Believe Me (Shatter Me #6.5)(6)

Ella squeezes my hand and I turn to face her.

You okay? she seems to say.

She’s done this a lot lately, speaking to me with her thoughts, her emotions.

For a moment, I can only stare at her. A riot of feeling seems to have fused inside me, fear and joy and love and terror now indistinguishable from one another. I lean down, kiss her gently on the cheek. Her skin is so soft I’m tempted to linger, even as the emotional disgust of our audience ratchets only higher.

I’ve been afraid to touch her lately.

In fact, I’ve done little more than hold her since we fled Oceania. She nearly died on the flight home. She was already weak when we found Emmaline, having spent most of her energy fighting to kill the poisonous program overriding her mind; worse, she’d torn the tech free from her arm, leaving behind a gaping, gruesome wound. She was still bleeding from her ears, her nose, her eyes, and her teeth when she tore through Max’s light, stripping the flesh from her fingers in the process. She was so drained by this point that even with Evie’s reinforcements her body was failing. She landed badly and snapped her femur when she fell loose from Max’s holding chamber, and then used what little strength she had left to first kill her own sister and then set fire to the capital of Oceania.

When the adrenaline wore off and I saw, for the first time, the edge of severed bone jutting through her pant leg—

The memory is not worth describing.

The next several hours were grim; we had no healers on the flight home, no sufficient pain medication, nothing more than a basic first aid kit. Ella had lost so much blood—and was in such excruciating pain—that she soon fell unconscious. I had no doubt she would die before we touched ground. That she survived that horrific plane ride was its own miracle.

When we finally arrived on base Sonya and Sara did everything they could to help Ella, but they made no promises; even as Ella’s physical injuries healed, she was unresponsive. She was incapable of even opening her eyes.

For days, I wasn’t sure she would make it.

“Aaron—”

“Secrets,” I whisper, forcing myself to draw away. “Nothing to worry about.”

She studies my eyes. I feel her quietly wage war, happiness and doubt fighting for dominance.

“Good secrets?” she asks hopefully.

My heart lurches at the softness in her voice, the smile that lights up her eyes. I never cease wondering at how skillfully she compartmentalizes her emotions, even in the wake of so much brutality.

Ella is strong where I have forever been weak.

I lost faith in people—in the world—long ago. But no matter how much bloodshed and darkness she experiences, Ella never seems to lose hope in humanity. She is always striving to build a better future. She is always gentle and kind with those she loves.

It is still so strange to me that I am one of those people.

I feel the hum of Castle and Nouria’s increasing impatience, and my resentment grows only larger; I generate a fresh smile for Ella and walk away as I do, having left her question unanswered. I don’t know what Nouria needs from me, but I fear her news is bleak; no doubt Ella’s life is at risk in some new way we’d not anticipated.

The thought alone fills me with dread.

Unbidden, I feel my hands tremble; I shove them in my pockets as I go. The hesitant bark of a mangy dog is soon followed by the sound of its paws tapping the ground, the little beast picking up speed as it hurries to keep pace with me. Briefly, I close my eyes.

This place is a zoo.

Even as I recognize the importance of our work, there remains a regrettably large portion of my mind that finds everyone here detestable—everything here detestable.

I am tired.

I want nothing more than to escape this noise with Ella. I want, above all else, for her to be safe. I want people to stop trying to kill her. I want, for the first time in my life, to live in peace, undisturbed; I want to be required by no one but my wife.

These, I realize, are unattainable fantasies.

Castle and Nouria both nod at me as I approach, indicating that I should follow their lead as they turn down the path. I already know they’re headed to Nouria and Sam’s office—affectionately labeled the war room—where we’ve had many similar meetings.

I glance back just once, hoping to catch a final glimpse of Ella’s face, and instead home in on Kenji, whose thoughts are so loud they’re impossible to ignore. I experience a flash of anger; I know he’s going to follow me even before he moves in my direction.

Between him and the dog trailing me, I’d choose the dog.

Still, both creatures are on my heels now, and I hear Adam laugh as he says something unintelligible to Winston, the two of them no doubt enjoying the spectacle that is my life.

“What?” I say sharply.

The approaching shadow soon evolves into flesh beside me, Kenji matching my strides down the overgrown path, our boots crushing aggressive weeds underfoot. Figures dot the periphery of my vision, their feelings assaulting me as I go. Some of them still think I’m some kind of hero, and are consumed as a result by an idiotic devotion to a warped perception of my identity. My face. My body.

I find these interactions suffocating. Just now, Kenji’s anger toward me is so audible I feel it giving me a headache. Still—better anger, I think, than grief.

The collective grief of a crowd is nearly unbearable.

“You know, I really thought you’d be less of an asshole once we got J home,” he says flatly. “I see nothing has changed. I see all the efforts I made to defend your shitty behavior were for nothing.”