by Kat Zhang
“Didn’t you buy anything, Addie?” Lyle said as we climbed, blank-faced, into the front seat.
We just shook our head.
We didn’t sleep that night, and we didn’t whisper to each other like we usually did when sleep didn’t come. Instead, we lay silent in the darkness. I could still hear the shouting, the sirens. The crowd’s angry faces were emblazoned on the ceiling, and, when Addie finally closed our eyes, on the backs of our eyelids.
The raid was on the evening news, but they’d somehow managed to make it look different, make it look as if the crowd had gathered like spectators at a blood sport, jeering at the handcuffed man in the center, instead of being the fighters themselves in the ring. There were no shots of the police struggling to get them under control.
If the officer hadn’t grabbed us—if the officer hadn’t rescued us—we’d have slipped right under that crowd, been stomped into dust beneath their furious feet. Would he have saved us if he’d known our secret? If he’d known what we were doing every day after school? Maybe he would have let us fall, then dragged our broken body into the back of his police car. Locked us inside.
Everyone at the dinner table had fallen silent as we watched, even Lyle. He’d sat clutching his fork in his hand, his eyes unmoving from the small TV screen. He’d been seven when the doctors declared Addie settled. Only five when I lost the majority of my strength, and though he had to remember the fear that had prowled the house back then, all the doctors’ visits, all the days Mom would just wake up in the morning and cry as she made breakfast, I wondered how much he actually remembered me.
The neighbors, those stupid, nosy neighbors, had warned our parents to separate Addie and me from him as much as possible, especially as he neared settling age. Some said it was just an urban legend that the presence of a hybrid affected unsettled children, but with things like hybrids and settling, one could never be too safe.
As was obvious on the TV screen. The ring of policemen. The mob. All for one man who we hadn’t even managed to glimpse in the city but saw now in the fuzzy recording. We stared at his face. He didn’t try to block it like other criminals sometimes did when on camera. Other criminals . . .
Because he was a criminal.
For being hybrid and free.
For putting others in danger with his very presence.
For the flooding and resulting fire at the Bessimir history museum, which, we heard with a certain numbness, had been found to be his doing. In an attempt to destroy history? To vandalize past heroes? Or just the mad thrashing that resulted from a crumbling hybrid mind?
Had he worked alone? Sometimes, the more daring kids at school spread stories about a secret network of hybrids across the Americas, like some kind of Mafia or conspiracy theory. They would be the real reason for everything bad that happened in the country, from shark attacks to economic downturns.
It was a stupid idea. If hybrids really had that much power here, people like Addie and me wouldn’t be so scared.
The news cameras followed the man and the policemen flanking him as they ducked into the police cars. Did he seem like someone who would vandalize a museum? Maybe. He was perhaps forty, with brown hair and a short beard and strong-looking hands. But he also reminded me, in some shots, of our uncle on Mom’s side. The one who’d stopped speaking to her after our parents had begged the officials to give Addie and me more time instead of sending us away, as was dignified. As was expected. As was right. The one Mom no longer mentioned and who no one ever mentioned to her.
Neither of our parents met our eyes that night. Everyone went to bed early, though judging by the light leaking under closed bedroom doors, no one slept.
Addie spoke only once as she curled up under the covers.
I said nothing. Could I stop the lessons? Could I give them up now that I knew I could one day learn how to walk again? Could I give up listening to Ryan tell me about his inventions? Telling me stories about his past?
Could I give up the chance that one day, I’d be able to tell my stories, too?
But the next day, Hally and Lissa weren’t there.
Ten
Our history class felt oddly empty without her, though everyone else seemed to take up twice as much room as usual, caught up in the frenzy of yesterday’s raid. Addie told no one we’d been there, and we faded into the background.
Like we wished we had.
Addie flinched.
But her unease mingled with mine, and I caught her scanning the crowds in the hall between classes, searching, perhaps, for Devon. He would know. But we’d never run into him much in the halls before, and today was no exception.
We walked home alone. Addie’s old friends had long since given up asking her to go with them, and no one had waited for us today.
We slept a little better that night, mostly out of pure exhaustion, but we dreamed of flashing red and blue lights and wailing sirens.
Hally wasn’t at school the next day, either.
And she wouldn’t budge, no matter how much I argued.
When history class convened on Thursday, Hally’s seat was once again empty.
But Dad needed someone to help at the store while he ran errands that afternoon, so he picked us up from school. He returned wondering if we would restock the canned goods. That led to organizing the receipt book and tallying up the store’s sales for the past week.
It was almost sundown by the time we finished. Dad dropped us off at home with a kiss on the forehead and a promise to be back before we went to bed. Perhaps, he said, smiling, once school let out, he and Mom would take a few days’ vacation and we’d all drive up to the mountains. Go camping.
Addie smiled back.
I wondered if he ever thought about the first time we’d gone camping, back before Lyle was born. Addie and I had been four years old, and Dad had spent what seemed like forever and a half sitting with me on a log in front of the fire, the stars staring down at us, teaching me how to put my thumbs together and whistle through a blade of grass.
“Lyle’s having trouble with his math,” Mom said as Addie walked into the kitchen. “Go help him while I finish dinner?”
And so passed the night. I thought about making Addie call, then realized we didn’t even know the Mullans’ phone number. We’d never had cause to use it before.
She wasn’t. But as we picked up our book bag and tried to slip out of the classroom at the end of the day, someone blocked our way. Not Hally, not Lissa.
Devon.
Addie halted, staring at him. He stared back. Our fingers wrapped around the doorframe.
“Hey,” Addie said. “What’re you doing here?”
Ms. Stimp watched us from behind her desk. Devon frowned at her, and she looked away, fussing with her papers, her hands flashing white, her face red.
Devon’s mouth tightened, but he turned back to us. “Come on, we’ll talk outside.”
Addie followed him out of the building, out of the parking lot. We kept on walking until we reached a quiet grove of trees on the very edge of school property. Addie struggled to keep up with Devon’s long strides. It had rained this morning, and the soft ear
th squelched beneath our patent-leather shoes. The scent of wet grass weighed down the air.
“What’s going on?” she said finally. “Devon, tell me—”
He spun to face us, stopping so suddenly Addie nearly ran into him. “Hally and Lissa are gone.”
Gone. The word smashed into our chest. Addie swallowed. “What do you mean, gone?”
Devon glanced around us before speaking again. He was so tense he practically shook, a spring bound by fishing wire ready to snap. “She should have known better. She just wanted to see. But she should have known—” He broke off and looked away. The trees stood still and silent, glistening with rainwater. “We’re not like the rest of you. We can’t be seen around things like that. Raids. We can’t be caught too near. They took her. They questioned her.” A wave of different emotions rippled across his face, too fast to decipher.
“They took her away,” he said.
“The police?”
Rough hands. Flashing red and blue lights. Sirens wailing and wailing and wailing.
Devon still didn’t look at us, just kept staring at the slender white tree trunks, trembling. The wind was picking up. The leaves rustled. “At first. Then the man from the clinic.”
“What cli—”
Devon jerked around to face us. “All because she wanted to see!” His voice dropped, a rumble of distress locked in steel. “I told her to stop. Ryan told her to stop. She never, ever listens.” He pressed his fingers to his temples. When he spoke again, his voice was tight but toneless. “They came to our house and told us she’s mentally unstable.” His eyes were black. Cold. “They say she needs intensive, specialized care before it’s too late to save her. They want to correct her. They want to correct my sister, Addie.”
Unstable. Special care.
Too late.
I felt Addie twist and turn beside me, her anguish bleeding into me, mine seeping into her.
Something must be done before it’s too late.
That was what the doctors, the specialists, that guidance counselor with the bobbed gray hair had told our parents while we listened with our ear pressed against the door.
“But—” Addie said. “But how? They can’t—”
“They did tests. Scans. They had papers. Signatures from officials. They scared our parents, convinced them she was in danger—would be a danger. We couldn’t do anything.”
We stared at him, our hair tangling as the wind blew it across our face.
“They’re going to take me, too,” Devon said.
Our fingers choked the nearest tree trunk.
“Just like that?” Addie whispered.
Devon and Ryan stared at us. One pair of eyes, two people. “We might not be settled. That’s enough reason for them.”
Our throat was thick, our lungs molasses-soaked sponges.
And then Devon shifted—a sudden, harsh change like a jerk sideways. Nothing subtle.
“Run,” Ryan said.
Addie dug our nails into the tree. “What?”
“They’re going to be checking files, Addie.” His voice was softer now, almost like the one I’d heard sometimes when he sat by me on the couch, talking about his various projects, showing me how each one worked. The little robot man that was balanced well enough to walk across a table. The metal box that wouldn’t open unless you pressed all the buttons in the right order. “They’re going to ask who we’ve been seen with. Who comes over. Who we’ve done projects with. And your file—your file is going to be very, very interesting to them.”
The wind moaned, making the trees sway. We swayed with them.
“Run, Addie.” There was a current of fear in Ryan’s voice that made our insides twist. “Don’t go home today. Just leave.”
“Just leave,” Addie said. “Leave? My parents? Lyle?”
“You’ll be leaving them behind either way!” he said, his voice tight and hoarse—as if crushed down from a shout. “Addie, they’ll take you away.”
“They’ll give me back,” Addie cried. “They always gave me back. I’m settled. I always came back home.”
Silence. Head-pounding, heart-throbbing silence.
“And you?” The words cracked as they left our lips. “Will you run?”
He shook his head. “I can’t. They’ve already taken Lissa and Hally. But you have to. Addie, please. Run. You can’t— Eva—”
“Devon?” someone shouted. “Devon Mullan!”
Ryan stiffened. Addie twisted around just in time to see a man in a white button-down shirt slam his car door shut. He strode toward us, his lips thinning as his shoes sank into the mud.
“There you are, Devon.” The man was tall—lean, with a strong jaw and short, light brown hair. He looked about our parents’ age, no more than forty-five. A good-looking man. Crisp. Official. “I was just about to give up and see if you’d gone on home. Didn’t we agree to meet by your locker?”
“I forgot,” Ryan said, his voice flat.
The man looked at us. Glanced, to be more precise. But a glance that made me feel naked, as if he was looking straight past our eyes and seeing Addie and me curled in the nebulas of our mind.
“Well, no real harm done,” he said, sounding as if real and grievous harm had been done indeed. He gestured to his car. It gleamed on the side of the road like a black monster in wait. “Are you ready to go now?”
“One moment,” Ryan said. He shifted on his feet, stepping forward—toward us. Before we knew what was happening, he’d pulled us into a hug. Addie flinched and tried to jerk backward. He held us still. I was caged in our body and caged in his arms and, somehow, the former was the real prison.
“Run,” he whispered into our ear.
Then he let go and walked toward the car, his hands in his pockets, his movements unhurried. We stared after him.
“Well,” the button-down man said. He gave us a smile, a threat wrapped in a promise. Tied with a bow. “Are you Addie, then?”
Addie swallowed.
“Yeah,” Addie said. “That’s me.”
“Nice to meet you, Addie,” said the button-down man. He nodded at us, then turned and walked off. His shoes left muddy footprints all the way to his car. Ryan looked at us one last time before opening the passenger-side door and ducking inside.
We watched them drive away.
Run. The word reverberated inside us.
I will always wonder what might have happened if we’d listened.
Eleven
He came for us that same night.
Mom had just changed into her waitressing uniform after sending Lyle to his last dialysis session of the week. A coworker had begged her to take over her shift at the restaurant, and after Lyle told her a million times he’d be fine alone at the clinic for an hour or so—a nurse would be within calling distance the entire time—she’d bitten her lip and agreed. Dad was heading in the opposite direction. He’d come home from work a little early so he could drive to the city and sit with Lyle for the remainder of his session.
Addie and I sat at the table, about to eat dinner. The only ones not in motion.
The doorbell rang just as we took our first bite. The fork froze in our mouth, tines hard and metallic against our tongue.
Mom frowned, caught in the middle of putting up her hair. “Who could that be?”
“It’s probably someone selling something,” Addie said slowly. “They’ll go away if you ignore them.”
But the bell rang again, followed by a bout of knocking. Each blow seemed to shake the pictures on the walls, the figurines on the mantelpiece.
“I’ll get it,” Dad said.
“No!” Addie said. He jumped and turned to us.
“Something wrong?”
“No,” Addie said. Our fingers tightened around our fork. “Just—it’s just . . .”
The bell interrupted her. Dad started toward the door, frowning
. “Whoever it is, they aren’t very patient.”
Mom hummed as she twisted her hair into a bun, using the back of a pan as a makeshift mirror. We could barely hear her over the blood roaring in our ears.
“Hello,” said a familiar voice as the door opened. “I’m Daniel Conivent, here from Nornand Clinic.”
There was the briefest of pauses.
“Let’s go outside,” Dad said. His voice caught, just slightly—a tremble we noticed only because our nerves were strung so tight. “Please, let’s talk outside.”
“A clinic,” Mom said. “Can’t imagine what they’d be selling.”
Run echoed Ryan’s voice in our head. Run, he’d pleaded, but we hadn’t listened. Where would we have gone?
Now it was too late.
There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. We sat frozen in our chair, staring at our peas and carrots. Our fingers curled around the edge of our seat.
“Addie?”
Our head jerked up, our fork clattering onto the table. Mom frowned. “You’re pale, Addie. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Addie said. “I, um, I—”
The door opened again. Our eyes flew to the hallway.
Air struggled into our lungs. Addie gripped the chair so tightly our arms shook.
Dad came into view first. His eyes kept flitting everywhere but our face, his hands hanging limply at his sides. Behind him came a man in a stiff-collared shirt.
But we both knew it wasn’t true. Dad was a tall man. We’d never seen him look so small and helpless.
“Addie,” Dad said. “Mr. Conivent says he met you today at school?”
“You remember me, don’t you, Addie?” the button-down man said.
Addie managed to nod. Our eyes kept shifting from Mr. Conivent to Dad, Dad to Mr. Conivent. Both men towered over our chair. Stand, I thought, but I couldn’t manage to say it.
Dad shifted. “He says—he says you’ve been hanging out with Hally Mullan a lot.”