An animal, coming to investigate, scurries quickly back into the tangle of growth. I cough up air and spit bile into the flat, shiny leaves on either side of me. There is nothing in my stomach, but I throw up anyway. The wound is shallow, but seeing all the blood, the missing skin, makes everything real: this new place, this monstrous, massive growth everywhere, what has happened, what I have left. A bullet has skimmed me on the side, just below my armpit, and my T-shirt is wet with blood. At least one regulator must have clipped me while I was climbing the fence. I’m not sure how far I’ve traveled into the Wilds, and how long I’ve been pushing deeper and deeper into the woods, when I realize I’ve been hit. I run, and when I can no longer run, I limp, and when I can’t do that, I crawl, inch by inch, digging my fingernails into the soil, like a worm sliding across the overgrown surface of this strange new wilderness.
I force my way through a black, wet space of strange noises and smells. That’s how I am born again, in pain: I emerge from the suffocating heat and the darkness. I left her beyond a fence, behind a wall of smoke and flame.įire in my legs and lungs fire tearing through every nerve and cell in my body. She’s one of those people who makes the cure seem redundant-it’s impossible to imagine that she would ever be capable of loving, even without the procedure. She’s old, and mean, and looks like a cross between a frog and a pit bull. The old Lena would have been terrified of a teacher like Mrs. Fierstein gives me a final stare-meant to intimidate me, I guess-and turns back to the board, returning to her lecture on the divine energy of electrons. I’m pushing aside the memory of my nightmare, pushing aside thoughts of Alex, pushing aside thoughts of Hana and my old school, push, push, push, like Raven taught me to do. “It won’t happen again,” I say, trying to look obedient and contrite. “This is your final warning, Miss Jones,” Mrs. People avoid me like I have a disease-like I have the disease. I’ve been enrolled at Edwards since just after winter break-only a little more than two months-and already I’ve been labeled the Number-One Weirdo. “No!” I burst out, louder than I intended to, provoking a new round of giggles from the other girls in my class. “Since you seem to find the Creation of the Natural Order so exhausting,” she says, “might I suggest a trip to the principal’s office to wake you up?” This is the third time I’ve fallen asleep in her class this week. Fierstein, the twelfth-grade science teacher at Quincy Edwards High School for Girls in Brooklyn, Section 5, District 17, is glaring at me. I snap into awareness, to a muted chorus of giggles. “Alex,” I say, and then, a short scream: “Alex!”
A hysterical feeling is building inside me, a shrieking voice saying wrong, wrong, wrong, and I sit up and place my hand on Alex’s chest, as cold as ice. “Look at me,” I say, but he doesn’t turn his head, doesn’t blink, doesn’t move at all. He is staring at the leaves without blinking. “I’m cold,” he parrots, from lips that barely move. I try to move into the space between his arm and his chest but his body is rigid, unyielding.
“Give me your arm,” I say, but Alex doesn’t respond. My breath comes in clouds, and I press against him, trying to stay warm.
And again I realize he’s right: It is snowing, thick flakes the color of ash swirling all around us. We are staring at the web of leaves above us, thick as a wall. There’s a basket at the foot of the blanket, filled with half-rotten fruit, swarmed by tiny black ants. “It probably wasn’t the best day for a picnic,” Alex says, and just then I realize that yes, of course, we haven’t eaten any of the food we brought. The leaves are almost black, knitted so tightly together they blot out the sky. The trees look larger and darker than usual. Urn:lcp:delirium0000oliv:epub:bc38804d-ea6d-4c58-87bc-200910bd1ff7 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier delirium0000oliv Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t6j18wf9q Invoice 1652 Isbn 9780061726828ġ451740859 Lccn 2010017839 Ocr ABBYY FineReader 11.0 (Extended OCR) Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.11 Ocr_module_version 0.0.14 Old_pallet IA18095 Page_number_confidence 97.78 Pages 452 Partner Innodata Pdf_module_version 0.0.17 Ppi 300 Rcs_key 24143 Republisher_date 20200610092010 Republisher_operator Republisher_time 1402 Scandate 20200529052236 Scanner Scanningcenter cebu Scribe3_search_catalog isbn Scribe3_search_id 9780340980927 Tts_version 3.Alex and I are lying together on a blanket in the backyard of 37 Brooks. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 06:06:43 Boxid IA1809401 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier
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