by Лорен Оливер
“Happy now?” Raven asks Alex, shooting him a dirty look.
“They had to know,” he says shortly.
“All right.” Tack holds up his hands. “Settle down. This doesn’t change anything. We already knew the Scavengers were on the prowl. We’ll just have to be on our guard. Remember, the regulators don’t know the Wilds. They’re not used to wilderness or open territory. This is our land.”
I know Tack is doing his best to reassure us, but he’s wrong about one thing: Something has changed. It’s one thing to bomb us from the skies. But the regulators have broken through the barriers, real and imagined, that have been keeping our worlds apart. They’ve torn through the fabric of invisibility that has cloaked us for years.
Suddenly I remember one time coming home to find that a raccoon had somehow worked its way into Aunt Carol’s house and chewed through all the cereal boxes, scattering crumbs in every room. We cornered it in the bathroom and Uncle William shot it, saying it probably carried disease. The raccoon had left crumbs in my sheets; it had been in my bed. I washed the sheets a full three times before I would sleep in them again, and even then I had dreams of tiny claws digging into my skin.
“Let’s get some of this mess cleared out,” Tack says. “We’ll fit as many people inside as we can. The rest will camp outside.”
“We’re staying here?” Julian bursts out.
Tack stares at him hard. “Why not?”
“Because . . .” Julian looks helplessly at everyone else. No one will meet his gaze. “People were killed here. It’s just . . . wrong.”
“What’s wrong is heading back into the Wilds when we’ve got a roof, and a pantry stocked with food, and better traps here than the pieces of crap we’ve been using,” Tack says sharply. “The regulators have been here once. They won’t be back again. They did their job the first time around.”
Julian looks to me for help. But I know Tack too well, and I know the Wilds, too. I just shake my head at Julian. Don’t argue.
Raven says, “We’ll get the smell out faster if we break open some more windows.”
“There’s firewood stacked and split out back,” Alex says. “I can get a fire started.”
“All right, then.” Tack doesn’t look at Julian again. “It’s settled. We camp here for the night.”
We pile the debris out back. I try not to look too much at the shattered bowls, the splintered chairs, or think about the fact that six months ago I sat in them, warm and fed.
We scrub the floors with vinegar we find in the cupboards, and Raven gathers some dried grass from the yard outside and burns it in the corners, until the sweet, choking smell of rot is finally driven out.
Raven sends me out with a few small traps, and Julian volunteers to come with me. He’s probably looking for an excuse to get away from the house. I can tell that even after we’ve cleaned the rooms of almost all evidence of the struggle, he’s still uncomfortable.
We walk in silence for a bit, across the overgrown yard, into the thick tangle of trees. The sky is stained pink and purple, and the shadows are thick, stark brushstrokes on the ground. But the air is still warm, and several trees are crowned with tiny green leaves.
I like seeing the Wilds this way: skinny, naked, not yet clothed in spring. But reaching, too, grasping and growing, full of want and a thirst for sun that gets slaked a little bit more every day. Soon the Wilds will explode, drunk and vibrant.
Julian helps me place the traps, tamping them down in the soft dirt to conceal them. I like this feeling: of warm earth; of Julian’s fingertips.
When we’ve positioned all three traps and marked their locations by tying a length of twine around the trees that encircle them, Julian says, “I don’t think I can go back there. Not yet.”
“Okay.” I stand up, wiping my hands on my jeans. I’m not ready to go back either. It’s not just the house. It’s Alex. It’s the group, too, the fighting and factions, resentments and push-back. It’s so different from what I found when I first came to the Wilds at the old homestead: There, everyone seemed like family.
Julian straightens up too. He runs a hand through his hair. Abruptly he says, “Remember when we first met?”
“When the Scavengers—?” I start to say, and he cuts me off.
“No, no.” He shakes his head. “Before that. At the DFA meeting.”
I nod. It’s still strange to imagine that the boy I saw that day—the poster child for the anti-deliria cause, the embodiment of correctness—could be even remotely connected to the boy who walks beside me, hair tangled across his forehead like twisted strands of caramel, face ruddy from cold.
This is what amazes me: that people are new every day. That they are never the same. You must always invent them, and they must invent themselves, too.
“You left your glove. And you came in and found me looking at photographs. . . .”
“I remember,” I say. “Surveillance images, right? You told me you were looking for Invalid camps.”
“That was a lie.” Julian shakes his head. “I just—I liked seeing all that openness. That space, you know? But I never imagined—even when I dreamed about the Wilds and the unbordered places—I didn’t think it could really be like this.”
I reach out and take his hand, give it a squeeze. “I knew you were lying,” I say.
Julian’s eyes are pure blue today, a summer color. Sometimes they turn stormy, like the ocean at dawn; other times they are as pale as new sky. I am learning them all. He traces my jaw with one finger. “Lena . . .”
He’s looking at me so intently, I begin to feel anxious. “What’s wrong?” I say, trying to keep my voice light.
“Nothing.” He reaches for my other hand too. “Nothing’s wrong. I—I want to tell you something.”
Don’t, I want to say, but the word breaks apart in a fizz of laughter, the hysterical feeling I used to get just before tests. He has accidentally smudged a bit of dirt across his cheekbone, and I start to giggle.
“What?” He looks exasperated.
Now that I’ve started laughing, I can’t stop. “Dirt,” I say, and reach out to touch his cheek. “Covered in it.”
“Lena.” He says it with such force, I finally go quiet. “I’m trying to tell you something, okay?”
For a second we stand there in silence, staring at each other. The Wilds are perfectly still for once. It’s as though even the trees are holding their breath. I can see myself reflected in Julian’s eyes—a shadow self, all form, no substance. I wonder what I look like to him.
Julian sucks in a deep breath. Then, all in a rush, he says, “I love you.”
Just as I blurt out, “Don’t say it.”
There’s another beat of silence. Julian looks startled. “What?” he finally says.
I wish I could take the words back. I wish I could say I love you, too. But the words are caught in the cage of my chest. “Julian, you have to know how much I care about you.” I try to touch him, and he jerks backward.
“Don’t,” he says. He looks away from me. The silence stretches long between us. It is growing darker by the minute. The air is textured with gray, like a charcoal drawing that has begun to smudge.
“It’s because of him, isn’t it?” he says at last, clicking his eyes back to mine. “Alex.”
I don’t think Julian has ever said his name.
“No,” I say too forcefully. “It’s not him. There’s nothing between us anymore.”
He shakes his head. I can tell he doesn’t believe me.
“Please,” I say. I reach for him again, and this time he lets me run my hand along his jaw. I crane onto my tiptoes and kiss him once. He doesn’t pull away, but he doesn’t kiss me back, either. “Just give me time.”
.Finally he gives in. I take his arms and wind them around my body. He kisses my nose, and then my forehead, then traces his way to my ear with his lips.
“I didn’t know it would be like this,” he says in a whisper. And then: “I’m scared.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m scared too.”
Then, from a distance, Raven’s voice echoes through the thin air. “Grub’s on! Eat up or opt out!”
Her voice startles a flock of birds. They go screaming into the sky. The wind picks up, and the Wilds come alive again with rustling and scurrying and creaking: a constant nonsense-babble.
“Come on,” I say, and take Julian back toward the dead house.
Hana
Explosions: a sudden shattering of the sky. First one, then another; then a dozen of them, rapid gunfire sounds, smoke and light and bursts of color against a pale-blue evening sky.
Everyone applauds as the final round of fireworks blooms above the terrace. My ears are ringing, and the smell of smoke makes my nostrils burn, but I clap too.
Fred is officially the mayor of Portland now.
“Hana!” Fred moves toward me, smiling, as cameras light up around him. During the fireworks, as everyone surged onto the terraces of the Harbor Golf and Country Club, we were separated. Now he seizes my hands.
“Congratulations,” I say. More cameras go off—click, click, click—like another miniature volley of fireworks. Every time I blink, I see bursts of color behind my eyelids. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Happy for us, you mean,” he says. His hair—which he gelled and combed so carefully—has over the course of the night become increasingly unruly, and migrated forward, so a stray lock of hair falls over his right eye. I feel a rush of pleasure. This is my life and my place: here, next to Fred Hargrove.
“Your hair,” I whisper. He brings a hand automatically to his head, patting his hair into place again.
“Thank you,” he says. Just then a woman I recognize vaguely from the staff of the Portland Daily shoulders up to Fred.
“Mayor Hargrove,” she says, and it gives me a thrill to hear him referred to that way. “I’ve been trying to get a word with you all night. Do you have a minute—?”
She doesn’t wait to hear his response but draws him away from me. He turns his head over his shoulder and mouths, Sorry. I give him a small wave to show that I understand.
Now that the fireworks are done, people flow back into the ballroom, where the reception will continue. Everyone is laughing and chattering. This is a good night, a time of celebration and hope. In his speech, Fred promised to restore order and stability to our city and to root out the sympathizers and resisters who have nested among us—like termites, he said, slowly eroding the basic structure of our society and our values.
No more, he said, and everyone applauded.
This is what the future looks like: happy pairs, bright lights and pretty music, tasteful draped linens and pleasant conversation. Willow Marks and Grace, the rotting houses of Deering Highlands, and the guilt that compelled me out of the house and onto my bike yesterday—all of it seems like a bad dream.
I think of the way Willow looked at me, so sadly: They got you, too.
They didn’t get me, I should have said. They saved me.
The last, wispy fingers of smoke have dispersed. The green hills of the golf course are swallowed in purple shadow.
For a second I stand on the balcony, enjoying the order of it all: the trimmed grass and carefully plotted landscape, the pattern of day into night into day again, a predictable future, a life without pain.
As the crowd on the terrace thins, I catch the eye of a boy standing at the opposite side of the deck. He smiles at me. He looks familiar, although for a moment I can’t place him. But as he begins moving toward me, I feel a jolt of recognition.
Steve Hilt. I almost don’t believe it.
“Hana Tate,” he says. “I guess I can’t call you Hargrove yet, can I?”
“Steven.” Last summer I called him Steve. Now it seems inappropriate. He is changed; that must be why I didn’t recognize him at first. As he inclines his head toward a waitress, depositing his empty wineglass on a tray, I see he has been cured.
But it is more than that: He is heavier, his stomach a round swell under his button-down shirt, his jawline blurring into his neck. His hair is combed straight across his forehead, the same way my dad wears it.
I try to remember the last time I saw him. It might have been the night of the raid in the Highlands. I had gone to the party mostly because I was hoping to see him. I remember standing in the half-dark basement while the floor thudded with the rhythm of the music, sweat and moisture coating the walls, the smell of alcohol and sunscreen and bodies packed into a tight space. And he had pressed his body against mine—he was so thin then, tall and skinny and tan—and I had let him slide his hands around my waist, under my shirt, and he had leaned down and pressed his lips against mine, opened my mouth with his tongue.
I believed I loved him. I believed he loved me.
And then: the first scream.
Gunfire.
Dogs.
“You look good,” Steven says. Even his voice sounds different. Again, I can’t help but think of my father, the easy, low-belly voice of a grown-up.
“So do you,” I lie.
He tips his head, gives me a look that says both Thanks and I know. Unconsciously, I withdraw a few inches. I can’t believe that I kissed him last summer. I can’t believe that I risked everything—contagion, infection—on this boy.
But no. He was a different boy back then.
“So. When is the happy event? Next Saturday, isn’t it?” He puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels.
“The Friday after.” I clear my throat. “And you? You’ve been paired, then?” It never occurred to me last summer to ask.
“Sure have. Celia Briggs. Do you know her? She’s at UP now. We won’t be married until she’s finished.”
I do know Celia Briggs. She went to New Friends Academy, a St. Anne’s rival school. She had a hook nose and a loud, rattling laugh, which made it always sound as though she was fighting a bad throat infection.
As though he can tell what I’m thinking, Steven says, “She’s not the prettiest girl, but she’s decent. And her dad’s chief of the Regulatory Office, so we’ll be all set up. That’s how we scored an invite to this shindig.” He laughs. “Not bad, I have to say.”
Even though we are practically the only two people left on the deck, I suddenly feel claustrophobic.
“I’m sorry.” I have to force myself to look at him. “I should get back to the party. It was great seeing you, though.”
“Pleasure’s mine,” he says, and winks. “Enjoy yourself.”
I can only nod. I step in through the French doors and snag the hem of my dress on a splinter in the threshold. I don’t stop; I give my dress a sharp tug and hear it tear. I push through knots of partygoers: the wealthiest and most important members of the Portland community, everyone scented and powdered and well-dressed. As I make my way through the room, I pick up on snatches of conversation, an ebb and flow of sound.
“You know Mayor Hargrove has ties to the DFA.”
“Not publicly.”
“Not yet.”
Seeing Steven Hilt has destabilized me for reasons I can’t understand. Someone presses a glass of champagne into my hand, and I drink it quickly, unthinkingly. The bubbles fizz in my throat, and I have to stifle a sneeze. It has been a long time since I’ve had anything to drink.
People whirl around the room, around the band, dancing two-step and waltz, arms rigid, steps graceful and defined: patterns forming and reforming, dizzying to watch. Two women, both tall, with the regal looks of birds of prey, stare at me as I push past them.
“Very pretty girl. Healthy-looking.”
“I don’t know. I heard her scores were rigged. I think Hargrove could have done better. . . .”
The women move off into the swirl o
f dancers, and I lose the thread of their voices. Different conversations overwhelm them.
“How many kids have they been assigned?”
“Don’t know, but she looks like she can handle a litter of ’em.”
Heat starts to climb into my chest and cheeks. Me: They’re talking about me.
I look around for my parents or Mrs. Hargrove and don’t spot them. I can’t see Fred, either, and I have a moment of panic—I’m in a room full of strangers.
That’s when it hits me that I have no friends anymore. I suppose that I will make friends with Fred’s friends now—people in our class and rank, people who share similar interests. People like these people.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm down. I shouldn’t feel this way. I should feel brave, and confident, and careless.
“Apparently there were some problems with her last year before she was cured. She started manifesting symptoms. . . .”
“So many of them do, don’t they? That’s why it’s so important that the new mayor aligns himself with the DFA. If they can shit a diaper, they can be cured. That’s what I say.”
“Please, Mark, give it a rest. . . .”
Finally I spot Fred across the room, surrounded by a small crowd and flanked by two photographers. I try to push my way toward him but am blocked by the crowd, which seems to be growing as the evening goes on. An elbow hits me in the side, and I stumble against a woman holding a large glass of red wine.
“Excuse me,” I murmur, pushing past her. I hear a gasp and a few nervous titters, but I’m too focused on getting through the crowd to worry about what has attracted their attention.
Then my mother is barging toward me. She grabs my elbow, hard.
“What happened to your dress?” she hisses.
I look down and see a bright red stain spreading across my chest. I have the inappropriate urge to laugh; it looks as though I’ve been shot. Mercifully, I manage to suppress it.
“A woman spilled on me,” I say, detaching myself from her. “I was just about to go to the bathroom.” As soon as I say it, I feel relieved: I’ll get a break in the bathroom.
“Well, hurry up.” She shakes her head at me, as though it’s my fault. “Fred is going to make a toast soon.”
