so I took a risk. Come on, time to get their flag."
I look at her for a moment, gauging what her emotional state was. Most girls would be an absolute wreck by now, Dauntless or not. But she just looks back at me, her eyes determined and ready for action.
I take her arm gently, smile at her and pull her along with me to the carousel, where the rest of the team stand with the flag.
