The rest of the ceremony passes by in a rush. I have no one left to watch, I have nothing left to think about. Someone gives me a bandage for my hand and I find myself staring at it until all around me people begin to stand. Like a snapping rubber band my resolve not to look at those I've left behind breaks. I see Casey being greeted by other Amity, I see Kira shaking hands with other Erudite, then I see Eliza and the rage and shock in her eyes. I lied to her; I didn't even say goodbye.
Looking back at my family would be too much. It would only make this all feel like a mistake. If I allow myself to think for more than three seconds, everything will come crashing down.
I am pulled by the tide of people toward the stairwell. Everyone is running and I am stumbling to keep up. I try to keep one hand on the railing at all times and contemplate kicking off my shoes. By the time we reach the bottom and burst from the lobby, I feel like I'm going to faint. I'm not out of shape, but running down twenty flights of stairs in heels is a whole new magnitude of activity.
But that's what I signed up for, right?
As a flock we are running through the streets, the autumn wind whipping around us. Not even fifty feet from the steps of the Hub, my ankle twists quite badly and I begin to fall. Desperate, I reach out for something to hold on to, that something is the jacket of a short Candor girl. She yelps, but manages to stay on her feet, grabbing my arm to steady me as well.
"Sorry," I say through heavy breaths.
"'S fine." And then we are both running again.
Above us stretches train tracks, and I watch in wonder as some Dauntless begin to climb the scaffolding up to the platform. I choose the safe option and take the stairs.
The platform rattles as the train thunders toward us, blaring its horn. I have watched Dauntless leap on and off the train before, Kira always told me that it's not nearly as hard as it looks. She was taught to do it at ten years old, surely I can do it now.
Everyone is running, grabbing handles, throwing themselves through open doors. I am trying to keep up, I know somehow instinctually that this is the first test. If I can't make it on the train, that's it, I'll be factionless.
The end of the platform is fast approaching, and yet I am having trouble holding my balance in these goddamn shoes. In one last desperate burst of speed, I manage to grab one of the handles near the door, just as my foot falls through open air.
I scream, ready for my grip to falter, ready to feel the impact of the unforgiving concrete below. What's worse, dying or being factionless?
But I don't find out. Instead two strong hands grab my arms and hoist me up before I lose the support of the platform entirely. I find solid purchase again and grab this other person, pulling myself in as both of us stumble backward to safety. I am shaking, gasping, squeezing tight to him as the wind whips through my hair and ruffles my dress.
"Harder than it looks," chuckles the person who just saved my life. His strawberry blonde hair is blowing into his face, and the fabric beneath my hands is a silky suit jacket of navy blue.
I manage to meet his eyes, which are a vivid green like my own, and laugh. "You should try it in heels."
He is laughing too and then we are stumbling to sit down against a wall. I am still shaking, but the moment I am sitting I wrench off my heels. I look at this boy, trying to find my words.
"Will." He sticks out his hand. "Erble. Nice to meet you."
It takes me several long seconds to find my breath before I can say, "Mimette Malachite. I – I – Oh my god, thank you."
He smiles. "Don't mention it. Last thing I want to see on my first day as a Dauntless is someone die."
I think he means it as a joke, so I manage a weak laugh. I watch the city race by through the windows. I've never had a view like this; the slowly dipping sun is in my eyes, and the buildings are all smears. But it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. For some reason, there's a hysterical part of me that wants to laugh again.
But I am silent, and Will is silent, and the only thing that matters to me right now is the sound of the rattling train.
"They're jumping off!" someone calls after a stretch of time that I could not count.
Beyond the windows there are black shapes throwing themselves from the cars ahead and onto a roof. This part of the tracks is seven stories in the air, and we're supposed to just jump off.
"Well that looks fun and not at all life threatening," says Will as he gets to his feet.
"It's like they're trying to kill us," I reply, this time holding my shoes instead of wearing them.
"They just might be."
"Great, now we have to jump too," says a tall, broad girl in Candor black and white.
"We're gonna die here," groans another Candor boy, also tall and broad.
"Well," a third Candor claps his hand onto the boy's shoulder. His gelled black hair is hardly rustled by the wind, "good luck to ya, Al. See you on the other side." And with that he takes a running start before hurling himself out and away onto the roof. The gap is at least seven feet, I think.
"We're dead," says Will. "Oh, we're so dead."
He's right, of course. But I think that I would rather be dead than factionless.
For a moment I am weightless as my feet leave the train car, unbound by gravity. I've never felt anything like it; it is strange, terrifying, and wonderful all at once. The gap is so much easier to clear than I would have thought it to be, and relief floods my system for a fraction of a second before I am crashing hard onto the roof. Someone has poured out gravel as though that would soften our landing in any way.
I am dazed for some time, feeling the pain blossom through my body. I didn't hit my head though, somehow.
A second impact to might right jars me; Will is pushing himself up on his hands with a groan.
"Did we die?" His hand reaches over to touch mine.
"Not yet." I push myself into a sitting position. The tiny rocks have snagged my tights and stuck in my legs. There is a rather sizable rip into the first layer of my full skirt.
Will hands me my shoes, which I had lost my grip on at some point, and then I help him to his feet.
"Glad this wasn't a rental," he says as he examines a tear in the sleeve of his jacket.
For some reason this makes me laugh much harder than it should. Everything hurts, but even that is funny. I just jumped off a train seven stories in the air. He starts to laugh as well, but then a horrible wail shakes us both.
At the edge of the roof there is a girl hanging halfway over the edge, a boy is the only thing keeping her from toppling completely. She is screaming, reaching desperately at something far below.
"Rita!" cries the boy. "Rita, get back! You're going to fall!"
In a daze I find myself moving toward the edge as well. I know what I will see already, but my morbid curiosity does not abate. On the concrete far below, there is a girl. Her bright purple hair is spread around her head in a fan and her limbs are bent at unnatural angles. There is a slowly growing pool of blood beneath her.
Rita is still screaming, but it is distant now. I can hear little over the roar of the wind as sickness wells up inside me. I have never seen a dead body before. I think of what Will said, and the dramatic irony almost makes me laugh again.
"Mimette–" Will gently touches my shoulder, but now it has become imperative that I get away from this scene. I make it to another edge, far away from the girl's body, and lose my breakfast. Her cracked skull and twisted limbs burrow deep into my mind. I imagine gravity dragging me away from safety to the unforgiving ground below.
I am afraid that I might pass out, but then I feel gentle hands hold back my hair. Will does not look at me judgmentally, he just waits until the world no longer feels like it's shifted on its axis quite so much and I can stand again.
Neither of us know what to say, and we don't have to figure it out because a voice booms, "Listen up!" There is a man standing on the far side of the roof, on a ledge like a girl didn't just die not thirty feet away. He is tall, extremely tall, tall like I remember my grandfather being. His skin is dark, also like my grandfather's was. But he is very broad, I can see the bulk of his biceps beneath his coat. Most of his close cropped hair has gone gray and there is a jagged scar along his left cheekbone.
"My name is Max!" His voice commands attention, even from poor Rita. "I am the senior leader of your new faction." Once I would have been able to rattle off the things that make him notable like an encyclopedia, now I can only focus on his voice. "Several stories below is the entrance to our compound. If you cannot muster the will to jump off, you don't belong here."
"You want us to jump?" asks a pale Erudite girl with auburn-red curls tied back with a white bow.
"Yes," replies Max, looking faintly amused.
I am not the only one whose eyes slide toward the ledge opposite Max.
"Is there water at the bottom or something?" asks Will. He should know that hitting water from this high up would be just as bad as hitting concrete; I'm pretty sure we covered fluid displacement and deceleration in physics.
Max just raises his eyebrows in response. "Why don't you jump and find out?"
No one moves, everyone is looking at one another and trying very hard not to make eye contact with Max. Some of us – including Will and I – move closer together to peer over the edge. There is a vast, dark hole in the ground.
Max looks at us all expectantly. "Well? One of you has to go first."
"Me," says a small voice from somewhere in the crowd.
People quickly back away to give this person space, revealing a lone gray dress. An Abnegation transfer. The only Abnegation transfer. Her face is set in determination; there are white patches breaking up her dark skin.
Some of the assembled crowd snicker as she walks forward, stepping up onto the ledge to stand beside Max. She looks down at the hole, then out at the sky. With something almost like desperation, she reaches up to her bun and pulls hard. The elastic snaps almost immediately, setting free a cascade of tight brown curls that billow in the wind.
She looks back at us all with something like smugness before throwing herself over the edge. She doesn't even scream.
Max waits for roughly fifteen seconds before looking out at the rest of us. "Who's next?"
I look up at Will, who has gone white as a sheet. Then I whisper to him, "Race you to the bottom?"
His fingers brush mine as I start to walk away, probably about to grab me and tell me I'm insane. And he would be right, but what part of all of this hasn't been completely insane? More people are beginning to approach the ledge, but I get out in front of all of them. The dead girl flashes through my mind. I feel the hard ledge digging into my feet, only covered by torn tights. Keeping my eyes open is too much; keeping my eyes open will make me back down.
So instead, I let them close and gravity takes me.
I had expected a scream to rip from my throat as the world dropped away, but the air doesn't leave my lungs like I thought it would. Any sound I might have wanted to make is lost. There is nothing but me and the wind. I am falling for maybe a few seconds, or maybe for a hundred years, and all I can imagine is the empty blue sky all around me. I am weightless, tumbling. And the weirdest part is that it is wonderful.
Then I come crashing back to reality. Literally. What I hit does not shatter my body, it yields, it twists, it snaps back and I bounce into the air for just a moment before coming back down. I am being cradled by a net of strong black mesh in near darkness, and above me is the open sky. Somehow, my hand is still holding onto my shoes.
The net jerks and suddenly I am being pulled to solid ground again by strong hands. The quick transition back to stability nearly makes my knees give out, but I am righted by a man who looks like he doesn't even know what a smile is.
His eyes flicker down and he says, "Nice shoes."
I am too busy trying not to faint to actually think of a response.
"Who are you?"
"I…uh…" I can't seem to catch my breath enough to tell him my name. "I'm…"
He raises his bushy eyebrows. "That a hard one?"
"Um, uh…" I am still trying to get my breathing and my heartbeat to level out, thinking seems like the least important thing right now. "I…I…fuck, just give me a second." I push away from him and grab the platform's metal railing. When my vision steadies, I turn back to him, "Who are you?"
He looks bewildered by this.
"Is that a hard one?" I echo him.
His frown pinches tighter. "Okay, you're done, Ice Queen." He gestures toward the ground below where the Abnegation transfer is standing.
I linger for another moment, thinking about names. 'Mimette' just doesn't sound right. Mimette was Erudite, Mimette was trying to be perfect. Mimette didn't jump on trains or off buildings. Mimette, said my father, was a play on 'Minette' meaning star of the sea. 'Mimette' isn't a name that has ever actually existed, my parents just made it up. But 'Mimi' does mean something; it means sea of bitterness, it means wished for child.
It means rebellion.
"Call me Mimi Malachite."
Something in this stranger's face twitches, tightens, before he announces, "Second jumper: Mimi!"