Once We Were
Page 11
I remembered the terror of the crowd. I remembered the sound like gunshots ricocheting around the Square. I hadn’t—hadn’t realized. Hadn’t thought. Each memory of the screaming, trampling crowd punched a hole on our gut, made us sick.
We’d done that. We’d made that happen. With just four little firecrackers and plans laughingly made in a hidden-away, fairy-light-strung attic, we’d terrified hundreds of people. The feeling of power was horrifying. Was this how change began? This feeling like standing on the edge of a cliff, wanting to fly but terrified of falling?
“Sabine supposedly has a plan,” Devon said. He shrugged.
Hally stared at the wall. “I, for one, don’t want anything to do with Sabine’s plans anymore.”
The TV stayed tuned to the local news for the rest of the night. A revolving group of anchors, reporters, eyewitnesses—and then police officers and, finally, government officials—chimed in.
We knew there existed the possibility of hybrid hostility, they said. Precautions were put in place, they said. This afternoon’s situation was quickly and effectively contained, with no casualties. Investigations to track down the perpetrators are fully under way.
We will not allow this act of violence to affect the course we know to be right.
We will not back down.
Violence? There was no violence, I wanted to protest. It was just flyers and fireworks. That’s all. But no one said the word firecracker. They called them explosions. They used the word detonate.
No one on the news mentioned anything about a security breach at Metro Council Hall. No one mentioned the posters we’d thrown from the rooftops, either. The six names.
Kurt F. 14
Viola R. 12
Anna H. 15
Blaise R. 16
Kendall F. 10
Max K. 14
But over the next few days, the names spread anyway. Emalia told us about it over quiet, tense dinners. The only thing that spread faster than fear was intrigue, and soon, everyone wanted to know the stories behind the drawings. Posters passed from hand to hand. One small, brave newspaper picked the story up. It was quickly quashed, but by then, it was too late.
For just a few days, the entire city was talking about Kurt, Viola, Anna, Blaise, Kendall, and Max. Six hybrid children who had died without anyone giving it a thought.
Our days slackened into their old routines, which basically consisted of doing nothing at all. Ryan and Devon sank back into their tinkering. Lissa and Hally drifted from couch to dining table to carpet, from books to magazines to idle card games with Kitty. They refused to talk about Lankster Square anymore. Their anger flared when anyone so much as tried to bring it up, so no one did.
“Does Peter know who did it?” Addie asked Sophie in a surge of courage one night. She waited for Sophie, instead of Emalia, because Sophie was calmer. Emalia tended to just flutter at us when we surprised her with a question. “The—whatever it was—at Lankster Square.”
Sophie paused in the middle of clearing the table. Her stack of Styrofoam boxes tilted precariously, and Addie hurried to catch a fork slipping from the top. “No, he doesn’t. Why?”
Addie fiddled with the plastic fork. “Everyone on the news seems to think it was a hybrid who did it.”
“Well, I’m sure we don’t know all the hybrids in Anchoit,” Sophie said. “And just because the news wants us to think it was a hybrid doesn’t mean it actually was one.”
“You think someone might have caused the commotion at the speech just so everyone could blame it on the hybrids?”
Sophie frowned, setting the Styrofoam boxes back onto the table and giving us her full attention. “It’s possible. But what I meant was that someone—someone who isn’t hybrid—might have done what they did because they’re on our side. Henri helps us, right? And he isn’t hybrid.” Her head tilted slightly, her eyes seeking ours. It was a look unsettlingly similar to one our mom used to wear when she was concerned. It made our throat thicken.
Addie averted our gaze. “Here, I’ll get it,” she said quietly. She picked up the stack of white boxes and crossed into the kitchen.
Two weeks passed before Josie’s visit. She never fell out of touch entirely—she called twice to let us know Cordelia and Katy were recovering well and to ask how we were—but after the frenzied days leading up to Lankster Square, it felt like a lifeline had been snipped. The apartment building seemed even smaller than it had before. Suffocating, like a padded room meant to keep us safe against our will.
Josie came early in the morning, so soon after Emalia left for work that I wondered if she’d been watching and waiting. Kitty, who was still eating breakfast, could barely take her eyes off her. Josie flashed her a smile before joining Addie and me on the couch.
It was a relief to see her again, to hear more about what was happening in the outside world. After two weeks, the matter appeared mostly forgotten by the media. In Lupside, information about the museum flooding had circulated on the news for weeks.
Josie smiled wryly when I mentioned this. “Lupside’s a small town, isn’t it? Cities are different. And in the Bessimir case, they probably knew exactly who they were going to frame. They could afford to make a big deal about it—drag it on so the punch line comes so much stronger. Here, the government doesn’t want to kick up too much of a fuss yet. Means they don’t have any idea who did it.”
“They won’t,” Josie assured us. As she spoke, she took a pen from her pocket and began writing something on her palm. “If you frame somebody, and the real people responsible just do something else, it makes you look stupid.”
“Well, that’s good.” I said. Our chest tightened. I’d known that Lankster Square was only step one of a larger plan. But not seeing Josie for so long had made me doubt a little, made me wonder if she’d been frightened off.
Apparently not.
Kitty was listening to everything we said, so we had to be careful how we phrased things. Talking about the incident at Lankster Square was perfectly normal—expected, even. But we couldn’t say anything to suggest we’d been there, let alone involved in any way.
Josie tilted her palm toward us. I stared at the small, neat black letters.
Meeting on Thursday. 5PM.
She smiled, waiting for my answer. I swallowed. I remembered the crush and squeeze of the crowd, the shouting lancing through our brain, the poster of Jaime taped to the shop window.
I thought about the last two weeks, cooped up in Emalia’s apartment again, like little kids in a playpen, expected to be oblivious.
I thought about what Peter had said, how he wanted to send us away. He would try to do it, sooner or later. Sooner, if Powatt was allowed to open. And then what? Addie and I would be stuck with strangers in the middle of God knows where. Going to school. Doing homework. Pretending to be normal. To be like everyone else. Helpless to change anything.
It had taken Sabine and Josie five years to get to this point, to actually try to make a difference. I couldn’t stand waiting another five years. I wanted things to change. Now.
I met Josie’s eyes.
I didn’t ask Addie for her opinion.
I just nodded.
SIXTEEN
Hally paced back and forth around her room, her gaze never leaving us. “You want to go back?”
I’d told her and Devon about Josie’s visit. Devon, as usual, took the news without much reaction. I’d expected Hally to be resistant—she’d made it clear over the past couple weeks that she hadn’t signed up for what had happened at Lankster Square. And I understood. I did. But her level of incredulity stung me.
Addie was no help. She’d stayed silent since I nodded at Josie, told her we would be at the attic for the next meeting. I couldn’t read her.
I bit back the explanation I’d planned—about how maybe we’d gone about Lankster Square all wrong, but that didn’t mean we should give up entirely.
I still believed in Sabine’s plans. And the fact remained that the Powatt institution couldn’t be allowed to open.
“I need to go to see Cordelia,” I said instead. It wasn’t entirely a lie, but it tasted like a lie, felt slippery like a lie. “I was there when—I was there when she got hurt. It was my fault. I’ve got to go see her again.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Hally said immediately, but she didn’t say anything else, just frowned and pressed her fist against her mouth. She looked toward Devon. Devon shrugged.
“Fine,” she said finally. Her arms were crossed low over her body, not like she was angry, but like she was trying to protect herself. Lissa and Hally dressed differently now. I remembered the clothes that hung in their closet back home, the wild patterns and bright colors. Today, she wore a white blouse and black skirt, her long hair loosely braided back, her ears bare. It made her look stark. Severe.
“Will you come with us?” I said.
Hally’s eyes stayed locked with ours. She shook her head.
I bit our lip. “Okay.”
“I will,” Devon said.
Addie and I were tense the entire walk to the photography store, recoiling when someone came too close, flinching when people shouted behind us. A passing police car, though nothing out of the ordinary, made our legs stiffen. I didn’t know where to direct our eyes.
To my surprise, the sign on the storefront said Open when we arrived, and Cordelia was behind the counter. She flipped the Open sign to Closed after letting us in.
I found myself searching her for signs of injury. There was a small, mostly healed cut near her temple, but that was all I could see. Any other cuts or bruises had already healed or were hidden by her clothes. She’d tamed her pale-yellow hair into a short ponytail at the nape of her neck.
I tried to smile. “Sabine said you were feeling better, but I didn’t realize you were working again.”
Cordelia shrugged. She wasn’t meeting our eyes, didn’t reach for us or touch our arm like she usually did. Cordelia always seemed to crave human contact, but she kept her distance, now. “Got to keep the clients we have. Sadly enough, haven’t found someone to pay me for lying around in bed yet.”
I’m sorry I freaked out and you couldn’t leave me behind? I’m sorry I should have warned you I hate crowds?
I’m sorry you could have been caught, or even died, and it was my fault.
“Don’t worry about it,” Cordelia said, as if she could read my mind. Now, finally, she met our gaze. “I’m feeling fine. Gone through worse.”
“I’m sorry—” I started to say, but she cut me off with a faint smile.
“Really, Eva, it’s fine. Had a nasty bruise for a while, and I think Sabine got some kind of sadistic pleasure out of drugging me out of my mind, but I’m right as rain now.”
I almost thought we might be talking with Katy, who was usually less effusive. But Katy had a way of walking and talking like her head was just brushing against the clouds, and the girl who led Devon and us to the storage room was very much present and focused—just focused on something that wasn’t us.
“There you are,” Sabine said as we climbed up into the attic. She, at least, didn’t look or act any differently than usual. Her steadiness was comforting. Vince and Christoph were already there, reclined on the sofas.
Devon’s eyes were strangely unfocused. He caught me watching him and shook from his trance. Not for the first time, I wondered what he and Ryan were talking about.
“What did you call us here for?” Devon’s voice wasn’t loud, but it silenced all the others. Eyes roamed the room, moving from one person to another. Eventually, we all turned to Sabine.
“Your sister didn’t come,” she said. The sentence seemed more observation than question, and Devon didn’t reply. Sabine didn’t appear to expect an answer, just nodded a little to herself.
At first, I didn’t know what she meant. Then I noticed the tension stifling the attic. The scrutiny everyone was directing at us. Only Devon still had his eyes on Sabine, a frown creasing his forehead.
This was building up to something. They were waiting for something. For Sabine to tell us and Devon what the rest of them already knew.
“I’ve looked over the information we got from Nalles’s computer,” Sabine said. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s got everything about Powatt. Everything I needed to figure out what to do.”
“And what’s that?” Devon asked.
Vince’s smile was a razor blade. “We’re going to blow the damn thing up.”
SEVENTEEN
Addie and I tried to speak at the same time. Nothing came out but a half-strangled sound in the back of our throat. Our next sound was almost a laugh—an unbelieving, rocks-grinding-against-rocks laugh.
“You’re going to blow it up?” Devon said. “Then what?”
“Then it’ll be gone,” Christoph said.
“And after that?” Devon’s words dripped cold disdain. “Everyone will suddenly come to their senses? Realize what a great thing we’ve done? They already hate us. They already think we’re mentally unstable. You’d only give them more ammunition.”
Christoph leaned forward. He’d flushed, his normally pale skin splotched with color. His hands gripped into fists at his sides. “It’s not about making them like us. No one’s ever going to give hybrids the chance to prove we’re likable—”
“Wars and revolutions,” said Vince, “are not won through being liked.”
Wars and revolutions.
Was that what this was? A war? A revolution?
We shuddered. Wars did not belong here, at home. Wars belonged to history, or to those far-off nations beyond the ocean. And the only revolution we’d ever learned about was the one that had founded the Americas, when the non-hybrids had won their freedom from the hybrids over two hundred years ago. Wars and revolutions meant death and untold horrors. We’d been taught that much at school.
Addie shook our head. Up until that moment, we’d still been caught in the middle of our control, neither of us firmly at the reins. But with that movement, things shifted to her side. Our hand slipped down, worrying at the thin fabric of our skirt.
“Devon’s right,” Addie said. “All those people at Lankster Square—do you really think they’re any more eager to help us than they were before?”
Devon glanced at us. He didn’t seem thankful for Addie’s support—or even surprised. Just that indecipherable look he sometimes wore, revealing nothing.
“Lankster Square,” Sabine said quietly, “let the city know that not everyone here supports the cure. Getting rid of Powatt—it tells them that we’re serious. That we’re willing to fight. And even if it doesn’t? Then at least it’s an institution gone. It’s surgical machinery gone.”
No one spoke. Sabine was the one who broke the silence again, this time with a question. Her eyes were on Addie and me. “How many hybrids do you think there are? Here in the Americas, I mean.”
“I . . . I don’t know,” Addie said.
“Me neither,” Sabine said. “Peter doesn’t know. Maybe the government doesn’t even know—not with the percentage of hybrids in hiding. I think our numbers are small, but not as small as they’d have us believe. Say only one in five hundred people are hybrid. That’s more than a million hybrids in the Americas, Addie. They make us feel isolated. And that’s why a lot of people give up, you know? Because this isn’t the sort of thing you can fight alone. It feels so big—the government feels so big and so powerful and all those parents, all those children—they can’t talk to anyone about it. They don’t know of anyone else going through it. So they give up because they feel too weak to do anything.” Sabine didn’t look at anyone as she spoke, her eyes focused instead on an empty spot on the sloping attic wall. As if it took all her concentration just to come
up with what to say. “When you pick a fight, you have to keep going until you win or you can’t fight anymore. We are not going to be another news story about how the hybrids were cowed.”
Sabine’s words expanded until they filled the entire attic, pressing against us, taking up all the air. I didn’t think anyone could breathe, let alone fit any words of their own into the remaining space.
“Spending four years in one of those institutions,” Sabine said quietly, “you get to dreaming about blowing them up. You fantasize about it.”
Four years in an institution. Four more years since Peter had gotten her out. Eight years. In eight years, Addie and I would be twenty-three. Lyle would be nineteen. He’d be a freshman in college. Eight years was almost a decade. More than a tenth of a lifetime.
If things didn’t change—if we didn’t force things to change—then we might not see our little brother again until he was a grown man. If ever.
“But that’s not why we need to do this,” Sabine continued. “Because in the end, we’ll never be able to blow up every single institution. Even if we could just keep going and going, they’d just keep building them. I want to give the other hybrids out there a reason to fight, Addie. I want them to know that the government’s not the only power, that their neighbors aren’t the only power. That we’re a power, too.”
Her eyes were as steady as ever. She didn’t smile. But there wasn’t a shred of antagonism in her voice or her expression. Just a calm, collected warmth. “But it’s just an idea for the time being. As a group, we make decisions together. We take everyone’s opinion into consideration.”
She turned to Devon. “We would need your help again, anyway, to get things off the ground.”
Devon didn’t react in the least.
“So.” Sabine looked around the room. When her eyes fell on Addie and me, they were gentle, but I felt the force behind them. “Let’s take some time to consider things.”