Hana (Delirium Series Book 1) by Lauren Oliver

Author:Lauren Oliver [Oliver, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

The morning after the raids, I wake up to a message from Lena.

“Hana, you need to call me. I’m working today. You can reach me at the store.”

I listen to it twice, and then a third time, trying to judge her tone. Her voice has none of its usual singsong, no teasing lilt. I can’t tell whether she’s angry or upset or just irritated.

I am dressed and on my way to the Stop-N-Save before realizing I’ve made the decision to see her. I still feel as though a great block of ice has been lodged inside me, in my very center, making me feel numb and clumsy. Somehow, miraculously, I managed to sleep when I at last made it home, but my dreams were full of screams, and dogs drooling blood.

Stupid: That is what I’ve been. A child, a fairy-tale chaser. Lena was right all along. I flash to Steve’s face—bored, detached, waiting for me to finish my tantrum—to his silken voice, like an unwanted touch: Don’t be upset. You’re so pretty.

A line from The Book of Shhh comes back to me: There is no love, only disorder.

I’ve had my eyes closed all this time. Lena was right. Lena will understand—she’ll have to, even if she’s still angry at me.

I slow my bike as I pedal past Lena’s uncle’s storefront, where Lena works shifts all through the summer. I don’t spot anyone but Jed, though, a huge lump of a man who can barely string a sentence together to ask you whether you’d like to buy a Big Gulp soda for a dollar. Lena always thought he must have been damaged by the cure. Maybe she’s right. Or maybe he was just born that way.

I pull around to the narrow alley in back, which is crowded with Dumpsters and smells sickly sweet, like old, rotten trash. A blue door halfway down the alley marks the entrance to the storeroom in the back of the Stop-N-Save. I can’t think of how many times I’ve come here to hang with Lena while she’s supposed to be doing inventory, snacking on a stolen bag of chips and listening to a portable radio I snagged from my parents’ kitchen. For a moment, I get a fierce ache underneath my ribs, and I wish I could go back—vacuum over this summer and the underground parties and Angelica. There were so many years when I didn’t think about amor deliria nervosa at all, or question The Book of Shhh or my parents.

And I was happy.

I prop my bike against a Dumpster and knock softly on the door. Almost immediately, it scrapes inward.

Lena freezes when she sees me. Her mouth falls open a little. I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to say to her all morning, but now—confronted by her shock—the words shrivel up. She was the one who told me to find her at the store, and now she’s acting like she’s never seen me before.

What comes out is, “Are you going to let me in, or what?”

She starts, as though I’ve just interrupted a daydream.

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