Pandemonium (Delirium 2)

Its still raining in the morning.

I sit up slowly. I have a wicked headache, and Im dizzy. Julian is no longer next to me. The rain is pouring through the grates, long, twisting gray ribbons of it, and he is standing underneath them.

His back is turned to me, and he has stripped down to a pair of faded cotton shorts he must have found when we scavenged for clothing and supplies. My breath catches in my throat. I know I should look away, but I cant. Im transfixed by the sight of the rain coursing over his backbroad and muscled and strong, just like Alexs wasthe rolling landscapes of his arms and shoulders; his hair, now dark with water; the way he tips his head back and lets the rain run into his open mouth.

In the Wilds, I finally got used to seeing men naked or half-naked. I got used to the strangeness of their bodies, the bits of curling hair on their chests, and sometimes on their backs and shoulders, to the broad, flat panes of their stomachs and wings of their hipbones, arcing over the waistband of their pants. But this is different. There is a perfect stillness to him, and in the pallid gray light he seems to glow slightly, like a statue carved out of white rock.

He is beautiful.

He shakes his head a bit and water pinwheels from his hair, a glittering semicircle: Happy and unaware, he starts to hum quietly. All of a sudden I am horribly embarrassed: Im trespassing on a private moment. I clear my throat loudly. He whips around. When he sees me awake, he jumps out of the stream of water and scoops his clothes up off the platform lip, covering himself with them.

I didnt know you were awake, he says, fighting to get his T-shirt on, even though hes soaking wet. He accidentally gets his head caught in an armhole and has to try again. I would laugh if he didnt look so desperate.

Now that he has cleaned away the blood, I can see his face clearly. His eyes are no longer swollen, but they are ringed with deep purple bruises. The cuts on his lip and forehead are scabbing over. Thats a good sign.

I just woke up, I say as he finally gets his shirt on. Did you sleep at all?

Now hes wrestling with his jeans. His hair makes a pattern of water spots around the neck of his T-shirt.

A little, he says guiltily. I didnt mean to. I must have dropped off around five. It was already getting light. His jeans are on. He hauls himself up onto the platform, surprisingly graceful. Ready to move on?

In a bit, I say. Id likeId like to get clean, like you did. Under the grates.

Okay. Julian nods, but doesnt move. I can feel myself blushing again. It has been a long time since Ive felt this way, so open and exposed. Im losing the thread of the new Lena, the hard one, the warrior made in the Wilds. I cant seem to pull myself back into her body.

Ill need to get undressed, I blurt out, since Julian doesnt seem to be taking the hint.

Ohoh, right, he stammers, backing away. Of course. Ill justIll go scout ahead.

Ill be quick, I say. We should get moving again.

I wait until Julians footsteps are a faint echo in the cavernous space before stepping out of my clothes. For a minute its possible to forget that the Scavengers are somewhere out there in the dark, looking for us. For a minute its possible to forget what Ive donewhat Ive had to doto escape, to forget the pattern of blood seeping across the storeroom floor, the Scavengers eyes, surprised, accusatory. I stand naked on the lip of the platform, reaching my arms up toward the sky, as ribbons of water continue twisting through the grates: liquid gray, as though the sky has begun to melt. The cold air raises goose bumps on my skin. I lower myself to a crouch and ease myself off the platform, splashing into the tracks, feeling the bite of metal and wood on my bare feet. I slosh my way over to the grates. Then I tip my head back so the rain hits me square in the face and courses down my hair, my back, my aching shoulders and chest.

I have never felt anything so amazing in my life. I want to cry out for joy, or sing. The water is icy cold, and smells fresh, as though it has carried some of the scents of its spiraling journey past stripped branches and tiny, new March buds.

When Ive let the water drive over my face and pool in my eyes and mouth, I lean forward and feel it beat a rhythm on my back, like the drumming of a thousand tiny feet. I havent realized until right now how sore I am all over: Everything hurts. My legs and arms are covered with dark bruises.

I know Im as clean as Im going to get, but I cant bring myself to move out of the stream of water, even though the cold makes me shiver. Its a good cold, purifying.

Finally I wade back to the platform. It takes me two tries to heave myself up off the tracksthats how weak I amand Im dripping water everywhere, leaving a person-sized splatter pattern on the dark concrete. I wrap the long coil of my hair around one hand and squeeze, and even this brings me joy; the normalcy of the action, routine and familiar.

I step into the jeans I took from the Scavengers, rolling them once at the waist to keep them from falling off; even so, they hang loose from my hipbones.

Then: footsteps behind me. I whip around, covering my breasts with my arms.

Julian steps out of the shadows.

Keeping one arm wrapped around my chest, I grab for my shirt.

Wait, he calls out, and something about the tone of his voicea note of command, and also of urgencystops me.

Wait, he repeats, more softly.

Were separated by twenty feet of space, but the way hes looking at me makes me feel as though were chest to chest. I can feel his eyes on my skin like a prickling touch. I know I should put on my shirt, but I cant move. I can hardly even breathe.

Ive never been able to look before, Julian says simply, and takes one more step toward me. The light falls differently across his face, and now I can see a softness in his eyes, a blur, and it makes the roaring heat in my body melt away into warmth, a steady, wonderful feeling. At the same time, a tiny voice in the back of my head pipes up: Danger, danger, danger. Beneath it, a fainter echo: Alex, Alex, Alex.

Alex used to look at me like that.

Your waist is so small. Thats all Julian says: in a voice so quiet I barely hear him.

I force myself to turn away from him. My hands are shaking as I wrestle the sports bra, and then my shirt, over my head. When I turn around again, I feel afraid of him for some reason. He has come even closer. He smells like rain.

He saw me topless, exposed.

He looked at me like I was beautiful.

Feeling better? he asks.

Yeah, I say, dropping my eyes. I finger the cut along my neck carefully. It is about a half-inch long, and clotted with dried blood.

Let me see. Julian reaches out and then hesitates, his fingers an inch from my face. I look up at him. He seems to be asking permission. I nod, and he slips his hand, gently, under my chin, tipping it up so he can look at my neck. We should bandage it.

We. We are on the same side now. He is refusing to say anything more about the fact that I lied to him, and the fact that Im uncured. I wonder how long it will last.

Julian moves over to the backpack. He rummages for the first-aid materials we stole, and returns to me with a large bandage, a bottle of peroxide, some antibacterial ointment, and several cotton puffs.

I can do it, I say, but Julian shakes his head.

Let me, he says. First he dips the cotton balls in the peroxide and dabs the cut carefully. It stings and I jerk back, yelping. He raises his eyebrows. Come on, he says, hitching his mouth into a smile. It doesnt hurt that badly.

It does, I insist.

Yesterday you went head-to-head with two homicidal maniacs. Now you cant take a little burn?

Thats different, I say, glaring at him. I can tell hes making fun of me, and I dont like it. That was a question of survival.

Julian raises his eyebrows but doesnt say anything. He blots my cut one more time with the cotton ball, and this time I grit my teeth and bear it. Then he squeezes a thin line of ointment onto the bandage and affixes it carefully to my neck. Alex fixed me once, just like this. It was on raid night, and we were hiding in a tiny tool shed, and a dog had just taken a chunk out of my leg. I havent thought about that night in a long time, and as Julians hands skate over my skin, I feel suddenly breathless.

I wonder if this is how people always get close: They heal each others wounds; they repair the broken skin.

There. As good as new. His eyes have taken on the gray of the sky above the grates. You okay to move on?

I nod, even though Im still weak, and pretty dizzy.

Julian reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. I wonder what he thinks when he touches me, whether he feels the electric pulse that runs through my body. He is unused to having contact with girls, but he doesnt seem bothered by it. He has crossed a boundary. I wonder what hell do when we finally get out of here. Hell no doubt go back to his old lifeto his father, to the DFA.

Maybe hell have me arrested.

I feel a surge of nausea and close my eyes, swaying a little on my feet.

Are you sure youre okay to move?

Julians voice is so gentle, it makes my chest break up into a thousand fluttering pieces. This was not part of the plan. This was not supposed to happen.

I think about what I told him last night: Youre not supposed to know. The hard, unbearable, beautiful truth.

JulianI open my eyes, wishing my voice sounded less shakywere not the same. Were on different sides. You know that, right?

His eyes get a little harder, more intense: even in the half-light, a blazing blue. But when he speaks, his voice is still soft and quiet. I dont know what side Im on anymore, he says.

He takes another step toward me.

Julian I can barely squeeze out his name.

Thats when we hear it: a muffled shout from one of the tunnels, the sound of drumming feet. Julian stiffens and in that second, when we look at each other, theres no need to speak at all.

The Scavengers are here.

The terror is a sudden jolt. The voices are coming from one of the tunnels we came through last night. Julian scoops up the backpack, and I stuff my feet quickly into my sneakers, not even bothering with socks. I grab the knife from the ground; Julian reaches for my other hand and pulls me forward, past the wooden crates and to the far end of the platform. Even fifty feet away from the grates, its almost impossible to see. We are swallowed again in murk and darkness. It feels like stepping into a mouth, and I try to beat back the feeling of terror winging through me. I know I should be grateful for the darkness and all the chances to hide, but I cant help thinking of what the darkness could be hiding: stealthy, silent steppers; bodies swinging from the pipes.