Lauren Oliver - Delirium (40 page)

I can't stand to look at her, so I turn toward the wall. "Where's Grace?"

"Downstairs," she says. Some of the normal whine returns to her voice. "We had to set up sleeping bags in the living room."

Of course they'd want to keep Grace away from me: young, impressionable Grace, safely sheltered from her crazed, sick cousin. I do feel sick too, with anxiety and disgust. I think of the fantasy I had earlier, of burning the whole house down. It's lucky for Aunt Carol I don't have any matches. Otherwise I just might do it.

"So who was it?" Jenny's voice drops to a sinuous whisper, like a little snake forking its tongue in my ear. "Who was it who infected you?"

"Jenny."

I turn my head, surprised to hear Rachel's voice. She's standing in the doorway, watching us, her expression completely unreadable.

"Aunt Carol wants you downstairs," she says to Jenny, and Jenny scurries eagerly for the door, shooting one last look over her shoulder at me, her face a mixture of fear and fascination. I wonder if that's how I looked all those years ago when Rachel got the deliria and had to be pinned down on the floor by four regulators before she could be dragged to the labs.

Rachel comes over to the bed, still watching me with that same unreadable expression. "How are you feeling?" she asks.

"Fabulous," I say sarcastically, but she just blinks at me.

"Take these." She lays out two white pills on the table.

"What are those? Tranquilizers?"

Her eyelids flutter. "Advil." Irritation has crept into her voice, and I'm glad of it. I don't like that she's standing there, composed and detached, evaluating me like I'm a taxidermy specimen.

"So . . . Carol called you?" I'm debating whether to trust her about the Advil, but decide to risk it. My head is killing me, and at this point I'm not sure how much more damaging a tranquilizer would be. It's not exactly like I can make a break for the door in this condition, anyway. I swallow the two pills with a large gulp of water.

"Yes. I came right away." She sits on the bed. "I was sleeping, you know."

"Sorry to inconvenience you. I didn't exactly ask to get knocked out and dragged here." I've never spoken to Rachel this way, and I can see it surprises her. She rubs her forehead tiredly, and for a second a glimpse of the Rachel I used to know--my older sister Rachel, the one who tortured me with tickles and braided my hair and complained that I always got bigger scoops of ice cream--flickers through.

Then the blankness is back, like a veil. It's amazing how I've always just accepted it, the way that most cureds seem to walk through the world as though wrapped in a thick cloak of sleep. Maybe it's because I, too, was sleeping. It wasn't until Alex woke me up that I could see things clearly.

For a while Rachel doesn't say anything else. I have nothing to say to her, either, so we just sit there. I close my eyes, waiting for the pain to begin ebbing away, trying to sort out words from the tangle of voices downstairs and the sounds of footsteps and muffled exclamations and the television going in the kitchen, but I can't make out any specific conversations.

Finally Rachel says, "What happened tonight, Lena?"

When I open my eyes, I see she's staring at me again. "You think I'll tell you?"

She gives a minute shake of her head. "I'm your sister."

"As if that means something to you."

She recoils slightly, just a fraction of an inch. When she speaks again her voice is flinty. "Who was he? Who infected you?"

"That's the question of the evening, isn't it?" I roll away from her, facing the wall, feeling cold. "If you came here to grill me, you're wasting your time. You might as well go home again."

"I came here because I'm worried," she says.

"About what? About the family? About our reputation?" I keep staring stubbornly at the wall, pulling the thin summer blanket all the way to my neck. "Or maybe you're worried that everyone will think you knew? Maybe you think you'll get labeled a sympathizer?"

"Don't be difficult." She sighs. "I'm worried about you. I care, Lena. I want you to be safe. I want you to be happy."

I swivel my head to look at her, feeling a rush of anger--and, deeper than that, hatred. I hate her; I hate her for lying to me. I hate her for pretending to care, for even using that word in my presence. "You're a liar," I spit out. Then, "You knew about Mom."

This time the veil drops. She jerks back. "What are you talking about?"

"You knew that she didn't--that she didn't really kill herself. You knew that they took her."

Rachel squints at me. "I really have no idea what you're talking about, Lena."

And I can tell, then, that at least I'm wrong about this. Rachel doesn't know. She never knew. I feel a twin flood of relief and regret.

"Rachel," I say, more gently. "She was in the Crypts. She's been in the Crypts this whole time."

Rachel stares at me for one long second, her mouth falling open. Then she stands abruptly, smoothing down the front of her pants as though brushing away invisible crumbs. "Listen, Lena . . . You got bumped on the head pretty badly." Again, as though I've somehow done it myself. "You're tired. You're confused."

I don't correct her. There's no point. It's too late for Rachel, anyway. She will always exist behind the wall. She will always be asleep.

"You should try to get some sleep," she says. "I'll refill your water." She takes the glass and then moves toward the door, switching off the overhead light as she goes. She pauses in the doorway for a bit with her back turned to me. The light from the hallway looks fuzzy around her, and makes her features blur to black so she looks like a shadow-person, a silhouette.

"You know, Lena," she says at last, turning back around to face me, "things are going to get better. I know you feel angry. I know you think we don't understand. But I do understand." She breaks off, staring down into the empty glass. "I was just like you. I remember: those feelings, that anger and passion, the sense that you can't live without it, that you'd rather die." She sighs. "But trust me, Lena. It's all part of the disease. It's a sickness. In a few days you'll see. This will all feel like a dream to you. It was like a dream to me."

"And you're happier now? You're glad you did it?" I ask her.

Maybe she takes my question as a sign that I'm listening and paying attention. In any case, she smiles. "Much," she says.

"Then you're not just like me," I whisper fiercely. "You're not like me at all."

Rachel opens her mouth to say something else, but at that moment Carol comes to the door. Her face is flushed and red and her hair is sticking up at strange angles, but when she speaks she sounds calm. "Everything's all right," she says in a low voice to Rachel. "Everything's been settled."

"Thank God," Rachel says. Then, grimly: "But she won't go willingly."

"Do they ever?" Carol asks drily. Then she disappears again.

Carol's tone of voice has frightened me. I try to sit up on my elbows, but my arms feel like they've been turned to Jell-O. "What's settled?" I ask, surprised to hear that my voice sounds slurry.

Rachel looks at me for a second. "I told you, we just want you to be safe," she says flatly.

"What did you settle?" Panic is filling me, made even worse by the simultaneous heaviness that seems to be creeping over me. I have to struggle to keep my eyes open.

"Your procedure." That's Carol. She has just stepped back into the room. "We managed to get you in early. You'll have your cure on Sunday, first thing in the morning. After that, we hope, you'll be okay."

"Impossible." I'm choking. Sunday morning is less than forty-eight hours from now. No time to alert Alex --no time to plan our escape. No time to do anything. "I won't do it." My voice doesn't even sound like my own now: It's one long groan.

"Someday you'll understand," Carol says. Both she and Rachel are advancing toward me, and then I see that they are holding, stretched between them, coils of nylon cord. "Someday you'll thank us."

I try to thrash out but my body is impossibly heavy and my vision starts to blur. Clouds roll through my mind; the world goes to fuzz. I think, So she was lying about the Advil --and then I think, That hurts, as something sharp digs deep into my wrists, and then I don't think anything at all. Chapter Twenty-Six

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

--From "i carry your heart with me(i carry it in," a poem by e. e. cummings, banned, listed in the Comprehensive

Compilation of Dangerous Words and Ideas, www.ccdwi.gov.org

When I wake up again it's because someone is repeating my name. As I struggle into consciousness I see wisps of blond hair, like a halo, and for a confused moment think maybe I've died. Maybe the scientists were wrong and heaven isn't just for the cured.

Then Hana's features sharpen, and I realize she's leaning over me. "Are you awake?" she's saying. "Can you hear me?"

I groan and she sits back a little, exhaling. "Thank God," she says. She's keeping her voice to a whisper and she looks frightened. "You were so still I thought for a minute that you--that they--" She breaks off. "How do you feel?"

"Shitty," I croak loudly, and Hana winces and looks over her shoulder. I notice a shadow flitting just outside the bedroom door. Of course. Her visit is being monitored. Either that or someone is on 24/7 guard duty. Probably both.

My headache is slightly better, at least, although now there's a searing pain in both of my shoulders. I'm still pretty groggy, and I try to adjust my position before remembering Carol, and Rachel, and the nylon cord, and realizing that both of my arms are stretched above my head and secured to the headboard, like a real honest-to-God prisoner. The anger comes again, waves of it, followed by panic as I remember what Carol said: My procedure has been moved to Sunday morning.

I swivel my head to one side. Sunlight is streaming in through the thin plastic blinds, which have been drawn down over the windows, lighting up dust motes in the room.

"What time is it?" I struggle to sit up and yelp as the cords bite farther into my wrists. "What day is it?"

"Shhh." Hana presses me back against the bed, holding me there as I squirm underneath her. "It's Saturday. Three o'clock."

"You don't understand." Every word grates against my throat. "They're taking me to the labs tomorrow. They moved my procedure--"

"I know. I heard." Hana is staring at me intently, like she's trying to communicate something important. "I came as soon as I could."

Even the brief struggle has left me exhausted. I sink back against the pillows. My left arm has gone totally numb from being elevated all night and the numbness seeps through me, turning my insides to ice. Hopeless. The whole thing is hopeless. I've lost Alex forever.

"How did you hear?" I ask Hana.

"Everyone's talking about it." She gets up, goes to her bag, and rummages around before pulling out a water bottle. Then she comes back and kneels by the bed so we're eye-to-eye. "Drink this," she says. "It will make you feel better." She has to hold the bottle to my lips like I'm an infant. Kind of embarrassing, but I'm long past caring.

The water kills some of the fire in my throat. She's right; it does make me feel slightly better. "Do people know . . . are they saying . . . ?" I lick my lips and shoot a glance over Hana's shoulder. The shadow is there; as it shifts, I make out the flicker of a candy-striped apron. I drop my voice to a whisper. "Are they saying who . . . ?"

Hana says, overly loud, "Don't be stubborn, Lena. They'll find out who infected you sooner or later. You might as well just tell us who it was now." This little speech is for Carol's benefit, obviously. As she speaks Hana gives me a little wink and a minute shake of her head. So Alex is safe. Maybe there's hope after all.

I mouth to Hana, Alex. Then I jut my chin at her, hoping she'll understand that I want her to go find him, and tell him what happened.

Her eyes flicker, and the little smile dies from her lips. I can tell she's about to give me bad news. Still enunciating her words loudly and clearly, she says, "It's not just stubborn, Lena. It's selfish. If you tell them, maybe they'll realize I had nothing to do with it. I don't like being babysat twenty-four seven." My heart sinks: Of course they've put a tail on Hana. They must suspect her of being involved in some way, or at least of having information.

Maybe it's selfish, but at that moment I can't even feel sorry for her, or for the trouble I've caused. I can only feel bitterly disappointed. There's no way for her to get word to Alex without bringing the whole Portland police force down on his head. And if they find out he's been masquerading as a cured and helping the resistance . . . well, I doubt they'd bother with a trial. They'd skip straight to the execution.

Hana must read the despair on my face. "I'm sorry, Lena," she says, this time in a whisper. "You know I would help if I could."

"Yeah, well, you can't." As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. Hana looks terrible, almost as bad as I feel. Her eyes are puffy and her nose is red, like she's recently been crying, and it's obvious she really did rush here as soon as she heard. She's wearing her running shoes, a pleated skirt, and the oversized tank top she usually sleeps in, as though she got dressed in the first items of clothing she pulled off her floor.

"I'm sorry," I say, less sharply. "You know I didn't mean that."

"That's okay." She moves off the bed and starts pacing, like she always does when she's thinking. For one second--one tiny fraction of a second--I almost wish I had never met Alex at all. I wish I could rewind back to the very beginning of the summer, when everything was so clear and simple and easy; or rewind even further, to the late fall, when Hana and I did our loops around the Governor and studied for calculus exams on the floor of her room and the days clicked forward toward my procedure like dominoes falling in a line.