Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3)(74)

But I have to try.

I touch his arms, so gently. I run my hand down his back, his shoulders. And then I dare to wrap myself around him until he slowly breaks apart, unfolding in front of me.

He lifts his head.

His eyes are red-rimmed and a startling, striking shade of green, shining with barely restrained emotion. His face is the picture of so much pain.

I almost can’t breathe.

An earthquake hits my heart then, cracks it right down the middle. And I think here, in him, there is more feeling than any one person should ever have to contain.

I try to hold him closer but he wraps his arms around my hips instead, his head falling into my lap. I bend over him instinctively, shielding his body with my own.

I press my cheek to his forehead. Press a kiss to his temple.



And then he breaks.

Shaking violently, shattering in my arms, a million gasping, choking pieces I’m trying so hard to hold together. And I promise myself then, in that moment, that I will hold him forever, just like this, until all the pain and torture and suffering is gone, until he’s given a chance to live the kind of life where no one can wound him this deeply ever again.

And we are quotation marks, inverted and upside down, clinging to one another at the end of this life sentence. Trapped by lives we did not choose.

It’s time, I think, to break free.





[page]FIFTY-ONE


Kenji is waiting in the tank when we get back. He managed to find it.

He’s sitting in the passenger side, invisibility off, and he doesn’t say a single word as Warner and I climb inside.

I try to meet his eyes, already prepared to concoct some crazy story for why it took me an hour to get Warner out of the house, but then Kenji looks at me. Really looks at me.

And I close my mouth forever.

Warner doesn’t say a single word. He doesn’t even breathe loudly. And when we get back to base, he lets me and Kenji leave the tank under our guise of invisibility and he still says nothing, not even to me. As soon as we’re out of the tank, he closes our door, and climbs back inside.

I’m watching him drive off again when Kenji slips his arm into mine.

We weave back through the storage facility without a problem. Cross through the shooting range without a problem. But just before we reach the door to Warner’s training facility, Kenji pulls me aside.

“I followed you in,” he says, with no preamble. “You took too long and I got worried and I followed you up there.” A pause. A heavy pause. “I saw you guys,” he says, so quietly. “In that room.”

Not for the first time today, I’m glad he can’t see my face. “Okay,” I whisper, not knowing what else to say. Not knowing what Kenji will do with the information.

“I just—” Kenji takes a deep breath. “I’m just confused, okay? I don’t need to know all the details—I realize that whatever was happening in there was none of my business—but are you okay? Did something happen?”

I exhale. Close my eyes as I say, “His mom died today.”

“What?” Kenji asks, stunned. “What—h-how? His mom was in there?”

“She’d been sick for a long time,” I say, the words rushing out of me. “Anderson kept her locked in that house and he abandoned her. He left her to die. Warner had been trying to help her, and he didn’t know how. She couldn’t be touched, just like I can’t touch anyone, and the pain of it was killing her every day.” I’m losing control now, unable to keep my feelings contained any longer. “Warner never wanted to use me as a weapon,” I say to him. “He made that up so he had a story to tell his father. He found me by accident. Because he was trying to find a solution. To help her. All these years.”

Kenji takes a sharp breath. “I had no idea,” he says. “I didn’t even know he was close to his mom.”

“You don’t know him at all,” I say, not caring how desperate I sound. “You think you do but you really don’t.” I feel raw, like I’ve been sanded down to the bone.

He says nothing.

“Let’s go,” I say. “I need some time to breathe. To think.”



“Yeah,” he says. He exhales. “Yeah, sure. Of course.”

I turn to go.

“J,” he says, stopping me, his hand still on my arm.

I wait.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I didn’t know.”

I blink fast against the burning in my eyes. Swallow back the emotion building in my throat. “It’s okay, Kenji. You were never supposed to.”





[page]FIFTY-TWO


I finally manage to pull myself together long enough to head back to the training rooms. It’s getting late, but I don’t anticipate seeing Warner down here tonight. I think he’ll want the time alone.

I’m making myself scarce on purpose.

I’ve had enough.

I came so close to killing Anderson once, and I’ll make sure I have that chance again. But this time, I’ll follow through.

I wasn’t ready last time. I wouldn’t have known what to do even if I’d killed him then. I would’ve handed control over to Castle and I would’ve watched quietly as someone else tried to fix our world again. But I see now that Castle was wrong for this job. He’s too tender. Too anxious to please everyone.