Unravel Me (Shatter Me, #2)(103)

I watch the same soldier focus his weapon on the next victim when Kenji releases us.

3 guns are up, aimed to fire, and I hear the bullets before they’re released into the air; I see one find its mark in a soldier’s neck and I have no idea if it’s mine.

It doesn’t matter now.

There are still 5 soldiers left to face, and now they can see us.

We’re running.

We’re dodging the bullets aimed in our direction and I see Adam dropping to the ground, I see him shooting with perfect precision and still failing to find a target. I look around for Kenji only to find that he’s disappeared and I’m so happy for it; 3 soldiers go down almost instantly. Adam takes advantage of the remaining soldiers’ distraction and takes out a fourth. I shoot the fifth from behind.

I don’t know whether or not I’ve killed him.

We’re screaming for the people to follow us, we’re herding them back to the compounds, yelling for them to stay down, to stay out of sight; we tell them help is coming and we’ll do whatever we can to protect them and they’re trying to reach out to us, to touch us, to thank us and take our hands but we don’t have time. We have to hurry them to some semblance of safety and move on to wherever the rest of this decimation is taking place.

I still haven’t forgotten the one man we weren’t able to save. I haven’t forgotten number 27.

I never want that to happen again.

We’re bolting across the many miles of land dedicated to these compounds now, not bothering to keep ourselves hidden or to come up with a definitive plan. We still haven’t spoken. We haven’t discussed what we’ve done or what we might do and we only know that we need to keep moving.

We follow Kenji.

He weaves his way through a demolished cluster of compounds and we know something has gone horribly wrong. There’s no sign of life anywhere. The little metal boxes that used to house civilians are completely destroyed and we don’t know if there were people inside when this happened.

Kenji tells us we have to keep looking.

We move deeper through the regulated territory, these pieces of land dedicated to human habitation, until we hear a rush of footsteps, the sound of a softly churning mechanical sound.

The tanks.

They run on electricity so they’re less conspicuous as they move through the streets, but I’m familiar enough with these tanks to be able to recognize the electric thrum. Adam and Kenji do too.

We follow the noise.

We’re fighting against the wind trying push us away and it’s almost as if it knows, as if the wind is trying to protect us from whatever is waiting on the other side of this compound. It doesn’t want us to have to see this. It doesn’t want us to have to die today.

Something explodes.

A raging fire rips through the atmosphere not 50 feet from where we’re standing. The flames lick the earth, lapping up the oxygen, and even the rain can’t douse the devastation all at once. The fire whips and sways in the wind, dying down just enough, humbled into submission by the sky.

We need to be wherever that fire is.

Our feet fight for traction on the muddy ground and I don’t feel the cold as we run, I don’t feel the wet, I only feel the adrenaline coursing through my limbs, forcing me to move forward, gun clenched too tight in my fist, too ready to aim, too ready to fire.

But when we reach the flames I almost drop my weapon.

I almost fall to the floor.

I almost can’t believe my eyes.





SIXTY-SIX


Dead dead dead is everywhere.

So many bodies mixed and meshed into the earth that I have no idea whether they’re ours or theirs and I’m beginning to wonder what it means, I’m beginning to doubt myself and this weapon in my hand and I can’t help but wonder about these soldiers, I wonder how they could be just like Adam, just like a million other tortured, orphaned souls who simply needed to survive and took the only job they could get.

My conscience has declared war against itself.

I’m blinking back tears and rain and horror and I know I need to move my legs, I know I need to push forward and be brave, I have to fight whether I like it or not because we can’t let this happen.

I’m tackled from behind.

Someone pins me down and my face is buried in the ground and I’m kicking, I’m trying to scream but I feel the gun wrenched out of my grip, I feel an elbow in my spine and I know Adam and Kenji are gone, they’re deep in battle and I know I’m about to die. I know it’s over and it doesn’t feel real, somehow, it feels like this is a story someone else is telling, like death is a strange, distant thing you’ve only ever seen happen to people you’ve never known and surely it doesn’t happen to me, to you, to any of the rest of us.

But here it is.

It’s a gun in the back of my head and a boot pressed down on my back and it’s my mouth full of mud and it’s a million worthless moments I never really lived and it’s all right in front of me. I see it so clearly.

Someone flips me over.

The same someone who held a gun to my head is now pointing it at my face, inspecting me as if trying to read me and I’m confused, I don’t understand his angry gray eyes or the stiff set of his mouth because he’s not pulling the trigger. He’s not killing me and this, this more than anything else is what petrifies me.