it wasn’t. Sabine was steady. Sabine could inspire confidence like no one else. But Sabine also often wore a weighing sort of look, like she could search inside a person and measure the quality of his soul. She had that look on now.
“I just wanted to talk,” I said. “About Friday.”
“Sure,” Sabine said lightly. She waved me toward the door and flipped the sign to
Sabine’s apartment was only a few minutes’ drive away. The building looked a lot like Emalia’s, old and run-down. The stairwell smelled like grease, and Sabine warned me not to put my weight on the railing.
“Home sweet home, I guess,” she said, unlocking one of the identical doors on her floor. The apartment was small, and like the photography shop, it was covered in pictures. But unlike those, these photographs were of people I recognized: Sabine laughing into the camera, Jackson and Cordelia at the boardwalk, even Peter as he turned, surprised by the flash.
I stared at a panorama of the darkened ocean. There was something troubling yet seductive about the blackened water, the slivers of moonlight at the crests of the waves. Out of the corner of my vision, I caught Sabine’s eyes sweeping the apartment, her forehead creased. Still searching for something.
“Cordelia and Katy are obsessed with taking the perfect night shot of the ocean,” Sabine said, noticing my attention and directing it back to the photo. “That picture there gets replaced every couple months. They’re never satisfied.”
The apartment was messier than I’d expected. I guess I’d always imagined Sabine would be neat. The attic was well kept. So was the rest of the shop. The apartment was clean, but cluttered with books, camera equipment, and loose paper. I stared at a strange contraption on the dining-room table for a few seconds before recognizing it as the cutaway lock Sabine had used to teach Devon how to lock-pick.
“You know what I think the perfect picture of the ocean would be?” Sabine asked. “A beach covered with snow. But it never snows here. As far as I’ve seen, it’s never even flurried. Did it snow, where you came from?”
I nodded. “Not often, though. And never very much.”
“Back home, it snowed several inches every year without fail.” She laughed suddenly. “Funny, isn’t it, how I still say ‘back home’? I haven’t been there in eight years, but somehow, it’s still home.”
Sabine traced a finger down the edge of the photo frame. “Someday, when this is over, I’ll head back up there. I’ll walk right to the front door and ring the bell. And when my parents answer, I’ll ask them what they were thinking, letting Jenson take us.” She turned away from the photo. “If they’re still there, anyway.”
“You haven’t forgiven them?” I asked quietly. If in eight years, Sabine hadn’t forgiven her parents, what did that predict for me?
“No.” She smiled wistfully. “But I’d go back anyway.”
She cleared some clothes from the couch and motioned for me to sit. “You and Ryan have been really amazing, Eva. You know that, right? I’m including Addie and Devon, too, of course. None of this would be possible without you guys.”
I shrugged, more embarrassed than pleased by her praise. “I haven’t really been doing much.”
“You drew the pictures for the posters at Lankster Square,” Sabine said.
“That was Addie.”
“But you two work together,” Sabine said. “You’re a team, Eva.”
“Okay,” I said, “but since then? Neither Addie nor I have helped. Not really.”
I wasn’t sure why I was pressing the point, other than the fact that I was getting increasingly upset and needed to lash out—about my own apprehension, my own possible cowardice, my need for Sabine to reassure me, and her inability right now to do so.
Maybe Sabine saw that. When she spoke again, her tone had grown a little harder. Not like she was annoyed with me, but like she understood I wasn’t a child to be placated by compliments.
“Eva, I know you’re probably having second thoughts about the plan. That’s normal. Just remember why we’re doing this, okay?” She waited until I gave a slight nod. “And remember, you don’t need to come on Friday. I think it would be better if you didn’t.”
I imagined Sabine setting the bomb, alone. Watching it explode, alone. I could hear the screech and groan of the building as it crumpled, the roar of the fire. I could almost see the look that would shine in Sabine’s eyes: quiet, powerful satisfaction.
“Peter—” I said.
“Peter’s great; he is,” Sabine said, cutting me off. Sabine rarely cut people off. She was almost always patient, ready to hear others out. “But if we keep going at the rate Peter’s going, God knows when we’ll be able to stop running and hiding, and start gaining ground.” There was a frenzy to her voice I’d never heard before. She tripped over her own words. “Eva, I’ve spent so much of my life afraid—so much of it just trying to get by. Just trying to survive. I can’t keep going like this. I don’t want to be thirty or forty or fifty years old and looking at my life, and it’s still the same, and I’m still scared and hoping that other people will make things change.
She looked me in the eye. “Peter thinks we’re all children, Eva. But at some point, you’ve got to grow up.”
Her words punched the air from my gut. Because she was right. I did have to grow up. I had to stop doubting myself, stop being so wishy-washy about things. Stop being so scared all the time.
“It’s okay, Eva,” Sabine said. She took my hand. The look in her eyes told me she understood everything. Understood
THIRTY-ONE
A swish of white cloth
A doctor’s coat, coarsely woven
In our six-year-old hands
No answer.
One of us wouldn’t
Grow up
Horror.
I woke to complete and utter horror. Horror that choked like fingers inside our throat.
It took me a second to realize Addie and I weren’t being attacked. Weren’t running for our lives. We were just sitting quietly in our room. But—
She tried to say something. Started to say something.
Then she was gone. Leaving me in the echoes of her terror.
Nothing.
Something had happened. Something must have happened.
Confusion and fear shoved me into the hallway. Made me shout, without thinking, “Emalia!”
Emalia and Sophie’s door was half-open; I heard her humming as she folded her laundry. Her head jerked up. “Addie? What’s wrong?”
“What was I doing?” I demanded. “Right before? A minute before? Where was I?”
Emalia abandoned her laundry and hurried toward me. “Eva? Are you all right? Calm down. You look—”
I backed away, too riled up to let anyone touch me. “Please—just tell me where I was a moment ago.”
“You were in your room,” Emalia said. “I thought Addie was sketching. I didn’t—”
