Once We Were
The hotly anticipated and stunningly written second book in Kat Zhang’s heart-stopping Hybrid Trilogy.Imagine that you have two minds, sharing one body. You and your other self are closer than twins, better than friends. You have known each other forever.Then imagine that people like you are hated and feared. That the government want to hunt you down and tear out your second soul, separating you from the person you love most in the world.Now meet Eva and Addie.THEY DON’T HAVE TO IMAGINE.The second book in Kat Khang's heart-stopping Hybrid Trilogy
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Childrenâs Books 2015
HarperCollins Childrenâs Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
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Text copyright © Kat Zhang 2015
Design and typography © www.blacksheep-uk.com
Photo © Yolande de Kort/Trevillion Images
Kat Zhang asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780007490363
Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007476428
Version: 2014-11-25
For Dechan, who may not be my sister in blood, but is in soul
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Keep Reading â¦
Acknowledgments
Also by Kat Zhang
About the Publisher
We share a heart, Addie and I. We own the same pair of hands. Inhabit the same limbs. That hot June day, freshly escaped from Nornand Clinic, we stood and saw the ocean for the first time through shared eyes. The wind batted our hair against our cheeks. The sand stuck to our salt-soaked skin, turning our pale legs tan.
We experienced that day as weâd experienced the past fifteen years of our lives. As Addie and Eva, Eva and Addie. Two souls sharing one body. Hybrid.
But the thing is, sharing hands doesnât mean sharing goals. Sharing eyes doesnât mean sharing visions. And sharing a heart doesnât mean sharing the things we love.
Here are some of the things I loved.
The cold shock of the ocean when I stood waist-deep in the water, jumping at the crest of each oncoming wave. The sound of Kittyâs laughter when I tickled her. The breathless joy of Hallyâs dancing. The way Ryan smiled when I turned to look at him and he was already looking at me.
Addie liked these things, too. But she didnât cherish them the way I didâdesperately. Because I never should have had them. Millions of recessive souls never reached age five, let alone fifteen. That was the way of the worldâor so Addie and I had been taught. Two souls born to each body. One marked by genetics to disappear.
I was lucky in so many ways.
I told myself this every morning when we opened our eyes, every night before we went to sleep.
I am lucky. So lucky.
I was alive. I was, in some ways, free. In a country where hybrids were forbidden and locked away, Addie and I had escaped. And Iâ
I could move and speak again. Me, who had known since childhood that I was the recessive soul, destined to fade away. That my parents would mourn quietly, quickly, then move on. That they would tell themselves this was the way of the world, the way things had always been, and who were they to question the workings of nature?
Children were supposed to shed recessive souls, leaving them behind like they would one day discard their baby teeth. Just another step on the journey to adulthood.
The alternative, never settlingâretaining both soulsâmeant staying trapped in the chaos of a perpetual childhood, never gaining the steady, rational mind of an adult who could be trusted to control her own body. How could a hybrid ever fit into society? How would she marry? Would she be able to work, with two souls pulling and yearning in two different directions? To be hybrid was to be forever unstable, forever torn.
