Requiem

Now everyone looks at him—some curiously, some with resentment.

“I don’t know.” He stutters very lightly over the words. Then: “They can’t afford to let us live.”

“Now can I say shit?” Dani asks sarcastically.

“But if the DFA and the regulators are using the Scavengers to kill us, it’s proof that the resistance has power,” I protest. “They see us as a threat. That’s a good thing.”

For years, the Invalids living in the Wilds were actually protectedby the government, whose official position was that the disease, amor deliria nervosa, had been wiped out during the blitz, and all the infected people eradicated. Love was no more. To recognize that Invalid communities existed would have been an admission of failure.

But now the propaganda can’t hold. The resistance has become too large and too visible. They can’t ignore us any longer, or pretend that we don’t exist—so now they must try to wipe us out.

“Yeah, we’ll see how good it feels when the Scavengers fry us in our sleep,” Dani fires back.

“Please.” Raven gets to her feet. A ribbon of white runs through her black hair; I’ve never noticed it before, and I wonder whether it has always been there or only recently appeared. “We’ll just have to be more careful. We’ll scout locations for our camps more closely, and keep someone on guard at night. All right? If they’re hunting us, we’ll just have to be faster and smarter. And we’ll have to work together. There are more of us every day, right?” She looks pointedly at Pike and Dani, then turns her gaze back to Coral. “Do you think you’re strong enough to walk?”

Coral nods. “I think so.”

“All right, then.” Tack is obviously getting antsy. It must be at least ten o’clock. “Let’s make final rounds. Check the traps; work on getting packed up. We’ll shove off as soon as we can.”

Tack and Raven no longer have undisputed control of the group, but they can still get people to move, and in this case, no one argues. We’ve been camping near Poughkeepsie for almost three days, and now that we have decided on a destination, we’re all eager to get there.

The group breaks up as people begin to scatter into the trees. We’ve been traveling together for a little less than a week, but each of us has already assumed a different role. Tack and Pike are the hunters; Raven, Dani, Alex, and I take turns ma

On that, the cureds and the uncureds agree.

I fall into step behind Raven, who is stalking up a short incline, toward a series of bombed-out foundations, where a block of houses must once have stood. There is evidence of raccoons here.

“She’s coming with us?” I burst out.

“Who?” Raven seems surprised to see me next to her.

“The girl.” I try to keep my voice neutral. “Coral.”

Raven raises an eyebrow at me. “She doesn’t have much of a choice, does she? It’s either that or she stays and starves.”

“But . . .” I can’t explain why I feel, stubbornly, that she shouldn’t be trusted. “We don’t know anything about her.”

Raven stops walking. She turns to me. “We don’t know anything about anyone,” she says. “Don’t you get that yet? You don’t know shit about me, I don’t know shit about you. Youdon’t even know shit about you.”

I think of Alex—the strange, stony figure of a boy I thought I once knew. Maybe he hasn’t changed that much. Maybe I neverreally knew him at all.

Raven sighs and rubs her face with both hands. “Look, I meant what I said back there. We’re all in this together, and we have to act like it.”

“I get it,” I say. I look back toward the camp. From a distance, the red blanket draped across Coral’s shoulders looks jarring, like a spot of blood on a polished wood floor.

“I don’t think you do,” Raven says. She steps in front of me, forcing me to meet her gaze. Her eyes are hard, nearly black. “This—what’s happening now—is the only thing that matters. It’s not a game. It’s not a joke. This is war. It’s bigger than you or me. It’s bigger than all of us combined. We don’t matter anymore.” Her voice softens. “Remember what I always told you? The past is dead.”

I know, then, that she’s talking about Alex. My throat begins to tighten, but I refuse to let Raven see me cry. I won’t cry over Alex ever again.

Raven starts walking again. “Go on,” she calls back over her shoulder. “You should help Julian pack up the tents.”

I look over my shoulder. Julian already has half the tents dismantled. As I watch, he collapses yet another one, and it shrinks into nothing, like a mushroom sprouting in reverse.

“He’s got it under control,” I say. “He doesn’t need me.” I move to follow her.

“Trust me”—Raven whirls around, her black hair fa

For a second we just stand there, looking at each other. Something flashes in Raven’s eyes, an expression I can’t quite decipher. A warning, maybe.

Then she quirks her lips into a smile. “I’m still in charge, you know,” she says. “You have to listen to me.”

So I turn around and go back down the hill, toward the camp, toward Julian, who needs me.

Hana

In the morning I wake up momentarily disoriented: The room is drowning in sunlight. I must have forgotten to close the blinds.

I sit up, pushing the covers to the foot of my bed. Seagulls are calling outside, and as I stand, I see that the sun has touched the grass a vivid green.

In my desk I find one of the few things I bothered to unpack: AfterCure, the thick manual I was given after my procedure, which, according to the introduction, “contains the answer to the most common—and uncommon!—questions about the procedure and its aftereffects.”

I flip quickly to the chapter on dreaming, sca

Five percent. Not a huge amount, but still, not a freakishly small percentage either.

I feel better than I have in days. I close the book, making a sudden resolution.

I will ride my bike to Lena’s house today.

I haven’t been anywhere near her house on Cumberland in months. This will be my way of paying tribute to our old friendship and of putting to rest the bad feeling that has bugged me since I saw Je

That must be why I still think of her. The cure doesn’t suppress everyfeeling, and the guilt is still pushing through.

I will bike by the old house and see that everyone is okay, and I will feel better. Guilt requires absolution, and I have not absolved myself for my part in her crime. Maybe, I think, I’ll even bring over some coffee. Her aunt Carol used to love the stuff.

Then I’ll return to my life.

I splash water on my face, pull on a pair of jeans and my favorite fleece, soft from years of going in the dryer, and twist my hair up in a messy bun. Lena used to make a face whenever I wore it this way. Unfair,she’d say. If I tried to do that, I’d look like a bird crapped a nest on my head.

“Hana? Is everything okay?” my mother calls to me from the hallway, her voice muffled, concerned. I open the door.

“Fine,” I say. “Why?”

She squints at me. “Were you—were you singing?”

I must have been humming unconsciously. I feel a hot shock of embarrassment.