Restore Me (Shatter Me #4)(41)

“I still don’t understand,” I whisper.

“Mr Warner,” he says impatiently, “Juliette and her sister have been in the custody of The Reestablishment for twelve years. The two sisters are part of an ongoing experiment for genetic testing and manipulation, the details of which I’m still trying to unravel.”

My mind might explode.

“Will you believe me now?” he says. “Have I done enough to prove I know more about your life than you think?”

I try to speak but my throat is dry; the words scrape the inside of my mouth. “My father was a sick, sadistic man,” I say. “But he wouldn’t have done this. He couldn’t have done this to me.”

“And yet,” Castle says. “He did. He allowed you to bring Juliette on base knowing very well who she was. Your father had a disturbing obsession with torture and experimentation.”

I feel disconnected from my mind, my body, even as I force myself to breathe. “Who are her real parents?”

Castle shakes his head. “I don’t know yet. Whoever they were, their loyalties to The Reestablishment ran deep. These girls were not stolen from their parents,” he says. “They were offered willingly.”

My eyes widen. I feel suddenly sick.

Castle’s voice changes. He sits forward, his eyes sharp. “Mr Warner,” he says. “I’m not sharing this information with you because I’m trying to hurt you. You must know that this isn’t fun for me, either.”

I look up.

“I need your help,” he says, studying me. “I need to know what you did for those two years. I need to know the details of your assignment to Emmaline. What were you tasked to do? Why was she being held? How were they using her?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“You do know,” he says. “You must know. Think, son. Try to remember—”

“I don’t know!” I shout.

Castle sits back, surprised.

“He never told me,” I say, breathing hard. “That was the job. To follow orders without questioning them. To do whatever was asked of me by The Reestablishment. To prove my loyalty.”

Castle falls back into his seat, crestfallen. He looks shattered. “You were my one remaining hope,” he says. “I thought I might finally be able to crack this.”

I glance at him, heart pounding. “And I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“There’s a reason why no one knows the truth about these sisters, Mr Warner. There’s a reason why Emmaline is kept under such high security. She is critical, somehow, to the structure of The Reestablishment, and I still don’t know how or why. I don’t know what she’s doing for them.” He looks me straight in the eye, then, his gaze piercing through me. “Please,” he says. “Try to remember. What did he make you do to her? Anything you can remember—anything at all—”

“No,” I whisper. I want to scream the word. “I don’t want to remember.”

“Mr Warner,” he says. “I understand that this is hard for you—”

“Hard for me?” I stand up suddenly. My body is shaking with rage. The walls, the chairs, the tables around us begin to rattle. The light fixtures swing dangerously overhead, the bulbs flickering. “You think this is hard for me?”

Castle says nothing.

“What you are telling me right now is that Juliette was planted here, in my life, as part of a larger experiment—an experiment my father had always been privy to. You’re telling me that Juliette is not who I think she is. That Juliette Ferrars isn’t even her real name. You’re telling me that not only is she a girl with a set of living parents, but that I also spent two years unwittingly torturing her sister.” My chest heaves as I stare at him. “Is that about right?”

“There’s more.”

I laugh, out loud. The sound is insane.

“Ms Ferrars will find out about all this very soon,” Castle says to me. “So I would advise you to get ahead of these revelations. Tell her everything as soon as possible. You must confess. Do it now.”

“What?” I say, stunned. “Why me?”

“Because if you don’t tell her soon,” he says, “I assure you, Mr Warner, that someone else will—”

“I don’t care,” I say. “You tell her.”

“You’re not hearing me. It is imperative that she hear this from you. She trusts you. She loves you. If she finds out on her own, from a less worthy source, we might lose her.”

“I’ll never let that happen. I’ll never let anyone hurt her again, even if that means I’ll have to guard her myself—”

“No, son.” Castle cuts me off. “You misunderstand me. I did not mean we would lose her physically.” He smiles, but the result is strange. Scared. “I meant we would lose her. Up here”—he taps his head—“and here”—he taps his heart.

“What do you mean?”

“Simply that you must not live in denial. Juliette Ferrars is not who you think she is, and she is not to be trifled with. She seems, at times, entirely defenseless. Naive. Even innocent. But you cannot allow yourself to forget the fist of anger that still lives in her heart.”