What’s Left of Me

Then the world gave out.

Someone must have opened the door, because all of a sudden we were falling—falling backward, and I was screaming for Addie to catch us before we slammed onto the ground, and she was flailing, and I was bracing for the both of us, bracing for the pain, because that was all I could do, until the falling stopped. The falling stopped, and we were staring up, up at the ceiling, and Addie was still crying in her—our—fear, and because she was crying, I was crying, and everything was secondary to our tears. But someone had caught us. His arms were around our body, holding us up.

“What the hell did you do?” he said.

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hh, Addie> I kept saying. <Shh, shh. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.>

We weren’t so much crying as just taking small, sharp breaths now. Addie wouldn’t—couldn’t—speak to me. But her presence pressed against mine, hot and limp with tears.

<Shh> I said. <Shh … Shh …>

“I didn’t mean to,” someone was saying. “She wouldn’t listen to me. I didn’t know what to do. You wouldn’t have done any better, Ryan, don’t tell me you would’ve—you weren’t even home, and you said you were going to be—”

“I would’ve done better than this.”

I heard them speaking, but Addie had closed our eyes, and our pain overrode everything else in the world.

<Addie, say something. Say something, please.>

“Addie? Addie, please stop crying. I’m sorry. Really, I am.” It was Hally. Or was it Lissa? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was Addie. Addie, who finally took one long, shaky breath and rubbed away the last of her tears. “Are you okay?”

Addie said nothing, just stared at the ground, hiccupping. I felt the heat of her rising embarrassment, of her horror for having broken down like this in front of someone, for having reacted the way she had.

<It’s all right> I said over and over again. <Don’t worry. Don’t think about it. It’s all right.>

Finally, Addie looked at the girl crouched beside us, who smiled shakily.

“Hally?” Our voice was hoarse.

The girl’s forehead wrinkled. She hesitated, then shook her head once.

“No,” she said softly. “No, I’m Lissa.”

<I don’t think she’s lying, Addie> I said. But she didn’t need me to tell her that.

“And Hally?” Addie whispered.

“Here, too,” Lissa said. “Hally walked home with you. Hally stopped you after class.” She smiled a sad, crooked smile. “She’s better at those kinds of things. I wanted her to tell you, but she said I should do it. She was wrong, obviously.”

Our mouth kept opening and closing, but nothing came out. This was out of—of a dream. What kind of dream? A nightmare? Or …

“That can’t—” Addie shook our head. “That can’t happen.”

“It can,” said Hally’s brother. He stood a couple feet away, still dressed in his school slacks and shirt, tie not even undone. I barely remembered jerking away from his arms, barely remembered seeing him at all, just the screwdriver in his hand and the doorknob gleaming on the floor. He’d dismantled it. “We—” We, I thought wondrously. Did he mean him and Hally? Or him and Hally and Lissa? Or him and his sisters and some other boy also inside him, some other being, some other soul? Looking at him, seeing the way he watched us, I knew it was the last. “We know Eva’s still there,” he said. “And we can teach her how to move again.”

Addie stiffened. I trembled, a ghost quivering in her own skin. Our body didn’t move at all.

“Do you want to know how?” the boy said.

“Now you’re scaring her, Devon,” Lissa said. Devon. Right, her brother’s name was Devon. But I was sure she’d used a different name a few minutes before.

“That’s illegal,” Addie said. “You can’t. They’ll come; if they find out—”

“They won’t find out,” Devon said.

The public service announcements. The videos we watched every year on Independence Day, depicting the chaos that had swept across Europe and Asia. The president’s speeches. All those museum trips.

“I have to go,” Addie said. She stood so suddenly, Lissa remained crouching, only her eyes moving up with us.

“I have to go,” Addie repeated.

<Addie—>

She shook our head. “I have to leave.”

“Wait.” Lissa jumped to her feet.

Our hands flew up, palms outward, warding her off. “Bye, Hally—Lissa—Hally. I’m sorry, but I’m going home now, okay? I have to go home.” She backed up, stumbling all the way t the end of the hall. Lissa started forward, but Devon grabbed her shoulder.

“Devon—” Lissa said.

He shook his head and turned to us. “Don’t tell anyone.” His eyebrows lowered. “Promise it. Swear it.”

Our throat was dry.

“Swear it,” Devon said.

<Addie> I said. <Addie, don’t leave. Please.>

But Addie just swallowed and nodded.

“I promise,” she whispered. She twisted around and darted down the stairs.

She ran the whole way home.

“Addie? Is that you?” Mom called when we opened the front door. Addie didn’t reply, and after a moment, Mom stuck her head out from the kitchen. “I thought you were eating at a friend’s house?”

Addie shrugged. She cleaned our shoes on the welcome mat, the rhythm of the action grinding the bristles flat.

“Is something wrong?” Mom said, wiping her hands on a dish towel as she walked over.

“No,” Addie said. “Nothing. Why aren’t you and Lyle at the hospital yet?”

Lyle wandered in from the kitchen, too, and we automatically looked him over, checking his skinny arms and legs for bruising. We were always terrified each bruise would develop into something worse. That was the way it always seemed to be with Lyle—food poisoning that had developed into kidney trouble, which had resulted in kidney failure. He was pale, as always, but otherwise seemed okay.

“It’s not even five yet, Addie,” he said, throwing himself on the floor and pulling on his shoes. “We were watching TV. Did you see the news?” He looked up, his face a mix of anxiety and excitement, eagerness and fear. “The museum caught on fire! And flooded, too! They said everybody could have gotten all electrocuted, like zzzzz—” He tensed and jerked back and forth, miming the throes of someone being zapped by electricity. Addie flinched. “They said hybrids did it. Only they haven’t caught them yet—”