Free Echoes of Us by Kat Zhang

like she was speaking, or perhaps singing, to herself. Her eyes met ours at random, then skittered away again. Other than us and Bridget, she was probably the eldest in the room. There was something missing in her eyes.
    Bridget knew we were approaching her. I could tell by the way she started to angle away from us, then caught herself and stubbornly, awkwardly, stayed exactly where she was. She stood by the foot of one of the beds, her hand planted on the metal railing.
    Back in Anchoit, Addie and I had thought endlessly about the other kids at Nornand. The ones we’d meant to save. Would have saved. Should have saved. Addie and I had gone down to the basement because we insisted on freeing Hally and Jaime. Dr. Lyanne had been the one responsible for getting the other children out.
    Whose fault was it that they’d never made it?
    Ours, for breaking away from the group?
    Dr. Lyanne’s, for not making it to the door, and Peter’s waiting vans?
    Or Bridget’s?
    Bridget, who told the nurse that something suspicious was going on, blowing Dr. Lyanne’s cover as she led the remaining children through the hall.
    Bridget, who’d wanted so badly to be saved. Just not by Peter.
    I drew up beside her. She was a little shorter than we were, her hair straighter, and even blonder than our newly bleached color. During our time at Nornand, I’d never seen her bite her nails, but they were ragged now, destroyed almost to the quick.
    She fisted her hands when she caught me looking. “Darcie, huh?”
    She looked around. Some of the other girls were watching us now. Curious, in a dull sort of way.
    “Well, Darcie.” Bridget put the slightest bit of overemphasis on our fake name. “Like the man said. There are plenty of beds. Don’t feel obliged to choose one, you know, around here.”
    There was something ridiculous about the way she spoke. Like she was drawing reference from half-forgotten movies or books on how to be haughty. She was a caricature of disdain, and suddenly, I couldn’t understand how Addie and I had ever seen her as more than just a thirteen-, fourteen-year-old girl utterly lost in a world that wanted her dead.
    It didn’t alter what she had done. But it softened my anger, and my fear.
    “I’ve done nothing to you,” I said.
    She gave a bitter, huffing laugh. “You change things. You come, you mess around and—and things change for the worse. So please—” Her voice caught. She wrestled with it. Won. “Please pick a bed far over there and try not to ever talk with me again.”
     Addie said dryly, and I almost left it at that. I almost nodded and walked away. But there was the flicker of something in Bridget’s expression. Or maybe it was the way her hand still gripped the rusted iron bed railing. I couldn’t put it in words. But it made me stop.
    “Do they listen?” I whispered.
    Bridget frowned and looked around at the other girls. Then realization dawned over her face. Her gaze darted up to the ceiling. A security camera perched up there, its tiny light blinking red.
    “No,” she said. “They watch, but they don’t listen.”
    I nodded. “Thanks.”
    Her arms crossed over her body. “For what? I answered a question, that’s all.”
    I shrugged and offered her a small smile. Turned to go.
    I hadn’t taken two steps when she said, “They’re going to take everything. They’re very strict on security here, especially after what happened in July.”
    The breakout attempt that had ended in death and disaster.
     Addie said quietly. I understood her sudden guilt. Bridget had been here, while Addie and I were safely tucked away in Anchoit.
    Slowly, I turned.
    Bridget pulled something from her pocket. Two little lengths of white string, I realized. They looked like they could have been unraveled from someone’s shirt. “Anyway, like I said. They take everything away here. So if you want to keep that ring, you better find some way to hide it.”
    I fisted our