Once We Were

reply. Sabine didn’t appear to expect an answer, just nodded a little to herself.

<They’ve left us out of something> Addie said.

At first, I didn’t know what she meant. Then I noticed the tension stifling the attic. The scrutiny everyone was directing at us. Only Devon still had his eyes on Sabine, a frown creasing his forehead.

This was building up to something. They were waiting for something. For Sabine to tell us and Devon what the rest of them already knew.

“I’ve looked over the information we got from Nalles’s computer,” Sabine said. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s got everything about Powatt. Everything I needed to figure out what to do.”

“And what’s that?” Devon asked.

Vince’s smile was a razor blade. “We’re going to blow the damn thing up.”

SEVENTEEN

Addie and I tried to speak at the same time. Nothing came out but a half-strangled sound in the back of our throat. Our next sound was almost a laugh—an unbelieving, rocks-grinding-against-rocks laugh.

“You’re going to blow it up?” Devon said. “Then what?”

“Then it’ll be gone,” Christoph said.

“And after that?” Devon’s words dripped cold disdain. “Everyone will suddenly come to their senses? Realize what a great thing we’ve done? They already hate us. They already think we’re mentally unstable. You’d only give them more ammunition.”

Christoph leaned forward. He’d flushed, his normally pale skin splotched with color. His hands gripped into fists at his sides. “It’s not about making them like us. No one’s ever going to give hybrids the chance to prove we’re likable—”

“Wars and revolutions,” said Vince, “are not won through being liked.”

Wars and revolutions.

Was that what this was? A war? A revolution?

We shuddered. Wars did not belong here, at home. Wars belonged to history, or to those far-off nations beyond the ocean. And the only revolution we’d ever learned about was the one that had founded the Americas, when the non-hybrids had won their freedom from the hybrids over two hundred years ago. Wars and revolutions meant death and untold horrors. We’d been taught that much at school.

Addie shook our head. Up until that moment, we’d still been caught in the middle of our control, neither of us firmly at the reins. But with that movement, things shifted to her side. Our hand slipped down, worrying at the thin fabric of our skirt.

“Devon’s right,” Addie said. “All those people at Lankster Square—do you really think they’re any more eager to help us than they were before?”

Devon glanced at us. He didn’t seem thankful for Addie’s support—or even surprised. Just that indecipherable look he sometimes wore, revealing nothing.

“Lankster Square,” Sabine said quietly, “let the city know that not everyone here supports the cure. Getting rid of Powatt—it tells them that we’re serious. That we’re willing to fight. And even if it doesn’t? Then at least it’s an institution gone. It’s surgical machinery gone.”

No one spoke. Sabine was the one who broke the silence again, this time with a question. Her eyes were on Addie and me. “How many hybrids do you think there are? Here in the Americas, I mean.”

“I . . . I don’t know,” Addie said.

“Me neither,” Sabine said. “Peter doesn’t know. Maybe the government doesn’t even know—not with the percentage of hybrids in hiding. I think our numbers are small, but not as small as they’d have us believe. Say only one in five hundred people are hybrid. That’s more than a million hybrids in the Americas, Addie. They make us feel isolated. And that’s why a lot of people give up, you know? Because this isn’t the sort of thing you can fight alone. It feels so big—the government feels so big and so powerful and all those parents, all those children—they can’t talk to anyone about it. They don’t know of anyone else going through it. So they give up because they feel too weak to do anything.” Sabine didn’t look at anyone as she spoke, her eyes focused instead on an empty spot on the sloping attic wall. As if it took all her concentration just to come up with what to say. “When you pick a fight, you have to keep going until you win or you can’t fight anymore. We are not going to be another news story about how the hybrids were cowed.”

Sabine’s words expanded until they filled the entire attic, pressing against us, taking up all the air. I didn’t think anyone could breathe, let alone fit any words of their own into the remaining space.

“Spending four years in one of those institutions,” Sabine said quietly, “you get to dreaming about blowing them up. You fantasize about it.”

Four years in an institution. Four more years since Peter had gotten her out. Eight years. In eight years, Addie and I would be twenty-three. Lyle would be nineteen. He’d be a freshman in college. Eight years was almost a decade. More than a tenth of a lifetime.

If things didn’t change—if we didn’t force things to change—then we might not see our little brother again until he was a grown man. If ever.

“But that’s not why we need to do this,” Sabine continued. “Because in the end, we’ll never be able to blow up every single institution. Even if we could just keep going and going, they’d just keep building them. I want to give the other hybrids out there a reason to fight, Addie. I want them to know that the government’s not the only power, that their neighbors aren’t the only power. That we’re a power, too.”

Her eyes were as steady as ever. She didn’t smile. But there wasn’t a shred of antagonism in her voice or her expression. Just a calm, collected warmth. “But it’s just an idea for the time being. As a group, we make decisions together. We take everyone’s opinion into consideration.”

She turned to Devon. “We would need your help again, anyway, to get things off the ground.”

Devon didn’t react in the least.

“So.” Sabine looked around the room. When her eyes fell on Addie and me, they were gentle, but I felt the force behind them. “Let’s take some time to consider things.”

“Addie!”

Sabine and the others had already gone downstairs. Devon turned along with Addie at the sound of Vince’s voice, but Devon’s eyes met ours, and whatever he saw there convinced him to keep going down the attic steps, leaving Addie and Vince alone in the attic.

“What, Jackson?” Addie stepped away from the trapdoor and leaned against the wall. A nail dug into our back.

<Jackson?> I said, but Addie ignored me.

She must have been right, though, because the boy didn’t correct her. He ran his hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face. He seemed like he didn’t know how to proceed. “What’s wrong, Addie?”

What’s wrong? He—Vince—had just dropped the fact that they were planning to blow up a government building, and now he was asking us what was wrong?

<Stop it, Eva> Addie said irritably. <Calm down. I can’t—I can’t think.> Our hand fluttered to our forehead, our fingertips rubbing circles against our temples.

Aloud, she said, “Look, Jackson . . . I’ve just got—I’ve got to think about things.”

He approached us, gently tugging our hands from our face. His hands felt rougher than I’d expected, his palms callused. “Come on, what’s there to think about?”

Addie laughed. “Blowing things up? Yeah, that takes a little considering, Jackson.”

“Not just random things.” His eyes were wide, earnest. His hands still grasped ours, left me feeling pinned against the wall. I waited for Addie to push him away, but she didn’t. “Addie, we’re not planting explosives in playgrounds. It’s an institution. A hybrid institution with nobody in it. And we’re making sure