Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      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 …

       Acknowledgments

       Also by Kat Zhang

       About the Publisher

       PROLOGUE

      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 we’d 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 doesn’t mean sharing goals. Sharing eyes doesn’t mean sharing visions. And sharing a heart doesn’t 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 Kitty’s laughter when I tickled her. The breathless joy of Hally’s 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 didn’t cherish them the way I did—desperately. Because I never should have had them. Millions of recessive souls never reached age five, let alone fifteen. That was the way of the world—or 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 I—

      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