Requiem by Lauren Oliver

sleep in them again, and even then I had dreams of tiny claws digging into my skin.
    â€œLet’s get some of this mess cleared out,” Tack says. “We’ll fit as many people inside as we can. The rest will camp outside.”
    â€œWe’re staying here?” Julian bursts out.
    Tack stares at him hard. “Why not?”
    â€œBecause . . .” Julian looks helplessly at everyone else. No one will meet his gaze. “People were killed here. It’s just . . . wrong .”
    â€œWhat’s wrong is heading back into the Wilds when we’ve got a roof, and a pantry stocked with food, and better traps here than the pieces of crap we’ve been using,” Tack says sharply. “The regulators have been here once. They won’t be back again. They did their job the first time around.”
    Julian looks to me for help. But I know Tack too well, and I know the Wilds, too. I just shake my head at Julian. Don’t argue.
    Raven says, “We’ll get the smell out faster if we break open some more windows.”
    â€œThere’s firewood stacked and split out back,” Alex says. “I can get a fire started.”
    â€œAll right, then.” Tack doesn’t look at Julian again. “It’s settled. We camp here for the night.”
    We pile the debris out back. I try not to look too much at the shattered bowls, the splintered chairs, or think about the fact that six months ago I sat in them, warm and fed.
    We scrub the floors with vinegar we find in the cupboards, and Raven gathers some dried grass from the yard outside and burns it in the corners, until the sweet, choking smell of rot is finally driven out.
    Raven sends me out with a few small traps, and Julian volunteers to come with me. He’s probably looking for an excuse to get away from the house. I can tell that even after we’ve cleaned the rooms of almost all evidence of the struggle, he’s still uncomfortable.
    We walk in silence for a bit, across the overgrown yard, into the thick tangle of trees. The sky is stained pink and purple, and the shadows are thick, stark brushstrokes on the ground. But the air is still warm, and several trees are crowned with tiny green leaves.
    I like seeing the Wilds this way: skinny, naked, not yet clothed in spring. But reaching, too, grasping and growing, full of want and a thirst for sun that gets slaked a little bit more every day. Soon the Wilds will explode, drunk and vibrant.
    Julian helps me place the traps, tamping them down in the soft dirt to conceal them. I like this feeling: of warm earth; of Julian’s fingertips.
    When we’ve positioned all three traps and marked their locations by tying a length of twine around the trees that encircle them, Julian says, “I don’t think I can go back there. Not yet.”
    â€œOkay.” I stand up, wiping my hands on my jeans. I’m not ready to go back either. It’s not just the house. It’s Alex. It’s the group, too, the fighting and factions, resentments and push-back. It’s so different from what I found when I first came to the Wilds at the old homestead: There, everyone seemed like family.
    Julian straightens up too. He runs a hand through his hair. Abruptly he says, “Remember when we first met?”
    â€œWhen the Scavengers—?” I start to say, and he cuts me off.
    â€œNo, no.” He shakes his head. “Before that. At the DFA meeting.”
    I nod. It’s still strange to imagine that the boy I saw that day—the poster child for the anti- deliria cause, the embodiment of correctness—could be even remotely connected to the boy who walks beside me, hair tangled across his forehead like twisted strands of caramel, face ruddy from cold.
    This is what amazes me: that people are new every day. That they are never the same. You must always invent them, and they must invent themselves, too.
    â€œYou left your glove. And you