Once We Were (18 page)

Our stomach twinged, but I felt a ghost of a smile, so faint it was hardly there. So faint no one would have caught it but me, because Addie’s mouth was mine.

“I won’t,” Addie said.

Ryan was almost always the one in control when we were up in the attic. I wondered sometimes whether Devon bothered to be there at all, or whether he simply went under and let Ryan handle everything. Since his initial derision of Sabine’s plan, he hadn’t spoken up again. But he didn’t bother pretending to be involved, either.

When Devon did appear, the others tried to draw him into their conversations. Sabine even brought in a cutaway lock when I jokingly mentioned Devon’s interest in lock picking. He was willing enough to listen as she explained how it worked, and he seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly, but it made him no more eager to join in the other discussions.

I didn’t think too much about it, to be honest. I was too busy trying to keep up with Ryan and Sabine.

Then one night, Devon showed up at our bedroom door. Emalia must have let him in. I was too engrossed in Sabine’s notebook, which I’d convinced her to let me borrow, to notice him until he was standing in the doorway.

“Brought Sabine’s notes home?” he said. “You’re getting more dedicated than she is.”

It was a little unsettling to be on the receiving end of his stare, but I tried to smile. “I’m just looking. I don’t have anything else to do.”

“And Addie?” he said. I frowned. He didn’t break eye contact, and neither did I. “Doesn’t she have anything better to do, either? Or did she have a change of heart?”

His voice remained impassive until the last sentence. Even then, I felt more than heard the accusation. I bristled anyway. “Addie—”

Addie shoved herself into control of our body. “I have the right to.”

Devon’s only reaction to the shift was a slow blink and the upward twitch of an eyebrow. “What did it?” he asked. “Changed your mind.”

With Addie in control, I was free to focus all my attention on Devon, this boy who shared Ryan’s eyes and hands and mouth. What was Ryan thinking right now?

Our eyes focused on a point over Devon’s shoulder. Our lips thinned. At first I thought Addie wasn’t going to answer his question at all. But finally, she said, “I realized that what we went through at Nornand . . . that’s just the cotton-candy version of what other people have gone through, isn’t it?”

Devon gave no reply.

Addie sighed. “Jackson told us how he spent three years in one of those institutions, and . . . and just knowing that every single person in that attic has been through ten times worse than what we went through—I . . . Well . . . if there’s anything we can do to help make sure another kid out there doesn’t suffer that, we should do it.”

“So, sad stories,” Devon said. “That’s what did it.”

Addie frowned, closing Sabine’s notebook and climbing to our feet. “If that’s what you want to cheapen it to, then yes, sad stories. That’s what changed my mind. Other people’s sad stories.”

“Everybody’s got sad stories.” Devon’s voice was as ungiving as stone. “And everyone thinks they’re so very special and broken because of them.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged.

“You came back to the attic with us,” Addie said. Our fingers tightened around the notebook, the cover biting into our skin. “You could have refused. You’re the one who said you’d go.”

“You were going to go.” Devon wore the look he usually saved for other people. The one that said,
You’re being very stupid, but I’ll speak slowly in hopes you might understand.
Addie rolled our eyes. “You really believe Ryan would have allowed us to stay behind if you went?” He hesitated. Had we ever seen Devon hesitate? He always either spoke or he didn’t—no vacillation. “Ryan cares about Eva. Which means he cares about you. Which makes you and Eva . . .”

“Makes us what?” Addie snapped.

“Makes you one of us.”

“Us?”

The hesitation ebbed from Devon’s body. He was all quiet, steady confidence again. He nodded.

“Who’s the rest of
us
?”

“Hally,” he said, “and Lissa.”

“Oh,” Addie said.

“We look out for one another.” His eyes were bright and intent on ours. There was almost a dare in them. “No matter what happens.”

Addie nodded. Something transpired between the two of them. Something I didn’t understand. Without another word, Devon turned and headed back down the hall.

I said. Addie grudgingly allowed me control, and I repeated the request aloud. Devon came back into view. “Can I . . . I’d like to speak with Ryan.”

Devon frowned, and for a moment, I was afraid I’d offended him. Would I have been offended if someone had told me,
Step aside, I want to talk with Addie, not you?

Probably.

Yes.

Sorry,
I started to say, but I didn’t get the chance.

“Ryan isn’t here,” Devon said.

I shut our mouth so quickly our teeth clicked against one another. It shouldn’t have felt this strange, knowing Ryan was temporarily gone. I’d disappeared myself. I’d been with Ryan without Devon there. But watching those familiar eyes, that familiar face, and knowing Ryan wasn’t looking back at me . . .

I thought Devon would just leave again, but he lingered a moment at the door.

“Look,” he said. “Everyone’s telling stories. Everyone has something they want. You can’t trust them all.”

“Who are we supposed to trust, then?” I said.

He studied me. Said, quietly, “I don’t know.”

This time, he left and didn’t look back.

E
malia and Nina were huddled on the couch when I finally ventured from our bedroom, Emalia’s arm around Nina’s shoulders, both of them laughing at a television show. I’d just poured a cup of juice when Addie said

and was gone, just like that.

Left me in the middle of the kitchen, a glass of orange juice halfway to my lips, my feet cold against the tiles.

Nina called, “Can you pour me some?”

I gave her mine, since I didn’t want it anymore. Somehow, it hadn’t fully struck me until now how Addie could leave me when I didn’t want her to go.

“Join us?” Emalia said. I shook my head.

The knock at the door came long after the show had ended. Nina was in the shower. I was milling about our room and only came out when I heard Emalia say, “Oh, hi, Lissa. How’re you?”

“I’m fine.” Lissa’s voice was barely above a whisper, and she didn’t speak again until she saw me in the hallway. She cradled a roll of clothes and a towel in her arms, a small denim bag slung over her shoulder. “I was wondering . . .” Her dark eyes shifted between Emalia and me. “Could I spend the night here?”

I didn’t speak. I’d barely seen Lissa or Hally since the day they refused to go back to the attic. They’d stayed secreted away in Henri’s apartment, burying themselves in books, I guessed. Or maybe just staring out the window, the way they used to.

“Of course, Lissa,” Emalia said finally. “You can sleep over whenever you want.”

Emalia didn’t own a sleeping bag, and the twin beds were too narrow to share, so Lissa and I laid out blankets in the living room. Of course, Nina wanted to join us. She grabbed her blanket and declared ownership of the couch while Lissa and I were still carrying the coffee table out of the way.

We moved awkwardly, not meeting eyes.

Emalia, who had work the next day, went to bed. The rest of us watched late-night television with the volume barely loud enough to hear. Eventually, Nina drifted asleep. Lissa and I watched for a little longer after that, but soon most of the channels showed nothing but infomercials, and I switched off the television. The living room dipped into darkness and silence. Addie still hadn’t returned. The warmth where she should have been was dark and silent.

Lissa lay curled away from me, so still I thought she’d fallen asleep, too. But then I heard a quiet “Eva?”

“Yeah?” I whispered.

She turned to face me. She’d removed her glasses, and her face looked different without them—more vulnerable. I braced myself for any number of questions:
What are you and the others up to now? Why are you doing this? Why haven’t you talked with me? Why have you left me alone?

The question she asked wasn’t any I’d expected.

“You ever wonder why we’re like this? Why people are hybrid? Why some of us are and some of us aren’t?”

Lissa’s eyes searched mine, and I nodded. Of course I had. How could I not?

That was the natural next question, but she didn’t ask it, and neither did I. It felt too private to ask. All hybrids must wonder why they were born to this fate. I’d wondered as a child alone on the playground. Lissa had been kept cloistered at home until second grade, seeing no one beyond her parents and her brother. Did that mean she’d started wondering later, or earlier?

“It’s always been this way,” Lissa murmured. “Since human beings first came to be. And I . . . I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?” She shifted onto her back, her long hair tangled beneath her. “My father used to tell Hally and me stories, when we were really little. I don’t think he knows we remember, but we do.”

“What kind of stories?”

“Legends,” Lissa said. “Of how the world began. Of how the hybrids began. His grandma taught them to him, before she died. He had to translate them, since she didn’t speak English. There were ones about Purusha, and ones about Brahma. And others, too. He used to tell us so many. We’d beg for them.” She twisted a curl of hair around her fingers. “This was before we started pretending we’d settled. He never told us any more after that.”

I’d never heard those stories, but I’d been taught others. At school, we’d learned what the ancient world believed—that their gods had created all people to be hybrid, so they’d never have to suffer the agony of loneliness. Then one man had committed some unpardonable sin and, as punishment, the gods tore out his second soul. He was cast from society and left all alone.

Finally the people took pity on him and brought him back into the fold, where he was allowed to stay as a second-class citizen, doing menial labor. Only menial labor, because who could trust higher-level jobs to a man with only one soul? One mind?

The first time Addie and I heard the legend, we were in third grade. The only unsettled child in our entire class.

What a cruel story,
the teacher had said
, invented to justify the hybrids’ even crueler treatment of our ancestors. Do you know what
ancestor
means?

We’d lingered at the door at the end of the day, waiting for the teacher’s attention to fall on us. We’d been comfortable with her. Eight years old and unsettled, we were unusual but not obscene, and she’d been kinder than our peers.

Who did he marry?
I asked.

She gave us a confused smile.
I’m sorry?

Addie,
she said. Everyone called us Addie then, because it was mostly Addie in control. I didn’t bother correcting her.
It’s only a story. He didn’t marry anyone. He didn’t even exist. The hybrids just made it up so they could feel better about treating the non-hybrids so horribly. Do you understand?

Yes,
I’d said, though I didn’t. How could the hybrids have felt better about themselves if their story didn’t even make sense?

“How can you think Sabine’s plan is a good idea, Eva?” Lissa’s question pulled me back to the present. Her moods tended to be less extreme than Hally’s, so maybe I ought to be grateful for that. But the quiet disappointment in her voice made my stomach squeeze, made a wrecking ball of my guilt. I needed Addie here for this. I didn’t want to face Lissa’s question alone.

“It’s just a building,” I said. “Think about how it’ll strike a blow against the government.”

“Strike a blow against the government?” She propped herself up on her elbows and stared right at me. “Come on, Eva. You didn’t come up with that. You don’t talk like that.”

It was something Vince had said, actually, but I kept quiet.

“Have you talked to Ryan about this?” I said.

She sighed, flopping back down on the ground. “Yes, but he’s Ryan. Give him a project, make him feel like he’s needed, and he’s set. He won’t listen to us. We thought you would.”

“The explosives—”

“The bomb, Eva,” Lissa said. Her eyes narrowed. “It’s a bomb.”

“The bomb.” The word felt heavy, bitter on our tongue. Like how
settling
had felt once, when Addie and I were small and confused and linked it to something we were doing wrong, something that was wrong with us.

I forgot what the rest of my sentence had been.
Bomb
filled my mind, pushing everything else away.

“Maybe you should tell Peter about it,” Lissa said softly.

“Peter?” I said. “Peter wants to send us all away, and you think—”

The word cut through the room. We both checked on Nina, but if she’d woken, she pretended otherwise. Still, I waited a moment before replying. I needed it to steady my breathing. “Ryan didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” Lissa tried to whisper, but her voice kept rising. “Peter wants to send us where? He told you that? When?”

“I don’t know. A while ago. He—” I pressed my fist to my forehead. “It’s not decided. I thought Ryan or Devon had told you. But Lissa, he’s the last person we can go to, all right?”

A hundred emotions flashed across Lissa’s face, each bleeding into the next. She took a shaky breath and shoved them all under control.