Sabine began to reply, but the redheaded boy cut her off. She means: Dont you think its a problem that its okay now to stick institutions near a bunch of people? Everyone knows about them, but once upon a time, they still had enough of a conscience to not want a hundred dying children in their backyard. Now nobody cares?
His voice was familiarrough and heated and laced with anger. It had to be Christoph, the boy whod called this morning.
The countrys getting more and more apathetic, Peter, Christoph said. And the governments getting bolder. Soon, theyre not even going to worry about covering up stuff like the Hahns institution. Theyll be able to round up hybrid kids in the street and put bullets in their heads
Christoph, Peter said just as Jackson nudged the other boys shoulder with his own. Christoph quieted, but didnt control the mutinous look on his face. Were gathering more information about the Powatt institution. Once we know what we need to know, well address it as it needs to be addressed.
I had a sudden, gut-wrenching thought. <Is this how they talked about Nornand?>
How long had Peter gathered information before he decided to launch a rescue plan? The first time wed spoken with Jackson, when hed pulled us into that storage closet at Nornand, hed told us to keep hope because a rescue was coming, but it needed more time. Wed told him we didnt have more time, that Hally and Lissa were due for the operation table.
If Jackson hadnt spoken to us that day, the rescue might have happened days or even weeks later. Hally and Lissa might be dead.
Addies disquiet weighed heavy against me. <Do you think they could have acted earlier, but didnt?> She hesitated. <Do you think they could have saved Jaime?>
There was no way to know.
The rest of the meeting passed in a blur. By the time I managed to refocus on something other than my own tumbling thoughts, the room had broken up into more private conversations. I didnt notice Sabine heading toward us until shed almost reached our side.
Hi again, she said to us and Devon. There was a casual warmth to her voice, as if wed met more than once. Im glad you ended up making it.
Yeah. Addie didnt bother making our voice sound anything but dull.
The look in Sabines eyes said she understood. Hally broke the awkward silence that followed by smiling and introducing herself. As the two of them chatted, I snuck another glance at Peter. He was still seated at the dining table, deep in a conversation with Henri and Emalia.
<We cant say anything about the other Nornand kids now, can we?> I said.
How could I demand Peter rush into a rescue after what had happened at Hahns?
Still, I couldnt help my impatience. Every day we didnt act was another day those kids had to suffer. Wed survived Nornand. We knew what it was like.
Peter didnt notice our furtive looks, but Henri, sitting across from him, met our eyes. He smiled and nodded in acknowledgment.
Jackson had told us Henris story early on. Ryan and Hally only looked foreign, but Henri truly was foreign. He hadnt been born herehadnt grown up in the Americas, hadnt even learned English until he was in his twenties.
He and Peter had met nearly five years ago, when Peter made his first trip overseas. Then a fledgling journalist, Henri got to hear firsthand about a locked-down country, one that few had entered or left in decades, since the first few years of the Great Wars. The two kept a clandestine correspondence even after Peters return to the Americas. And a few short months ago, Henri made the trip here himself.
I couldnt imagine the danger hed put himself in, sneaking into a country that hated him, where the ebony-dark gleam of his skin and the strange lilt in his words could so easily give him away. The latter was the real problem. There were people who looked like Henri in the Americasmany more, in fact, than there were people who looked like Ryan and Lissa. But no one spoke like Henri did. He couldnt open his mouth without ruining the ruse.
Henri wasnt even hybrid. And yet hed come all the way across an ocean to try and help. Addie and I had seen the drafts of his articles, pages filled with strange sequences of letters, some with odd additionsextra marks where they didnt belong. French, Henri had explained, and read us a little, the syllables sliding and flowing into one another.
Theyd spoken French once, in parts of the Americas, especially far to the north. But languages other than English had been officially stamped out before Addie and I were born.
How often do Peters plans fail like this? Devon said abruptly. He was looking toward the dining table, too.
Hally sighed. Devon.
Not often, Sabine said. Hes meticulous.
Peter knows what hes doing. Hally looked to Sabine, as if for confirmation. Hes been at it for years.
Hally sighed. Devon.
Not often, Sabine said. Hes meticulous.
Peter knows what hes doing. Hally looked to Sabine, as if for confirmation. Hes been at it for years.
Almost five, now. Sabine smiled, just a little. I was in the first group he ever rescuedme and Christoph.
Long time, Devon said.
A long time to be free, and yet not really free.
Sabine and Devon observed each other like careful statues. Devon was a couple inches taller, but somehow Sabine made it seem like they were exactly eye to eye.
Yeah, she said finally. And listening to that one word, I could hear the long, trembling echoes of every one of those years.
SIX
Addie and I were still awake that night, thinking about Hahns, and Nornand, and dying children, when the nightmares came for Kitty.
At first, it was just a restlessness in her limbs. An inability to keep still. Then she cried outnot a scream, but a whimper, as if even asleep she knew she had to hide.
I hurried from our bed. It was too dark to see much, but Kitty had curled up into a ball beneath her covers, her breathing erratic.
Kitty? I whispered. Kitty, wake up. I gripped her shoulders as she rocketed upward. Her eyes snapped open. Shh . . . shh . . . Its all right.
There were no tears. No screaming. Just two wide, brown eyes and five dull fingernails digging into our hand.
Its okay, I said. Youre okay.
She pressed her face against our shoulder, a blunt, animal need for warmth and safety. I wrapped our arms around her. For a long time, neither of us said anything. Sometimes, the sight of Kitty in the bed next to oursor just the feel of her in our armsshocked me back in time to another shared bedroom. One where the beds were made of metal, not wood. Where the floor was cold and nurses came at intervals to check on us in the night.
Kitty spoke, her voice thick. Eva, are Sallie and Val dead?
What? The word dropped, a startled, black stone from our mouth.
Kittys hand tightened around our wrist until it hurt. Our old roommate at Nornand. Sallie and Val. The one we had before you and Addie. The onethe one they said had gone home. Like Jaime.
I shifted, trying to see her face, but Kitty resisted. Our shirt muffled her words. You rescued Jaime. And Hally. You wouldve rescued Sallie and Val if theyd been down there, right?
I couldnt speak. I could only think Oh, God. Oh, God.
Kitty and Nina having nightmares was nothing new. But neither had brought up their old roommate since leaving Nornand. Had the meeting earlier tonight sharpened old memories? Or had they been silently wondering all this time, too frightened to ask?
Id forgotten that they didnt know Sallie and Vals fate. I hadnt stopped to imagine what it might be like for them, not knowing.
Still, I didnt want to answer.
Go back to sleep, I wanted to say.
It was only a dream, I wanted to say.
But sleep wouldnt solve anything, and thisthis horror that had happened at Nornandwas not a dream.
How were we supposed to tell an eleven-year-old girl that her friend was dead?
That she had been, for all intents and purposes, murdered?
That no justice had been exacted?
But Kitty and Nina were waiting.
<Tell her> Addie whispered.
I crushed Kitty against us, not knowing if we were doing the right thing, if we were doing it the right way. Yes, they are.
She didnt reply. Her hands tangled in our shirt.
<She was all right before> I said helplessly. <Yesterday, she was laughing>
But she hadnt been all right, any more than wed been all right, or Ryan, or Hally, or Jaime. Wed been out of Nornand for six weeks, and sometimes, I wasnt sure what all right really meant anymore.
Kitty and Nina werent the only one with nightmares.
Youre safe, I whispered fiercely in Kittys ear. Nothing will happen to you. I promise.
I stayed with her for nearly an hour in the darkness, until she drifted back to sleep.
Henri had given us a world map three weeks ago, when Addie and I first arrived at Emalias apartment. Since you love it so much, hed said in his lilting, accented voice, and laughed when Addie fixed it above our bed with sticky tack. Hed brought the map from overseas, so it was like no map Addie and I had ever seen. Wed been fascinated since we first found it rolled up in a corner of his apartment.
Now, as dawn broke, sunlight seeped through the yellow curtains and crawled across the ceiling. Bit by bit, the map came into view. Our eyes took in the neatly labeled countries, each stained a different color. Russia, with its bulk, its eastern mountain ranges and great, thick, blue river veins. Australia, lonely in the southeast, a country and a continent. I thought of Australia most often. Despite the distance between us, there was a comforting familiarity to its loneliness.
The Americas were alone, too. Almost all the other countries of the world shared continents. A few were nearly the size of our northern half, but most were hardly a hundredth our size. How strange it must be to live in a country so small, surrounded so claustrophobically by other nations. The Americas dominated the entire western half of the map, two continents attached by a thread.
A familiar whirring and clicking came from Ninas side of the room, and I shifted to face her.
Nina Holynd. I kept my tone light even as I examined her, searching her expression for signs of the pain she and Kitty had crumpled beneath last night. Nina had always been better than Kitty at hiding pain. The mornings after the girls had a particularly bad dream, it was almost always Nina who took control. Who got out of bed smiling like the nightmares had never happened. You have got to find somebody else to film.