Annabel: A Delirium Short Story Read Free

it so frightening to the lawmakers: Love obeys no laws other than its own.
    That’s what has always made it frightening.
    The basement was accessible only through a narrow alleyway that ran between the Wallaces’ house and their neighbor’s; the door was concealed behind a pile of junk that had to be carefully navigated each time we entered or left. Down a steep flight of stairs was a large, unfinished room: mattresses on the floor, a wild jumble of clothing, and a small toilet and sink, made semiprivate behind a folding screen. The ceiling was crisscrossed with metal pipes and plastic tubes and wiring, so it looked like someone’s intestines tacked above us. It was ugly, freezing, and smelled like dirty feet, and I loved it. In my short time there, I made two good friends: Misha, who hooked me up with Rawls and was trying to get me fake papers, too; and Steff, who taught me how to pick pockets and showed me all the best places to do it.
    That is how I knew the name of the man I would someday marry: I stole his wallet. The slight touch, my hands across his chest, the momentary contact—it was long enough to feel for it in his jacket, slip it into my pocket, and run.
    I should have dumped the wallet and kept the cash, as Steff had taught me to do. But even then love was working on me, making me stupid and curious and careless. Instead I took the wallet back to the crash pad with me and spread out its contents carefully, greedily, on my mattress, like a jeweler bending over her diamonds. One government ID card, pristine, printed with the name conrad haloway . One credit card, gold, issued by the National Bank. One loyalty card at Boston Bean, stamped three times. A copy of his medical certification; he’d been cured exactly six months earlier. Forty-three dollars, which was a fortune to me.
    And, tucked into one of the empty credit card flaps, distorting the leather slightly: one silver dagger pin, the size ofa child’s finger.

now
     
    Three days after Thomas brings me the note telling me to wait, he comes again. This time he is carrying nothing. He merely slides open the door, enters my cell, cuffs me, and hauls me to my feet.
    “Let’s go,” he says.
    “Go where?” I ask.
    “Don’t ask questions.” He speaks loudly, no doubt so that the other prisoners will hear. He shoves me roughly toward the door, out into the narrow corridor that runs between the cells. Above us, the cameras set in the stone ceiling blink like small red eyes.
    Thomas grabs my wrists and propels me forward. My shoulders burn. I have a momentary flash of fear: I’m so weak. How will I make it on my own, in the Wilds?
    “What did I do?” I ask him.
    “Breathe,” he answers. He puts on a good show. “Didn’t I tell you not to ask questions?” At one end of the corridor is the exit to the other wards; at the opposite end is the Tank. The Tank is only a cell, unused, but much smaller than the others, and fitted with nothing but a rusted metal ring hanging from the ceiling. If the residents of Ward Six are too loud, if they give trouble, they are strapped to the ring and whipped or hosed, or simply thrown in here to sit for days in darkness, soiling themselves when they need to go. But the hose is the worst: icy water, emerging with such force it takes your breath away, leaves you blackened and bruised.
    Thomas does everything exactly as he should. He cuffs me to the ceiling, and for a moment, as he reaches above my head, we’re so close that I can smell the coffee on his breath.
    I feel a deep ache in my stomach, a sudden, wrenching pain; Thomas, for all the risks he is taking, still belongs to the other-world, of bus stops and convenience stores and dawn breaking over the horizon; of summer days and driving rains and wood fires in the winter.
    For a moment, I hate him.
    Once he locks the door, he turns to me.
    “We don’t have much time, so listen carefully,” he says. And just like that, my hatred evaporates, is replaced by a rush