My new faction is like a many-armed creature, stretching toward me. I move toward it, and I don’t dare to look back to see my father’s face. Hands slap my arms, commending me on my choice, and I move to the rear of the group, blood wrapping around my fingers.
I stand with the other initiates, next to a black-haired Erudite boy who appraises and dismisses me with one glance. I must not look like much, in my Abnegation grays, tall and scrawny after last year’s growth spurt. The cut in my hand is gushing, the blood spilling onto the floor and running down my wrist. I dug too deep with the knife.
As the last of my peers choose, I pinch the hem of my loose Abnegation shirt between my fingers and rip. I tear a strip of fabric from the front and wrap it around my hand to stop the bleeding. I won’t need these clothes anymore.
The Dauntless sitting in front of us come to their feet as soon as the last person chooses, and they rush toward the doors, carrying me with them. I turn back right before the doors, unable to stop myself, and I see my father sitting in the front row still, a few other Abnegation huddled around him. He looks stunned.
I smirk a little. I did it, I put that expression on his face. I am not the perfect Abnegation child, doomed to be swallowed whole by the system and dissolved into obscurity. Instead, I am the first Abnegation-Dauntless transfer in more than a decade.
I turn and run to catch up with the others, not wanting to be left behind. Before I exit the room, I unbutton my ripped long-sleeved shirt and let it fall on the ground. The gray T-shirt I am wearing beneath it is still oversized, but it’s darker, blends in better with the black Dauntless clothes.
They storm down the stairs, flinging doors open, laughing, shouting. I feel burning in my back and shoulders and lungs and legs, and suddenly I am unsure of this choice I’ve made, of these people I’ve claimed. They are so loud and so wild. Can I possibly make a place for myself among them? I don’t know.
I guess I don’t have a choice.
I push my way through the group, searching for my fellow initiates, but they seem to have disappeared. I move to the side of the group, hoping to get a glimpse of where we’re headed, and I see the train tracks suspended over the street in front of us, in a cage of latticed wood and metal. The Dauntless climb the stairs and spill out onto the train platform. At the foot of the stairs, the crowd is so dense that I can’t find a way to get in, but I know if I don’t climb the stairs soon, I might miss the train, so I decide to push my way in. I have to clench my teeth to keep myself from apologizing as I elbow people aside, and the momentum of the crowd presses me up the steps.
“You’re not a bad runner,” Tori says as she sidles up to me on the platform. “At least for an Abnegation kid.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“You know what’s going to happen next, right?” She turns and points at a light in the distance, fixed to the front of an oncoming train. “It’s not going to stop. It’s just going to slow down a little. And if you don’t make it on, that’s it for you. Factionless. It’s that easy to get kicked out.”
I nod. I’m not surprised that the trial of initiation has already begun, that it began the second we left the Choosing Ceremony. And I’m not surprised that the Dauntless expect me to prove myself either. I watch the train come closer—I can hear it now, whistling on the tracks.
She grins at me. “You’re going to do just fine here, aren’t you?”
“What makes you say that?”
She shrugs. “You strike me as someone who’s ready to fight, that’s all.”
The train thunders toward us, and the Dauntless start piling on. Tori runs toward the edge, and I follow her, copying her stance and her movements as she prepares to jump. She grabs a handle at the edge of the door and swings herself inside, so I do the same thing, fumbling at first for my grip and then yanking myself in.
But I’m unprepared for the turning of the train, and I stumble, smacking my face against the metal wall. I grab my aching nose.
“Smooth,” one of the Dauntless inside says. He’s younger than Tori, with dark skin and an easy smile.
“Finesse is for Erudite show-offs,” Tori says. “He made it on the train, Amar, that’s what counts.”
“He’s supposed to be in the other car, though. With the other initiates,” Amar says. He eyes me, but not the way the Erudite transfer did a few minutes ago. He seems more curious than anything else, like I’m an oddity he needs to examine carefully in order to understand it. “If he’s friends with you, I guess it’s okay. What’s your name, Stiff?”
The name is in my mouth the second he asks me the question, and I am about to answer like I always do, that I am Tobias Eaton. It should be natural, but in that moment I can’t bear to say my name out loud, not here, among the people I hoped would be my new friends, my new family. I can’t—I won’t—be Marcus Eaton’s son anymore.
“You can call me ‘Stiff’ for all I care,” I say, trying out the cutting Dauntless banter I’ve only listened to across hallways and classrooms until now. Wind rushes into the train car as it picks up speed, and it’s loud, roaring in my ears.
Tori gives me a strange look, and for a moment I am afraid that she’s going to tell Amar my name, which I’m sure she remembers from my aptitude test. But she just nods a little, and relieved, I turn toward the open doorway, my hand still on the handle.
It never occurred to me before that I could refuse to give my name, or that I could give a false one, construct a new identity for myself. I’m free here, free to snap at people and free to refuse them and free even to lie.
I see the street between the wooden beams that support the train tracks, just a story beneath us. But up ahead, the old tracks give way to new ones, and the platforms go higher, wrapping around the roofs of buildings. The climb happens gradually, so I wouldn’t have noticed it was happening if I hadn’t been staring at the ground as we traveled farther and farther away from it, farther and farther into the sky.
Fear makes my legs go weak, so I back away from the doorway and sink into a crouch by one wall as I wait to get to wherever we’re going.
+++
I am still in that position—crouched by the wall, my head in my hands—when Amar nudges me with his foot.
“Get up, Stiff,” he says, not unkindly. “It’s almost time to jump.”
“Jump?” I say.
“Yeah.” He smirks. “This train stops for no one.”
I press myself up. The fabric I wrapped around my hand is soaked through with red. Tori stands right behind me and pushes me toward the doorway.
“Let the initiate off first!” she shouts.
“What are you doing?” I demand, scowling at her.
“I’m doing you a favor!” she answers, and she shoves me toward the opening again. The other Dauntless step back for me, each one of them grinning like I’m a meal. I shuffle toward the edge, grabbing the handle so hard the tips of my fingers start to go numb. I see where I’m supposed to jump—up ahead, the tracks hug the roof of a building and then turn. The gap looks small from here, but as the train gets closer, it seems larger and larger, and my imminent death seems more and more likely.
My entire body shakes as the Dauntless in the cars ahead of us make the jump. None of them miss the roof, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be the first. I pry my fingers from the handle and stare at the rooftop and push off as hard as I can.
The impact shudders through me, and I fall forward onto my hands and knees, the gravel on the roof digging into my wounded palm. I stare at my fingers. I feel like time just lurched forward, the actual jump disappearing from sight and memory.
“Damn,” someone behind me says. “I was