Imagine Me (Shatter Me #6)(67)

“And today you’re asking me if I’m okay.”

“Yes, sir. You seem upset, sir.”

He leans back in the chair, looking thoughtful. Suddenly, he shakes his head. “You know, I realize now that I’ve been too hard on you. I’ve put you through too much. Tested your loyalty perhaps too much. But you and I have a long history, Juliette. And it’s not easy for me to forgive. I certainly don’t forget.”

I say nothing.

“You have no idea how much I hated you,” he says, speaking more to the wall than to me. “How much I still hate you, sometimes. But now, finally—”

He sits up, looks me in the eye.

“Now you’re perfect.” He laughs, but there’s no heart in it. “Now you’re absolutely perfect and I have to just give you away. Toss your body to science.” He turns toward the wall again. “What a shame.”

Fear creeps up, through my chest. I ignore it.

Anderson stands, grabs the empty glass off the nightstand, and disappears for a minute to refill it. When he returns, he stares at me from the doorway. I stare back. We remain like that for a while before he says, suddenly— “You know, when I was very young, I wanted to be a baker.”

Surprise shoots through me, widens my eyes.

“I know,” he says, taking another swallow of the amber liquid. He almost laughs. “Not what you’d expect. But I’ve always had a fondness for cake. Few people realize this, but baking requires infinite precision and patience. It is an exacting, cruel science. I would’ve been an excellent baker.” And then: “I’m not really sure why I’m telling you this. I suppose it’s been a long time since I’ve felt I could speak openly with anyone.”

“You can tell me anything, sir.”

“Yes,” he says quietly. “I’m beginning to believe that.”

We’re both silent then, but I can’t stop staring at him, my mind suddenly overrun with unanswerable questions.

Another twenty seconds of this and he finally breaks the silence.

“All right, what is it?” His voice is dry. Self-mocking. “What is it you’re dying to know?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I say. “I was just wondering— Why didn’t you try? To be a baker?”

Anderson shrugs, spins the glass around in his hands. “When I got a bit older, my mother used to force bleach down my throat. Ammonia. Whatever she could find under the sink. It was never enough to kill me,” he says, meeting my eyes. “Just enough to torture me for all of eternity.” He throws back the rest of the drink. “You might say that I lost my appetite.”

I can’t mask my horror quickly enough. Anderson laughs at me, laughs at the look on my face.

“She never even had a good reason for doing it,” he says, turning away. “She just hated me.”

“Sir,” I say, “Sir, I—”

Max barges into the room. I flinch.

“What the hell did you do?”

“There are so many possible answers to that question,” Anderson says, glancing back. “Please be more specific. By the way, what did you do with her clothes?”

“I’m talking about Kent,” Max says angrily. “What did you do?”

Anderson looks suddenly uncertain. He glances from Max to me then back again. “Perhaps we should discuss this elsewhere.”

But Max looks beyond reason. His eyes are so wild I can’t tell if he’s angry or terrified. “Please tell me the tapes were tampered with. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you didn’t perform the procedure on yourself.”

Anderson looks at once relieved and irritated. “Calm yourself,” he says. “I watched Evie do this kind of thing countless times—and the last time, on me. The boy had already been drained. The vial was ready, just sitting there on the counter, and you were so busy with”—he glances at me—“anyway, I had a while to wait, and I figured I’d make myself useful while I stood around.”

“I can’t believe— Of course you don’t see the problem,” Max says, grabbing a fistful of his own hair. He’s shaking his head. “You never see the problem.”

“That seems an unfair accusation.”

“Paris, there’s a reason why most Unnaturals only have one ability.” He’s beginning to pace now. “The occurrence of two supernatural gifts in the same person is exceedingly rare.”

“What about Ibrahim’s girl?” he says. “Wasn’t that your work? Evie’s?”

“No,” Max says forcefully. “That was a random, natural error. We were just as surprised by the discovery as anyone else.”

Anderson goes suddenly solid with tension. “What, exactly, is the problem?”

“It’s not—”

A sudden blare of sirens and the words die in Max’s throat. “Not again,” he whispers. “God, not again.”

Anderson spares me a single glance before he disappears into his room, and this time, he reappears fully assembled. Not a hair out of place. He checks the cartridge of a handgun before he tucks it away, in a hidden holster.

“Juliette,” he says sharply.

“Yes, sir?”

“I am ordering you to remain here. No matter what you see, no matter what you hear, you are not to leave this room. You are to do nothing unless I command you otherwise. Do you understand? “