Once We Were (24 page)

“Lissa,” I said. “You didn’t drag me into anything. You gave me a life I didn’t even think was possible, okay? That’s—I’ve never even said thanks for that.”

Lissa looked back at me, then nodded. “Look, I get where you’re coming from. I get why you’d want to—to do what you’re planning to do. But you can’t, Eva. You just can’t do something like this.” She squeezed my arm. “I trust you, all right? I trusted you and Addie when I first told you about us, and I trust you now.”

I found myself nodding, too. I was helpless to do anything else.

I
didn’t get the chance to speak with Ryan until later the next day. Addie wanted to spend the morning with Jackson, so I spent it asleep, dreaming soft dreams of the ocean, home, and everything I used to have. Our regular sleep was plagued by nightmares. When going under, I never had nightmares. Mostly, it was memories—so real it was like reliving them, but each slipping away after it was done, dissolving as the real world took its place.

This time, I woke in the stairwell to gray, dirty walls. There were no windows here, and it was impossible to tell what time it was, or how long I’d been under. But Addie knew that, and she said, quietly

I could feel her distraction, even if I couldn’t know her thoughts.

I asked awkwardly.

Addie climbed the last flight of stairs, then left me in control of our limbs.

she said.

Her mind was elsewhere, as if she were the one who’d just woken, and not me. Whatever had happened while I was asleep, it had disturbed her. But she didn’t offer any explanation, and I didn’t press. A few minutes later, she disappeared.

Ryan dropped by Emalia’s apartment to see me. It was the first time we’d been truly alone in a while, and as perfect a moment as I was going to get to bring up Addie and Jackson. I hid a bitter smile. This was my perfect moment: a little precious time salvaged before blowing up a government building.

Nerves made me bring up Devon first. “Do you know where he’s been going?” I asked.

Ryan shrugged. “Devon and I haven’t really been talking much for a long time. He never got over the . . . well, us agreeing to this plan.”

“But he said he wanted to go,” I said. “He wanted to go with Sabine to Powatt.”

“I don’t know, Eva,” Ryan said.

“Can’t you ask him?”

He hesitated. “I have before. He says he just walks around. Scopes out the city. Devon is Devon. Now that we can have time alone, I’m not surprised he wants some.”

I understood his reluctance to make Devon divulge his secrets. As hybrids, we’d had so little room for things that belonged to us and us alone. But when did a secret become too big to be kept? When did it stop belonging to just one person?

“That day I went to Benoll,” I said in a rush, “to steal the oxygen . . .” Ryan caught the change in my tone and shifted so he could see my face. I didn’t fight it. I wanted to see his expression, too. “Remember how I said there was something between Addie and me?”

He nodded. I could feel my heartbeat thrumming underneath my skin.
Stop it,
I told myself irritatedly. Having a body that reacted to my commands was wonderful, but sometimes, my body reacted to my emotions even when I didn’t want it to.

“Well, it’s not entirely just between Addie and me,” I said. Ryan didn’t prompt me to continue, just waited. I kind of wished he would, just for something to fill the silences between my sentences. “She was with Jackson. They’re together. Apparently.”

“With him,” Ryan echoed. His arm was still slung around my waist. I could feel the sudden tension in his muscles. “With him how?”

I restrained myself from rolling my eyes at him. Did he really want me to spell it out? As if this weren’t awkward enough already. Thinking about Addie being with somebody was like thinking about
Lyle
in a couple years being with somebody, only a hundred times worse. Then I realized what Ryan was really asking.

“
No
, Ryan. They were kissing, all right? That’s it.”

“How do you know?” he asked quietly.

“Because Addie would have told me otherwise,” I snapped. “And beforehand, not after.”

Because at the end of the day, we trusted each other. Because that trust was all we had to keep us sane.

Ryan and I were silent. We both kept our breathing carefully controlled.

“Look,” I said finally. “Who do you really think this is weirder for, you or me?”

I cracked a smile, and after a moment Ryan looked away. When his eyes met mine again, he wore the barest hint of a smile, too. He shrugged, his arm tightening around me, and conceded, “Maybe you.”

I laughed. “Only maybe? Imagine if it were Devon.”

“I’m really trying not to,” he said dryly.

This time, the silence between us was more comfortable.

“How do you feel about it?” I asked. “Addie and Jackson?”

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. He pressed a kiss against my forehead. “I’ll figure it out. It’s fine.” He was looking at me, but I couldn’t be sure if the assurance was for me, or himself.

I sighed, fiddling with the edge of his shirt. “Hally and Lissa want us to stop with the plan. They don’t know about Friday, do they?”

Ryan didn’t comment on my swerve in topics, just shook his head.

“This is still worth it, right?” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he said.

But he sounded no more sure than I felt.

Saturday and Sunday passed. Then Monday. Three days of endlessly thinking about what would happen if I tried to stop everything. What would happen if I didn’t.

When Addie and I were awake at the same time, I could tell the passing days weighed heavily on her, too. She spoke little, hiding herself from me. I tried to shield my worry from her, too.

Less than a week now until the bombing.

Less than a week to stop them, if you want to,
a part of me whispered. Automatically, I clamped the voice quiet. It was easier to not think about things like that. At this point, it would be so much easier to just carry on, do what the others wanted.

When had it become a case of my doing what the others wanted?
I’d
wanted this. In the beginning, sitting on that beach with Ryan, I’d made the decision to be part of this. It had seemed like the right thing to do. At the time.

But now?

I’d promised Lissa I would make everything okay. That I would figure things out. It had just been placating words at the time, spoken half in panic. But it was still a promise, one now lodged deep inside me. One I had to keep.

But what did it mean to make everything okay?

Blowing up the Powatt institution was supposed to be a step toward making things better. A drastic step, maybe. But like Christoph had said once, this wasn’t a game. We weren’t playing for poker chips. There were children’s lives in the balance—those already lost and those currently in danger.

Maybe I was just second-guessing everything because I was scared. Because I wasn’t strong enough to do the things that had to be done. Was that it? Was I just weak? Eva, the recessive soul, doomed to be lesser.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. When Addie left me alone late Tuesday morning, I snuck out of the apartment and traced the now-familiar path through the streets to the photography shop.

Sabine stood at the counter, rustling through the drawers as if searching for something. She was so absorbed she didn’t notice me until I had almost reached her. Then she startled, her head snapping up.

“Oh, hi.” She straightened and tucked her hair behind her ears. Smiled. “I didn’t expect you to come by.”

I shrugged. Sabine nudged the drawer shut with her hip. She was still smiling, but I caught the distraction in her eyes. The rest of the small store was empty, not a single customer browsing the rack of postcards or studying the larger framed works on the walls.

“Is Cordelia gone today?” I asked.

“She’s at a wedding shoot.” Sabine came around the counter, reaching for her purse. “And I was just about to go home for lunch, actually. What’s up?”

I’d never been completely alone with Sabine before. After all this time, it should have been comfortable, but it wasn’t. Sabine was steady. Sabine could inspire confidence like no one else. But Sabine also often wore a weighing sort of look, like she could search inside a person and measure the quality of his soul. She had that look on now.

“I just wanted to talk,” I said. “About Friday.”

“Sure,” Sabine said lightly. She waved me toward the door and flipped the sign to
Closed
. “Why don’t you come back to the apartment with me?”

Sabine’s apartment was only a few minutes’ drive away. The building looked a lot like Emalia’s, old and run-down. The stairwell smelled like grease, and Sabine warned me not to put my weight on the railing.

“Home sweet home, I guess,” she said, unlocking one of the identical doors on her floor. The apartment was small, and like the photography shop, it was covered in pictures. But unlike those, these photographs were of people I recognized: Sabine laughing into the camera, Jackson and Cordelia at the boardwalk, even Peter as he turned, surprised by the flash.

I stared at a panorama of the darkened ocean. There was something troubling yet seductive about the blackened water, the slivers of moonlight at the crests of the waves. Out of the corner of my vision, I caught Sabine’s eyes sweeping the apartment, her forehead creased. Still searching for something.

“Cordelia and Katy are obsessed with taking the perfect night shot of the ocean,” Sabine said, noticing my attention and directing it back to the photo. “That picture there gets replaced every couple months. They’re never satisfied.”

The apartment was messier than I’d expected. I guess I’d always imagined Sabine would be neat. The attic was well kept. So was the rest of the shop. The apartment was clean, but cluttered with books, camera equipment, and loose paper. I stared at a strange contraption on the dining-room table for a few seconds before recognizing it as the cutaway lock Sabine had used to teach Devon how to lock-pick.

“You know what I think the perfect picture of the ocean would be?” Sabine asked. “A beach covered with snow. But it never snows here. As far as I’ve seen, it’s never even flurried. Did it snow, where you came from?”

I nodded. “Not often, though. And never very much.”

“Back home, it snowed several inches every year without fail.” She laughed suddenly. “Funny, isn’t it, how I still say ‘back home’? I haven’t been there in eight years, but somehow, it’s still home.”

Sabine traced a finger down the edge of the photo frame. “Someday, when this is over, I’ll head back up there. I’ll walk right to the front door and ring the bell. And when my parents answer, I’ll ask them what they were thinking, letting Jenson take us.” She turned away from the photo. “If they’re still there, anyway.”

“You haven’t forgiven them?” I asked quietly. If in eight years, Sabine hadn’t forgiven her parents, what did that predict for me?

“No.” She smiled wistfully. “But I’d go back anyway.”

She cleared some clothes from the couch and motioned for me to sit. “You and Ryan have been really amazing, Eva. You know that, right? I’m including Addie and Devon, too, of course. None of this would be possible without you guys.”

I shrugged, more embarrassed than pleased by her praise. “I haven’t really been doing much.”

“You drew the pictures for the posters at Lankster Square,” Sabine said.

“That was Addie.”

“But you two work together,” Sabine said. “You’re a team, Eva.”

“Okay,” I said, “but since then? Neither Addie nor I have helped. Not really.”

I wasn’t sure why I was pressing the point, other than the fact that I was getting increasingly upset and needed to lash out—about my own apprehension, my own possible cowardice, my need for Sabine to reassure me, and her inability right now to do so.

Maybe Sabine saw that. When she spoke again, her tone had grown a little harder. Not like she was annoyed with me, but like she understood I wasn’t a child to be placated by compliments.

“Eva, I know you’re probably having second thoughts about the plan. That’s normal. Just remember why we’re doing this, okay?” She waited until I gave a slight nod. “And remember, you don’t need to come on Friday. I think it would be better if you didn’t.”

I imagined Sabine setting the bomb, alone. Watching it explode, alone. I could hear the screech and groan of the building as it crumpled, the roar of the fire. I could almost see the look that would shine in Sabine’s eyes: quiet, powerful satisfaction.

“Peter—” I said.

“Peter’s great; he is,” Sabine said, cutting me off. Sabine rarely cut people off. She was almost always patient, ready to hear others out. “But if we keep going at the rate Peter’s going, God knows when we’ll be able to stop running and hiding, and start gaining ground.” There was a frenzy to her voice I’d never heard before. She tripped over her own words. “Eva, I’ve spent so much of my life afraid—so much of it just trying to get by. Just trying to survive. I can’t keep going like this. I don’t want to be thirty or forty or fifty years old and looking at my life, and it’s still the same, and I’m still scared and hoping that other people will make things change.
I
want to make things change. Now.”

She looked me in the eye. “Peter thinks we’re all children, Eva. But at some point, you’ve got to grow up.”

Her words punched the air from my gut. Because she was right. I did have to grow up. I had to stop doubting myself, stop being so wishy-washy about things. Stop being so scared all the time.