Devon was remarkably nonchalant as he explained how he and Sabine had snuck into the Metro Council building with out-of-date identification, altered to look like new. They’d found Hogan Nalles’s office quickly enough.
“Sabine knows how to pick a lock,” Devon said. He didn’t sound impressed. Devon never sounded impressed. But he did sound a little less bored than usual, maybe.
“I’m not really surprised,” Hally said.
Devon shrugged. “We should learn. If we’d known how to do it at Nornand . . .” He trailed off, his eyes meeting ours. “It’s a good skill to have.”
“For criminals, maybe,” Hally said. Her brother didn’t argue, but he didn’t look entirely like he agreed, either.
News of the fireworks in Lankster Square had reached Metro Council Hall quickly. Devon and Sabine heard the commotion outside as Devon set to work on Nalles’s computer, but no one thought to check his office, and they were able to sneak out without being detected.
“So you found it,” Addie said. “The information Sabine wanted. The plans for Powatt.” We were the only one seated on our bed, our legs tucked tightly beneath us. Hally and Devon sat on the ground, her leaning against the nightstand, him with his back against our bed frame. Devon nodded.
“And?” Hally said. Her arms were crossed, her hair spilling over her shoulders, hiding part of her face. Her usual brightness had sharpened to a hard point. I saw everything I needed to see in the unhappy slant of her mouth.
“I didn’t have time to read it all.” Devon shot her a look. “There was a timetable. They’ll be delivering and installing the machinery in a few weeks. There will be groups of officials coming to scope out the place. Some kind of open house before the kids get there. Sabine saved it all to a disk.”
Hally frowned. “She has a computer?”
“She uses one at the college downtown,” Devon said. “Apparently, she’s been sneaking on campus for years. Even sat in on a few of the bigger lectures. No one notices.”
“Did you find names?” Addie asked. “Of the kids who’re going to get sent there?”
Devon shook his head. I thought about the poster of Jaime we’d grabbed while fleeing from the Square.
It reminded me of Jaime’s patient file at Nornand. I’d folded the poster up and slid it underneath our mattress. We couldn’t bear to get rid of it, but we could hardly bear to look at it, either.
Hearing Jenson announce a search for Jaime on national television was bad enough, but it was still just a man on a screen. There was a certain distance, a certain belief that one young boy was too small to be found in this enormous country, that danger still wheeled high and unseeing in the clouds. Stumbling upon the poster here was like seeing a flash of talons, feeling them nick our cheek.
“Well,” Addie said, a word and a sigh. “Now what?”
No one responded to that, either. We looked at one another. Sitting in the pastel softness of our Emalia- decorated bedroom, it seemed insane that earlier today, we’d been tearing through the streets, terrified of being caught. Of getting thrown in jail or worse.
I remembered the terror of the crowd. I remembered the sound like gunshots ricocheting around the Square. I hadn’t—hadn’t realized. Hadn’t thought. Each memory of the screaming, trampling crowd punched a hole on our gut, made us sick.
We’d done that. We’d made that happen. With just four little firecrackers and plans laughingly made in a hidden-away, fairy-light-strung attic, we’d terrified hundreds of people. The feeling of power was horrifying. Was this how change began? This feeling like standing on the edge of a cliff, wanting to fly but terrified of falling?
“Sabine supposedly has a plan,” Devon said. He shrugged.
Hally stared at the wall. “I, for one, don’t want anything to do with Sabine’s plans anymore.”
The TV stayed tuned to the local news for the rest of the night. A revolving group of anchors, reporters, eyewitnesses—and then police officers and, finally, government officials—chimed in.
Violence?
No one on the news mentioned anything about a security breach at Metro Council Hall. No one mentioned the posters we’d thrown from the rooftops, either. The six names.
But over the next few days, the names spread anyway. Emalia told us about it over quiet, tense dinners. The only thing that spread faster than fear was intrigue, and soon, everyone wanted to know the stories behind the drawings. Posters passed from hand to hand. One small, brave newspaper picked the story up. It was quickly quashed, but by then, it was too late.
For just a few days, the entire city was talking about Kurt, Viola, Anna, Blaise, Kendall, and Max. Six hybrid children who had died without anyone giving it a thought.
Our days slackened into their old routines, which basically consisted of doing nothing at all. Ryan and Devon sank back into their tinkering. Lissa and Hally drifted from couch to dining table to carpet, from books to magazines to idle card games with Kitty. They refused to talk about Lankster Square anymore. Their anger flared when anyone so much as tried to bring it up, so no one did.
“Does Peter know who did it?” Addie asked Sophie in a surge of courage one night. She waited for Sophie, instead of Emalia, because Sophie was calmer. Emalia tended to just flutter at us when we surprised her with a question. “The—whatever it was—at Lankster Square.”
Sophie paused in the middle of clearing the table. Her stack of Styrofoam boxes tilted precariously, and Addie hurried to catch a fork slipping from the top. “No, he doesn’t. Why?”
Addie fiddled with the plastic fork. “Everyone on the news seems to think it was a hybrid who did it.”
“Well, I’m sure we don’t know all the hybrids in Anchoit,” Sophie said. “And just because the news wants us to think it was a hybrid doesn’t mean it actually was one.”
“You think someone might have caused the commotion at the speech just so everyone could blame it on the hybrids?”
Sophie frowned, setting the Styrofoam boxes back onto the table and giving us her full attention. “It’s possible. But what I meant was that someone—someone who isn’t hybrid—might have done what they did because they’re on our side. Henri helps us, right? And he isn’t hybrid.” Her head tilted slightly, her eyes seeking ours. It was a look unsettlingly similar to one our mom used to wear when she was concerned. It made our throat thicken.
Addie averted our gaze. “Here, I’ll get it,” she said quietly. She picked up the stack of white boxes and crossed into the kitchen.
Two weeks passed before Josie’s visit. She never fell out of touch entirely—she called twice to let us know Cordelia and Katy were recovering well and to ask how we were—but after the frenzied days leading up to Lankster Square, it felt like a lifeline had been snipped. The apartment building seemed even smaller than it had
