Once We Were

<Addie—>

<I don’t know, Eva.> Her voice sharpened. I felt her confusion rising, her frustration at her own inability to decide. <You choose. You’ve always wanted to choose, haven’t you?>

She ripped away from our body’s reins. Control fell to me like a great weight, nearly suffocating in its pressure.

She was right. I’d dreamed so long about being in control. Now that I could be, I had to start making my own decisions, not relying on Addie. Not relying on anyone.

I exhaled and spoke quickly. Before I could think too much about it. Before I could talk myself out of it.

“I’m ready to start doing something.”

NINE

Despite her claims otherwise, Sabine had obviously already given this part of her plan a lot of thought. The attic transformed from clubhouse to situation room as she briefed us on everything. In exactly ten days, Hogan Nalles would give a speech in Lankster Square downtown. Nearby traffic would be rerouted. There would be security, obviously, but the specifics were still unknown. The speech was planned to last about twenty minutes, the entire event roughly an hour.

“There are six of us,” Sabine said, gesturing as she spoke. “Devon and I will be in the building. Preferably, I’d like to have at least one person at the rally—at the scene or looking right at it—and reporting to us on walkie- talkie. We’d want to know exactly what’s going on. That leaves three of you to set off firecrackers.”

<If Hally helped . . . > I started to say, then cut myself off. Would it be better to leave Hally and Lissa out of this? Maybe they wouldn’t want to be involved. But I didn’t want to keep secrets from them, either. It would be better, wouldn’t it, to let them decide themselves if they wanted to help or not?

“If Hally joined us,” I said, “then we could do four.”

Devon looked at us sharply, but said nothing.

Sabine hesitated. “You think she’d be up for it?”

“Maybe,” Devon said before I could answer. The word held such an air of finality that no one touched the subject again.

“What we’re doing,” I said carefully, “won’t it just make security even tighter at the Hall?”

Sabine shook her head. “Everyone important will be at the rally. Even if they get vigilant in the Hall, they’ll be looking for possible violence or a demonstration or something. Trust me. It’ll be fine. I know my way around the building.”

It was almost four a.m. by the time we left the photography shop. Over the course of the night, Addie spoke with both Josie and Sabine, Jackson and Vince. Cordelia mentioned Katy, though if Katy actually took control at any point, no one noted it. But all night, no one said anything about the other boy looking through Christoph’s eyes. I wondered when we’d get to meet him. I found myself looking forward to it.

Devon gave us a quiet good night when we returned to our apartment, then headed upstairs. I eased Emalia’s door open as softly as I could.

The apartment was as still and silent as when we’d left hours before. I crossed the darkened living room, crept through the hall, and slipped into our bedroom. Kitty was a slumbering shadow tucked into her sheets. We exchanged our clothes for pajamas and slid into bed, our cheek pressed against the cold pillow.

Only then did the implications of what I’d agreed to hit me. Hard. I took a deep breath, and Addie must have sensed my sudden trepidation. She reached for me. Held me steady.

Did I choose right? I almost asked, but didn’t. In the end, I didn’t need to. Addie told me, without saying a word, that whatever I chose, we were in it together.

We fell asleep whispering about plans for the future. We hadn’t had any, before.

Addie and I slept in the next morning, waking only when a knock came at the front door. We went to answer it in our secondhand pajamas, our hair a sleep-tangled mess of half curls. She yawned and looked through the peephole, probably expecting Hally or Ryan, like I was.

<God, we look a mess> Addie said when we recognized Jackson.

I wasn’t a slob, but Addie had always been the one who liked our clothes pressed, our hair neat, who made sure our room was tidy. She could be forgetful, might misplace things from time to time, but Addie had always wanted things orderly.

<Tell Kitty to get the door while we change> I suggested.

<Then he’d think we were making a fuss about it. It would—> She sighed. <Never mind. It’s not a big deal.>

She fumbled with the lock with one hand and tried to tame our hair with the other, then quickly lowered our hand as she opened the door.

“Hey,” she said.

Jackson studied us a moment. Stop it, I wanted to tell him. Can’t you see you’re making Addie more embarrassed? But he didn’t look away, just smiled. “Late morning?”

Addie waved him inside. I could feel her want to say something, but no words came to our lips. We flushed. Jackson glanced around the room. “Where are Kitty and Emalia?”

“Kitty’s in our room,” Addie said. “Emalia’s at Peter’s.”

“Ah,” Jackson said.

“Ah, what?”

He laughed and plunked down in one of the dining chairs. “Nothing. It’s good that she’s out. I came to see how you were. You know, after last night.”

Addie lowered us into a chair as well. “We didn’t change our minds, if that’s what you mean.”

“I don’t remember getting an answer from you, actually,” Jackson said. “Eva said she was ready to start doing something. But what about you?”

“I didn’t know we had to speak separately.”

Jackson’s pale blue eyes never left ours, even for a second. They lent everything he said—despite the artlessness in his movements and the jaunt in his grin—a certain intensity. “I like to hear what you have to say.”

Addie was quiet, picking at our pajama pants.

<Addie?>

“I’m in,” she said.

Jackson leaned toward us, and Addie didn’t back away. I felt the tension in our muscles, the strain it took to keep our position. He was pushing on too close—too close for Addie to take. “Good. What about Devon’s sister? Hally? Do you think she’s going to be okay with this?”

Addie nodded.

“Did you guys know each other a long time before Nornand?” Jackson asked. “You, Devon, and Hally?”

“Not a very long time,” Addie said. She shrugged. “A month or so.”

I waited for her to explain how she wasn’t even there for most of it, or how Devon wasn’t exactly the easiest person to get to know under any circumstances, for any length of time. But she didn’t.

“Who’s the other boy sharing Christoph’s body?” she said instead. Jackson stiffened, but Addie pressed onward. “I’m trying to get to know everyone so I can tell who’s who and when, but I don’t even know his name, and—”

“It’s always Christoph,” Jackson said.

Addie paused. “Sorry?”

“It’s always Christoph,” Jackson repeated. His voice went toneless. “You don’t need to figure anything out.”