Restore Me (Shatter Me #4)(57)

The force of my frustration and confusion sends me back to the bus, where I exhale and lean against the back doors, hoping for a place to rest my head—except that my hands and head rip through the exterior wall as though it were made of tissue, and I fall hard on the filthy floor, my hands and knees going straight through the metal underfoot.

Somehow this only makes me angrier.

My power is out of control, stoked by my reckless mind, my wild thoughts. I can’t focus my energy the way Kenji taught me to, and it’s everywhere, all around me, within and without me and the problem is, I don’t care anymore.

I don’t care, not right now.

I reach without thinking and rip one of the bus seats from its bolts, and throw it, hard, through the windshield. Glass splinters everywhere; a large shard hits me in the eye and several more fly into my open, angry mouth; I lift a hand to find slivers stuck in my sleeve, glittering like miniature icicles. I spit the spare bits from my mouth. Remove the glass shards from my shirt. And then I pull an inch-long piece of glass out of the inside of my eyelid and toss it, with a small clatter, to the ground.

My chest is heaving.

What, I think, as I rip another seat from its bolts, do I do now? I throw this seat straight through a window, shattering more glass and ripping open more metal innards. Instinct alone moves my arm up to protect my face from the flying debris, but I don’t flinch. I’m too angry to care. I’m too powerful at the moment to feel pain. Glass ricochets off my body. Razor-thin ribbons of steel bounce off my skin. I almost wish I felt something. Anything.

What do I do?

I punch the wall and there’s no relief in it; my hand goes straight through. I kick a chair and there’s no comfort in it; my foot rips through the cheap upholstery. I scream again, half outrage, half heartbreak, and watch this time as a long, dangerous crack forms along the ceiling.

That’s new.

And I’ve hardly had time to think the thought when the bus gives a sudden, lurching heave, yawns itself into a deep shudder, and splits clean in half.

The two halves collapse on either side of me, tripping me backward. I fall into a pile of shredded metal and wet, dirty glass and, stunned, I stumble up to my feet.

I don’t know what just happened.

I knew I was able to project my abilities—my strength, for certain—but I didn’t know that there was any projectional power in my voice. Old impulses make me wish I had someone to discuss this with. But I have no one to talk to anymore.

Warner is out of the question.

Castle is complicit.

And Kenji—what about Kenji? Did he know about my parents—my sister—too? Surely, Castle would’ve told him?

The problem is, I can’t be sure of anything anymore.

There’s no one left to trust.

But those words—that simple thought—suddenly inspires in me a memory. It’s something hazy I have to reach for. I wrap my hands around it and pull. A voice? A female voice, I remember now. Telling me—

I gasp.

It was Nazeera. Last night. In the medical wing. It was her. I remember her voice now—I remember reaching out and touching her hand, I remember the feel of the metal knuckles she’s always wearing and she said—

“. . . the people you trust are lying to you—and the other supreme commanders only want to kill you . . .”

I spin around too fast, searching for something I cannot name.

Nazeera was trying to warn me. Last night—she’s barely known me and she was trying to tell me the truth long before any of the others ever did—

But why?

Just then, something hard and loud lands heavily on the half-bent steel structure blocking the road. The old freeway signs shudder and sway.

I’m looking straight at it as it happens. I’m watching this in real time, frame by frame, and yet, I’m still so shocked by what I see that I forget to speak.

It’s Nazeera, fifty feet in the air, sitting calmly atop a sign that says—





10 EAST LOS ANGELES


—and she’s waving at me. She’s wearing a loose, brown leather hood attached to a holster that fits snugly around her shoulders. The leather hood covers her hair and shades her eyes so that only the bottom half of her face is visible from where I stand. The diamond piercing under her bottom lip catches fire in the sunlight.

She looks like a vision from an unknowable time.

I still have no idea what to say.

Naturally, she does not share my problem.

“You ready to talk yet?” she says to me.

“How—how did you—”

“Yeah?”

“How did you get here?” I spin around, scanning the distance. How did she know I was here? Was I being followed?

“I flew.”

I turn back to face her. “Where’s your plane?”

She laughs and jumps off the freeway sign. It’s a long, hard fall that would’ve injured any normal person. “I really hope you’re joking,” she says to me, and then grabs me around the waist and leaps up, into the sky.





WARNER





I’ve seen a lot of strange things in my life, but I never thought I’d have the pleasure of seeing Kishimoto shut his mouth for longer than five minutes. And yet, here we are. In any other situation, I might be relishing this moment. Sadly, I’m unable to enjoy even this small pleasure.