Free Once We Were by Kat Zhang Page A

of course. There are a couple buildings in the area where you can get access to the roof. We could toss the posters down from there; rain them on the crowd. We’d have to figure out the specifics, but no one would get hurt.”
    What are the chances we get caught?
I wanted to ask, but Addie was still in control, and Addie’s emotions were too tangled now to let her speak.
    “Flyers and fireworks,” Christoph said, like he was musing over the idea and found it sort of funny.
    Sabine nodded. She looked toward Devon. “But in the end, it all hinges on whether you’re able to get that information from Nalles’s computer.”
    Devon was quiet. His expression stayed utterly impassive, his body still. Then he said, “I can do that.”
    Sabine’s shoulders relaxed, just a little. She looked around the room at the rest of us. “So? What do you say?”
    “
I’m
in,” Cordelia said.
    Jackson wore that match-strike smile of his. “Same.”
    Despite his earlier exasperation, Christoph was quick to nod, too.
    
I said.
    She hesitated.

    
I said tentatively.

    I was so tired of just sitting around. I was tired of being cooped up in our apartment building, going up the stairs and down the stairs but getting nowhere.
    
    
Her voice sharpened. I felt her confusion rising, her frustration at her own inability to decide.

    She ripped away from our body’s reins. Control fell to me like a great weight, nearly suffocating in its pressure.
    She was right. I’d dreamed so long about being in control. Now that I could be, I had to start making my own decisions, not relying on Addie. Not relying on anyone.
    I exhaled and spoke quickly. Before I could think too much about it. Before I could talk myself out of it.
    “I’m ready to start doing something.”

NINE
    D espite her claims otherwise, Sabine had obviously already given this part of her plan a lot of thought. The attic transformed from clubhouse to situation room as she briefed us on everything. In exactly ten days, Hogan Nalles would give a speech in Lankster Square downtown. Nearby traffic would be rerouted. There would be security, obviously, but the specifics were still unknown. The speech was planned to last about twenty minutes, the entire event roughly an hour.
    “There are six of us,” Sabine said, gesturing as she spoke. “Devon and I will be in the building. Preferably, I’d like to have at least one person at the rally—at the scene or looking right at it—and reporting to us on walkie-talkie. We’d want to know exactly what’s going on. That leaves three of you to set off firecrackers.”
    
I started to say, then cut myself off. Would it be better to leave Hally and Lissa out of this? Maybe they wouldn’t want to be involved. But I didn’t want to keep secrets from them, either. It would be better, wouldn’t it, to let them decide themselves if they wanted to help or not?
    “If Hally joined us,” I said, “then we could do four.”
    Devon looked at us sharply, but said nothing.
    Sabine hesitated. “You think she’d be up for it?”
    “Maybe,” Devon said before I could answer. The word held such an air of finality that no one touched the subject again.
    “What we’re doing,” I said carefully, “won’t it just make security even tighter at the Hall?”
    Sabine shook her head. “Everyone important will be at the rally. Even if they get vigilant in the Hall, they’ll be looking for possible violence or a demonstration or something. Trust me. It’ll be fine. I know my way around the building.”
    It was almost four a.m. by the time we left the photography shop. Over the course of the night, Addie spoke with both Josie and