What's Left of Me (27 page)

I looked away. “And Mr. Conivent? Dr. Wendle? What about them?”

Sometimes, when Addie and I didn’t have nightmares about scalpels and crinkly white butcher paper stained with blood, we dreamed about Mr. Conivent lying motionless on the floor.

Dr. Lyanne’s lips thinned. “I don’t know. The surgeries were technically legal. They never acted without parental consent. But—” she said as our mouth fell open. “But everyone knows that if news gets out about this, there’s going to be backlash, legal or not. As far as the review board—the government—is concerned, Nornand clinic was a complete failure.” She laughed bitterly.

Addie said.

If he were dead. Because that was the fear that dragged down our limbs. That somehow, in our panic, we’d hit him too hard or in the wrong place. That we’d killed him.

“They’re all scrambling to save their own skins,” Dr. Lyanne said. “But everything will get buried. Everything will be erased. A few years down the road and it’s going to be like it never happened.”

I laughed so sharply Dr. Lyanne flinched. “Except Jaime. And Sallie, and all the other kids who
died
. That’s going to stay. That’s never going to be erased. And all those kids who didn’t get out. They’re still stuck. They’re still in danger.” I closed our eyes for a moment, gripping the iron railing. “Might have been different,” I said.

“You saw me at Mr. Conivent’s desk.” Dr. Lyanne was still looking out at the bleeding sky. “That was your screwdriver he found, wasn’t it?”

I said nothing.

“Thank you,” she said. “For distracting him.”

“It was Cal,” I said. “Not me.” Down below, a couple of teenagers strolled by in a big group, far enough away to be faceless. But I could read the levity in the way they moved. I turned to Dr. Lyanne. “Was it important, at least?”

She was quiet. “It showed me Peter wasn’t lying.” Finally, she looked at us. “That paper, Addie—”

“Eva,” I said.

It took her a second, but she said it. “Eva. That paper had codes on it, each for a different country. Medication from different places is coded based on region. Of course, you’ve got to have special access to know which number codes for what, but—”

“But what?” I said.

“The medication in that box came from overseas, Eva,” she said. “And I don’t think it’s just medication. I think we’re getting parts from them, too. The plans for our machines. The technology for our equipment. All from overseas.”

I had to hold on to the railing because our knees had gone soft.

The vaccines. Were they shipped here from some foreign country, too? Some hybrid country?

If they were hybrid, why were they helping the government exterminate us?

“How can anything the government’s told us about the rest of the world be true if
they’re
the ones sending us supplies?” Dr. Lyanne said. “Eva, they’re better off than we are. They’ve got to be. At least some of them.”

Some of our earliest memories were of the film clips of the wars, the bombs falling, the cities in flames. Even in first or second grade, they hadn’t shied away from telling us about the destruction and the death overseas. The hybrid countries, engulfed by chaos and never-ending wars, always ready to launch into a new battle at the slightest provocation. Supposedly, the Americas had ceased trade—had cut off any sort of communication, really—since the years right after the invasions. We’d been taught there wasn’t anything worth trading for over there, nothing worth seeing.

Europe. Asia. Africa. Oceania. All hybrid, all devastated, all burning.

“All lies,” Dr. Lyanne said so quietly I didn’t know if she meant to speak to us or to herself. “Everything. Anything they tell us could be . . .” She quieted. Pushed herself away from the railing. Took off her shoes so she didn’t wobble on her way back to the window. Left us by the edge of the fire escape sinking in our shock, wishing we were standing on more solid ground.

And suddenly, I thought of the man in Bessimir. The hybrid at the center of the storm of angry people, the one who’d been accused of flooding the history museum. The one who, from some angles, looked like our uncle.

Those pipes. How many times have we said to get those pipes fixed?

He hadn’t done it. Maybe. Probably. Perhaps.

What mattered was that it
didn’t
matter. He might never have stepped foot in that museum in his life, and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Because our government lied. Because our president lied. Because our teachers lied. Or didn’t even know the truth of what they doled out in class, of what marched across their blackboards, lay bound in their textbooks.

“Michelle,” Dr. Lyanne said.

I didn’t need to ask. Apparently, the question was obvious enough on our face.

“You asked me if I remembered her name,” Dr. Lyanne said.

Addie said.

What was she like?
we’d whispered.
Your other soul. The one you lost. Do you even remember her name?

“It was Michelle,” she said, and the words dissipated in the warm, salty air.

Thirty-five

W
e’d never been in the ocean before, never tasted the salty water as we jumped in the waves, never felt the sand shifting underneath our feet. I splashed Hally and she threw back her head, shouting with laughter. The wind whipped her hair into her face. Kitty and Jaime were searching for seashells in the sand, their backs to us. None of us had bathing suits, but that was okay. We had the whole summer ahead of us. We had the summer after that, and the summer after that, and the one after that.

The days were getting hotter and hotter. When the sun was searing and brilliant, it could almost burn away our coldest memories of Nornand’s white halls. Lyle, I thought, would love this to bits. I pushed the thought away. It hurt too much.

I sloshed my way through the surf, the bottom of our shorts dripping, our shirt plastered to our skin. The cuts on our legs had scabbed over, and the salt water didn’t aggravate them. Even the old gashes on our hand and forehead only stung a little when a wave splashed against them. They’d scar, but that couldn’t be helped.

Jackson had come with us, though he stood a good distance from the water. Unwilling, perhaps, to insert himself into our group. He waved at me.

Addie said.

“Having fun?” Jackson said as I splashed from the water and drew closer. The deep blue of the ocean washed out the blue of his eyes, making them seem almost transparent. I smiled, then looked away again, because he wasn’t the boy I’d been looking for.

The sun made me squint, but I found Ryan easily. He stood at the edge of the water, a dozen yards from where Hally and I had been. His shoes were still on. The wind made his hair fly up a bit in the back, and my grin grew wider, then faded.

“What’s the matter?” Jackson said.

“What?” I said. “Nothing.”

“A girl doesn’t look like that when nothing’s the matter,” Jackson said. He laughed. “He doesn’t know you like him?”

I flushed and didn’t turn to face him. “How do you know I like him?”

Jackson just laughed again.

“Well, he knows,” I said. I didn’t even have to concentrate to remember the kiss in the hallway, the warmth of his mouth, the pressure of his hands. A kiss snatched in the dark that was enough to outshine all the sun at the beach.

“He doesn’t like you back?” Jackson said doubtfully.

Ryan’s back was to us. He glanced at his sister, then turned to the ocean, the wide, gleaming expanse of it.

“No,” I said. “No, that’s not it.” Addie stirred but didn’t speak. I didn’t want to say anything, either, because how could I without sounding like I was blaming her? I wasn’t blaming her. This was simply the way things were.

“It’s not just about us, though, is it?” I turned away from Ryan and met Jackson’s eyes. He was tall enough that I had to crane our head back to look up. “Addie . . .”

Jackson’s smile drooped a little. “But Addie doesn’t have to be there.”

“Of course she does.” I frowned. “That’s the point. We’re hybrid. We’re never alone. We—”

“You’ve never disappeared and come back?” Jackson said.

I stared at him.

The sun beat down on us, hot, hot, hot.

“Never?” he said quietly. “Never made yourself go to sleep? Left Addie alone?”

The summer of our thirteenth year. I’d slipped away for hours. No medication. No drugs. Just me, wanting to disappear.

“But—” I said.

“It takes practice,” Jackson said. His eyes were gentle now. “A ton of practice, if you want to really get it down to a science. But it’s normal, Eva. It’s what everyone does. I thought you knew.”

How could we have known? Who could have told us what was normal and what wasn’t? I’d spent my whole life gripping on, terrified to let go.

Hally called Kitty and Jaime into the water, laughing as the two dropped their shells and obeyed without even bothering to kick off their shoes.

Addie said.

I said.

It was too much for right now. For this day. This moment. And Jackson must have understood that, too, because he didn’t say anything else, just smiled at me when I tried to smile at him. I left his side.

Ryan was still by the edge of the water.

I approached him gingerly, afraid he’d become Devon before I could reach him. But he didn’t shift. He just watched me.

“Hey,” he said once I was only a few feet away.

“Hi,” I said and stepped closer. My toes sank into the sand.

Ryan closed the last few feet. The water lapped at his shoes, at my bare feet. “You’ve been talking with Peter.”

It was true. I’d started joining his meetings with his friends, listening in on what it meant to be hybrid and free and fighting in this country. Asking him if what we’d heard about the countries overseas was true. If they were really thriving, really sending us supplies.

It was. They were.

The other children’s faces still haunted our dreams. Bridget. Cal. Shunted off to another hospital. Another institution. Stuffed into another uniform.

But that was what Peter and the others were working on. Destroying the institutions. Freeing all these children who were abducted from their homes. Whose families could never speak of them again.

We were a part of that now.

“Ryan!” Hally shouted. She laughed, waving at us. “Eva, what are you doing? Get over here.”

Ryan grinned at me. I smiled back. He took my hand and pulled me deeper into the water, the waves pushing and pulling us, back and forth, back and forth.

“Your shoes—” I said, laughing, but he didn’t stop. He laughed, too, and I felt lighter than I’d ever felt before. Full of sunlight and air and clouds.

I closed my eyes, my hand tight in Ryan’s. His grip oriented me just like it had that day so long ago when I lay blind and immobile on his couch—frightened and confused and under everyone’s control but my own. I let the sunshine soak into my skin.

Addie was warm and radiant next to me, making up half of
us
. But I—I was Eva, Eva, Eva, all the way through.

Acknowledgments

A
fter ten minutes of staring at a blank page, I suppose it’s time to take the plunge and begin. It’s hard to know where to start. Getting a book to readers is very much a team effort, and so many people have worked together to wrangle
What’s Left of Me
between covers and out into the wild. If I named each and every one of them, the list would take me months to draft and you days to read!

So with many apologies to those I cannot credit by name, my unending thanks go out to . . .

 . . . My parents, first and foremost, for loving me so much, for being forever there when I need them, for telling me I am capable of accomplishing whatever I dream of.

 . . . Alyssa G. and Kirstyn S., who were the very first people to see a word of
What’s Left of Me
, reading pages as I wrote them. Your encouragement drove me to keep going, even when all of us should have been studying for IB exams. J I once jokingly told you guys you’d be on the acknowledgments page if this old story ever got published, and hey, it did, and hey, here you are!

 . . . The ladies of Publishing Crawl, who are the best writing buddies (and most wonderful friends) anyone could ask for. Huge thanks to Savannah Foley and Sarah Maas, especially, for reading at least four or five separate drafts of
What’s Left of Me
apiece, sometimes in less than twenty-four hours, and never letting your patience fray.

 . . . All the other wonderful people who read early drafts of the book for me, helping me wrestle the story into a semblance of what it is today. Thank you for your notes and your support. I’ve so appreciated each and every one of you!

 . . . My agent extraordinaire, Emmanuelle Morgen. I don’t know where I or the Hybrid Chronicles would be without you! I’ve so loved working together and look forward to many more years. A big thank-you goes to Whitney Lee, too, who allowed the Hybrid Chronicles to hop across oceans and see publication all around the world.

 . . . My fabulous editor, Kari Sutherland, and the rest of the team at HarperCollins Children’s. Thank you all so, so much for everything. Kari, your insights and suggestions, comments and critiques made
What’s Left of Me
such a stronger story.

 . . . And last but not least, a certain Ms. V. Patterson—who possibly does not remember me, but whom I recall fondly—for being my first introduction to any sort of professional writing, for guiding a twelve-year-old through submitting short stories, for not telling me I was too young, and for convincing me I had something to offer the world.