Once We Were by Kat Zhang

room.
    “Slaving away to feed you,” Ryan shot back. He gave her a dark look that quickly melted when he couldn’t bite back a laugh.
    “Well, somebody’s got to do it, brother dearest.” Hally and Kitty were bent over the camcorder, fiddling with its controls. “Emalia’s not actually going to develop this film, is she?”
    Kitty pulled the video recorder from her hands and pressed the record button before turning the lens in our direction. “She promised she would.”
    “Dear God,” Hally said. She winked at me. “Well, there go my plans for political office.”
    I burst out laughing again. Addie unwound a bit, then even more as my happiness infected her. Guilt suddenly pressed cold hands against our heart. Sabine hadn’t asked for Hally or Lissa to show up tonight.
    
I said.

    
    I didn’t, of course. But as I turned back to the stove, I realized I already hoped there would be.
     
    Anchoit’s streets were not completely empty, even at nearly two a.m. Still, they were quiet as Ryan and Addie slipped from our apartment building into the warm summer night.
    There would be more people downtown, where places stayed open late. I imagined music flowing out from low-lit bars, people laughing and stumbling from party to party. Emalia’s neighborhood was more known for pickpockets and the occasional gang fight than dance clubs.
    “Is that it?” Ryan said as we approached a fast-food joint. It gleamed yellow and red in the darkness.
    Addie hesitated. “I think so.”
    We peeked through the windows. The tiny restaurant looked deserted but for the cashier lounging behind the counter and a band of four people squished around a cheap plastic table. The blond girl had her back to us, as did the red-haired boy sitting next to her, but Sabine and Jackson faced us. The latter noticed us first, lighting up with a smile.
    “There you are,” Sabine called out as Addie came inside. Jackson pulled out an empty chair. It scraped against the linoleum floor.
    Ryan took the seat on our left, beside Sabine. Or maybe it was Josie, the other soul sharing her body. We didn’t know either of them well enough to tell.
    “Sabine,” the girl said, as if reading my mind. She smiled, then gestured to the redheaded boy. “You’ve already spoken with Christoph. And that one there—”
That one
rolled her eyes. Her bleached-blond hair curved to frame her face. Her eyebrows, which had been left dark, stood out in sharp contrast. “That’s Cordelia.”
    “And Jackson,” Jackson said before Sabine could continue. He smiled his match-strike smile. “Hopefully you haven’t forgotten
that
.”
    Sabine grinned. “You are so forgettable.”
    “We make him reintroduce himself every Thursday,” Cordelia said, but softened her words with an arm hooked around Jackson’s neck. She pulled him toward her, laughing.
    Addie smiled and snuck a look toward Ryan. But the boy on our left wasn’t Ryan anymore. Devon looked around the table with the air of someone studying a complicated puzzle.
    
Addie said.
    I hadn’t even considered the possibility that they weren’t.
    
I said.

    
    I didn’t like to think about that. Sabine had been rescued just under five years ago. In five years, Addie and I would be twenty. Would we still be in hiding? Would we have slipped into the skin of someone else’s life so fully their name slipped off our tongue like our own?
    “I’m—” Addie started to say, then hesitated. We couldn’t drop either of our names in public, even if there was no one around to hear but the guy reading behind the counter. We had the identity Emalia had