Delirium - Lauren Oliver [89]
It’s us against them, three against countless thousands. But for some reason, and even though it’s absurd, at that moment I feel pretty damn good about our odds.
Chapter Sixteen
Unhappiness is bondage; therefore, happiness is freedom.
The way to find happiness is through the cure.
Therefore, it is only through the cure that one finds freedom.
—From Will It Hurt? Common Questions and Answers About the Procedure, 9th edition, Association of American Scientists, Official USA Government Agency Pamphlet
After that I find a way to see Alex almost every day, even on days I have to work at the store. Sometimes Hana comes along with us. We spend a lot of time at Back Cove, mostly in the evenings after everyone has left. Since Alex is on the books as cured, it’s not technically illegal for us to spend time together, but if anyone knew how much time we spent together—or saw us laughing and dunking and having water fights or racing down by the marshes—they’d definitely get suspicious. So when we walk through the city we’re careful to stand apart, Hana and I on one sidewalk, Alex on the other. Plus, we look for the emptiest streets, the run-down parks, the abandoned houses—places where we won’t be seen.
We return to the houses in Deering Highlands. I finally understand how Alex knew how to find the toolshed during the raid night, and how he navigated the halls so perfectly in the pitch-dark. For years he has spent a few nights a month squatting in the abandoned houses; he likes to take a break from the noise and the bustle of Portland. He doesn’t say so, but I know squatting must remind him of the Wilds.
One house in particular becomes our favorite: 37 Brooks Street, an old colonial that used to be home to a family of sympathizers. Like many of the other houses in Deering Highlands, the property has been boarded up and fenced off ever since the great rout that emptied the area, but Alex shows us a way to sneak in through a loosened plank covering one of the first-floor windows. It’s strange: Even though the place has been looted, some of the bigger furniture and the books are still there, and if it weren’t for the smoke stains creeping up the walls and ceilings, you might expect the owners to come home any moment.
The first time we go, Hana walks ahead of us calling, “Hello! Hello!” into the darkened rooms. I shiver in the sudden dark and coolness. After the blinding sunshine outside, it comes as a shock. Alex pulls me closer to him. I’m finally getting used to letting him touch me, and I don’t flinch or whip around to look over my shoulder every time he leans in for a kiss.
“Want to dance?” he teases.
“Come on.” I slap him away. It feels weird to talk loudly in such a quiet place. Hana’s voice rolls back to us, sounding distant, and I wonder how big the house is, how many rooms there are, all covered in the same thick layer of dust, all draped in shadow.
“I’m serious,” he says. He spreads his arms. “It’s the perfect place for it.”
We’re standing in the middle of what must once have been a beautiful living room. It’s enormous—bigger than the whole ground floor of Carol and William’s apartment. The ceiling stretches up into darkness and a gigantic chandelier hangs above us, winking dully in the limited shafts of light that sneak through the boarded-up windows. If you listen hard, you can hear mice moving quietly in the walls. But somehow it’s not gross or frightening. Somehow it’s kind of nice, and it makes me think of woods and endless cycles of growth and death and regrowth—like what we’re really hearing is the house folding down around us, centimeter by centimeter.
“There’s no music,” I say.
He shrugs, winks, holds out his hand. “Music is overrated,” he says.
I let him draw me toward him so we’re standing chest to chest. He’s so much taller than I am, my head barely reaches his shoulder, and I can feel his heart drumming through his chest, and it gives us all the rhythm we need.
The best part of 37 Brooks is the garden in the back. An enormous overgrown lawn winds between ancient