Once We Were

Addie’s voice.

<Tomorrow night . . . > she said. <The building isn’t going to be empty. There’s going to be a group of doctors and officials visiting. It’s going to be a big event—they’re . . . they’re giving them a tour of the facility, showing them the new surgical equipment. Jenson’s going to be there.>

Her words washed over me, trying to knock me over, but I would not I would not I would not fall.

<Eva> Addie said. There was a plea in my name. A plea and a reminder. A hand reaching out. A held breath, waiting for me to respond. <I think Sabine’s planning to set off the bomb when everyone’s inside.>

THIRTY-TWO

I waited and waited for the weakness to pass. For the riptide to ease and let me go. It didn’t.

<You have to believe me> Addie said.

I didn’t answer. But she could taste my disbelief, and I knew it. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t rein it back.

<Devon never liked this plan. And I—after seeing that bomb go off at Frandmill . . . He wanted me to look into things with him, and I agreed. And once Peter told us about Jenson—Devon broke into Sabine’s apartment. Took the floppy disk—the one they saved Nalles’s files on. He looked through them at Dr. Lyanne’s clinic. He figured out all the programs going on at Powatt. Who would be visiting. When.> It was Addie’s weariness that affected me more than anything. It killed my protests before I could form them into words.

For a moment, I was not angry. I was not scared.

I was just . . . disappointed.

I had thought, for once, that I was fighting for something. Taking action for myself, for something I could hold on to and lift high.

But all I’d done was entangle myself in another set of lies.

<Who else knows?> I said quietly. <Besides Sabine? >

It was a moment before she replied. <I’m not sure.>

<Jackson and Vince?>

She hesitated. I felt the stab of her pain. <I don’t know, Eva. I honestly don’t know.>

Murder. That’s what this would be, if the bomb went off when there were people inside the building. Murders, plural. I waited for some kind of visceral reaction, some gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, tear-inducing reaction, but none came. After the initial wave of nausea, I didn’t seem able to feel anything at all.

Someone knocked. I shuddered back into the world beyond Addie and me and the closed circle of our minds. Emalia shut the projector off and went to answer the door.

It was Ryan. He opened his mouth, but shut it again when his eyes focused on Addie and me. He frowned.

Then he wasn’t Ryan anymore.

I couldn’t tell what Devon read from our eyes and lips. I stared back at him. Somehow, control of our body had shifted back to me. I didn’t want it. I didn’t know what to do with it.

“Devon?” Emalia said. It was hard to miss the sober intensity on his face. But she didn’t comment other than to say, “Come in.”

I stood like I’d been waiting for him. Wordlessly, he came to me.

“You guys go on watching,” I told Emalia and Nina before following Devon down the hall.

“Addie filled you in,” he said once I’d shut our bedroom door.

Ryan, I thought. Ryan, do you know? Are you numb, like I am?

By unspoken accord, Devon and I waited in silence until we heard the projector start up again, heard the quiet mumble of Emalia and Nina speaking. I could feel Addie beside me, quiet but stronger, somehow. Bolstered. She’d accused me of being self-absorbed when I’d missed her relationship with Jackson. But I’d missed her friendship with Devon, too.

I motioned to the spot on the bed next to us, and Devon moved to fill it. No hesitation. No extraneous motions. The mattress indented under his added weight.

“Ryan—” I kept my voice low.

“He knows. I just told him.” Devon met our eyes. “We need to figure out how to confront the others.”

I kept getting flashes of emotion at the oddest moments—numbness, then a sudden wave of nausea, like someone was shoving at our organs.

It happened now at the word confront.

I took a deep breath. “Maybe . . .”

Maybe it’s a mistake.

<There’s no maybe> Addie said.

“Maybe what?” Devon said. “Maybe we’re wrong?” The lift of his eyebrow made it obvious how likely he found that to be. “Then we’re wrong. No harm in—”

I gaped at him. “No harm in accusing someone of—of—”

Of murder?

His eyes were steady. “And if we don’t, and Addie and I are right?”

I looked away. My mind felt so strange. So strange and adrift and wrong.

“This is going to happen tomorrow,” Devon said. He reached out and took hold of our arm. Our eyes jerked to meet his. I didn’t remember Devon ever touching us before. “We don’t have time—”

“Okay.” I pressed our fingers to our forehead and turned away. “Okay, I know. I know. I—”

“We’ll meet with them tomorrow morning,” Devon said, and I nodded, our face still turned toward the wall. “As soon as we can get in contact with everyone.”‘

I just kept nodding. I closed our eyes.

THIRTY-THREE

The next morning, everyone gathered in the attic, just as we’d requested. Sabine and Josie. Cordelia and Katy. Jackson and Vince. Christoph and the ever-silent Mason.

Us.

Devon stood a few feet from us, apart from the others. They were all sprawled around the couches, chatting.

Sabine glanced up. “So, what’s going on, Addie?”

Addie looked toward Devon, who gazed back at us. Addie had insisted that they be the ones in control when confronting the group. Or she’d insisted she be in control, anyway, and Devon had just turned up as if that were the natural progression of things.

Everyone was watching and listening. Expectant.

“Devon and I came up with a theory,” Addie said.

Our voice was weirdly tight, strangely formal. We sounded like we had during oral presentations at school, when we knew we hadn’t prepared enough and if the teacher asked the right question, we’d have to admit we had no idea what we were talking about.

Could the others see us trembling? Addie shifted, trying to find a way to distribute our weight to stop the