Unravel Me (Shatter Me, #2)(81)

Kenji jumps out of his chair, yanks the door open.

“Sir!” The man is out of breath. It’s clear he ran all the way here. “Sir, please—”

“Samuel?” Castle is up, around his desk, charging forward to grip this boy’s shoulders, trying to focus his eyes. “What is it—what’s wrong?”

“Sir,” Samuel says again, this time more normally, his breathing almost within his grasp. “We have a—a situation.”

“Tell me everything—now is not the time to hold back if something has happened—”

“It’s nothing to do with anything topside, sir, it’s just—” His eyes dart in my direction for one split second. “Our … visitor—he—he is not cooperating, sir, he’s—he’s giving the guards a lot of trouble—”

“What kind of trouble?” Castle’s eyes are two slits.

Samuel drops his voice. “He’s managed to make a dent in the door, sir. He’s managed to dent the steel door, sir, and he’s threatening the guards and they’re beginning to worry—”

“Juliette.”

No.

“I need your help,” Castle says without looking at me. “I know you don’t want to do this, but you’re the only one he’ll listen to and we can’t afford this distraction, not right now.” His voice is so thin, so stretched it sounds as if it might actually crack. “Please do what you can to contain him, and when you deem it safe for one of the girls to enter, perhaps we can find a way to sedate him without endangering them in the process.”

My eyes flick up to Adam almost accidentally. He doesn’t look happy.

“Juliette.” Castle’s jaw tightens. “Please. Go now.”

I nod. Turn to leave.

“Get ready,” Castle adds as I walk out the door, his voice too soft for the words he speaks next. “Unless we have been deceived, the supreme will be massacring unarmed civilians tomorrow, and we can’t afford to assume Warner has given us false information. We leave at dawn.”





FIFTY-FOUR


The guards let me into Warner’s room without a single word.

My eyes dart around the now partially furnished space, heart pounding, fists clenching, blood racing racing racing. Something is wrong. Something has happened. Warner was perfectly fine when I left him last night and I can’t imagine what could’ve inspired him to lose his mind like this but I’m scared.

Someone has given him a chair. I realize now how he was able to dent the steel door. No one should’ve given him a chair.

Warner is sitting in it, his back to me. Only his head is visible from where I’m standing.

“You came back,” he says.

“Of course I came back,” I tell him, inching closer. “What’s wrong? Is something wrong?”

He laughs. Runs a hand through his hair. Looks up at the ceiling.

“What happened?” I’m so worried now. “Are you—did something happen to you? Are you okay?”

“I need to get out of here,” he says. “I need to leave. I can’t be here anymore.”

“Warner—”

“Do you know what he said to me? Did he tell you what he said to me?”

Silence.

“He just walked into my room this morning. He walked right in here and said he wanted to have a conversation with me.” Warner laughs again, loud, too loud. Shakes his head. “He told me I can change. He said I might have a gift like everyone else here—that maybe I have an ability. He said I can be different, love. He said he believes I can be different if I want to be.”

Castle told him.

Warner stands up but doesn’t turn around all the way and I see he’s not wearing a shirt. He doesn’t even seem to mind that I can see the scars on his back, the word IGNITE tattooed on his body. His hair is messy, untamed, falling into his face and his pants are zipped but unbuttoned and I’ve never seen him so disheveled before. He presses his palms against the stone wall, arms outstretched; his body is bowed, his head down as if in prayer. His entire body is tense, tight, muscles straining against his skin. His clothes are in a pile on the floor and his mattress is in the middle of the room and the chair he was just sitting in is facing the wall, staring at nothing at all and I realize he’s begun to lose his mind in here.

“Can you believe that?” he asks me, still not looking in my direction. “Can you believe he thinks I can just wake up one morning and be different? Sing happy songs and give money to the poor and beg the world to forgive me for what I’ve done? Do you think that’s possible? Do you think I can change?”

He finally turns to face me and his eyes are laughing, his eyes are like emeralds glinting in the setting sun and his mouth is twitching, suppressing a smile. “Do you think I could be different?” He takes a few steps toward me and I don’t know why it affects my breathing. Why I can’t find my mouth.

“It’s just a question,” he says, and he’s right in front of me and I don’t even know how he got there. He’s still looking at me, his eyes so focused and so simultaneously unnerving, brilliant, blazing with something I can never place.

My heart it will not be still it refuses to stop skipping skipping skipping “Tell me, Juliette. I’d love to know what you really think of me.”