Once We Were (20 page)

I
had to ask for directions to get home. There was no way I was going back to Jackson, and it took several minutes to dredge up the nerve to approach someone else—several more to find the right words to say.

Finally, I picked a middle-aged woman with a kind face. My voice was surprisingly steady. I tried to smile when she finished explaining.

She’d moved on half a block before I realized I hadn’t taken in a single word.

I picked another person, a young man. I managed to follow his instructions this time.

It didn’t take very long to make it back to Emalia’s apartment building. I lingered in the ground-floor lobby.

I whispered.

Of course, she didn’t respond. She was gone, lost in dreams.

Was what she’d said right?

I took a sharp breath, pressed the heels of our—my—hands to my forehead. Had I been ignoring what Addie wanted? I hadn’t.

Had I?

Maybe I had.

But she should have told me about Jackson. It was my body, too. I deserved to know. I had to know, or it wasn’t right, was it? It was too confusing—and hurt too much—to think about. I kept feeling phantom hands on me. Kept tasting Jackson. Kept feeling—

The front door opened, ramming into me from behind. I cried out.

“Addie!” Dr. Lyanne said. Surprise bleached the usual dignity from her body. But the shock only lasted a few seconds. She shut the front door behind her. “What’s wrong? What were you doing outside?”

Her eyes swept over me. I didn’t even know what to hide—how to hide. I tried to school my expression into something blander, but I couldn’t.

“Come on.” Dr. Lyanne grabbed my arm and swept me up the stairs. I didn’t resist. I had Emalia’s spare key in my pocket, but I let Dr. Lyanne knock on our door. Kitty answered with round eyes.

“I just went outside for a walk,” I said before Dr. Lyanne could ask again. “I got tired of being inside and I went out. Nothing happened. The sun didn’t explode.”

“Just going outside wouldn’t leave you a mess like this.” Dr. Lyanne tried to steer me toward the dining-room table. Like how she’d steered me back at Nornand. But that girl in Nornand’s blue uniform felt like a different person. A child who could be directed and handled and frightened into obeying.

I was suddenly furious. Being angry was so much easier than being confused, or scared, or guilty. I let it fill me up, occupying the space where Addie should have been, shoving away everything I didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to feel.

“I’m a mess,” I snapped, “because I can’t remember where my own body was for the last few hours. I can’t remember because I wasn’t there. And now Addie’s gone, and I think she hates me, and I have no idea when she’s coming back, or what we’ll do then. Have
you
ever been in a fight with someone in your own head?”

Dr. Lyanne was silent, but only for a second. When she spoke again, her voice was sharp, her words blunt. “Eva, tell me what’s going on.”

But I couldn’t.

I spun around. Ran out the front door. I slammed it against Dr. Lyanne’s voice, the call of my name. I ran for the stairs—not up, but down, toward the street. Up, and she could corner me. Down, I could be free, if only for a few more hours.

My feet slipped on the last flight of stairs—I grabbed for the railing but slammed onto my tailbone anyway, so hard I bit back a scream. I slid down the remaining stairs, coming to a painful stop at the bottom.

“Eva!” Vince shouted. He’d just entered the building. He darted toward me. “You all right?”

I nodded, brushing aside his hands as he tried to help me up. It had always been Addie who hated being touched. But right now, the disgust at the feel of someone else’s skin was mine alone.

Vince was smiling. It contrasted so sharply with what
I
felt that I just stared at him, like my mind couldn’t comprehend how we could feel such different emotions at the same time, in almost the same space. “I was coming to get you,” he said. “It’s now. It’s happening now.”

“What is? What’s happening now?”

His voice dropped to a whisper. “We’re going to the hospital. To get the liquid oxygen, remember? You said you wanted to come.”

To the hospital to get the liquid oxygen. To steal the liquid oxygen.

“Ryan—” I said.

Vince’s smile dimmed. He reached out again, and this time I didn’t shy away. “Look, I know he said he wanted to go, and I get he wants to help. But it’s going to be dangerous enough for the rest of us, let alone him. Think about what happens if he gets caught, Eva.”

There were footsteps on the stairs above us. The click of heels. It might not be Dr. Lyanne, but I wasn’t going to stay and find out.

Vince was right about it being worse for Ryan if he was seen. If we went and we were caught, I’d never forgive myself for having put him in danger. Not when I could have kept him safe.

“You ready?” Vince’s expression was so open, his eyebrows raised.

Don’t do this
, a part of me whispered.
Don’t go. Stop. Just stop. Go back upstairs.

Next to me, Addie was a great black hole.

I straightened and tried to ignore the pain shooting up my spine.

“I’m ready,” I said.

V
ince and I melted easily into the evening crowd. When Ryan and I walked through the streets, people tended to pay attention. People shot us looks—some covertly, some not. It was a lot better than it had been in Lupside, at least. Ryan always ignored them, and I’d grown used to doing the same. Walking with Vince, there was no need to pretend no one was staring, because no one was. Eventually, I even stopped checking over my shoulder for Dr. Lyanne.

“What?” I said, when I caught Vince watching me.

He gave a one-sided shrug. He was so much taller than me that it felt awkward to crane my neck up when we stood side by side. “Look, about what happened back at my place—”

I flinched and almost stopped walking. “You were there?”

“No, no, of course not. Jackson told me, though, after. Before he, you know, vanished.” He grinned. “I think you freaked him out a bit with the screaming.”

“I didn’t scream.” My eyes cut away from his, searching for something to feign interest in.

“Hey, I’m just kidding,” Vince said. We stopped, waiting for the walk signal at an intersection, and he bent down a little, lowering his voice. “You’re all right, though, aren’t you?”

I met his gaze. He looked uncharacteristically serious, and I nodded.

“Good.” The stoplight changed. He took hold of my arm and said, with cheeky aplomb, “Come on, then. Let’s go commit a crime.”

Josie met Vince and me at the photography shop. She’d gathered her hair up in a tight ponytail, emphasizing the blunt cut of her bangs. Her jacket was dark, almost black. She looked harsher than I’d ever seen her before.

I wished it were Sabine in control. Sabine’s confidence meant a lot, I was coming to realize. It came through in the steadiness of her gaze, the grace of her walk. And it bled into everyone around her—made them confident, too.

Sunset came slow and late here, even in fall, but darkness cloaked the city by the time Josie pulled into a parking lot near Benoll Hospital.

We crossed the street, Josie whispering directions as we walked. “Vince, I need you over the fence with me. Stay close behind. We don’t want to give the security camera any footage. Eva, stand watch for us.”

On the far end of the hospital’s back lot, encircled by a tall chain-link fence, loomed the dark shadows of the oxygen tanks: one big cylinder a couple feet in diameter and twice as tall, several smaller ones about waist height. Some kind of rack stood inside the fence, too, with what I guessed to be the smallest tanks. The area was thankfully unlit.

“I have a pretty good idea where the camera’s blind spots are, but just in case one of us does get in its line of sight . . .” Josie pulled three makeshift masks from her bag. Ski masks, with eye and mouth holes cut out. Like the ones criminals wore in movies. Laughter gurgled, sickly sweet, in the back of my throat.

“Really?” I whispered.

“This way, at least they can’t get a shot of your face.” Josie tossed a mask at me, then pulled on hers. “Come on.”

The wool was hot and itchy against my skin. I grimaced and pulled at it, trying to make it more comfortable. With their faces covered up, Josie and Vince were strange, dark figures. What did I look like? Purposeful, menacing, like them? Or just some stupid girl wearing a ski hat over her face?

Josie motioned for me to stop walking when we were a dozen or so yards from the fence. She shoved a tiny flashlight into my hands. “Stand here. If anything happens, flash this in our direction, okay?”

I nodded, gripping the flashlight.

The fence around the oxygen tanks was tall, but Josie and Vince wedged their shoes in the chain-link and climbed it easily. The fence clinked under their weight. I held my breath as Josie swung over and let go, Vince only a second behind. He turned on a flashlight as they neared the rack of tanks, shielding the beam with his hand.

The back lot was deserted but for us. There weren’t even any parking spaces—just an expanse of bare, black pavement.

What would Addie think if she came back now?

No, I couldn’t think about Addie. I couldn’t afford to be distracted.

Josie grabbed one of the tanks and began sliding it free. Vince moved to help her. They’d managed to get the tank halfway out when Vince lost his grip on his flashlight. It cracked to the ground and rolled away, spilling yellow light.

Josie cursed and darted after the flashlight. Left Vince to bear the oxygen tank’s weight.

I took a step toward them. “Are you okay?”

They were too far away or too preoccupied to hear.

I was about to ask again when the hospital’s side door swung open.

A man stepped out.

Right between me and the others.

I froze. Mouth open. Words crashing into one another in my throat.

The man stood silhouetted in the doorway, his thin body encased by blue scrubs. His hands shook slightly as he tried to light a cigarette. I swiveled back toward Josie and Vince. The flashlight was still on the ground, its beam directed away from the oxygen tanks. A beacon in the darkness. If the man turned his head a few degrees to the right . . .

Come on, Josie. Come on, come on
—

Why was she just squatting there? Hadn’t she noticed the man in the doorway? Didn’t she know—

Then I realized. The flashlight wasn’t in the enclosure at all. It had spun outside the fence, and she couldn’t reach it.

I said to Addie. But Addie wasn’t there.

The doctor’s cigarette smoke wound up into the sky. If Josie climbed the chain-link fence, he would hear her. If she left the flashlight where it was, he would see it at any moment and go investigate.

I took a deep breath.

Then I slid my flashlight into my pocket as deep as it would go, ripped off my mask, and hurried toward the doctor.

“Excuse me? Hello?” I shouted, hoping Josie and Vince would take notice. I didn’t dare check if they did.

The doctor was in his early thirties, maybe. Light haired. Pale-eyed. He looked somewhat embarrassed as I approached. “Yes? Do you need something?”