Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3)(95)

But I have to try.

One more step, I tell myself.

Move your leg. Now your foot. Bend at the knee.

You’re almost there, I tell myself.

Think of Kenji. Think of James. Think of the promises you made to that ten-year-old boy, I tell myself. Bring Kenji home. Bring yourself home.

There he is. Right in front of you.



I reach forward as if through a cloud, and clench my fist around his neck.

Squeeze.

Squeeze until the sound waves stop.

I hear something crack.

The blond falls to the floor.

And I collapse.





[page]SEVENTY-THREE


Anderson is standing over me now, pointing a gun at my face.

He shoots.

Again.

Once more.

I close my eyes and pull deep, deep within myself for my last dregs of strength, because somehow, some instinct inside of my body is still screaming at me to stay alive. I remember Sonya and Sara telling me once that our energies could be depleted. That we could overexert ourselves. That they were trying to make medicines to help with that sort of thing.

I wish I had that kind of medicine right now.

I blink up at Anderson, his form blurring at the edges. He’s standing just behind my head, the toes of his shiny boots touching the top of my skull. I can’t hear much but the echoes in my bones, can’t see anything other than the bullets raining down around me. He’s still shooting. Still unloading his gun into my body, waiting for the moment when he knows I won’t be able to hold on any longer.

I’m dying, I think. I must be. I thought I knew what it felt like to die, but I must’ve been wrong. Because this is a whole different kind of dying. A whole different kind of pain.

But I suppose, if I have to die, I may as well do one more thing before I go.

I reach up. Grab Anderson’s ankles. Clench my fists.

And crush his bones in my hands.

His screams pierce the haze of my mind, long enough to bring the world back into focus. I’m blinking fast, looking around and able to see clearly for the first time. Kenji is slumped in the corner. Blond boy is on the floor.

Anderson has been disconnected from his feet.

My thoughts are sharper all of a sudden, like I’m in control again. I don’t know if this is what hope does to a person, if it really has the power to bring someone back to life, but seeing Anderson writhing on the floor does something to me. It makes me think I still have a chance.

He’s screaming so much, scrambling back and dragging himself across the floor with his arms. He’s dropped his gun, clearly too pained and too petrified to reach for it any longer, and I can see the agony in his eyes. The weakness. The terror. He’s only now understanding the horror of what’s about to happen to him. How it had to happen to him. That he would be brought to nothing by a silly little girl who was too much of a coward, he said, to defend herself.

And it’s then that I realize he’s trying to say something to me. He’s trying to talk. Maybe he’s pleading. Maybe he’s crying. Maybe he’s begging for mercy. But I’m not listening anymore.

I have absolutely nothing to say.

I reach back, pull the gun out of my holster.

And shoot him in the forehead.





SEVENTY-FOUR


Twice.

Once for Adam.

Once for Warner.





[page]SEVENTY-FIVE


I tuck the gun back into its holster. Walk over to Kenji’s limp, still-breathing form, and throw him over my shoulder.

I kick down the door.

Walk directly back down the hall.

Kick my way through the entry to Sonya and Sara’s room, and drop Kenji on the bed.

“Fix him,” I say, hardly breathing now. “Please fix him.”

I drop to my knees.

Sonya and Sara are on in an instant. They don’t speak. They don’t cry. They don’t scream. They don’t fall apart. They immediately get to work and I don’t think I have ever loved them more than I do in this moment. They lay him out flat on the bed, Sara standing on one side of him, Sonya on the other, and they hold their hands to his head, first. Then his heart.

Then they alternate, taking turns forcing life back into different parts of his body until Kenji is stirring, his eyes flickering but not opening, his head whipping back and forth.

I’m beginning to worry, but I’m too afraid, and too tired to move, not even an inch.

Finally, finally, they step back.



Kenji’s eyes still aren’t open.

“Did it work?” I ask, terrified to hear the answer.

Sonya and Sara nod. “He’s asleep,” they say.

“Will he get better? Fully?” I ask, desperate now.

“We hope,” Sonya says.

“But he’ll be asleep for a few days,” Sara says.

“The damage was very deep,” they say together. “What happened?”

“Pressure waves,” I tell them, my words a whisper. “He shouldn’t have been able to survive at all.”

Sonya and Sara are staring at me, still waiting.

I force myself to my feet. “Anderson is dead.”

“You killed him,” they whisper. It’s not a question.

I nod.

They’re staring at me, slack-jawed and stunned.