![]() ![]() “I didn’t want to lose her again.” I have the urge to lay my hand on his shoulder and say, I understand. “They’d already taken her from me once,” he says quietly. He doesn’t look at us, but I see his shoulders rise and fall: an inaudible sigh. He is my age, but there is so much he doesn’t know. “I didn’t see her at all after that.” “I don’t understand,” Julian says, and for a second my heart aches for him. He must have the tunnel’s twists and dips memorized. “I didn’t see.” The rat-man has increased his pace. “You must have seen… I mean, it would have taken away the pain.” There’s a question in Julian’s words, and I know then that he is struggling, still clinging to his old beliefs, the ideas that have comforted him for so long. You were infected together, and then she was cured?” “Yes.” “And you chose this instead?” Julian shakes his head. Here.” “Wait, wait.” Julian tugs me along-we have to jog a little to catch up. “She was cured,” the rat-man says shortly, and turns his back to us, resuming the walk. It occurs to me, then, that people themselves are full of tunnels: winding, dark spaces and caverns impossible to know all the places inside of them. I wonder if Julian is as surprised as I am. “I was already sick,” the rat-man says, and although I can’t see his face, I can hear that he is smiling just a little bit. “I didn’t want to be cured,” he says at last, and the words are so normal-a vocabulary from my world, a debate from above-that relief breaks in my chest. My breath is coming quickly, rasping in my throat. For a minute Rat-man doesn’t say anything, and the three of us stand there in the stifling dark. I can’t help but blurt out, “Why?” He turns abruptly back to me. “Lost count.” Unlike the other people who have made their home on the platform, he has no noticeable physical deformities except for his single milk-white eye. I have a sudden terror that the rats are all around me, even on the ceilings. Now all around us we hear the chittering of tiny teeth and nails, and the flashlight lights up quick-moving, writhing shadows. ![]() “How long have you been here?” Julian asks, after the ratman has straightened up again. It is terrible to watch, but I can’t look away. From the corners of the tunnel the rats emerge, sniffing his fingers, fighting over the crumbs, hopping up into his cupped palms and running up over his arms and shoulders. Once he crouches, and pulls bits of crushed crackers from the pockets of his coat, scattering them on the ground between the wooden slats of the tracks. She has written one novel for adults, Rooms.Ī graduate of the University of Chicago and NYU's MFA program, Lauren Oliver divides her time between New York, Connecticut, and a variety of airport lounges.We walk in silence, although the rat-man occasionally stops, making clicking motions with his tongue, like a man calling a dog. Her novels for middle grade readers include The Spindlers, Liesl & Po, and the Curiosity House series, co-written with H. The sequel to Replica, titled Ringer, is her most recent novel and was released October 3rd, 2017. The film rights to both Replica and Lauren's bestselling first novel, Before I Fall, were acquired by AwesomenessTV Before I Fall is now a major motion picture and opened in theaters March of 2017. She is also the New York Times bestselling author of the YA novels Replica, Vanishing Girls, Panic, and the Delirium trilogy: Delirium, Pandemonium, and Requiem, which have been translated into more than thirty languages. Lauren Oliver is the cofounder of media and content development company Glasstown Entertainment, where she serves as the president of production. Pandemonium is the explosive sequel to the critically acclaimed and bestselling Delirium. She's questioned love and the life-changing and agonising choices that come with it. Unflinching, heartbreaking and totally addictive, this novel will push your emotions to the limit. ![]()
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