Once We Were

by Kat Zhang

  I just kept nodding. I closed our eyes.

  THIRTY-THREE

  The next morning, everyone gathered in the attic, just as we’d requested. Sabine and Josie. Cordelia and Katy. Jackson and Vince. Christoph and the ever-silent Mason.

  Us.

  Devon stood a few feet from us, apart from the others. They were all sprawled around the couches, chatting.

  Sabine glanced up. “So, what’s going on, Addie?”

  Addie looked toward Devon, who gazed back at us. Addie had insisted that they be the ones in control when confronting the group. Or she’d insisted she be in control, anyway, and Devon had just turned up as if that were the natural progression of things.

  Everyone was watching and listening. Expectant.

  “Devon and I came up with a theory,” Addie said.

  Our voice was weirdly tight, strangely formal. We sounded like we had during oral presentations at school, when we knew we hadn’t prepared enough and if the teacher asked the right question, we’d have to admit we had no idea what we were talking about.

  Could the others see us trembling? Addie shifted, trying to find a way to distribute our weight to stop the shaking, but it wouldn’t go away.

  Finally, she just clenched our muscles as tight as she could. Our hand slipped into our pocket, fingers closing around our chip—the one Ryan had given us before Nornand. We hadn’t carried it in a long time, but I’d slipped it in our pocket that morning, needing whatever comfort I could get.

  “Why did you choose tonight for the bombing, Sabine?” The question had to be squeezed up our throat, forced from our mouth.

  Sabine lost her smile.

  I did not want to be here for this.

  Addie shouted.

  I whispered. But it was so hard to stay.

  The floor creaked. But no one had moved. No, Devon had. He took his place at our side, not touching us, but there, and the trembling didn’t stop, but Addie said, louder, stronger, “Why are you so insistent it has to be tonight?”

  Sabine’s mouth dropped open. “You’re the one who stole it? The disk? You stole my disk?”

  Everyone else, I realized, was watching Addie and me, too. A few threw glances at Sabine, but always, their gazes returned to us.

  Realization brought with it a cold, trembling sweat.

  They were all in this together.

  Our eyes found Jackson’s. Addie stared at him, and he stared back, and he was the first to look away.

  Addie whispered. If she were anyone else, I would say I can’t imagine how you’re feeling. But she was Addie, and I didn’t need to imagine. I felt it with her: disbelief first, because both Addie and I had always been good at denial; then anger, all-consuming; then horror—and pain. Pain most of all. I didn’t bother speaking. Just held her together when I knew she might have trouble doing it herself.

  I knew how to do it. I’d done it our entire lives.

  “Addie,” Sabine said quietly. It was the gentleness in her tone that set Addie off.

  Our voice went shrill. “There are going to be people in there! There are going to be people—”

  “Addie.” Christoph looked as if he might rise from his seat. “Not so loud—”

  “Not so loud?” she screamed.

  I hugged her against me.

  “You all knew.” Addie blinked rapidly. “We’d thought—we’d thought maybe some of you didn’t know, but you—you all knew. You’re all—”

  “Eva,” Cordelia said.

  Addie whirled to face her. Our face twisted. “No! No, you do not get to do this to her. You do not get to play with her feelings anymore. She trusted you.”

  Devon’s hand closed around our wrist. He squeezed gently, briefly, then let go again.

  “It’s over,” Addie said, quieter. “It’s stopping.”

  Jackson had remained silent and frozen this entire time. Now he shifted, not toward us but away, his shoulders spreading against the back of the couch. I couldn’t see him breathe.

  “What do you mean by that?” he said.

  It hurt Addie to look at him. A quick knife to the gut as they made and held eye contact.

  “I mean everything stops.” She took a deep breath. “We get rid of that liquid oxygen. Safely. We dismantle the bomb—”

  Christoph—Christoph in all his bitter-eyed glory—laughed. He looked at the others. He didn’t say it, but it was etched in every inch of him: Can you believe this?

  “I’ll tell Peter,” Addie said. I wanted to sink under into my swirls of dreams. But I couldn’t leave her here alone. I couldn’t let myself run away and hide.

  “Eva,” Christoph said, a barked command. “Is she even there, Addie? Are you—”

  I said.

  She hesitated.

 

  So she did, moving aside, allowing our limbs, our tongue, to fall under my control.

  “I’m here,” I said softly.

  Somehow, it was worse, knowing that now they were all looking at me, that those looks of betrayal and frustration and anger were directed at me.

  “You didn’t tell me,” I said, and cursed the waver in our voice. “You didn’t say—didn’t say there were going to be people inside.”

  “Eva,” Christoph said. “We didn’t want you to have to know.”

  I tensed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well,” he said, “if you didn’t know, then if—if something did go wrong, it would be that much easier for you to argue your innocence, right?” He turned to the others. Jackson was the only one with the grace to look uncomfortable at the blatant lie. At least I wasn’t the only one who tried to fool herself.

  “Christoph, I’m hybrid. You think saying Oh, I didn’t know would—” I took a sharp breath and cut myself off. It wasn’t even worth the argument.

  “Did you target these people specifically?” Devon asked in that steady, weighted way of his. “Or were you going to kill them because it was the most convenient?”

  Christoph leapt off the couch. I made myself stay rooted to the spot, but he wasn’t coming for me; he came for Devon, who simply stared back at him as if the older boy wasn’t nearly shaking with rage.

  “We’re going to kill them because they’ve got it coming.”

  “Christoph,” Sabine said, but he ignored her.

  “We’re going to kill them because God only knows how many children they’ve killed—” He punctuated his words with his hands, making wild jabs in the air that came dangerously close to striking Devon in the face.

  For all he reacted, Devon might have been watching an unamusing puppet show.

  “Christoph,” Sabine snapped.

  He breathed hard through his nose, his chest rising and falling like a bellow. He turned to face me and spat, “Go ahead and tell Peter. What do you think is going to come of that? Really think he’s going to do anything?” He pulled a mockingly shocked and pained expression. “Think he’s going to scold us?”

  “He might not go to the police,” I said softly, “but I will.”

  The room shut down. We’d been running on tension and cold fury before, but now it was as if the gauntlet had been thrown, as if I’d drawn a line in the sand.

  For the briefest of moments, the look in Christoph’s eyes wasn’t fury, but hurt.

  He took a few steps backward. At the same time, I felt fingers enclose ours. I looked to the boy standing beside me. He squeezed our hand, his mouth in a tight line, his jaw clenched, and I almost uttered Ryan aloud in relief. It might be Devon’s right to be here, but I wanted—needed—Ryan next to me.

  Christoph spun toward Sabine. “We should never have gotten her involved. We never needed to.” His eyes lighted on Ryan. “We could have convinced him without her.”

  Was he just saying that because he was angry? Or was it true? Had they never really wanted me or Addie?
I hated myself for still caring, for how much the implications hurt.

  Cordelia wore what could only be described as betrayal in her eyes. Sabine, who still sat cross-legged on the sofa, bore an expression of quiet disappointment. Not disappointment that her plans were falling apart, but disappointment in me.

  “They don’t even know,” Christoph shouted. He was speaking to the rest of the group now, not Ryan and me. As if we were too far gone to talk to. As if we weren’t worth the effort. “They don’t even know.” His voice turned low, hoarse. “They don’t even get how badly they’re screwing everything up. One day they’ll look back and realize how utterly stupid and small-minded they were.” He swung to face us. “And it’ll be too late.”

  Each word was a rusty nail shot between our ribs.

  “They weren’t there, Christoph,” Jackson said quietly. In defense of us? Or in dismissal?

  It was true. We’d never been in an institution. We’d been in Nornand for six days.

  It sounded pathetic in my mind—but it hadn’t been. We might have been fed and properly housed and allowed, every few days, to go outside, but—

  “Then they shouldn’t,” Christoph growled, “try to screw around with things they don’t understand.”

  “I think,” Ryan said quietly but firmly, “we understand murder just fine.”

  Christoph sneered. He paced back and forth, as if his rage burned too hot to allow him to keep still. Then, as if he couldn’t even bear to look at us anymore, he stalked past us and stood, stiff-shouldered, by the window.

  Sabine said, quietly, “It’s not murder if it’s war.”

  Jackson didn’t speak. Jackson, who loved to hear the sound of his own voice. Jackson, who had smiled even when crushed in that dark closet with us at Nornand Clinic, yards away from a nurse, and whispered for us to keep hope.

  I met his pale blue eyes, but they seemed to stare right through me.

  “Call the plan off,” Ryan said. “I’ll take—”

  I saw Jackson’s eyes widen. Saw his mouth open. He shot upright.

  Then I just saw the brightest flash of light and crumpled.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I didn’t have time to scream before our head hit the floor.

  Our vision blackened. First around the edges. Then completely. Darkness, utter and stifling.

  “Eva!” Ryan shouted.

  The world returned in patches. Fairy lights. A few planks of floor. Sneakers, blurred.

  The blow had come from behind. Someone had hit us with something—something much harder than just a fist.

  I tried to push ourself off the floor but everything spun

  spun

  spun

  spun spun—

  Somebody crashed down onto the floor next to me. Christoph. Blood on his lip. I tried again to push off the ground—

  Christoph was the only one who’d been standing behind us. Christoph had attacked us. Before the thought could even settle in my addled mind, he’d leapt back up.

  Feet, everywhere. Ryan shouting, furious. Everyone shouting.

  Our head rang, sound funneling into our ears as if through water.

  Then there was someone crouched next to us. Sabine. She grabbed our arm.

  Ryan, I tried to say, then managed to—“Ryan—”

  Sabine dragged us toward her. There was something in her hands, dully silver. Duct tape. I tried to scramble away, but she said, “Hold her!” and more hands—Cordelia’s hands—clamped us down. I screamed, thrashing.

  “God,” someone said in horror. Jackson.

  A rag was crammed into our mouth. We choked on it, gagging, our back arching. Our hair covered our face, our eyes. Someone yanked our hands behind our back. We heard the skriich of duct tape, then felt it against our wrists, wrenching them together, binding them. Something rammed into us, and Sabine swore.

  “Christoph! Get ahold of him.”

  Ryan.

  Our legs jackknifed outward, catching Christoph in the knee. He went down, but fell toward us instead of away, and we screamed into our gag as his weight slammed across our legs.

  Then Ryan was there, pulling him off. Cordelia left us to tackle him. Christoph staggered back onto his feet. The three of them stumbled toward the other end of the attic—

  Where Jackson stood, alone. Frozen.

  “Jackson,” Sabine snapped. “Get over here and help me.”

  Our arms were pinned. We tried again to lash out with our legs, but they didn’t move properly, and they hurt.

  Sabine pressed us against the ground. We fought, but our bound hands threw us off balance. The initial blow had shot stars in our vision. Even now, we felt nauseated, like we might throw up. We couldn’t get the hair out from our eyes. Couldn’t see.

  Then we felt the tape winding around our legs. We heard Sabine say, “Here, do him, too. Quickly.”

  For a long moment, all we could hear was the sound of tape being pulled, the sound of panted breaths, of someone fighting to yell through a gag.

  Then, quiet. Our cheek stayed pressed against the wooden floor, our eyes open. We saw nothing but the bottom of the green couch and our disheveled hair.

  Someone pulled us into a sitting position. With our legs and arms bound, we almost fell over again. Sabine brushed the hair from our face, her hands soft. Her thick hair was tangled, too, her eyes wide and bright, her lips parted as she struggled to regain her breath. There was a scratch on her cheek. From us?

  I found I still cared.

  And I hated it.

  I searched desperately for Ryan and found him at the other end of the attic, similarly bound. He watched the room. Watched me. His left sleeve had ripped at the seam. Like me, he breathed heavily. There was blood smeared across his temple.

  That was when I stopped caring who I hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” Sabine said quietly, pulling my attention back to her.

  The gag prevented Addie and me from speaking aloud. Pure fury kept us from even speaking to each other.

  “Christoph”—she turned to face him, and for a second the stubborn calm on her features dropped to reveal the anger underneath—“shouldn’t have done that.”

  Christoph stood by Ryan, his lip split, his eyes wild. He clenched his jaw and looked away. Ryan tried to say something, but the rag in his mouth garbled it beyond comprehension. It did nothing to hide his vehemence.

  Sabine ignored him. “I know you’re upset, Eva. You have every right to be upset. But you can’t go to the police. You’re too angry to realize that right now, so we have to make sure you won’t do something stupid until you can control yourself.”

  I put every ounce of rage I could into my glare, every bit of pain.

  “We’re on the same side,” Sabine said softly. “You have to understand that. We don’t have anyone but each other. And you’ll get that someday. Soon, I hope.” She seemed about to reach out toward us, but the look in our face stayed her hand. “If you went to the police, you think they wouldn’t take you away, too? What if they traced you back to Peter? And Henri? And Emalia? You could bring the whole Underground crumbling down, and then who would help all the kids who need saving?”

  And what about what you were planning? What if they traced murder back to you?

  “This is us looking out for you, Eva,” Sabine said. “I know it doesn’t seem that way, but it is.”

  She turned to the others, and in that moment, shifted. Why? Because Josie wanted her moment to speak? Because Josie was better at planning kidnappings?

  Or because, despite everything, Sabine couldn’t face us any longer?

  “We’re going to need to keep them here until it’s over,” Josie said.

  “Then what?” Christoph looked at Addie and me from across the room, his eyes somehow distant. “You can keep them here until it’s done, but as soon as you let them go, they’ll go straight to Peter.”

  “They won’t,” Josie said. “Not after it’s too late.” Her eyes locked on mine. “It wouldn’t make sense
. Tell Peter about it after the fact? And what’s he going to do? He wouldn’t—can’t—turn us in. You’d only be torturing him.”

  “She’d go to the police,” Christoph said.

  “She won’t,” Josie said. “I know she won’t. Because the building will already be down; those people will already be dead.”

  You’re wrong, some part of me screamed. You’re wrong, you’re wrong. I would tell. I’d turn you all in, whatever the consequences.

  But another part of me, buried deep, thought she might be right.

  After the fact, would we have the courage to tell anyone? It wouldn’t bring the dead back. It might punish these people here, but—we were all hybrid. Who was to say how a police investigation might turn out? Who was to say what Cordelia or Jackson or Christoph might tell an officer under interrogation?

  Kitty and Nina, Hally and Lissa. They’d done absolutely nothing wrong, but no one would care about that.

  We’d all have to run again. Separately, maybe, this time.

  We might be caught. Kitty and Hally might be caught.

  Could I take that risk for a few lives that were already past helping?

  I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t.

  Jackson’s figure was blurred, but we saw him turn away. We angrily blinked our vision clear again.

  “I’ll call Emalia and Henri,” Josie said. “Tell them I went by and picked Eva and Ryan up so they could stay the night with Cordelia and me. Sabine and I will come up with something. They won’t suspect.”

  Of course they wouldn’t. Who would ever dream of the scene in this attic right now? Ryan and me gagged and bound with duct tape?

  I screamed into our gag, writhing and straining against our bonds. It didn’t last long. Soon, we were out of breath and dizzy from lack of oxygen, from pure panic.

  Josie’s look was gently pitying.

  “Please don’t,” she said quietly. “You might hurt yourself. You’re already bleeding. Head wounds always do, worse than usual.”

  The trickle down our neck. I’d thought it was sweat. Was it blood?

  “Someone’s going to need to be here at all times,” Josie said. “We’ll take turns. I’ll start.”