Once We Were

that laughed at gravity. He reached toward us, like he might touch our arm, brush his fingers against our skin. He didn’t. His hand dropped back to his side. “I wasn’t sure if you would be awake this early.”

“We couldn’t sleep,” I said.

“It’s summer break.” A wryness twisted Ryan’s smile. “We should be sleeping in.”

I drew him to the sofa. He’d brought a small paper bag with him—probably containing yet another invention—and he set it on the floor beside his feet.

“Well, we did skip all our finals,” I said.

Addie’s amusement colored the space between us. It relaxed me a little. Being with Ryan—talking with Ryan—I always kept one finger on the pulse of Addie’s mood.

Ryan laughed. “That’s what keeps you up at night?”

“You’re the one who should be worried,” I said, mock solemn. “You’re going to be a senior next semester. You should be applying to colleges soon.”

His smile slipped, and I winced. Ryan and Devon ought to be applying to colleges soon. But it would be enough of a miracle just to get us into a classroom in the fall. Even if Peter and the others decided that it was safe to let us out of the building by then, there were more things to be faked: immunization records, transcripts . . .

Besides, where would they go? There was a college downtown, but that was about it. It would be too dangerous, surely, to send him away by himself.

“Guess I’ll just have to repeat eleventh grade, then.” Ryan’s shrug was as lazy and exaggerated as his smile. He glanced at me sideways. “Be the same age as everyone else in the class for once.”

Our shoulders relaxed. I laughed, leaning toward him. “Oh, the horror.”

For a moment, it was just Ryan and me, looking at each other. A stillness. Twelve inches between us. Twelve inches of morning sunlight and Addie’s growing unease and the sound of traffic from four floors down. It would have taken him a second to break that distance. It would have taken me less. But the twelve inches remained. A foot of distance, filled with all the reasons why we couldn’t.

There came another knock.

“Hally?” I asked Ryan, frowning. Unlike their brothers, Hally and Lissa weren’t morning people. It was nearing eight now, which meant they’d usually be asleep for another two or three hours at least.

Ryan stood, but motioned for me to stay seated. Before he could take a step toward the door, someone called out, “It’s me, guys. Let me in?”

It wasn’t Hally’s voice, but it was familiar nonetheless. Ryan threw me a look that was half relief, half exasperation, then crossed to open the door. “Hey, what’s up?”

Jackson strolled inside. Over time, I’d learned to differentiate between Jackson and Vincent—Vince. I discovered the subtle traits that separated the two souls despite their ownership of the same lanky frame, the identical shaggy, brown hair and pale blue eyes. Vince was the one who made me blush. Who seemed to always be making fun of me—of everyone. Who was never out of jokes. Maybe that was why he and Jackson were forever smiling.

But this was Jackson. I was sure. It was the way he looked at Addie and me that made it clear—like he wasn’t just looking, but studying. As if there would be a test later on Addie and Eva Tamsyn, and he was making sure he’d do well.

He’d visited Addie and me frequently since our escape, playing tour guide to our new life. It was through him that we’d learned about Emalia’s past, and Peter’s, and Henri’s.

“Hey, Jackson,” I said, and was rewarded with a grin.

Jackson and Vince were familiar and safe. The girl who entered next was a stranger.

She was just a little older than Jackson—perhaps nineteen—with dark eyes, thick, brown hair, and long, blunt bangs. A faded denim jacket sat bulkily on narrow shoulders, dwarfing her dancerlike frame. Jackson opened his mouth like he was going to introduce her, but she beat him to it.

“I’m Sabine.” She stuck out her hand. Her smile softened some of the gesture’s formality, but not all of it. Her grip was cool and firm, stronger than I’d expected from someone barely taller than we were.

It had been weeks since we’d met anyone new. I couldn’t help staring at her, studying everything from the missing gold button on her jacket to the scuffs on her turquoise ballet flats. Her nails were cut almost to the quick, but smooth, not like she’d bitten them.

<Stop it> Addie said. <She knows you’re staring.>

I looked away, but too late. Sabine’s eyes caught ours, and she smiled. Not disparagingly, though. Gently, like she understood.

“Josie and I have seen you around before,” she said. “When you guys were still staying at Peter’s place.”

Josie and I. Josie and Sabine, then—the two souls who shared this body. I still wasn’t used to the easy way hybrids here referred to themselves. Of course, they only did it in private, among other members of Underground, but it seemed like such a risk to even speak the names aloud.

“It’s Eva and Addie, right?” Sabine said. “And Ryan and Devon?” She turned to him. “We were just up at your place, but no one answered the door. Jackson’s been talking about these inventions you make. They sound amazing. Which was the one you were telling me about yesterday, Jackson? The clock—”

Ryan cut Sabine off with a harried smile. “I’m just messing around. It’s something to do.”

“I figured you guys were bored.” She looked around the apartment, as if she could flip through the days we’d spent cooped up here as easily as I flipped through Addie’s sketchbook. “Everyone goes through this when they first escape. It’s like quarantine. But you guys are planning to stay, right?”

“Stay?” Ryan asked.

Sabine nodded. “In Anchoit, I mean. You’re not going to let Peter ship you off somewhere?”

“No,” I said quickly. I looked toward Ryan. “Not if it would mean getting separated.”

“It probably would,” Jackson said. “Peter and them, they’ve got connections with sympathetic families across a pretty wide net, but they’re spread out. I doubt they’d be able to place you all in the same area. Especially since . . .” He looked at Ryan, then shrugged awkwardly. “Well, you know.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “I know.”

Placing Ryan and Hally would mean finding a family that looked like them. They were only half-foreign, on their father’s side—and their father wasn’t even really foreign; he’d been born in the Americas—but it still came through in the olive complexion of their skin, the shape of their brows, the large, deep-set look of their eyes, the curve of their chins. At least one member of any foster family would have to look like them. A nonforeign family adopting a foreign child would draw more attention than it was worth.

“We’re staying,” I said.

<We can’t live with Emalia forever> Addie said.

<It wouldn’t be forever. Only—>

We had three more years before we were eighteen. Of course, couldn’t Emalia forge us papers saying whatever she wanted? We could be eighteen in a few months, if need be. We could be eighteen right now.

“You guys can always come stay with us,” Sabine said. I looked at her in surprise. We’d only just met, and she was offering us a place to live? “I share an apartment with a friend of ours. There isn’t an extra room, but there’s a couch someone can use, and we could fit mattresses if we rearranged some furniture.”

“I’d offer my place, too,” Jackson said, “but it’s smaller. And between my roommate and me—”

“Between his roommate and him, they keep the place a complete dump,” Sabine said, laughing.

Jackson spread his hands and shrugged. “We’re busy people.”

Jackson and Vince worked part-time jobs all around the city. To date, we’d heard him refer to waiting tables, walking dogs, manning food stands at the park, and working in grocery stores. He seemed to lose jobs as quickly as he gained them.

He had to keep working. No one else was supporting him. But watching him smile now, he looked like any other eighteen-year-old boy on summer vacation. Never mind that he and Vince no longer attended school. They didn’t see the point. Neither, I supposed, did they have the time.

The phone rang before I could thank Sabine for her offer. Emalia had instructed us to take calls. Most of the time, it was just a telemarketer. The chance of someone recognizing our voice was small—smaller than the