What’s Left of Me. Kat Zhang
seat. Someone pulled our chair away from the table. Then more hands, around our waist now. Finally, there was a heave and we were in the air, being carried slowly toward some unknown destination. And I, trapped inside this body that was and wasn’t mine, couldn’t even say a word aloud.
Where were they taking us? Had this all been a trick? A trap? Was this how the government rooted out hybrids who’d escaped institutionalization? By pretending they had friends, had people who understood? By letting them feel like they weren’t alone and then snapping them up while they were vulnerable? We’d walked right into it. Or I had, and I’d dragged Addie down with me.
I’d been so stupid. So trusting. So desperate to believe I might move again.
“Could you get that pillow, Lissa? That one … and just put it here …”
I felt something soft and solid below us. The hands let go. They weren’t taking us out of the house, then. Maybe they weren’t planning on kidnapping us. I didn’t even feel anything akin to relief—just a little less sick.
<Addie> I said. <Addie, what have they done to us?>
“Eva?” It was Devon. “Eva, listen.”
I was listening. I was listening, but they couldn’t know because Addie wasn’t here to tell them.
“Eva, if you’re freaking out, you have to stop. You have to listen to us. Addie’s fine. She’s just … asleep right now because of the medicine. We didn’t think she’d take it if she knew—”
They’d drugged us. They’d really drugged us. A flash of anger seared through me, singeing away just a little of the fear.
“Eva, can you move?”
Of course I couldn’t move!
“The medicine will help, Eva,” Lissa said. “Try and wriggle your fingers.”
I tried. I tried like I’d been trying for years—if only so I could get the hell away from here. Nothing happened. I was trapped in a dead prison of skin and bones, shackled to limbs I couldn’t control. What sort of plan was this? Were they trying to help us? Like this?
<Addie?> I said. <Please, Addie, wake up.>
A hand enveloped mine, and I couldn’t jerk away.
“Eva,” someone said. “Eva, this is Ryan.”
Ryan. Devon’s voice, but Ryan’s, just as Addie’s voice was also mine. Had been mine.
“We haven’t really met yet, but we will. Right now we just want you to try and move your fingers. Move the fingers of the hand I’m holding right now.”
The gentle pressure on our right palm helped orient me. I mentally traced up to the tips of our fingers. Then I tried again to curl them. I tried. I really did.
“It’s been years, I know,” Ryan said. “It’s been a long time, but not too long. You can still do it, Eva.”
<I can’t> I said. <I can’t. I can’t. Not like this.>
Not alone in the dark like this.
“Eva? Are you still trying?”
<Yes> I said, almost crying. <Yes. Yes.>
“I know it’s hard,” he said.
<Do you?> My voice reverberated shrilly in the chasm that had stolen Addie. <Have you ever been like this? Drugged and alone?>
He didn’t hear, so he couldn’t respond. Instead, a new voice broke through the darkness. Lissa? Hally?
“Eva, trust us.”
Trust them!
“The medicine will wear off in a little bit,” she said. “So please, please try.”
I tried. I lay there in the dark, listening to them talk at me, and tried for what seemed like hours. Finally, exhausted and ready to scream, I stopped.
“That’s right,” Lissa said. “That’s good. Keep going.”
“You’ve almost got it,” Ryan said. He’d said it at least ten times.
<I’m not> I raged. <I’m not close at all.>
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t good enough, wasn’t tough enough. It had been too long. And Addie—Addie was gone. I couldn’t do it without her. I had never done anything without Addie.
I’d dreamed so long of being able to move again, every fantasy tasting equally of longing and terror. But I’d never dreamed I would be alone like this. That it would happen like this.
“Come on, Eva.”
No. No—
“You can do it.”
Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up. I can’t do it. I ca—
“Eva—”
“I can’t!”
Silence.
“Eva?” Lissa breathed. “Eva, was that you?”
Me?
Oh.
Oh.
“Ryan—did you hear that? Did you hear her?”
My head spun.
“Can you do it again?” Ryan said.
I’d spoken. I’d formed words and moved our lips and tongue and spoken.
They’d heard my voice.
<Addie?> I said. <Addie, I spoke. I spoke.>
From far within the abyss, a pulse.
<Addie?>
Again the pulse. Then came a feeling like the drawing of a breath. A tendril of something as light and insubstantial as dawn haze floated from the chasm.
<Eva> it whispered, warm and frightened. <Eva?>
Then she was back, bleary-eyed and weak and confused, but back, back, back, filling that terrible hole inside us. Making us whole again. Making us how we were meant to be.
<Eva> she said. <What happened?>
<Shh> I said. I was laughing, almost crying in relief. <Shh, it’s okay. We’re okay. Don’t worry. Don’t worry.>
She believed me. She kept our eyes closed, and she relaxed little by little.
<Eva> she murmured. <I had the strangest dream. Did you have it, too?>
<I … I can’t raise our arm> she said. We could see Lissa and Ryan now, and they were crouched by the sofa. They kept talking, their words washing over us but barely sinking in. Addie wasn’t listening at all. I heard enough to know the drug would take a little longer to wear off completely.
<Don’t worry> I said. <It’ll be okay in a bit.>
<It was the tea, wasn’t it?> she said.
<It was> I didn’t tell her anything she didn’t ask about. I didn’t tell her what had happened while she slept. I didn’t tell her I had spoken.
I didn’t think she was ready to know.
Addie