Echoes of Us (25 page)

It was supposed to be a vigil not only for the children at Roarke, but for all the people currently lost. The family members gone. The children taken away.

I thought of our first attic-clubhouse meeting with Sabine, when she’d laid out the plan for the Lankster Square protest. We’d called it a memorial then. We’d honored lost children with fireworks and posters, trying to symbolize a pain and horror that was otherwise impossible to express.

And here were people trying to do it again. Trying to express a story that felt impossible to tell. A story that enveloped not just the children who were snatched from their homes, but the people they left behind. The hidden pain and fear of not just decades of institutionalization, but centuries of fear.

“Damien says there are several hundred people who’ve agreed to come,” Vince said. We were alone in the upstairs library. Both Ryan and Hally knew about Addie’s return now, but they seemed to know to give us a little space. “Hybrids. Family of hybrids. Friends.”

Addie sounded doubtful. Aloud, she just said, “You aren’t planning to go, are you?”

We all knew the question wasn’t just directed at Vince.

Vince hesitated. He wanted to, I could tell.
I
wanted to. But gathering in front of the Capitol like that . . . it seemed like an unnecessary risk.

“They’re going to wear orchids,” Vince said, fiddling with an old, worn paperback. “I don’t know where they’re going to get orchids here in the middle of winter.”

Since the broadcast, we’d learned more about Roarke in a day than we’d known in our entire lives. The area was famous for its orchids, especially a type often called the
Christmas orchid.
It felt cruelly ironic.

“Vince—” Addie started to say, but he interrupted her.

“We won’t go,” he said. “Jackson doesn’t want to. Because he knows you won’t. And if anything does happen . . .” He shrugged.

Addie whispered

I woke in the middle of the night, soaked in the fear that we’d only dreamed our escape. That we were still trapped at Nornand, surrounded by other hybrid children, the smell of antiseptic, and the nauseating terror that came with being absolutely helpless.

I reached for her. Took a shuddery breath of relief when she was there. When I found her reaching for me, too.

Sweat plastered our clothes and blanket to our hot skin. I kicked the blanket away.

Addie whispered.

Addie and I didn’t always share dreams, but when we had the same nightmare, it was nice to know there were fears that didn’t need to be explained.

Something creaked. Footsteps passed in the hallway. I straightened, glancing around the room. Despite the awkwardness, we’d decided to stay with our family instead of Ryan and Hally, who were camping out in a library alcove down the hall. But we hadn’t crept into bed until both our parents and Lyle were asleep. The three of them still slumbered, Mom and Dad on the bed, Lyle and us on bedrolls.

The clock on the nightstand read a little past midnight. We heard faint whispering, then more footsteps going down the stairs.

Addie said.

Damien had explained the plan just before dinner, when much of the house was gathered. Interested people could meet downstairs at midnight, and carpool to the city. He hoped to have everyone there by two a.m.

The children at Roarke had been attacked, he said, during the darkest hours of the night. He wanted to light candles for them during that same time.

I’d assured Ryan, when he sought me out, that Addie and I weren’t going.

I closed our eyes but didn’t lie back down. Damien’s words echoed in my mind.
The darkest hours of the night
. Forty-eight hours ago, children locked away in a building had woken from their beds like this. Stared down gun barrels, empty-handed and terrified.

I clapped our hand over our mouth before I could make a sound. But it lived, weeping, in our throat.

I was half in a frenzy, the darkness sinking against us.

Addie didn’t argue.

I slipped out the door as silently as I could. The hall was deserted, and I hurried down the steps, following the murmur of voices. We found Damien’s group gathered in the dimmed front parlor, already bundled into coats and hats. There were maybe fifteen people total. A few were still pulling on shoes.

I picked out Logan Newsome, who raised an eyebrow at us. Damien, tall and sandy-haired, caught sight of us and said, “You’d better grab a coat. It’s pretty cold out there.”

“Oh, I’m not—” I started to whisper.

Then I recognized the girl nearest the door, wearing the cream-colored hat.

It was Hally.

H
ally hurried to our side and pulled us away from the group.

“We’re about to leave, girls,” Damien said.

“This’ll be quick,” Hally said over her shoulder. To Addie and me, she whispered, “I know, Eva. I know. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Or anyone. But God knows it’s not like you or Ryan have any high ground in that regard.”

“It’s—it’s an unnecessary risk,” I managed to sputter.

I said to Addie.

Addie said.

I’d gotten used to Hally and Lissa being a moderating voice of reason. A leash in my more impulsive moments. But once upon a time, Hally had been the one to risk reaching out to Addie. Lissa had sat in her bedroom and told us we weren’t alone in being hybrid.

They’d also spent their entire lives wishing for more than what they had. They’d wanted the world to change, too, but they’d never wanted to see anything destroyed in the process.

Perhaps they’d never believed it was necessary.

“This isn’t nearly as dangerous as some of the things you’ve done,” Hally said. “Lissa and me . . . we want to do something. You and Addie went into Hahns. You took that upon yourself. And—and I know this isn’t anything like that. But we want to be a part of this.” She bit her lip. “It’s a vigil, Eva. There have been so many tragedies pushed aside or buried or forced to be forgotten. And for the first time, people are coming to openly mourn.”

I realized she didn’t just want us to let her go. She wanted us to go with her.

“Ryan—” I started to say.

Hally shook her head. “He’ll try to keep us from going, and they’re about to leave—”

As if on cue, Logan called out softly, “Are you two coming? If you don’t have a coat, I’m sure you could borrow one from the closet, as long as you bring it back.”

“I’m coming,” Hally said. She looked at Addie and me.

I took a deep breath.

she said softly.

“We’re coming, too,” I said.

Damien wasn’t kidding about it being cold. Most of the cars were parked a few blocks away to cast less suspicion on the safe house. Addie and I huddled in our coat as we walked, sticking close to Hally for warmth.

The streets were quiet but for the sound of our footsteps. Suddenly, Logan threw out a hand, motioning for us to stop.

We all froze. I listened. One. Two. Three seconds. Nothing but the soft whistle of the wind.

Damien resumed walking, and after a moment, the others followed. But I stopped again after a few steps. We’d noticed it, too, this time. The initial group had split into smaller ones as we neared the cars, and the soft footsteps we heard didn’t match with anyone’s feet.

We sensed him before we saw him.

“Lyle?” I said. “Lyle, I know you’re there. Come out.”

A beat. He emerged from the darkness of the trees lining the road, his mouth already set in an unhappy line.

Ours was unhappier. “Go back,” I said. “Right now.”

He shook his head, approaching us. “I’m coming with you to the vigil.”

“You can’t,” I said.

“Why not?” he demanded. “Damien said there would be other kids there.”

The others had all stopped, too, watching our exchange.

“He’s right,” Damien said. “Why not?”

“Because he’s eleven years old!” I said.

Damien’s eyes were steady. “Children get taken away at ten.”

“I want to go,” Lyle said, too loudly. The streetlight caught the whites of his eyes. Made them gleam. “If you make me go back, Eva, I’ll wake everyone up.”

Damien shot us a look, his eyebrows raised.

“It’s not like that would stop
you
,” I said irritably.

But it would stop us. And most likely, Hally. Her lips were pressed thin, her glances worried.

“It’ll be okay,” Logan said. “The boy wants to go. We’ll look after him.”

“Come on, Eva,” Lyle said, the way he used to beg Addie to act out one of his stories with him, or walk to the library with him, or stay up an hour later when our parents were gone.

So I wavered, and I hesitated, but I let him climb after us into the car.

I let him come.

We drove into a peaceful, mostly slumbering city. Addie and I had never been to the Capitol before, though we’d seen it frequently on television. The president often stood in front of it for speeches, and had done so for decades.

Damien parked the car a few blocks from the mall, where we waited until the rest of our group arrived. Then we gathered by his trunk while he handed out candles. He even had orchids, though they’d wilted a little. We pinned them to our coats, the petals pink and white and velvet soft. Both Hally and I put extras in our pockets, to give to people who might not have their own.

Silently, we headed for the Capitol building. The group around Addie and me started with just over a dozen people, but other groups merged with ours as we drifted through the streets.

Despite the late hour, there were still people out walking. Groups of students on winter holiday paused in their laughter when we passed. It was, I realized with a start, officially Christmas Eve.

We didn’t have signs. No one shouted anything. We just walked. The orchids pinned on some people’s coats were made of fabric, or paper, but they were there.

Hally’s hand brushed against ours, and I took it.

I said.

Because it was beautiful, despite everything.

It was as if I hadn’t realized how utterly alone I’d felt all my life until this moment. How my pain, my struggles, had felt like the problems of just a handful of people, easily forgotten and brushed aside. Until I saw the crowd gathered in front of the Capitol building.

Damien hadn’t been lying when he’d said there would be hundreds—hundreds of people and the little, flickering lights in their hands.

It made our breath catch.

I lifted our hand. Marion’s ring still gleamed around our finger. I pressed down on the little gemstone. Set it to record. It wasn’t for
footage
, wasn’t for Marion to show on the news. Wasn’t to try and sway anyone’s mind, or heart.

I wanted this recorded for the same reason I’d recorded the stories the other girls told at Hahns. Because it was beautiful. Because I wanted it captured forever.

“Who are all these people?” Hally whispered.

Logan, who’d stuck near us, said, “Some of them must have started driving at noon, to come this far.”

But they were here.

The candles were not uniform. They were tall and short and all different colors. The scented ones pillowed us in a heady garden of everything from lavender to pine trees to the smell of Christmas-morning cookies. The one Addie and I held was stubby and fat and deeply purple. Lyle’s was green and tall and skinny. He held it clutched in one fist.

No one spoke. There was something powerful in the silence we carried with us.

Soon we were surrounded by the force of so many tiny flames that there was a warmth to it. I wasn’t only thinking about the children of Roarke. I thought of Peter. And Hannah. And Viola. Of Bridget, and Emalia, and Jaime. Of all the children in all the institutions, and all the ones who’d evaded capture. Of the adults they’d become, after a lifetime of hiding.

If things weren’t as they were, each of them would have deserved a memorial like this. But that was what battles did. Made the horror of one death into the incomprehensible tragedy of a thousand.

A wind crept through the crowd. Made the candles flicker.

We were so lost in our private thoughts that I didn’t notice the commotion until Hally’s hand tightened around ours, and I looked up, toward her. She was looking in the opposite direction, frowning.

“What?” I whispered. Too quietly, maybe, because she didn’t reply.

And then I heard it, too—faintly. Sirens.

Her eyes snapped back to ours. I grabbed Lyle by the arm, so tightly he gasped.

“What’s going—” He cut off as he looked over our shoulder. Saw, in the distance, the people stampeding. The crowd morphed into a landslide of people. Wavering at first—shifting in confusion in the semidarkness as the wave approached them. In a second, just a second—

It would break.

“Don’t let go,” I shouted at Lyle.

Everyone was shouting. The magic had broken. Lyle still clutched his candle, but as I pulled him toward us, we saw dozens of candles littering the ground.

A passing man rammed into us. We stumbled.

And in that instant—that fraction of a heartbeat—we lost Hally.

Our head whipped back and forth, trying to find her again, but the crowd was too thick—too chaotic—and—

“Addie,”
Lyle screamed.

Every atom of Addie and me pinpointed on our little brother. Someone’s fallen candle had brushed against his jacket hood. Caught against the dry, soft fabric. Set it alight.

We yelled for him to keep still. The mantra we’d been taught as children leapt to mind—
stop, drop, and roll
—but that was impossible in this crowd. Dropping to the ground here could be fatal.