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Alex and I are lying together on a blanket in the backyard of 37 Brooks The trees look larger and darker than usual The leaves are alether they blot out the sky

It probably wasnt the best day for a picnic, Alex says, and just then I realize that yes, of course, we havent eaten any of the food we brought Theres a basket at the foot of the blanket, filled with half-rotten fruit, swarmed by tiny black ants

Why not? I say We are staring at the web of leaves above us, thick as a wall

Because its snowing Alex laughs And again I realize hes right: It is snowing, thick flakes the color of ash swirling all around us Its freezing cold, too My breath co to stay warm

Give me your arm, I say, but Alex doesnt respond I try to move into the space between his ar Alex, I say Come on, Im cold

Im cold, he parrots, from lips that barelyat the leaves without blinking

Look at me, I say, but he doesnt turn his head, doesnt blink, doesntinside , and I sit up and place my hand on Alexs chest, as cold as ice Alex, I say, and then, a short scream: Alex!

Lena Morgan Jones!

I snap into awareness, to a les

Mrs Fierstein, the twelfth-grade science teacher at Quincy Edwards High School for Girls in Brooklyn, Section 5, District 17, is glaring at me This is the third time Ive fallen asleep in her class this week

Since you see, she says, est a trip to the principals office to wake you up?

No! I burst out, louder than I intended to, provoking a new round of giggles froirls in my class Ive been enrolled at Edwards since just after winter breakonly a little more than two monthsand already Ive been labeled the Number-One Weirdo People avoid me like I have a diseaselike I have the disease

If only they knew

This is your final warning, Miss Jones, Mrs Fierstein says Do you understand?

It wont happen again, I say, trying to look obedient and contrite I aside thoughts of Alex, pushing aside thoughts of Hana and ht me to do The old life is dead

Mrs Fierstein gives uessand turns back to the board, returning to her lecture on the divine energy of electrons

The old Lena would have been terrified of a teacher like Mrs Fierstein Shes old, andand a pit bull Shes one of those people who ine that she would ever be capable of loving, even without the procedure

But the old Lena is dead too

I buried her

I left her beyond a fence, behind a wall of smoke and flame

then

In the beginning, there is fire

Fire in h every nerve and cell in e froh a black, wet space of strange noises and smells

I run, and when I can no longer run, I liacross the overgrown surface of this strange neilderness

I bleed, too, when I am born

I Ive been pushing deeper and deeper into the woods, when I realize Ive been hit At least one regulatorthe fence A bullet has skimmed me on the side, just below h The wound is shallow, but seeing all the blood, thereal: this new place, this rowth everywhere, what has happened, what I have left

What has been taken from me

There is nothing in h up air and spit bile into the flat, shiny leaves on either side of ate, scurries quickly back into the tangle of growth

Think, think Alex Think of what Alex would do

Alex is here, right here Iine

I take off htly around ainstI have no idea where I a, deeper and deeper, away frouns and

Alex

No Alex is here You have to iine

Step by step, fighting thorns, bees, nats,in the air At one point, I reach a river: I aht, driving rain, fierce and cold: huddled between the roots of an enormous oak, while around h the darkness Im too terrified to sleep; if I sleep, Ill die