Shadow Me (Shatter Me, #4.5)(17)

And then she starts shouting.

This is bad. This is really, really bad, and my instincts are telling me to panic, that this will only end in bloodshed. I’m trying to look around and still keep my cool, but when Warner catches my eye I know, right away, that he gets it. We’re both thinking the same thing: Abort mission.

Get the hell out of here as soon as possible.

And then—

“This was an ambush. Tell your team to run. Now.”

I spin around in an exaggerated motion, so freaked out I nearly lose my balance. I’m hearing Nazeera. I’m hearing Nazeera. I’m sure I’m hearing her voice. The problem is, I don’t see her anywhere.

Am I dying? I must be dying.

“Kenji. Listen to me.”

I freeze in place.

I can feel the warmth of her body edging up against mine. I can feel her mouth at my ear, the gentle whisper of her breath against my skin. Jesus. I know how this works. I invented this shit.

“You’re invisible,” I say, so quietly I hardly move my lips.

I feel the tickle of her hair against my neck as she leans closer, and I have to suppress the urge to shiver. It’s so strange. So strange to be feeling so many emotions at once. Terror, fear, worry, want. It’s confusing. And her hand is on my arm when she says, “I was hoping to explain later. But now you know. And now you have to run.”

Shit.

I turn to Ian, who’s standing to the left of me, and say, “It’s time to bail, bro. Let’s go.”

Ian looks at me, his eyes widening for a fraction of a second, and then he grabs Lily’s hand and shouts, “Run—RUN—”

The sound of a gunshot splits open a moment of silence.

It feels like slow motion. It feels like the world slows down, turns on its side, and swings back around. Somehow I think I can see the bullet as it moves, fast and strong, right at Juliette’s head.

It hits its mark with a dull thud.

I’m hardly breathing. I’m beyond pretending I’m not terrified. Shit just got real, super fast, and I have no idea what’s about to happen. I know I need to move, need to get the hell out of here before things get worse, but— I don’t know why, but I can’t convince my legs to work. Can’t convince myself to look away.

No one can.

The crowd has gone deathly still in the aftermath. People are staring at Juliette like they didn’t believe the rumors. Like they wanted to know if it was really true that this seventeen-year-old girl could murder the most intimidating despot this nation has ever known, and then stand in front of a crowd and peel a bullet off her forehead after an attempted assassination, looking for all the world like the experience was no more annoying than swatting a fly.

I suppose now they know that the rumors were true.

But Juliette looks suddenly more than annoyed. She looks both surprised and furious as she stares at the ruined bullet in the palm of her hand. From this vantage point it looks like a mutilated coin. And then, disgusted, she tosses it to the ground. The sound of the metal hitting stone is delicate. Elegant.

And then—

That’s it. Everyone goes apeshit.

People lose their goddamn minds. The crowd is on its feet, roaring threats and obscenities, and they all pull weapons from their bodies and I’m thinking, Where the hell did they get them from? How did so many of them get through? Who’s our mole?

More gunshots split the air.

I swear, loudly, and move to tackle Castle to the ground—and then I hear it. I hear it before I see it. The surprised gasp. The heavy thud. The reverberations of the stage under my feet.

Brendan is on the ground.

Winston is sobbing. Desperately, I push through my teammates, falling to my knees to assess the wound. Brendan’s been shot in the shoulder. Relief sags my body. He’ll be okay.

I toss the glass pill bottle at Winston and tell him to force a few down Brendan’s throat, tell him to apply pressure to the wound and remind him that Brendan’s going to be okay, that we just need to get him to Sonya and Sara—and then I remember.

I remember.

I know this girl.

I look up, panicked, and scream, “Juliette, DON’T—”

But she’s already lost control.





Seven


She’s screaming.

She’s just screaming words, I think. They’re just words. But she’s screaming, screaming at the top of her lungs, with an agony that seems almost an exaggeration, and it’s causing devastation I never knew possible. It’s like she just—imploded.

It doesn’t seem real.

I mean, I knew Juliette was strong—and I knew we hadn’t discovered the depth of her powers—but I never imagined she’d be capable of this.

Of this:

The ceiling is splitting open. Seismic currents are thundering up the walls, across the floors, chattering my teeth. The ground is rumbling under my feet. People are frozen in place even as they shake, the room vibrating around them. The chandeliers swing too fast and the lights flicker ominously. And then, with one last vibration, three of the massive chandeliers rip free from the ceiling and shatter as they hit the floor.

Crystal flies everywhere. The room loses half its light and suddenly, it’s hard to see exactly what’s happening. I look at Juliette and see her staring, slack-jawed, frozen at the sight of the devastation, and I realize she must’ve stopped screamed a moment ago. She can’t stop this. She already put the energy into the world and now— It has to go somewhere.