Once We Were

another and were assaulted in turn.

Lies. So much of it lies.

World War I and World War II seemed so neat in comparison.

Wars can destroy a country completely, Henri told us. But they can also shape it, push it forward. Some of the world was destroyed. Some was shaped. And some was pushed forward.

What do they have that we don’t? I’d asked. Flying cars?

Henri laughed. No, no flying cars. But faster cars. And cell phones. Internet.

We’d never heard of them. He told us about tiny, cordless phones everyone carried around in their pockets, so widespread that pay phones were all but extinct. He tried to describe some sort of information network that connected computers, allowing one to instantaneously send data to another. He kept running into words he didn’t know how to translate, and the entire concept baffled Addie and me, who could count the number of times we’d even sat down in front of a computer.

He told us mankind had been to the moon.

I laughed. You’re kidding.

But he wasn’t.

He said it had only happened once, a few decades ago, but after the end of the Second World War. It was a show of power by one of the countries that had emerged least scathed from the years of combat. The project had proven too financially costly to attempt again, though there were other countries still eager to try.

There were also satellites floating out there in the blackness, orbiting our planet. Henri showed us one of his devices, a satphone that seemed more miniature computer than phone. Using these satellites, the phone allowed him to both send information and make calls to his headquarters overseas.

There were satellites beaming information around in outer space. There had been men on the moon. I had never known the world beyond the Americas’ borders, but there were people out there who’d experienced life beyond our very planet.

How terribly insignificant we must all seem from the moon. Our battles. Our wars.

Addie sighed and pulled our blankets straight, tucking in the edges. The map was a comforting reminder of the rest of the world. One that included countries where hybrids like us weren’t vilified, weren’t feared or hated or locked away.

But sometimes, those bright, colorful countries seemed to mock us with their distance.

The phone shrilled, and Addie hurried into the living room to answer it. “Hello?”

“Hey,” a voice said. “This is Sabine. Did I wake you up?”

“I was awake,” Addie said. Nina watched us with obvious curiosity, arms cradling a mixing bowl.

“Good. I would’ve called later, but I’m about to leave for work. Do you want to meet up with me and a couple friends tonight?”

Addie frowned in confusion. “Sorry?”

“I wanted to introduce you to some people.” Sabine’s voice dropped a little. “You can sneak out, right? We can meet you right at the end of your block. There’s a fast-food place that’s open until two a.m. Can you be there at one thirty? There’ll be five of us; six if you get Ryan to come.”

Would Ryan go? He hadn’t been the warmest to Sabine and Jackson yesterday. But I thought about all the weeks of boredom crushing down on him, hour after hour, and I said <He’d go.>

<Are we going to go?>

Six weeks of barely stepping foot outside the building, and now we were thinking about sneaking out twice in as many days, not to mention the Emalia-sanctioned trip last night.

<Yes> I said.

<What if we get caught?>

<We won’t get caught. It’s not like Emalia checks on us in the middle of the night.>

<I don’t mean by Emalia. Jenson said security was going to go up> Addie reminded me.

<It’s summer break. A group of us, out at night—why should that be suspicious? >

Still, Addie hesitated.

<Addie, we have to go. Do you want to tell her we can’t go because we’re afraid we might be caught?>

<It’s a legitimate concern.>

But when Sabine asked, “You still there? Can you guys come?” Addie sighed and said, “Yeah. We can.”

<What about Hally and Lissa?> I said.

“Great,” Sabine said before Addie could bring them up. “I’ll see you and Ryan at one thirty, then. I’ve got to run.”

“Who was that?” Nina asked as soon as Addie hung up. She stood barefoot in the kitchen, on the other side of the counter.

“Just Sabine.” Addie swung around to the kitchen doorway. “It was nothing. Come on, weren’t you going to make pancakes?”

Nina frowned. For a moment, I thought she might press harder. But then her expression cleared, though her eyes didn’t leave ours. “Yeah. I can’t find the baking soda.”

“Did you check in the top cabinet?” Addie walked past her to look.

I tried not to think about the deliberate way Nina’s frown had disappeared. As if she’d forced it away, along with her curiosity. As if, even at eleven, Nina had learned that her life would always be full of other people’s secrets, and some were dangerous, and sometimes it was better not to know.

Maybe that was good, since there wasn’t anything that could be done, anyway. Should Addie and I have lied about Sallie and Val? Or at least told Kitty we didn’t know?

I was so terrified of doing something wrong. I wanted, so badly, for Kitty and Nina to have a life where they didn’t need to worry about these sorts of things at all.

SEVEN

Ryan and Hally came downstairs a little after noon, just in time to help Kitty and me polish off that morning’s leftover pancake batter. Hally fooled around with Kitty in the living room, laughing and striking poses while Kitty filmed her on the old camcorder. I kept them both in the corner of our vision as I told Ryan about Sabine’s phone call.

“You said you’d go?” Ryan kept his voice to a murmur. “What about Hally and Lissa?”

“She didn’t mention them.” The pancake batter glopped onto the oiled pan. I prodded at it with our spoon, spreading it out. “They could come, I’m sure. Maybe she just forgot to invite them.”

Addie’s skepticism was tangible. <She didn’t forget.>

“She said she wanted to show us around town?”

“Yeah. And have us meet her other friends.”

Ryan’s gaze stayed on our face, but I felt his focus stray. Whatever conversation he and Devon were having, it distracted him.

I’d learned a lot about Ryan since our escape from Nornand—that he was a morning person, that he didn’t have much of a sweet tooth. That he and his sisters used to play at being soldiers when they were little and lived in the country, fighting wars that sometimes his sisters won because he and Devon let them and sometimes because the girls were really very vicious when things got down to it.

But I hadn’t learned what he was like around other people—people who weren’t me or Kitty or his sister or