Restore Me (Shatter Me #4)(34)

“What?” Juliette says, glancing at me before looking back at Haider. “What other friends? Do you mean the other supreme commanders? Because I haven’t—”

“Oh—no,” Haider says. “No, no, not the other commanders. Not yet, anyway. Just us kids. We were hoping for a little reunion. We haven’t gotten the whole group together in far too long.”

“The whole group,” Juliette says softly. Then she frowns. “How many more kids are there?”

Haider’s fake exuberance turns suddenly strange. Cold. He looks at me with both anger and confusion when he says, “You’ve told her nothing about us?”

Now Juliette is staring at me. Her eyes widen perceptibly; I can feel her fear spike. And I’m still trying to figure out how to tell her not to worry when Haider clamps down on my arm, hard, and pulls me forward.

“What are you doing?” he whispers, the words urgent, violent. “You turned your back on all of us—for what? For this? For a child? Inta kullish ghabi,” he says. “So very, very stupid. And I promise you, habibi, this won’t end well.”

There’s a warning in his eyes.

I feel it then, when he suddenly lets go—when he unlocks a secret deep within his heart—and something awful settles into the pit of my stomach. A feeling of nausea. Terrible dread.

And I finally understand:

The commanders are sending their children to do the groundwork here because they don’t think it’s worth their time to come themselves. They want their offspring to infiltrate and examine our base—to use their youth to appeal to the new, young supreme commander of North America, to fake camaraderie—and, ultimately, to send back information. They’re not interested in forging alliances.

They’re only here to figure out how much work it will take to destroy us.

I turn away, anger threatening to undo my composure, and Haider clamps down harder on my arm. I meet his eyes. It’s only my determination to keep things civil for Juliette’s sake that prevents me from breaking his fingers off my body.

Hurting Haider would be enough to start a world war.

And he knows this.

“What’s happened to you?” he says, still hissing in my ear. “I didn’t believe it when I first heard that you’d fallen in love with some idiot psychotic girl. I had more faith in you. I defended you. But this,” he says, shaking his head, “this is truly heartbreaking. I can’t believe how much you’ve changed.”

My fingers tense, itching to form fists, and I’m just about to respond when Juliette, who’s been watching us closely from a distance, says, “Let go of him.”

And there’s something about the steadiness of her voice, something about the barely restrained fury in her words that captures Haider’s attention.

He drops my arm, surprised. Spins around.

“Touch him one more time,” Juliette says quietly, “and I will rip your heart out of your body.”

Haider stares at her. “Excuse me?”

She steps forward. She looks suddenly terrifying. There’s a fire in her eyes. A murderous stillness in her movements. “If I ever catch you putting your hands on him again, I will tear open your chest,” she says, “and rip out your heart.”

Haider’s eyebrows fly up his forehead. He blinks. Hesitates. And then: “I didn’t realize that was something you could do.”

“For you,” she says, “I’d do it with pleasure.”

Now, Haider smiles. Laughs, out loud. And for the first time since he’s arrived, he actually looks sincere. His eyes crinkle with delight. “Would you mind,” he says to her, “if I borrowed your Warner for a bit? I promise I won’t put my hands on him. I’d just like to speak with him.”

She looks at me then, a question in her eyes.

But I can only smile at her. I want to scoop her up and carry her away. Take her somewhere quiet and lose myself in her. I love that the girl who blushes so easily in my arms is the same one who would kill a man for hurting me.

“I won’t be long,” I say.

And she returns my smile, her face transformed once again. It lasts only a couple of seconds, but somehow time slows down long enough for me to gather the many details of this moment and place it among my favorite memories. I’m grateful, suddenly, for this unusual, supernatural gift I have for sensing emotions. It’s still my secret, known only by a few—a secret I’d managed to keep from my father, and from the other commanders and their children. I like how it makes me feel separate—different—from the people I’ve always known. But best of all, it makes it possible for me to know how deeply Juliette loves me. I can always feel the rush of emotion in her words, in her eyes. The certainty that she would fight for me. Protect me. And knowing this makes my heart feel so full that, sometimes, when we’re together, I can hardly breathe.

I wonder if she knows that I would do anything for her.





JULIETTE





“Oh, look! A fish!” I run toward the water and Kenji catches me around the waist, hauls me back.

“That water is disgusting, J. You shouldn’t get near it.”

“What? Why?” I say, still pointing. “Can’t you see the fish? I haven’t seen a fish in the water in a really long time.”