Once We Were Read online

  If they succeed, then all those children who died were just collateral damage.

  On-screen, Jenson explained that a cure for hybridity wasn’t yet available for widespread use, but research was being conducted. They hoped to implement it in certain areas before beginning the program nationwide.

  “Security levels will be increased across the country,” he continued. “This will stay in effect for the immediate future as a preemptive measure against the possibility of hybrid backlash. Safety, as always, is our primary concern. In this case, there is a second reason.”

  Something hardened in Jenson’s face. For a second, things became personal, not professional. Then it passed, and he was just a government official again, just a guy at a podium giving a speech someone else had probably written for him.

  “We are searching,” said Jenson into the microphone, “for a child.”

  There existed nothing, nothing in the world except for his words.

  “A thirteen-year-old boy named Jaime Cortae was stolen from a hospital after being successfully treated for hybridity. Investigations have been launched, and it is believed that he was kidnapped by a small group of hybrid insurgents.”

  He was talking about our Jaime.

  “Eva?” a small voice floated out behind us.

  Kitty stood in the hallway, dressed in pajama pants and a soft blue T-shirt, her long hair plaited down her back. Outside of Nornand, Kitty and Nina never wore skirts. They almost never wore their hair down. They never wore blue. Their big, dark eyes were the same, their almost luminous skin, their matchstick limbs. But here in Emalia’s apartment, a flush in their cheeks, they’d lost a bit of that fairy look.

  Until she saw the screen, saw Jenson, and her face went white. “What’s he saying?”

  Just as she spoke, the video feed of Jenson cut away, replaced by a shot of a dark-haired couple.

  Mr. and Mrs. Cortae, read the caption.

  They stood outside, their hands twined together, looking themselves like lost children. The woman wore a long, heavy skirt, though it was summer. Her husband’s eyes stayed fixed on the ground, but hers kept moving—around and around, in all directions, searching. Searching for what? For Jaime? For answers? For justice? Or for a way out? An escape route from the camera jutting into her private grief.

  “He was healthy,” she cried. “He was healthy, and they took him. They—”

  Then she and her husband were gone. Jenson once again dominated the screen.

  No. No, go back. Let her speak. Let us hear her. I needed to know what she had to say. What did she know about Jaime and her other, lost son? Was she fighting for him? Did she want him back, no matter what? Had she been coerced into giving up her child, like our parents? Did she regret it, every day?

  “His family is, of course, devastated to have come so close to having a healthy child back home,” Jenson said. “We are likewise highly concerned for Jaime’s well-being and are working diligently to secure his safe return.”

  Was that really what Jaime’s mother had meant by healthy? A boy with part of him unnecessarily stripped away? Or had she thought Jaime healthy before he ever left for Nornand?

  Addie reminded me softly.

  I forced myself to focus back on Kitty’s face. Her hands had rolled into white-knuckled fists at her sides.

  Sabine stepped forward, shielding her from the screen. “Hi, I’m Sabine. Sorry to barge in while you were sleeping.”

  I grabbed the remote and lowered the volume, reducing Jenson’s voice to a murmur. “It’s just a speech, Kitty. Don’t worry about it, okay? Why don’t you go get dressed?”

  Kitty studied our face, then nodded, her expression unreadable. I never knew exactly how much to screen from Kitty and Nina. They were only months older than Lyle. Sometimes, they seemed younger. Sometimes, so much older.

  “She seems sweet,” Sabine said once we heard Kitty shut our bedroom door. “I’m glad you guys—” She hesitated. “I mean, just, it’s always nice when they can rescue them young.” She stared at the television again, her cheeks flushed but her eyes cold.

  “You know Jenson,” Ryan said to her. “Personally, I mean.”

  Now that Ryan brought it up, I could see it, too. Sabine didn’t watch Jenson like he was a stranger, a hated figurehead. She watched him like we did. Someone who had felt his fingers press our skin against our bones.

  “Personally?” Sabine’s voice was a darkly amused trill. “I guess. He came personally to my house when I was eleven years old. He personally forced me into his car. Personally delivered me to his institution.” Her smile was so bitter I could taste it on our tongue. “He’s moved up in life since then. But we were personally acquainted once.”

  The phone rang. Numbly, I answered.

  “It’s Christoph again,” the voice on the other end said. “Put Sabine back on.”

  I handed the phone over. Sabine walked a little ways away, her back to us, the phone cord stretched out behind her. “Yeah, I’m watching. Christoph, calm down; I’ll be right there.” The phone clanged back into its cradle. Sabine was already moving for the door. “I’ve got to go. Christoph’s going to explode if I don’t find him.”

  “Are you going to the meeting tomorrow night?” I called after her.

  “It’s not going to be tomorrow night anymore.” Jackson hurried after Sabine, speaking over his shoulder. “Peter should be back home in less than an hour. Meeting will probably be late tonight, once everyone’s off work.”

  “I—” I began to say, just as Sabine asked, “You guys are going to be there, right?”

  “Emalia’s against it.” I shrugged, shaking our head. “She’s worried we’ll—I don’t know—get snatched off the street or something.”

  Sabine nodded. “I’ll talk to Peter, see what I can do.”

  We said our good-byes, and then Sabine and Jackson were gone. The television played some commercial about toaster pastries. I put it on mute.

  I sank onto the couch. After a moment, Ryan joined me.

  “Jaime will be all right.” He took our shoulder, tried to guide us gently against the backrest. “He’s with Dr. Lyanne.”

  Dr. Lyanne, who was also in hiding. Who had been wrong about the government’s views on Nornand. But what was the point of saying all that aloud? It wouldn’t help.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, he’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine.”

  Addie said. I didn’t bother responding. Our gaze drifted away from Ryan and to the small paper bag he’d set by the couch. I’d forgotten all about it.

  “Did you make something?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Here.” He handed me the bag. Whatever it was, it was heavy for its size. “It’s for you.”

  “It’s not another salt-and-pepper shaker, is it?”

  He smiled faintly. “Not exactly.”

  The paper bag crinkled as I opened it. I drew out a small metal bird, just the right size to fit in our cupped hands. Its spread wings framed the round face of a clock, its eyes staring upward, head arched back, as if looking to the sky.

  Ryan tapped a fingertip against the clockface. “It plays music when the alarm goes off. Not great music or anything, because I got the recording from—well, anyway . . .” His fingers slid down the metal’s cool, smooth ridges until they touched my hands. “You said you didn’t like the one Emalia gave you. Since it sounds like—since it’s so loud.”

  Since it sounded like a siren.

  “Thanks.” My eyes traced the overlap of our fingers, up his arm, catching against the way his shirt creased down from his shoulder, across his chest, up to the hard edge of his chin, his mouth, his nose, his eyes. “Thanks,” I said again, but softer, because he was leaning toward me. My eyes closed.

  His lips brushed against my cheek.

  I held utterly still, and so did he. As if sudden movement would break something. As if tasting his mouth against mine—as if being less than so, so caref
ul—

  Would cause something to shatter.

  I didn’t want to be careful. I didn’t want to have to stay so still, or try so hard to keep always that breath of distance. That last-minute shift of his mouth from mine.

  I didn’t want to think about Addie. Or Devon.

  Just for a second.

  Just for a moment.

  Just for this one moment—

  But I had to. My body did not belong solely to me. That was the way it was, no matter how utterly unfair it sometimes felt.

  “It’s going to be okay, Eva,” Ryan said, and the words skirted over the edge of my jaw.

  He leaned back, and there was air in the world again. Our eyes held. Then his gaze slipped to the little golden bird between us, half-hidden beneath our fingers.

  His hands squeezed mine.

  Ours.

  FIVE

  A month ago, on the beach, Jackson told Addie and me how hybrids coped with their situation—or at least how they coped with part of it. Some things we didn’t talk about. He didn’t teach me how to suppress the nightmares of Nornand’s white walls, didn’t let me know if it was okay that sometimes I felt so furious with my mom and dad for what they’d allowed to happen to us.

  But Jackson explained how hybrids could achieve a semblance of independence when their bodies could never truly be theirs. They forced themselves to disappear, one soul slipping into unconsciousness.

  I’d done it once, by accident, when Addie and I were thirteen, but never since then. It had been an unspoken promise between Addie and me that I’d never leave her again. But we were fifteen now, and though leaving Addie forever was unthinkable, a few minutes or a few hours was something else entirely. The possibility of freedom taunted me.

  Addie said every time I brought up the possibility of going under, as Jackson called it.

 

 

  A week ago, I’d finally drawn up the courage to ask Sophie: If I make myself disappear, is it possible I won’t come back?

  She laughed as if I’d asked if we might stick our head out the window and be struck by lightning.

  “Of course you’d come back, Eva. Haven’t you ever done it before?”

  “But how do you control how long you’re gone? What if you’re gone for days? For weeks?”

  She’d smiled. “Then you’ll have to let me know, because that would be a world record.”

  “So it’s never happened.”

  The urgency in our voice must have reached her; her expression gentled. “The longest I’ve ever heard of anyone being out is half a day, Eva. If you’ve never done it before, it can be hard to control how long you’re gone. You might only manage a few minutes, or it could be a couple hours. But you get the hang of it. You learn to control it.”

  “How?”

  “It’s—it’s hard to explain. It’s something you learn through doing, more than anything. Just keep trying. You and Addie will figure it out.”

  But Addie and I had figured out nothing, because Addie refused to try.

  I said.

 

  Addie was right. It had always been Addie who yearned for normality. She’d had the luxury of thinking about it. Growing up, there had been no version of normality that could coexist with my survival.

  Now there was. And I wanted it, more than anything.

  Still, it was Addie’s choice as much as mine, and I could feel how torn she was. But I could also feel the ghost of Ryan’s lips against our jaw, and the phantom twist in our gut every time he got too close—the pain that wasn’t mine.

  I couldn’t stay like this forever.

  Maybe it was Emalia who convinced Peter to let us attend the meeting. But something in me felt it was Sabine who pulled through for us in the end. Jenson’s speech had set everyone on edge, even Emalia. Ryan shot us an exasperated look behind Emalia’s back as she fluttered around, giving us instructions: don’t talk, keep walking, attract as little attention as possible.

  By the time we left the building, it was dark out, the streets lit only by sallow streetlamps and the occasional headlights. From what Jackson had told us, this was the part of the city tourists didn’t visit. No one lived here but the people who had to, the ones who couldn’t afford better housing. Or, I supposed, the ones like us, in hiding.

  Usually, only a select few were called to Peter’s meetings, or chose to attend. But tonight, there must have been at least thirty people. It was overwhelming to look around, see these faces, and know that almost all of them were hybrid, like us. Living in secret, like us. Carrying on relatively normal lives in a country that wanted them dead.

  They looked like anyone else. There was a middle-aged man who might have been a banker. A young woman in sweats like she’d come here straight from the gym. An older lady who reminded me a little of our fifth-grade teacher. I caught Hally’s eyes flickering from person to person, too, drinking in this crowd. Even Kitty had been allowed to come—if only so she wouldn’t be left alone. But not everyone was here. Two, at least, were missing: Dr. Lyanne and Jaime.

  Addie said. They stood in the dining room along with two others: a strawberry-blond boy about Jackson’s age with a constellation of freckles, and a girl with platinum-blond hair but dark eyebrows. Sabine caught our eyes and smiled. Addie smiled back. Other than Kitty, we were the youngest in the room.

  Peter stood, and conversations dwindled. Physically, he was intimidating—tall, broad-shouldered, and sturdy, but with a face that could be kind. It was at his most austere, though, that I best saw his resemblance to his sister, Dr. Lyanne. They had the same strong brows, the same sharp eyes.

  He resembled her now, as he said, “I’m sure by now you’ve all heard about Mark Jenson’s address this morning.” He took a long, slow breath. “But not all of you have heard about the Hahns institution, and that’s where I’ll start.”

  The room sat silent as Peter explained. He’d been keeping tabs on an institution in the mountains of Hahns County, up in the north, since before the Nornand breakout. The conditions were frigid during the winter, the building old, the children ill dressed and uncared for. In other words, they died like flies when the snow came in.

  Plans for rescue developed slowly. The mountain terrain complicated things, so it was decided that any attempt would have to be conducted in summer, when conditions were fairest. A woman, Diane, had been seeded as a caretaker—institutions weren’t staffed by nurses and doctors, like Nornand, but caretakers—and Peter had flown up to meet with her.

  Everything fell apart when Diane’s cover was blown. Desperate, she stole away six children in her car as she made her escape.

  She didn’t make it far.

  She and two children died when their car went over the side of the winding mountain road. The remaining four kids extracted themselves from the wreckage and fled before the officials arrived.

  Ten hours later, they stumbled into a small town still wearing their institution uniforms, filthy and bleeding and exhausted. The eldest of them was twelve, the youngest ten—just past the government-mandated deadline.

  The police were called, the children whisked away. But not before their story of terror and pain spread, twisted in eager, gossiping mouths.

  Peter laughed low, humorlessly. “It was an ugly thing for the townspeople, I’m sure, on a Sunday morning.”

  Easy to not think about other people’s suffering, when it was hidden away. Harder to stomach when it collapsed on your front porch.

  At Nornand, we’d all worn blue.

  What color did they wear at Hahns?

  “But it’ll never get beyond that.” Sabine’s voice was quiet, but clear. “The media will never be allowed to pick up the story.”

  Peter shook his
head. “It was unlikely to begin with. It’s impossible now, with the announcement Jenson made this morning. Which was probably the point.”

  Addie frowned, but I understood. By saying they were making headway in a hybrid cure, they could quash the Hahns story. And by saying something about possible hybrid retaliation, they now had an excuse to dial up security without having to admit to the recent breakouts.

  “Diane was a cautious woman,” Peter said. “But someone found out enough to be suspicious. We don’t know if they’ll connect the dots between this incident and the Nornand breakout—or if they have anything that might tie her back to us. So everybody, be alert. Be cautious. We’ll have to lie low for a while.”

  “What about that new institution at Powatt?” It was Sabine again. She fingered one of the golden buttons on her jacket as she spoke, running her thumb along the smooth edge.

  Peter turned toward her. “What about it?”

  “Powatt’s barely an hour and a half from here. We’re not concerned they’re starting to build institutions within easy driving distance of major cities?”

  “Say what you mean to say, Sabine,” Peter said.

  Sabine began to reply, but the redheaded boy cut her off. “She means: Don’t you think it’s a problem that it’s okay now to stick institutions near a bunch of people? Everyone knows about them, but once upon a time, they still had enough of a conscience to not want a hundred dying children in their backyard. Now nobody cares?”

  His voice was familiar—rough and heated and laced with anger. It had to be Christoph, the boy who’d called this morning.

  “The country’s getting more and more apathetic, Peter,” Christoph said. “And the government’s getting bolder. Soon, they’re not even going to worry about covering up stuff like the Hahns institution. They’ll be able to round up hybrid kids in the street and put bullets in their heads—”

  “Christoph,” Peter said just as Jackson nudged the other boy’s shoulder with his own. Christoph quieted, but didn’t control the mutinous look on his face. “We’re gathering more information about the Powatt institution. Once we know what we need to know, we’ll address it as it needs to be addressed.”