Unravel Me (Shatter Me, #2)(14)

Research.

I see figures running, gasping on what resemble inordinately fast treadmills. I see a woman reloading a gun in a room bursting with weapons and I see a man holding something that emits a bright blue flame. I see a person standing in a chamber full of nothing but water and there are ropes stacked high and strung across the ceiling and all kinds of liquids, chemicals, contraptions I can’t name and my brain won’t stop screaming and my lungs keep catching fire and it’s too much too much too much too much Too many machines, too many lights, too many people in too many rooms taking notes, talking amongst themselves, glancing at the clocks every few seconds and I’m stumbling forward, looking too closely and not closely enough and then I hear it. I try so hard not to but it’s barely contained behind these thick glass walls and there it is again.

The low, guttural sound of human agony.

It hits me right in the face. Punches me right in the stomach. Realization jumps on my back and explodes in my skin and rakes its fingernails down my neck and I’m choking on impossibility.

Adam.

I see him. He’s already here, in one of the glass rooms. Shirtless. Strapped down to a gurney, arms and legs clamped in place, wires from a nearby machine taped to his temples, his forehead, just below his collarbone. His eyes are pressed shut, his fists are clenched, his jaw is tight, his face too taut from the effort not to scream.

I don’t understand what they’re doing to him.

I don’t know what’s happening I don’t understand why it’s happening or why he needs a machine or why it keeps blinking or beeping and I can’t seem to move or breathe and I’m trying to remember my voice, my hands, my head, and my feet and then he

jerks.

He convulses against the stays, strains against the pain until his fists are pounding the padding of the gurney and I hear him cry out in anguish and for a moment the world stops, everything slows down, sounds are strangled, colors look smeared and the floor seems set on its side and I think wow, I think I’m actually going to die. I’m going to drop dead or

I’m going to kill the person responsible for this.

It’s one or the other.

That’s when I see Castle. Castle, standing in the corner of Adam’s room, watching in silence as this 18-year-old boy rages in agony while he does nothing. Nothing except watch, except to take notes in his little book, to purse his lips as he tilts his head to the side. To glance at the monitor on the beeping machine.

And the thought is so simple when it slips into my head. So calm. So easy.

So, so easy.

I’m going to kill him.

“Juliette—no—”

Kenji grabs me by the waist, arms like bands of iron around me and I think I’m screaming, I think I’m saying things I’ve never heard myself say before and Kenji is telling me to calm down, he’s saying, “This is exactly why I didn’t want to bring you in here—you don’t understand—it’s not what it looks like—”

And I decide I should probably kill Kenji, too. Just for being an idiot.

“LET GO OF ME—”

“Stop kicking me—”

“I’m going to murder him—”

“Yeah, you should really stop saying that out loud, okay? You’re not doing yourself any favors—”

“LET GO OF ME, KENJI, I SWEAR TO GOD—”

“Ms. Ferrars!”

Castle is standing at the end of the walkway, a few feet from Adam’s glass room. The door is open. Adam isn’t jerking anymore, but he doesn’t appear to be conscious, either.

White, hot rage.

It’s all I know right now. The world looks so black-and-white from here, so easy to demolish and conquer. This is anger like nothing I’ve known before. It’s an anger so raw, so potent it’s actually calming, like a feeling that’s finally found its place, a feeling that finally sits comfortably as it settles into my bones.

I’ve become a mold for liquid metal; thick, searing heat distributes itself throughout my body and the excess coats my hands, forging my fists with a strength so breathtaking, an energy so intense I think it might engulf me. I’m light-headed from the rush of it.

I could do anything.

Anything.

Kenji’s arms drop away from me. I don’t have to look at him to know that he’s stumbling back. Afraid. Confused. Probably disturbed.

I don’t care.

“So this is where you’ve been,” I say to Castle, and I’m surprised by the cool, fluid tone of my voice. “This is what you’ve been doing.”

Castle steps closer and appears to regret it. He looks startled, surprised by something he sees on my face. He tries to speak and I cut him off.

“What have you done to him?” I demand. “What have you been doing to him—”

“Ms. Ferrars, please—”

“He is not your experiment!” I explode, and the composure is gone, the steadiness in my voice is gone and I’m suddenly so unstable again I can hardly keep my hands from shaking. “You think you can just use him for your research—”

“Ms. Ferrars, please, you must calm yourself—”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” I can’t imagine what they must have done to him down here, testing him, treating him like some kind of specimen.