Imagine Me (Shatter Me #6)(18)

Adam laughs, but his eyes are still red. His hand trembles in mine, but he doesn’t let go.

“I don’t know,” he whispers. “He’s pretty mean to me.”

I squeeze his hand. “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll protect you.”

Adam smiles at me then. Smiles a real smile. But when we finally look up again, Mr. Anderson is staring at us.

He looks angry.


There’s a buzzing building inside of me, a mass of sound that consumes thought, devours conversation.

We are flies—gathering, swarming—bulging eyes and fragile bones flittering nervously toward imagined destinies. We hurl our bodies at the panes of tantalizing windows, aching for the world promised on the other side. Day after day we drag injured wings and eyes and organs around the same four walls; open or closed, the exits elude us. We hope to be rescued by a breeze, hoping for a chance to see the sun.

Decades pass. Centuries stack together.

Our bruised bodies still careen through the air. We continue to hurl ourselves at promises. There is madness in the repetition, in the repetition, in the repetition that underscores our lives. It is only in the desperate seconds before death that we realize the windows against which we broke our bodies were only mirrors, all along.





KENJI





It’s been four days.

Four days of nothing. J is still sleeping. The twins are calling it a coma, but I’m calling it sleeping. I’m choosing to believe J is just really, really tired. She just needs to sleep off some stress and she’ll be fine. This is what I keep telling everyone.

She’ll be fine.

“She’s just tired,” I say to Brendan. “And when she wakes up she’ll be glad we waited for her to go get James. It’ll be fine.”

We’re in the Q, which is short for the quiet tent, which is stupid because it’s never quiet in here. The Q is the default common room. It’s a gathering space slash game room where people at the Sanctuary get together in the evenings and relax. I’m in the kitchen area, leaning against the insubstantial counter. Brendan and Winston and Ian and I are waiting for the electric kettle to boil.

Tea.

This was Brendan’s idea, of course. For some reason, we could never get our hands on tea back at Omega Point. We only had coffee, and it was seriously rationed. Only after we moved onto base in Sector 45 did Brendan realize we could get our hands on tea, but even then he wasn’t so militant about it.

But here—

Brendan’s made it his mission to force hot tea down our throats every night. He doesn’t even need the caffeine—his ability to manipulate electricity always keeps his body charged—but he says he likes it because he finds the ritual soothing. So, whatever. Now we gather in the evenings and drink tea. Brendan puts milk in his tea. Winston adds whiskey. Ian and I drink it black.

“Right?” I say, when no one answers me. “I mean, a coma is basically just a really long nap. J will be fine. The girls will get her better, and then she’ll be fine, and everything will be fine. And James and Adam will be fine, obviously, because Sam’s seen them and she says they’re fine.”

“Sam saw them and said they were unconscious,” Ian says, opening and closing cabinets. When he finds what he’s looking for—a sleeve of cookies—he rips the package open. He doesn’t even have a chance to pull one free before Winston’s swiped it.

“Those cookies are for our tea,” he says sharply.

Ian glowers.

We all glance at Brendan, who seems oblivious to the sacrifices being made in his honor. “Yes, Sam said that they were unconscious,” he says, collecting small spoons from a drawer. “But she also said they looked stable. Alive.”

“Exactly,” I say, pointing at Brendan. “Thank you. Stable. Alive. These are the critical words.”

Brendan takes the rescued sleeve of cookies from Winston’s proffered hand, and begins arranging dishes and flatware with a confidence that baffles us all. He doesn’t look up when he says, “It’s really kind of amazing, isn’t it?”

Winston and I share a confused look.

“I wouldn’t call it amazing,” Ian says, plucking a spoon from the tray. He examines it. “But I guess forks and shit are pretty cool, as far as inventions go.”

Brendan frowns. Looks up. “I’m talking about Sam. Her ability to see across long distances.” He retrieves the spoon from Ian’s hand and replaces it on the tray. “What a remarkable skill.”

Sam’s preternatural ability to see across long distances was what convinced us of Anderson’s threats to begin with. Several days ago—when we first got the news about the kidnapping—she’d used both data and sheer determination to pinpoint Anderson’s location to our old base at Sector 45. She’d spent a straight fourteen hours searching, and though she hadn’t been able to get a visual on the other supreme kids, she’d been able to see flickers of James and Adam, who are the only ones I care about anyway. Those flickers of life—unconscious, but alive and stable—aren’t much in the way of assurances, but I’m willing to take anything at this point.

“Anyway, yeah. Sam is great,” I say, stretching out against the counter. “Which brings me back to my original point: Adam and James are going to be fine. And J is going to wake up soon and be fine. The world owes me at least that much, right?”