Once We Were. Kat Zhang

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СКАЧАТЬ sound about as convincing as he did> 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 careful—

      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.

      <What if you don’t come back?> Addie said every time I brought up the possibility of going under, as Jackson called it.

       <Jackson said—>

       <Jackson could be wrong.>

      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.

      <It’s normal, isn’t it?> I said. <It’s what hybrids do. That’s what Jackson told us, what Sophie told us. Devon and Ryan—they’re trying it now.>

       <Since when have you cared about normal?>

      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, СКАЧАТЬ