The House

by Christina Lauren

  Delilah slapped a hand to her mouth, but a sob broke free, raw and sharp. “The money. Oh my God. All of the money we’ve saved.”

  “Okay, okay,” the fireman said, in a low, soothing voice. “No one’s home—is that what you’re telling me?”

  “But the money!” she cried, struggling to push past him. He held her steady, murmuring words he meant to be calming, but the panic had gripped her. It had curled its fingers around her heart and was making it beat and beat and beat until the blood churned in her veins in an agitated frenzy.

  Delilah could see it, high in her closet: the shoebox filled with cash. Hundreds of dollars now, and all of it gone. There would be no easy escape. No brick-and-ivy buildings. No apartment just for them, light and white and empty but for their bed and their little dining table and the possibility of anything, anything in the world after this. Gone.

  Delilah felt herself sliding down the side of the fire truck, felt the hot rubber of the tire on her back, the cold asphalt of the street beneath her, and buried her face against her bent knees. The fireman halfheartedly reached to pull her back to her feet and then gave up, standing close enough for her to feel the cuff of his heavy, scratchy pants against her calf. She assumed he meant it to be comforting, so she resisted the urge to scoot away. But it wasn’t comforting. The last thing she needed to be reminded of right at that second was how close she was to everything, to everyone.

  Heels clicked on the street near her head, and her mother’s hysterical voice rang too sharply in the air, like a knife cutting through glass: screechy and shattering. “I’m Belinda Blue! This is my house! What is happening? What is going on?”

  “There’s been a fire, ma’am.” The same fireman pulled Delilah’s mother to the side and explained in a low voice everything he knew. “We got a call only about fifteen minutes ago. Said the back of the house was on fire. Looks like an accident, though we’ll know when we get inside. We think it was started from the wires overhead.. . .”

  Delilah stopped listening. She knew it was no accident.

  • • •

  In the end, the fire was put out in minutes, and the whole process felt wiltingly anticlimactic. A swarm of police and delighted, idle town officials took only a half hour to deem the fire an accident caused by overheated electrical wires stretching in unsightly ropes above the backyard. Delilah stared up at them, sagging as if exhausted and innocuously silent. Shut off for now, most likely. She had no idea how danger could have leaped from such a mild-mannered tangle of wires into her bedroom, but she seemed to be the only one left unconvinced. Her hands remained clenched into nervous fists at her sides. She startled at any small sound behind her.

  Pulling out her phone, Delilah texted Gavin a simple, Call me.

  She walked around to the front of the house and through the front door. The firemen had closed off her bedroom from the rest of the rooms with a thick plastic tarp. Even so, everything smelled like soot and ash and wet, dripping wood. For the time being, Delilah’s new sleeping quarters would be the living room, but nothing could be salvaged from her bedroom to put down here with her, so it looked as it always did: dim, polished, cluttered with hundreds of ceramic statues.

  • • •

  Belinda looked like a stranger, or a crazy person. Who else but a person who has lost her mind comes home to her house on fire and then two hours later smiles as she emerges from the kitchen with some sliced apple and a pill for her daughter?

  “This’ll help you calm down.” She handed Delilah the pill and some water and put the apples down on the coffee table.

  Calm down? Delilah hadn’t said a word since her father got home with his surprisingly expansive collection of curse words, since the firemen had stomped back out through the house—“See? Glad I have those plastic mats down!” her mother had chirped as they padded in boots and heavy gear across the virginal cream of the living room floor—since the police had been through and officially deemed it an accident, and since the plastic tarp separated the mess of Delilah’s room from the rest of the house.

  “I don’t want it,” she said, taking only the water from her mother’s hand.

  “You’ll take the pill or you’ll be grounded.” Her mother smiled, but it did nothing to cover the bite in her voice. “You’ve been through a trauma. I’ve been through a trauma. I want to go lie down up in my room and not worry about what you’re doing down here.”

  Delilah’s brows went up in understanding. “I’m fine.” But she took the long white pill anyway, curling it in her palm. “I’ll call Dhaval. I’ll do my homework.” And wait for Gavin to call, she thought.

  The sound of the television filtered in from the other room, and it occurred to Delilah that she had no idea whether her father actually got the job today. If his evening routine wasn’t changed by a fire in his house, of course it wouldn’t be altered by good news, either. Belinda blinked away, out the front window, and her brows pulled together in concern. Without having to look, Delilah knew what she saw out there: neighbors still standing in front of the house, pretending to worry but more than anything relishing the chance to gossip. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened around here. At least not that they knew of. Imagine the slobbering frenzy that would break out if anyone really knew about Gavin’s house. If they knew it wasn’t just an odd feat of architecture but something wicked, possessed, malignant.

  “It wasn’t an accident, Mom.”

  Delilah wasn’t sure where the words were coming from, but she needed some sign, some nudge that Belinda could be a mother. That maybe she would hear the desperate, hysterical edge that made Delilah’s voice faintly metallic and it would trip some wire in her mother, turning her nurturing and communicative. Instead Belinda drew her eyes back to Delilah slowly, disappointment pulling her features into a sagging frown. On anyone else, the pink cardigan she wore might have looked feminine or soft, but on Belinda Blue it was too pink and too harsh against her pressed-powder skin. She looked like a disapproving piece of salmon. “Don’t start.”

  “It wasn’t, Mom. What they’re saying doesn’t even make sense. A spark flew into my closed window and started a fire? Seriously? It rained earlier today.”

  “You’re going to tell the firemen how to do their jobs now?”

  “Maybe, if it’s obvious they’re wrong.”

  Her mother pointed to the fist holding the pill. “Take it or you’re grounded. No phone. No sketchbooks. No time with that weird boy.”

  She watched as Delilah placed it on her tongue and took what must have looked like a long gulp of water.

  What her mother didn’t see was that Delilah spit it out moments later.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Him

  Gavin had never broken into an actual house before, but really, how hard could it be?

  From the shadows he watched as the last window of the Blues’ house went dark, and he waited.

  The air grew colder near the curb, and from where he sat he could see the final, lingering onlookers shuffle away from the sidewalk and back to their cars or houses. Neighbors took one more glance around their curtains before they gave up for the night, and the windows of their houses went dark too.

  There wasn’t much of a moon tonight, just a round slice of silver against the black sky. The air was damp, and Gavin wished he’d thought ahead to bring a heavier jacket, or something warm to sit on while he waited. He wondered how House felt about him not coming home for dinner and whether it had sent its feelers out to look for him.

  He’d been in the Blues’ shed since the last fire truck had pulled away from the curb, soot and smoke-stained firemen congratulating one another and already arguing over whose turn it was to make dinner.

  There was no way Delilah’s parents would let him anywhere near her, and so he’d snuck into the backyard, hoping the screams of the siren and all the busybody neighbors would distract House long enough for him to hide in the cement outbuilding.

  When he’d left school and walked to Del
ilah’s—intent on telling her Hinkle thought Gavin would be able to get in nearly anywhere Delilah had already applied, only maybe a year after her—he could smell the fire long before he could see the damage. But once he was closer, he saw where pristine white siding met charred wood and the precise distinction between what had been damaged and what hadn’t.

  His knees felt weak when he glanced at the intact power lines overhead and back to the tape that had been strung through the Blues’ once-immaculate backyard, cordoning it off to anyone trying to get a better look. From the mumbled conversations he’d listened to since sunset, the firemen blamed fallen power lines, an electrical short, or some freak accident, but Gavin knew better. House had done this, and the key hidden in his pocket suddenly felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. House had set a fire. This wasn’t like a parent getting angry and locking him in. This wasn’t the same as taking his keys or hiding his cell phone or his shoes. This wasn’t the same as it trying to scare Delilah off. House wanted Delilah to know it could get to her at any time.

  It knew what time school ended, and if Gavin was right, then Delilah had been in the music room when the fire started, because she’d stayed later than normal to be with him. If she’d gone home when she usually did. . .

  He couldn’t even think about that.

  He held his breath, quietly placing one foot in front of the other as he slipped out of his hiding spot and crept into the yard.

  It was easier than Gavin imagined to move around without being seen. Delilah’s house couldn’t feel his footsteps in the wet grass, or hear the squelch of his sneakers as he moved to the back door. It couldn’t feel his fingers as he searched for a spare key along the top of the doorframe, or his hands as he skimmed the side of the house, where he found a single window that had been left unlocked.

  It took some work to get the window to move—the frame was clean but kept getting stuck on the track from lack of use—but it finally gave, sliding open just enough to let him slip inside.

  Delilah’s house was eerily quiet, and without a single window cracked or the fan blowing, it felt stuffy to the point of suffocation and smelled of cleaning solvents and artificial flowers.

  It was all wrong. Delilah smelled like apples, and whenever they were together—and close—he had to resist the urge to rest his head in the crook of her neck and breathe her in. This place didn’t smell like Delilah at all.

  She was right where he thought she’d be: on the couch, blanket wrapped so high around her head there was barely a tuft of tangled honey hair visible at the top. Gavin took a seat on the coffee table next to her and leaned over, pulling the duvet down just enough to see her face.

  He was struck again by the realization that Delilah could have died. And even in this house, there was no one here watching over her, no one worrying about the toxic fumes in the room or the heat pressing down from the ceiling.

  “Lilah,” he whispered into her ear, so quiet he was sure only she could hear.

  He pulled back just in time to see the flutter of her lashes, and the moment she woke and realized he was there.

  “Ga—” she started, but he pressed a gentle finger to her mouth and shook his head. Delilah blinked, sitting up carefully and searching the room with wide eyes, almost as if she expected to find someone standing nearby.

  Gavin stood and reached out to help her up, taking a step back as she extricated herself from the mountain of blankets. Only now did it occur to him that he didn’t actually know what would happen next or where they would go, only that they couldn’t stay here. He didn’t want her alone in this house. Really, when it came down to it, he didn’t trust House enough to let Delilah be away from him at all anymore.

  He shuffled through the small list of options—park, garage, car, school—before settling on the only place they could go where they could really talk.

  When Delilah had her shoes on, he took a step toward her, admittedly crowding into her space while he brushed her hands aside and zipped up her jacket for her. She glared at him, but it carried no heat. Her hands were shaking, and her eyes were wide.

  “I was so scared,” she admitted, barely a whisper.

  He nodded, bending to kiss her forehead. He’d always been tall, and growing up he’d hated how it was just another thing that made him stand out, but standing this close to Delilah and towering at least a foot above, he liked it. He liked feeling like he could lean down and wrap his arms around her body, hiding her from anything that might come looking. Delilah wasn’t small, and she certainly wasn’t helpless, but in this way, he liked that he could protect her, whether she wanted him to or not.

  The sound of Gavin’s squeaky old bike cut through the silent neighborhood as they made their way to the school, Gavin pedaling as quietly as he could and Delilah perched carefully on the handlebars. They didn’t speak or even say where they were going out loud, but focused every bit of energy on watching the road ahead of them. . . and listening for any sounds behind.

  It was too silent, as if the world all around them held its breath. House had made its point today: I know what you’re doing. I could stop you anytime I want. And now it waited to see what Gavin and Delilah would do. The thought that House might escalate this made Gavin feel queasy.

  The school was a little terrifying at night; Gavin was man enough to admit that. It was old, with strange angles and squat, cramped buildings eerily surrounded by streetlights dotting the parking lot with yellowed spots of light. Gavin had broken into this room many times over the years to play music alone, to lie in the quiet and feel the strange stillness that comes with a building without life, and so it didn’t take long for him to pop the screen from the window and jimmy open the latch.

  He unlocked the door from the inside before following Delilah into Mr. McMannis’s office. Together they found a couple of gym mats that would work nicely as a bed, some emergency candles, two bags of Doritos, a couple of Capri Suns, and even a chocolate bar. Once they were safely in the music room, they locked the dead bolt and moved bookcases in front of the air-conditioning vents before turning off the flashlight on Delilah’s phone.

  Delilah had lit a candle near the center of the room and got to work putting their bed together while Gavin checked everything again. They hadn’t said more than five words to each other since the last time they were here—earlier that day—too concerned with whether they were being watched and getting to safety than anything else. But now the weight of it all seemed to be pressing in on them, and Delilah sank back on the mat, closing her eyes with shaking hands pressed to her face.

  “Lilah?” He’d never really seen her melt down. Was it silent, or earsplitting? Wincing, he ran his hand up her forearm, pulling one of her hands away from her face. “Look at me.”

  “Just. . . breathing,” she explained. He watched as she took five deep breaths and then dropped her other hand, looking up at him. Calmer now. “This is pretty cozy.” She sat up and looked around before breaking off a chunk of chocolate and settling back into their makeshift camp, surrounded by all their pilfered supplies and the faint glow of the candle. “This is definitely where I’m coming when the zombie apocalypse happens.”

  “When it happens?” he asked, grinning.

  “It’s inevitable. Gene manipulation, biological weapons, voodoo. Don’t you watch TV at all?”

  Gavin shook his head but smiled. “Only about three stations ever seem to come in, and Leave It to Beaver usually seems to be playing on all of them.”

  “God, I have so much to teach you,” she said. “Food, water, shelter, a bathroom just next door. We’re all set here.”

  Gavin stretched out next to her, hands folded on his stomach as he looked at the drop ceiling overhead. She couldn’t be that far off: There wasn’t much else he’d want right now. He had Delilah, some snacks, and a locked door. What else could there possibly be?

  “Hmm,” he said, playing along. “What about guns? A giant baseball bat?”

  “Well, yes, of course. But eve
n with just this, we’d be good.” Delilah grew quiet for a moment before she added softly, “We’ll always know this place is here in case we need to come back.”

  And there it was: the elephant in the room. This wasn’t just pretend anymore. House wasn’t a secret they could hope to keep from the rest of the world. They were talking about running away, running for their lives, if he wanted to get technical.

  Along with that realization came the slow, creeping feeling he’d had earlier, the dread that had clawed at Gavin’s stomach when he’d seen the scorched side of Delilah’s house.

  Gavin closed his eyes but nodded anyway. He knew for as much as Delilah hated this town or how uninvolved her parents were, they were still her parents and Morton was still her home. Of course someday she might want to come back.

  “We have to leave, Lilah. Tomorrow. It’s not safe here anymore.”

  He heard Delilah swallow. “I know.”

  “We need to figure out how far away we need to get, and we need to just go. We can’t wait until we have enough money.”

  Delilah took a deep breath, like she was readying herself for something big. “All the money’s gone,” she said. “All of it. It was my first thought when I saw the flames.”

  Gavin rolled to his side and looked down at her. “I don’t care about the money. I thought I’d lost you. That was my first thought when I saw what happened.”

  Delilah’s fingers played at the fabric of his shirt. “Where should we go?”

  “I don’t care if we’re living in a box under a bridge somewhere. As long as I’m with you, I don’t care about the rest.”