Once We Were (17 page)

It was miles before we finally reached the boardwalk. But the sight of it—all vibrant colors and chaotic noise—made us forget how far we’d walked. Boats rocked in the distance, just visible between the brightly colored buildings. School hadn’t started up yet in Anchoit, and children ran around, screaming laughter. Their parents trailed after them.

A burst of wind made me wrap our jacket tighter around our body, made our hair fly around our face. But it also brought us the rich, salty smell of the ocean mixed with a whiff of greasy food.

Ryan and I didn’t bother with the little stores or the restaurants or the arcade games with their flashing lights. We headed straight for the beach, where I took off our shoes and socks and Ryan left his on. It was almost noon, the pale sand warm beneath our feet.

Far out in the water, a small boat cut through the waves. I squinted at it, hand up to shield our eyes from the sun. During the early years of the Great Wars, refugees from the rest of the world came to the Americas in ships, seeking shelter and safety. At first they’d been allowed in, but then the invasions happened, anti-hybrid sentiment spiked, and the ships were turned away. Many of the hybrids already in the country were rounded up and placed into camps. Some say they were murdered—or executed, anyway—for suspected treason. The institutions were supposed to be a kindness, after that. A place of containment and safety, not murder.

This cure Jenson talked about. It must sound like a kindness, too.

“I thought we’d have the whole summer,” I said over our shoulder to Ryan. I could almost taste the salt water on our lips, feel the slick of the sea on our skin. Everything smelled heady and rough and untamed. “Last time we were here, I mean. I thought we’d have the whole summer to come here and swim and be outside.”

Ryan led us farther down the beach, away from the crowded boardwalk. Here, we were all but alone. I twisted our hair off our neck, wanting to feel the sun heat our skin. I imagined it could warm us all the way through, chase away the shadows I felt lodged in our chest.

“It’s not supposed to get that cold here, even in the fall,” Ryan said. “Maybe soon, they’ll let us out of lockdown.”

It was mid-August, but no one had said anything about enrolling us in school. I didn’t know whether or not to be relieved. School might be hell—having to keep up a front at all times, trying to make friends we knew would abandon us if they got a hint of who we really were. But if Peter and the others weren’t planning on enrolling us here, in Anchoit, it might mean they didn’t expect us to stay long enough for it to be worth it.

I was silent a moment, our shoes hanging from our fingertips. I’d kept so many secrets these past few weeks. From Emalia and Sophie, mostly. But I realized now that I’d kept one particular secret from Ryan and Hally, too.

“Peter’s planning on sending us someplace else.”

Ryan spun around to face me. “
What?
When did he say that?”

“A little while back.” I looked away. “It’s not just Addie and me. He wants all of us out of Anchoit—you, Hally, and Kitty, too. He doesn’t think it’s safe.”

“Peter doesn’t think anything’s safe,” Ryan said. The sudden bitterness in his voice made the day a little less warm.

Then, with a sigh, he sat on the sand and tugged us down with him. He rested his head against ours, and I tried to relax, because this should have been so easy, so simple. But it wasn’t. Addie’s rigidity bled into our muscles, injected tension into our limbs. She said nothing, but she didn’t need to. I should have moved away. But I didn’t want to. Instead, I took Ryan’s arm and pulled him close as I lay down, snug in the heat of the sun and the sand and his skin.

The sky was almost cloudless. So blue it hurt to look at.

“What do you think of their plan?” Ryan’s voice was low, right next to our ear.

After so much quiet contemplation, it felt strange to hear the question aloud. It felt even stranger to realize we’d only heard of Sabine’s plan less than twenty-four hours before.

“I want to do it,” I said to the sky, the sand, the sea.

Addie said. It wasn’t an argument. She hadn’t argued against the plan since last night. But she said my name like a warning. Or, not a warning. A plea, maybe. A plea to wait just one more moment, to think this through just a little more.

But I didn’t want to think it through anymore. I’d woken up this morning wanting to talk with Ryan so I could figure out my thoughts, but as it turned out, I didn’t need to. My thoughts were straight enough as it was.

“I want to do it,” I repeated. “I think . . . I think—”

“It’s right?” Ryan said.

I shifted so I could meet his eyes. “If it means one less Nornand for somebody else out there, then yes. If it means people reconsider, just a little bit, what they’re doing to us, then yes.”

He nodded. Addie didn’t say a word. Maybe if I’d tried a little harder, I’d have puzzled out the knot of her feelings. But I was too preoccupied with this out-loud conversation, the weight of my words, the boy I was sharing them with, the warmth of his arm around me.

“The government—those officials and doctors . . . we owe them nothing,” I said.

Ryan shook his head. He pushed himself up on his elbows, his gaze sweeping out to the waves. There was sand in his hair, sand nestled in the crinkles of his shirt.

He spoke quietly, but I caught every word.

“This,”
he said. “This plan. We owe them this.”

W
hen we reconvened in the attic the next day and Sabine asked for our decisions, everyone else answered first.

Jackson and Vince. That knifing smile.
Yes
.

Cordelia and Katy. A solemnity. A series of quick, fluttering blinks.
Yes
.

Sabine and Josie. Smiling. Gentle. Already turning to the next person in the room.
Yes
.

Christoph. A sharp nod.
Yes
.

Devon and Ryan. A long, long pause, in which their eyes focused on nothing. Then, voice low.
Yes
.

I could feel the others’ quiet relief, read it in their shoulders. All eyes were on Addie and me now.

I said, but Addie said nothing.

So I thought of Jaime. I thought of Kitty and Nina and Cal and Eli and Bridget and the girl with the silver-blond hair and the boy with the face full of freckles and all the other children who’d sat with us wearing Nornand blue.

I thought of Mr. Conivent.

Of Jenson.

Of Lissa and Hally in the basement, twisting in the grip of a nurse while another prepped a syringe.

“Yes,” I said. I didn’t whisper. I didn’t let our voice waver or tremble. “Yes, we’re in.”

The frequency of the meetings increased. Soon we spent at least an hour or two every day at the photography shop, sometimes on the ground floor, but mostly hidden up in the attic. At first, we snuck out earlier in the afternoon, keeping a wide buffer between getting back to the apartment and Emalia coming home from work. But Emalia hardly ever strayed from her schedule, and we grew bolder. Going to the photography shop in the late afternoon or early evening was better, anyway—it meant the others were off work and we could all speak together.

Now that we’d decided to go ahead with the plan, we actually had to work out the logistics. We talked about explosives we might use, comparing compositions and complexities and quantities needed. We weighed liquids against solids—and threw out ideas that required too much bulk. We needed to transport the thing, after all, and only Sabine owned a car.

Sabine had copious notes: lists of possible chemicals and combinations and where they might be found. I spent hours trying to read through them as she and Ryan discussed what he might build to encase different reactions and how he could connect it all to a timer to make sure the thing went off when we wanted it to. They’d mulled over attempting to detonate remotely, but Ryan was hesitant about wiring together something sophisticated enough to work long-range.

It was disconcerting, sometimes, to see Ryan and Sabine together, hear them speaking and only vaguely understand what they were going on about. Ryan was alive during these discussions like he rarely was other times. There was no inhibition, no hesitation, no awkwardness. There seemed, in fact, to be nothing in the world but his books, notes, and diagrams—and Sabine, of course, who navigated this world as easily as he did. The two of them seemed to communicate half in code.

More and more, Addie and I felt out of our depth. We’d always ranked as clever. Above average. We’d tested well enough to earn a scholarship to our private school, and classwork had rarely been difficult. It was one of the benefits of having two minds to everyone else’s one. At the end of the day, though, we’d never bothered to study chemistry beyond what we were assigned, and this was definitely beyond our freshman syllabus.

Sabine had never officially completed middle school, let alone high school. Emalia and Sophie hadn’t yet joined the Underground when Peter rescued Sabine and Christoph, so there hadn’t been anyone to forge identification. For years, they’d lived as society’s ghosts, undocumented, half-hidden. But Sabine read. Voraciously. And like Devon had told us, once she got old enough, she started sneaking into the lectures at the college downtown, soaking up whatever she could.

“Liquid oxygen and kerosene,” Sabine said one afternoon. Cordelia was still downstairs, since the shop didn’t close for another hour, but the rest of us lounged around the attic, buried in books and Sabine’s notes. The muggy warmth had made me sleepy, but Sabine’s words snapped me back to attention.

Addie repeated.

Liquid oxygen. LOX. Freezing point below −300 degrees Fahrenheit. There had been more, but I didn’t remember it.

Jackson whistled low. “Isn’t that—”

“Yeah, kind of like rocket fuel.” Sabine leaned back against the sofa. The research and planning engrossed her as much as it did Ryan, but Sabine also had work during the day. It seemed to be taking a toll on her that the Lankster Square plan never had. She was as steady as ever, but sometimes looked a little faded. “We wouldn’t need much. We
would
need supplies, though. A thermos for the liquid oxygen—”

“Forget the thermos.” Jackson tried to flip the page in Sabine’s book, and she brushed his hand away. “Where would we get the liquid oxygen?”

Sabine’s voice strengthened as she settled into her explanation. “We take it from the hospital downtown.”

“You want to steal it,” Addie said. “From a hospital.”

“That does seem to be what she’s saying.” Jackson grinned, but he was the only one. Christoph stared up at the ceiling. Ryan paged through Sabine’s notes.

“They keep it stored in tanks out back. It gets converted to gas form before—you know.” Sabine mimed an oxygen mask. “I went downtown yesterday and took a look at the tanks. If we approach at the right angle, we can avoid the security cameras, and there’s no guard. At least not while I was there.” She pulled a wry smile. “All we’d need to do is hop the fence around the tanks and tap the relief valve. Or just take a whole tank. Some of them aren’t very big.”

I hesitated.

It made me think of our little brother. Of how badly he needed everything the hospital was able to provide him.

“Addie?” Jackson waited for Addie to raise our head. He wasn’t smiling anymore. His voice was gentler. “We wouldn’t be taking much.” He glanced at Sabine as if for confirmation, and she nodded.

“One tank. They’ve got dozens, and it’s not like they can’t get more.”

Addie shrugged and looked away again. “It just feels weird. To steal from a hospital.”

“Well.” Jackson came around the couch and walked toward Addie and me. “It’s not like you haven’t done it before.”

Addie frowned in confusion. Sabine rolled her eyes, but allowed herself a small smile. “He means you.”

Addie and I still didn’t understand. It must have come through on our face, because Jackson laughed. “You’re hybrid, Addie. By law, you’re practically hospital property. Escaping like you did . . .” He grinned. “Well, that was kind of like stealing yourself back from them, wasn’t it?”

Christoph groaned. “You and your metaphors, Jackson.”

“I don’t think that counts as a metaphor,” Sabine said, laughing.

But in a way, Jackson was right.

Having specifics put things in a different light. We could have talked about different kinds of explosives forever, could have joked with Jackson and Vince about dynamite permits forever, but now we had a plan, and bringing down the Powatt institution became that much more real.

Addie said.

It wasn’t quite a question, but it was far from a statement. We looked at Ryan, so engaged in his conversation with Sabine. Did he ask himself if we were doing the right thing? Did he doubt? What about Devon? He wasn’t the sort who changed his mind easily. Did they argue about it constantly? It didn’t seem like it. Ryan seemed focused, assured.

Maybe he just kept in mind all our reasons for doing this. The people we would save. The message we would send. The setback for the government this would be. Maybe he kept in mind the quiet words Jaime muttered to a soul who no longer existed, the long scar across his skull. Maybe he just thought about his sisters and how close we’d come to losing one or both of them.

I said.

“You’re quiet,” Jackson said.

Addie shrugged. “Guess I don’t have much to contribute.”

“Not everyone can be geniuses.” Jackson tilted his head toward Sabine and Ryan. They were too enthralled in their conversation to even hear us. “But don’t count yourself out.”