Destroy Me (Shatter Me, #1.5)(26)

Brendan. The thin boy with platinum-blond hair and electric currents running through his veins. I remember him. He was nice to me. “I like Brendan,” I tell Castle, bewildered. “Is he upset with me?”

“Upset?” Castle shakes his head, laughs out loud. He doesn’t answer my question. “I don’t understand, Ms. Ferrars. I’ve tried to be patient with you, I’ve tried to give you time, but I confess I’m quite perplexed. You were so different when you first arrived—you were excited to be here! But it took less than a week for you to withdraw completely. You don’t even look at anyone when you walk through the halls. What happened to conversation? To friendship?”

Yes.

It took 1 day for me to settle in. 1 day for me to look around. 1 day for me to get excited about a different life and 1 day for everyone to find out who I am and what I’ve done.

Castle doesn’t say anything about the mothers who see me walking down the hall and yank their children out of my way. He doesn’t mention the hostile stares and the unwelcoming words I’ve endured since I’ve arrived. He doesn’t say anything about the kids who’ve been warned to stay far, far away, and the handful of elderly people who watch me too closely. I can only imagine what they’ve heard, where they got their stories from.

Juliette.

A girl with a lethal touch that saps the strength and energy of hot-blooded human beings until they’re limp, paralyzed carcasses wheezing on the floor. A girl who spent most of her life in hospitals and juvenile detention centers, a girl who was cast off by her own parents, labeled as certifiably insane and sentenced to isolation in an asylum where even the rats were afraid to live.

A girl.

So power hungry that she killed a small child. She tortured a toddler. She brought a grown man gasping to his knees. She doesn’t even have the decency to kill herself.

None of it is a lie.

So I look at Castle with spots of color on my cheeks and unspoken letters on my lips and eyes that refuse to reveal their secrets.

He sighs.

He almost says something. He tries to speak but his eyes inspect my face and he changes his mind. He only offers me a quick nod, a deep breath, taps his watch, says, “Three hours until lights-out,” and turns to go.

Pauses in the doorway.

“Ms. Ferrars,” he says suddenly, softly, without turning around. “You’ve chosen to stay with us, to fight with us, to become a member of Omega Point.” A pause. “We’re going to need your help. And I’m afraid we’re running out of time.”

I watch him leave.

I listen to his departing footsteps as they echo alongside his last words and I lean my head back against the wall. Close my eyes against the ceiling. Hear his voice, solemn and steady, ringing in my ears.

We’re running out of time, he said.

As if time were the kind of thing you could run out of, as if it were measured into bowls that were handed to us at birth and if we ate too much or too fast or right before jumping into the water then our time would be lost, wasted, eaten up, already spent.

But time is beyond our finite comprehension. It’s endless, it exists outside of us; we cannot run out of it or lose track of it or find a way to hold on to it. Time goes on even when we do not.

We have plenty of time, is what Castle should have said. We have all the time in the world, is what he should have said to me. But he didn’t because what he meant tick tock is that our time tick tock is shifting. It’s hurtling forward heading in an entirely new direction slamming face-first into something else and

tick

tick

tick

tick

tick

it’s almost



time for war.





Excerpt from Warner’s Files

Want more from Warner? Get a peek inside his private log, as well as confidential files from The Reestablishment.





Log: Day 1

She is currently sleeping in my bed.



I finally provided her with the perfect opportunity to display her abilities and she fainted. The tiny, frail thing—I must make sure she eats more—just collapsed in my arms. I’ve seen my fair share of horrified persons in my nineteen years—emotions competing on the faces of my dying enemies, my own men, even myself. But the kind of terror and paralyzing fear on her face was so unexpected as to be remarkable. Jenkins, yes, I expected him to be perhaps mildly concerned for his own welfare. But this girl. The insanity I’ve been told about was all over her face only in that moment.



She perplexes me.



Every account I’ve read of her—every record, report, every incident on file—claims that she is vicious and delusional. But she is neither. She does not seem to understand the breadth of her abilities; she can’t see the limitless potential in who she could become; she doesn’t even seem interested. She is not at all like how she was described. I thought I was enlisting a willing warrior—someone eager to unleash herself—and I was wildly mistaken. This is going to be much more difficult than I anticipated.



It should also be noted that the photos I found in her medical records are ridiculous. They are such a misrepresentation of this girl as to be laughable. She is scared and broken, yes. But she is also angry—and stunningly beautiful. I’m certain I’ve never seen such a beautiful creature in my life. This comes as a great surprise, actually, as I was prepared to be at least mildly repulsed by her. Unfortunately, not only did her beauty immediately distract me—such odd blue-green eyes—but I noticed a sweetness in her features that I’m afraid might actually be sincere. I’m not sure yet if it’s just a clever facade designed to fool her enemies (I doubt it), but I can’t take any chances with her safety.