Once We Were

“This is us looking out for you, Eva,” Sabine said. “I know it doesn’t seem that way, but it is.”

She turned to the others, and in that moment, shifted. Why? Because Josie wanted her moment to speak? Because Josie was better at planning kidnappings?

Or because, despite everything, Sabine couldn’t face us any longer?

“We’re going to need to keep them here until it’s over,” Josie said.

“Then what?” Christoph looked at Addie and me from across the room, his eyes somehow distant. “You can keep them here until it’s done, but as soon as you let them go, they’ll go straight to Peter.”

“They won’t,” Josie said. “Not after it’s too late.” Her eyes locked on mine. “It wouldn’t make sense. Tell Peter about it after the fact? And what’s he going to do? He wouldn’t—can’t—turn us in. You’d only be torturing him.”

“She’d go to the police,” Christoph said.

“She won’t,” Josie said. “I know she won’t. Because the building will already be down; those people will already be dead.”

You’re wrong, some part of me screamed. You’re wrong, you’re wrong. I would tell. I’d turn you all in, whatever the consequences.

But another part of me, buried deep, thought she might be right.

After the fact, would we have the courage to tell anyone? It wouldn’t bring the dead back. It might punish these people here, but—we were all hybrid. Who was to say how a police investigation might turn out? Who was to say what Cordelia or Jackson or Christoph might tell an officer under interrogation?

Kitty and Nina, Hally and Lissa. They’d done absolutely nothing wrong, but no one would care about that.

We’d all have to run again. Separately, maybe, this time.

We might be caught. Kitty and Hally might be caught.

Could I take that risk for a few lives that were already past helping?

I couldn’t.

I couldn’t.

Jackson’s figure was blurred, but we saw him turn away. We angrily blinked our vision clear again.

“I’ll call Emalia and Henri,” Josie said. “Tell them I went by and picked Eva and Ryan up so they could stay the night with Cordelia and me. Sabine and I will come up with something. They won’t suspect.”

Of course they wouldn’t. Who would ever dream of the scene in this attic right now? Ryan and me gagged and bound with duct tape?

I screamed into our gag, writhing and straining against our bonds. It didn’t last long. Soon, we were out of breath and dizzy from lack of oxygen, from pure panic.

Josie’s look was gently pitying.

“Please don’t,” she said quietly. “You might hurt yourself. You’re already bleeding. Head wounds always do, worse than usual.”

The trickle down our neck. I’d thought it was sweat. Was it blood?

“Someone’s going to need to be here at all times,” Josie said. “We’ll take turns. I’ll start.”

THIRTY-FIVE

Cordelia left first. Christoph was next, moving slower. His lip still bled, and he kept rubbing at it, smearing the blood across his chin.

“Go clean yourself up in the bathroom,” Josie said as he made his way down the stairs. “And bring me up the first-aid kit.”

He made no reply, but returned in a few minutes with his face clean and a small, white box in his hands. Josie nodded her thanks. He walked away without a word and this time did not come back.

Now it was just Josie and Jackson, who still stood across the room, staring toward the window. His arms were crossed. We tried not to look at him. It hurt every time we did.

<Addie?> I ventured, but all I got was a wordless response that felt like a suppressed scream.

Josie approached Ryan with the first-aid kit. He didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore—not profusely, anyway. He stared at her but didn’t recoil as she cleaned the blood from his face.

“Jackson,” she said as she worked. She didn’t look at him. He didn’t notice, because he wasn’t looking at her. “You can go. It will be all right.”

He half turned. For a moment, I thought he might argue. His eyes swept through a point a little above our head, his lips parting. But then he just nodded.

More than Christoph or Cordelia or even Sabine, I was furious at him. Because Addie had trusted him, had been happy with him. And now that was gone.

He disappeared down the steps.

Josie crouched in front of me. “Will you hold still if I try to get that blood out of your hair?”

The gag pressed against our tongue, the sides of our mouth. I didn’t reply. She dabbed at the back of our head with a damp cloth.

She didn’t try to say anything more to either Ryan or us, and while she was busy tending to our head, I met Ryan’s eyes. He held our gaze a moment, then began looking around the room. At first I thought he was following the string of fairy lights.

Then I realized he was looking at the nails.

They were old, long but not particularly thick.

<Addie> I whispered. She was still curled up tight, and I knew how hard it could be to let go once you got like that. But I knew, too, that sometimes it was better to. <If we could get to one of those nails . . . >

Addie’s voice was the faintest of echoes. <We’d have to stand up first, Eva. And it would take forever. She’d notice.>

<Then we wait. Until the right moment. Or we figure out some other plan. But Addie . . . > I reached for her with ghostly fingers, drew her free from her hiding corner in the back of our minds. <We’re getting out of here before nightfall. And we’re stopping them.>

This was much easier decided than accomplished. Josie stayed with us all through the day, leaving only briefly when Katy dropped by in the afternoon to ask if she wanted to go home for a bit. Josie didn’t, but she left us with Katy to run and get food as well as call Emalia. She closed the trapdoor, so her voice was muffled by the ceiling and layers of insulation.

Katy stood uneasily by the hatch, not looking at Ryan and me. I tried to take the opportunity to scoot closer to Ryan, but my movement caught her eye.

“Don’t,” she said. The command was strong, despite the guilt wrought into her body. The usual cloudiness in her voice was gone, replaced by a pained sort of steel.

I stopped.

The bell downstairs tinkled faintly, signaling that Josie had left the store. We hadn’t heard any customers enter or leave all day. Josie must have closed the shop.

<Do you think she’ll feed us?> Addie said.

<I don’t know. Does it matter? We’re not hungry.>

It had been hours since we last ate, but our stomach was clamped too tightly for food.

<She’ll have to take this gag off if she does, though> Addie said.

<I don’t know how much screaming would help.>

We’d screamed earlier, but no one had come.

<Maybe we can bite her> Addie said bitterly.

I didn’t answer. Bitterness was better than pain, better than paralyzing fear. I’d allow Addie all the bitterness she wanted. She deserved it.