Echoes of Us

by Kat Zhang

“Which one is that?” I asked. Lyle held up the book so we could see the cover. I recognized it from his shelf back home. “You’ve read that one at least ten times, haven’t you?”

  Lyle shrugged, still not looking at us.

  “Aren’t there any other kids here?” I said.

  “Not anymore.”

  “Mom said you don’t have to go to dialysis anymore.” I smiled. “That’s pretty cool.”

  Finally, Lyle looked up from his book. He shrugged again. For a long moment, neither of us moved or spoke. I didn’t know how to cross this gulf that had sprung up between us and our little brother.

  I said.

 

  But I wasn’t sure if that was true.

 

  I said with a laugh.

  Addie said softly.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for the operation.” I sat on the edge of the bed, and Lyle shifted, adjusting to the change in weight.

  “You didn’t want to leave, did you?” He looked at us from the corners of his eyes.

  I couldn’t be sure of the depth of his question. Was he asking if we’d wanted to leave our family behind? Leave him behind without saying good-bye? Of course not. Never.

  Did he know what Mr. Conivent had told our parents that night? How our leaving connected to his transplant?

  Was he asking if we’d gone willingly, knowing it would help him?

  We hadn’t been that selfless. I certainly hadn’t been. If given the choice, I would have clung to home and a family that didn’t recognize my existence, rather than leave for Nornand.

  “I wish I’d been there for you,” I said finally. I hesitated, then reached out and ruffled his hair. He made a face and pulled away, but I caught the shadow of a smile.

  He set down his book, not bothering to save the page. “Do you want to see the scar?” When I nodded, he lifted up his shirt. It was longer than I’d expected, but faded now to a shiny white.

  “Did it hurt a lot?” I said.

  Lyle shrugged. “Sometimes. But they gave me a lot of drugs.” He smiled, revealing the slightly crooked bottom tooth Mom had always talked about getting fixed with braces, once he was a little older. Once we had the money. “I was really loopy.”

  “Yeah?” I laughed. Then quieted as Lyle’s eyes focused on our forehead. We had a scar there, I knew, from the time we fell off the roof at Nornand. We might have died, if there hadn’t been an outjutting not too far below.

  I rearranged our hair, letting it cover the scar. But not before Lyle pointed and asked, “How’d you get that?”

  “I fell.”

  I said. I didn’t want questions about our scars from Powatt.

  “Addie—” Lyle said, and on reflex, I replied, “I’m not Addie.”

  I froze.

  Lyle stared up at us. The silence seemed to last forever.

  The surprise on Lyle’s face slowly turned into a frown. “Were you there the whole time? At home? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Our mouth opened, then closed. I’d expected—I wasn’t sure what I’d expected from Lyle once he knew who he was really talking to. Fear, maybe? Disgust?

  Instead, he sounded a little hurt.

  “I was there. But I couldn’t talk, Lyle—”

  “Then why didn’t Addie tell me? I wouldn’t have told anyone. Was it because I got sick?”

  “It had nothing to do with you being sick.” I wasn’t sure if he believed me or not. “Lyle, I’m so sorry this happened. That Mom and Dad took you away from home, and school, and . . . and everything. That you’re here. That nothing’s normal anymore.”

  Lyle looked away and shrugged.

  “Eva?” he said, and it sounded so natural, so easy, from his mouth. Like he’d never stopped calling my name. “Did you really do all those things the news says you did?”

  I wanted to change the subject. To steer it toward more comfortable ground. But Addie said

  I hesitated. Lyle waited.

  “Here,” I said softly. “I’ll tell you everything from the beginning.”

  I told him the stories Addie and I had saved for him. The initial escape from Nornand in the middle of the night. Our flight from Sabine and Cordelia’s photography shop. I told him, too, stories I’d never thought I would. About the girls we’d met in Hahns. About Eli and Cal from Nornand. About Sabine, and how we’d wanted the same things, but reached for them in different ways.

  Lyle asked me things I wasn’t ready to answer. What had happened to Jaime? To Emalia? Were we going to go save them? What about Bridget and the other girls at Hahns?

  I was telling him about finding Ty and Kitty in Brindt when a knock came at the bedroom door.

  “Come in,” I said, and Jackson peeked inside. He hesitated when he saw Lyle.

  “There’s still lunch downstairs,” he said to us. “But it’s disappearing fast. So unless you’re okay with surviving on pretzel sticks until dinner, you should probably come down. Unless you’re busy. I didn’t realize you were—”

  Addie’s amusement was soft and sweet.

  “I want lunch.” Lyle turned to us. “Are you going to come?”

  Addie said.

  I wanted her to speak with him, of course. But I also didn’t want it. Or I wanted it, but I wanted it to be easier, smoother, than I knew it would be.

 

  she said.

 

 

  I caught her unspoken meaning. If someone came in—like our parents—she didn’t want them to see her like this. I glanced at Jackson.

  “You go ahead, Lyle,” I said. “I want to talk with Jackson for a second.”

  Lyle wavered, but nodded and left. Jackson closed the door, his smile confused. “What is it, Eva?” But I could no longer answer. Jackson’s smile faded as the silence stretched. “Eva?”

  I said as Addie wrenched into control. She tipped forward on the bed, barely keeping our balance. Jackson rushed forward; Addie closed our fingers around his arm.

  They stared at each other. Silence, for three rabbit-quick beats of our heart.

  “Don’t blame Eva, because I told her not to say anything,” Addie whispered. “I—I wanted to be the one to tell you. And I couldn’t. Not for a while.”

  Jackson just stared.

  “Well, say something,” Addie said breathlessly. “I’m the one who has the actual problem speaking.”

  For a long, long moment, he didn’t. Then he grinned. A match strike.

  “I knew it,” he said. “I knew it.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  He was different, a little, with her. And she was different with him. I’d never witnessed them alone like this—well, as alone as they could be when they both knew I was there. I wondered if Vince was there. If he felt at all like I did.

  Addie was awkward, still, in our body. But even with the awkwardness, I knew she held herself differently next to Jackson. She smiled more. She laughed more.

  They didn’t talk about Powatt, or Hahns, or Addie’s sometimes-slurred words. They remembered places they’d gone together back at Anchoit. Things they’d seen. They laughed about jokes I didn’t understand, because I hadn’t been there.

  They talked about sailing.

  It seemed like they could go on forever, sitting there together with their backs against
the headboard. But they were interrupted.

  Lyle banged the door open. Addie jolted to our feet, then wavered. By the time Jackson took our arm to steady us, I was in control, and we didn’t need it.

  “There’s been a shooting,” Lyle said, his face pale. “At an institution. They tried to kill all the kids.”

 

  That was my first thought. My first fear.

  I’d taken too long to fulfill my promise to Bridget, and now it was too late.

  “It’s on the TV.” Lyle was already turning around again—ready to rush back. “It’s another hijacked broadcast.”

  A crowd had gathered in the living room downstairs, most standing, a few seated on the black leather couches. Lissa and Devon were at the other end of the room, Lissa’s hand pressed to her mouth.

  The footage on the screen was shaky, sliding in and out of focus. At first, I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Then I realized the people moving in and out of frame were EMTs. That the objects they carried were stretchers.

  That on the stretchers lay the bodies of children.

  It wasn’t Hahns. Despite the footage’s poor quality, I knew I didn’t recognize this institution. It was somewhere lush and green, even in December—someplace in the southern hemisphere.

  The video ended. Silence gripped the room in a chokehold.

  Marion stood in the doorway, as frozen as the rest of us.

  “Did you know about this?” I demanded. “Did you broadcast this?”

  Numbly, she shook her head. The air seemed to have thinned.

  “I’m going to find out who did,” Marion mumbled and disappeared from the room.

  “Addie?” It was Dad, with Mom hovering next to him. He crushed us in a hug, and it felt so similar to the one he’d given us the last time we’d seen him. Right before Addie and I had climbed into Mr. Conivent’s car.

  For a second, I was that girl again—the me of more than half a year ago. A lifetime ago.

  A girl who hoped her father would come and save her, because he’d promised.

  Dad released us. “Addie—”

  I whispered.

 

 

  I took a sharp breath. Addie was trying to reach for me. I could feel her—hear her say but I blocked it out.

  Standing here with our parents made me feel like I’d been thrown in the ocean and had forgotten how to swim.

  “I’m sorry.” I backed away from our father. “I—I have to know who broadcasted that footage. I have to go find Marion.”

  Marion was on the phone upstairs. She glanced up as we approached, motioning for us to keep silent. “Next time, give me a warning,” she said angrily into the receiver, and hung up.

  Devon, Lissa, and Jackson had followed us from the living room.

  Our parents hadn’t.

  “Who was it?” Devon asked.

  “Where was it?” Lissa whispered.

  Marion’s lips were thin. “It happened in Roarke. Late last night—or early this morning. No one’s sure. There wasn’t an official report. A journalist and his friend heard rumors about the attack and drove down to see. They’re the ones who got it broadcasted—they gave it to my contact at the news station. He thought it was from me.”

  “Roarke,” I said. “That sounds familiar—”

  Marion nodded. “There were riots in Roarke after I broadcasted Henri’s footage.”

  Addie said.

  Had Henri’s footage—our footage—incited this attack? Was this some madmen’s way of striking back at hybrids however they could?

  I faltered.

  said Addie

 

  “How many dead?” Jackson said.

  Marion shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Did they catch who did it?” Devon asked. “How many shooters—”

  “I don’t know,” Marion said.

  Lissa swallowed. Her throat trembled. “Where is Roarke?”

  “Far to the south,” Devon said. But what did it matter how far away this attack had occurred? The institution must have had hundreds of kids. I kept picturing the girls I’d known at Hahns—Bridget, and Caitlin, and Jeanie—fleeing—fleeing where? They’d have had nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

  I saw them pressed against walls. Dropping beneath beds. The flash of the guns in the darkness.

  “I told you this would grow beyond us.” Marion sounded almost defensive. “That other people would be willing to help, once things got started. Once they understood.”

  It took me a moment to understand she meant the reporter who’d captured the footage, not the gunmen.

  “And—and this,” Marion said. “This will make even more people see the truth. Make them care.”

  “This shouldn’t be what it takes,” I said softly, “just for people to care.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Marion called Henri on the satellite phone, catching him right before he went to bed. She wanted to send him the footage from Roarke, once she got a copy of it. She said he could use it to focus attention on the Americas.

  Addie and I just wanted to speak with him. We hadn’t gotten the chance to since the day he’d left. Henri seemed as relieved to hear our voice as we were to hear his. The line wasn’t entirely clear, but I made out his words well enough. Addie and I had heard his conversation with Marion, knew he planned to get a piece about Roarke broadcasted as soon as they could get it together.

  For a little while, we didn’t talk about anything important. Tried to pretend we had the peace of mind for small talk. But that dried up.

  Addie and I were curled up in one of the offices upstairs. We didn’t want to let the rest of the house know about the satphone, so we and Marion had hidden away up here. She’d left, though, so now it was just us.

  “Back in Anchoit,” I said to Henri, “you said the rest of the world had more pressing concerns than what happens to hybrids in the Americas. Is that still true?”

  He was quiet a moment. “I think people are starting to pay attention. And I think the attention will grow. Are you and Addie doing all right?”

  “We feel sick,” I said quietly. “Everything that’s happened—we just feel sick.”

  The attack on Roarke plunged the house into numbed mourning. Addie and I found ourselves wandering the halls, uncertain and adrift, wanting no company but each other. We didn’t hear about the vigil until the next day. Vince explained that a man named Damien had set it up. The Capitol was only a little more than two hours away, and Damien had made calls to the other safe houses within driving distance, rounding up people to gather in front of the Capitol building tonight.

  It was supposed to be a vigil not only for the children at Roarke, but for all the people currently lost. The family members gone. The children taken away.

  I thought of our first attic-clubhouse meeting with Sabine, when she’d laid out the plan for the Lankster Square protest. We’d called it a memorial then. We’d honored lost children with fireworks and posters, trying to symbolize a pain and horror that was otherwise impossible to express.

  And here were people trying to do it again. Trying to express a story that felt impossible to tell. A story that enveloped not just the children who were snatched from their homes, but the people they left behind. The hidden pain and fear of not just decades of institutionalization, but centuries of fear.

  “Damien says there are several hundred people who’ve agreed to come,” Vince said. We were alone in the upstairs library. Both Ryan and Hally knew about Addie’s return now, but they seemed to know to give us a little space. “Hybrids. Family of hybrids. Fri
ends.”

  Addie sounded doubtful. Aloud, she just said, “You aren’t planning to go, are you?”

  We all knew the question wasn’t just directed at Vince.

  Vince hesitated. He wanted to, I could tell. I wanted to. But gathering in front of the Capitol like that . . . it seemed like an unnecessary risk.

  “They’re going to wear orchids,” Vince said, fiddling with an old, worn paperback. “I don’t know where they’re going to get orchids here in the middle of winter.”

  Since the broadcast, we’d learned more about Roarke in a day than we’d known in our entire lives. The area was famous for its orchids, especially a type often called the Christmas orchid. It felt cruelly ironic.

  “Vince—” Addie started to say, but he interrupted her.

  “We won’t go,” he said. “Jackson doesn’t want to. Because he knows you won’t. And if anything does happen . . .” He shrugged.

  Addie whispered

  I woke in the middle of the night, soaked in the fear that we’d only dreamed our escape. That we were still trapped at Nornand, surrounded by other hybrid children, the smell of antiseptic, and the nauseating terror that came with being absolutely helpless.

  I reached for her. Took a shuddery breath of relief when she was there. When I found her reaching for me, too.

  Sweat plastered our clothes and blanket to our hot skin. I kicked the blanket away.

  Addie whispered.

  Addie and I didn’t always share dreams, but when we had the same nightmare, it was nice to know there were fears that didn’t need to be explained.

  Something creaked. Footsteps passed in the hallway. I straightened, glancing around the room. Despite the awkwardness, we’d decided to stay with our family instead of Ryan and Hally, who were camping out in a library alcove down the hall. But we hadn’t crept into bed until both our parents and Lyle were asleep. The three of them still slumbered, Mom and Dad on the bed, Lyle and us on bedrolls.

  The clock on the nightstand read a little past midnight. We heard faint whispering, then more footsteps going down the stairs.