Echoes of Us

by Kat Zhang

  The flashing was irregular. Like—

  Like Morse code.

  C

  A

  L

  L

  It flashed once, then again.

  Call.

  And then it flashed a different message—something long that I didn’t recognize until it looped back again. A string of numbers.

  A phone number.

  The video changed. Cut to a young man who spoke a language we didn’t understand. He was standing on a street corner, smiling at the camera. Waving our attention toward a city we’d never seen, full of enormous, shimmering billboards and unfamiliar lights. Then another video. Another person. Women. Men. Children. Cities and towns, schools and homes and dinner tables and birthday parties and strangers so eager to share their world with us. Some spoke English. Some didn’t.

  It cut off sharply. Back to static. Had someone at the station wrestled back control? Overridden something to cut off the video?

  The ticket lady and I stared at the snowy screen like it might reveal more secrets. Then the woman leaned back against her chair, as if shaking herself from a dream.

  “Well.” She didn’t seem to know what else to say. Her eyes found mine. “That was obviously fake, wasn’t it?”

  “What?” I breathed. I was repeating the string of numbers again and again in my mind, imprinting them into my memory. But I kept getting distracted by the footage that had followed Henri’s appearance—visual proof of what seemed like another world.

  “The footage, darling,” she said, as if she thought me a bit slow. She frowned. “You all right?”

  A hand closed on my shoulder. I jumped, whirling around—but it was only Jackson. He smiled at the woman. “I think the broadcast kind of threw her.”

  “Yes—” I said quickly, finding my voice. “I just—it was so weird. And all these broadcast hijackings. It makes me nervous. I just—I wonder what they’re going to do next, you know? Who they are—”

  “Foreigners, of course.” Her eyebrows lifted into her hairline. “This has just gone and confirmed it, hasn’t it? It’s all foreign propaganda, trying to . . . well, God knows exactly what they’re up to. It’s got to do with hybrids, whatever it is.” She eyed me. “But if you’re worried about all that, you shouldn’t be heading into Brindt. That’s where the trouble is now.”

  I wondered if she’d ever know about the safe house only a few minutes’ drive away. How close trouble had brushed to her own life.

  “What’s going on in Brindt?” Jackson said.

  “Anarchy,” she said. “Protestors and vandalism and people scared out of their wits. My sister lives there. Her son had to quit his basketball team because she doesn’t want him out on the streets any more than he has to be.” She looked back at me. “The next bus leaves in half an hour. Do you want your tickets or not?”

  “We’ll come back later,” I said before Jackson could say yes.

  Jackson hid his confusion well. He smiled again at the woman, then walked with me back to the station door. I waited until I was sure no one was listening. Then I told him about the message hidden in the broadcast.

  I’d started grinning, and I couldn’t stop. Henri was alive and well. Ryan and the others must have gotten in contact with him. I had a new number.

  Jackson hurried with me to the nearest phone booth. Thankfully, he had a few coins. He propped the door open, leaning against it to keep it ajar, while I made the call.

  We were both utterly still as the phone rang.

  Then the ringing stopped. I heard the clack that signaled the line had connected.

  No one spoke.

  The silence stretched. Jackson mouthed what? and if I didn’t speak now, I might get disconnected.

  I said, in a rush of breath—“Hello?”

  “Eva?”

  He had to say it a second time before I managed to respond. And even then, all I could say was, “Yes—yes, it’s me.”

  I took a sharp breath that was half laughter, half the beginning of ridiculously embarrassing tears.

  “Eva, are you all right?” Ryan Mullan said, and it was like pieces of my world finally shifted back to their proper places. Like there had been something cramping up my lungs for weeks upon weeks, and I hadn’t realized—hadn’t truly noticed how bad it was until suddenly I could breathe freely again.

  “I’m fine.” I laughed and clapped my hand over my mouth, startled by the sound of it. I forced my hand down. “Are you? Is everyone?”

  “Everyone’s great,” he said. I could hear the relief in his voice. And then I could hear someone else—a girl saying, Ryan, is it her?

  “Is that Hally?” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so light.

  “Where are they?” Jackson smiled, too, but it didn’t completely cover up the anxiousness in his eyes.

  Ryan asked me the exact same question.

  “I’m in Grental Plains,” I said. “Where are you? Is Kitty with you?”

  “You heard about Kitty?” The tension in Ryan’s voice was immediate. Where? Hally demanded in the background, but he shushed her. “From who? What did you hear?”

  I told him about Ben, and the story he’d passed on to me.

  He was quiet a moment. Long enough for me to say, “How did she get separated from you guys?” and then to regret it.

  I couldn’t see his face, but I heard the guilt clearly enough when Ryan said, “We’re in Brindt now. Her brother’s here somewhere. We’ll find her.”

  “They’re in Brindt,” I whispered to Jackson.

  “Who’s with you?” Ryan asked.

  I hesitated. “Jackson.”

  “Oh,” Ryan said. There was a pause—Hally was talking again, or maybe it was her and someone else. He spoke over them. “Did he help you out of Hahns?”

  I started to reply, but a clear sentence finally broke through the background mumbling, cutting me off: Don’t stay on too long. Tell her where to meet us.

  “Dr. Lyanne.” I hadn’t even meant to say it. I discovered I was starving for the sight of her. For the reassurance of her sharp features, her thin mouth. There was a shuffling sound, as if the phone had exchanged hands.

  “How quickly can you get here?” Dr. Lyanne said, all business. If I hadn’t known her like I did, I might have been hurt by her lack of sentiment. But I did know her, and right now, it helped. It made me shove my own emotions into order.

  “A few hours,” I said. “We’re right near a bus station, and the next bus leaves in thirty minutes.”

  “We’ll meet you at the station here,” Dr. Lyanne said.

  I nodded, was just about to say, Yes, okay, when she spoke again.

  “It’s good to hear from you, Eva.”

  Then she was gone again, Ryan back at the phone. “We can’t keep the line open,” he said, the words rushed.

  “I’ll get the bus tickets now,” I said—I still had so much more to say. “I’ll be at the station—”

  “I’ll be waiting,” he said.

  I gripped the phone and smiled like I’d never stop smiling again. Not for the rest of my life.

  “See you soon, Eva,” he said.

  “See you soon,” I said, and waited for him to hang up, because I wasn’t about to. Even after he had, I listened to the beeping signaling the disconnected call.

  My eyes darted up, to Jackson’s face. To say I’d forgotten about his presence wouldn’t be entirely true. More like I’d gotten lost. I’d disappeared for a few seconds, somewhere not only without Jackson, but without the phone booth, or the road we were standing on, or the entire city surrounding us.

  Where there was nothing but the phone connecting me and the boy who’d once whispered stories as I lay immobile on his couch, fighting my way back from the life of a ghost. I remembered the grip of his hand anchoring me to the world. I remembered the first time I’d opened my eyes under my own control and seen him looking back.

  I said, with a dizzy, giddy sort of feeling. I miss him.>

  And finally, I was going back to him.

  THIRTY

  The bus pulled up to the station an agonizing twelve minutes late, brakes screeching in a way I suspected meant there was something wrong with them. But at this point, I’d have climbed into a bus with three wheels, if it could still get me to Brindt.

  Jackson and I found seats together, then waited another excruciating ten minutes for everyone else to board. My heart pounded out the seconds.

  Finally, we were on our way. I stared out the streaked window, watching the suburbs tumble by before we hit the highway. I’d been on so many highways the last few months. So much traveling.

  It was strange. I’d hardly ever traveled before. It wasn’t until I had to go into hiding—until I was on the run—that I even started seeing my own country.

  After the tiny tourist town I’d stumbled into outside of Hahns, the secluded bed-and-breakfast, and the quiet suburbia of Grental Plains, entering Brindt was a shock. Skyscrapers erupted around us, looming and gleaming silver. Billboards rose from the ground. People thronged the streets.

  We passed store windows pasted with holiday ornaments, signs blaring sale prices and free in-store wrapping. I felt strangely removed from it all. My birthday. The holidays. They’d lost meaning in the face of everything else.

  The bus squealed to a stop at the station. I stared out the window, but didn’t see anyone I recognized.

  “Maybe they’re inside,” Jackson said.

  “Maybe,” I said, but didn’t really believe it. Ryan wouldn’t want to wait inside, where he couldn’t see our arrival.

  Finally, it was our turn to disembark. We tumbled out into the street. I turned in all directions. Looking. Searching.

  “I don’t see them.” Jackson kept close to me as the other passengers peeled away, some reuniting with friends or family, others heading down the street to hail taxis.

  I didn’t either.

  Until I did.

  Hally, first. Hally—or maybe it was Lissa—she was still too far away to tell. She’d bundled up her hair under a woolen, cream-colored hat. Jackson turned at my gasp. I tried to say something—could only grin. Arms wrapped around my shoulders from behind, pulling me into a hug that sent my heart lurching.

  “Found you,” Ryan said, a whisper in my ear.

  And then I really couldn’t speak at all.

  Eventually, I found my voice again. By then, Hally had reached us, too. It was Hally by the bounce in her step and the glint in her eyes—by the way she pulled me from Ryan without apology and crushed me in a hug of her own.

  “This isn’t safe,” I kept saying. “You shouldn’t both be here. What if someone sees—”

  Ryan smiled. “That’s what everyone said. But then we all came anyway.”

  “Everyone?” Jackson said.

  “Dr. Lyanne’s a little ways down the street.” Ryan didn’t sound friendly, exactly, but he looked at Jackson when he spoke to him, which was an improvement over the last time they’d talked.

  “She’s with the car.” Hally, at least, grinned at Jackson—though really, she was just grinning constantly. “We should head back, before she worries.”

  Ryan and Hally sandwiched me between them as we hurried from the station to a beat-up old car I didn’t recognize. But I did recognize the woman sitting behind the wheel. She’d tied her long, brown hair back. She didn’t smile. Just unlocked the doors and said, “Any trouble?” when Hally pulled the front one open.

  “No,” Hally said cheerfully.

  Dr. Lyanne nodded. “Well, get in. Hurry up.”

  “Where’s Marion?” Jackson said. He was the last one to enter the car, and he hesitated as if he feared Ryan wouldn’t move over to let him in. Ryan did, of course, but Jackson’s unease didn’t fade. “Have you been with her this whole time?”

  I didn’t miss the way Dr. Lyanne’s eyes briefly met Ryan’s in the rearview mirror. “Not the whole time, but almost.”

  “We can talk about that later, can’t we?” Hally said, twisting around in her seat to face us. Her expression was stubbornly happy. What would she say, I thought, if she knew about Addie? Would she be able to force a smile, even then? I swallowed hard.

  “We won’t have the chance to talk about it later.” Ryan’s fingers were entwined with mine. He hadn’t released me since the bus station. “Marion’s waiting at the hotel.”

  “What about Wendy?” I asked.

  “Marion couldn’t send her home. Not after the broadcast. But she didn’t want to keep dragging her around, either. So she dropped her off someplace safe.” He paused. “She claims so, anyway.”

  Hally was quiet. Everyone was quiet for a moment, until I broke the silence. “Do you know where Kitty is?”

  “Here, we hope,” Dr. Lyanne said as she pulled away from the curb.

  “Her oldest brother’s here, anyway,” Hally said. “But it doesn’t seem like the rest of her siblings are. Marion has a contact who says they split up a little while after . . . well, after Kitty was taken. All the younger kids live with an aunt or something. But Ty moved here.”

  I knew the rough edges of Kitty and Nina’s past. Their parents had passed years before, leaving them in the care of an aunt. Ty, the oldest, had moved out as soon as he was able. More than anything else, Kitty had liked to talk about Ty’s guitar playing. How he’d begun to teach her. How he’d promised to keep teaching her.

  Ryan explained how Kitty and Nina had slipped away while the group was near Grental Plains. The guilt I’d heard on the phone was back, and his hand tightened around mine. She’d talked endlessly about how close they were to her old home, but no one had thought she’d actually run off. They’d feared she’d been taken, at first. But asking around the nearby safe house had revealed her intentions.

  So they’d come to Brindt in hopes of finding Tyler Holynd—and by extension, Kitty and Nina. But it wasn’t a simple matter. Ty wasn’t listed in any phone book. Even Marion, with all her connections, hadn’t been able to unearth an address.

  “We think he’s part of the resistance here,” Hally said. We’d hit the main road, squeezing and weaving our way through traffic.

  “It’s hardly a resistance,” Dr. Lyanne replied. “Just a bunch of kids tagging buildings with graffiti and pasting up posters. Scaring people and putting themselves in danger for nothing.”

  “Not for nothing,” Ryan said calmly. Dr. Lyanne sighed, but didn’t argue. “Point is, it won’t be as easy, but we’ll still find him.”

  “Marion’s circling in on where the resistance might be headquartered,” Hally said. “So if Ty really is with them—”

  “Marion cares about finding Kitty?” Jackson said.

  “I think she just wants the story.” Ryan sounded more bitter than I’d ever heard him. “You know: Eleven-year-old Girl Reunites with Brave Protestor. Better yet if someone gets shot.”

  The callousness of the words, even spoken in irony, surprised me. It seemed like something Devon might have said, only this wasn’t Devon.

  Ryan had changed, too, in the almost two months we’d been apart. I didn’t know how I could have been self-absorbed enough to think I’d be the only one. That somehow, the people I’d left behind would be the same when we reunited.

  I’d spent weeks and weeks cooped up in an institution. But Ryan had been out here, in the thick of things. Watching as the country changed.

  “Has it gotten that bad?” I said quietly. “Have people gotten hurt?”

  Hally nodded. She’d grown subdued as well.

  “It’ll be fine,” Ryan said. He held up my hand to get a better look at the ring around my finger, then laughed. I’d missed hearing him laugh. “You didn’t have to keep wearing it. Marion will want to extract the data, anyway.”

  “I’ll give it to her,” I said. “But then I want it back. I like it.”

  “You’ve certainly earned the right to it,” Ryan said.

  Hally rolled her eyes and leaned over to whisper
in my ear. “I told him it’s awfully presumptuous to engrave your own initials on a ring to give a girl. Especially when she can’t possibly refuse it since it’s doubling as a top secret spy camera.”

  I stifled laughter.

  Ryan shot his sister a suspicious look. “What?”

  “Nothing, brother dearest,” she said primly. Then winked at me.

  THIRTY-ONE

  The hotel where they were staying was in a quieter sector of the city. The buildings here weren’t quite as shining, the streets more meandering than bustling. Dr. Lyanne dropped us off, then went to find parking.

  I glanced at Jackson as we walked into the lobby. He was subdued, fading into the background despite his height. Hally filled up the silence, chattering away as we headed for the rooms. They were on the first floor—Dr. Lyanne didn’t want us trapped upstairs if anything went wrong.

  Hally looped her arm around mine. “You’ll stay with Ryan and me. Dr. Lyanne and Marion have been taking the other room.”

  “Does that leave me with them?” Jackson said it jokingly, but not quite jokingly enough.

  “Of course not,” she said, a little too quickly. “You can fit with us, too. There’s an armchair and everything—not that you have to sleep there, I mean. I could. There’re only two beds. We’d have to—”

  “I can sleep anywhere,” Jackson said, smile crooked. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Ryan stopped us in front of a room before anyone could say anything else. He was just about to unlock it when the door swung open.

  And there was Marion, looking just as I remembered with her pale brown hair and stark features. She tried to smile at me and nearly succeeded, the delicate lines of her face almost comical in their uneasy rearrangement. “I heard you all talking. Come in.”

  I’d expected to be furious when I came face-to-face with Marion again, but instead, I just felt sick. We filed inside, awkward and quiet. I missed the easy exuberance at the bus station.

  “There was food,” Marion said, looking everywhere now but me. Or Jackson, for that matter. “I can’t remember where—”

  “It’s in our room,” Ryan said. “I’ll get it.”