Unravel Me (Shatter Me, #2)(87)

Pain.

“Move,” Adam snaps at him, but Warner doesn’t seem to notice.

He’s looking at me. He’s looking at my hand clenched around Adam’s covered arm and the agony in his eyes is breaking my knees and I can’t speak, I shouldn’t speak, I wouldn’t know what to say even if I could speak and then he says my name. He says it again. He says, “Juliette—”

“Move!” Adam barks again, this time losing restraint and pushing Warner with enough strength to knock him to the floor. Except Warner doesn’t fall. He trips backward, just a little, but the movement somehow triggers something within him, some kind of dormant anger he’s all too eager to unleash and he’s charging forward, ready to inflict damage and I’m trying to figure out what to do to make it stop, I’m trying to come up with a plan and I’m stupid.

I’m stupid enough to step in the middle.

Adam grabs me to try and pull me back but I’m already pressing a palm to Warner’s chest and I don’t know what I’m thinking but I’m not thinking at all and that seems to be the problem. I’m here, I’m caught in the milliseconds standing between 2 brothers willing to destroy one another and it’s not even me who manages to do anything at all.

It’s Kenji.

He grabs both boys by the arms and tries to pry them apart but the sudden sound that rips through his throat is a torture and a terror I wish I could tear out of my skull.

He’s down.

He’s on the ground.

He’s choking, gasping, writhing on the floor until he goes limp, until he can hardly breathe and then he’s still, too still, and I think I’m screaming, I keep touching my lips to see where this sound is coming from and I’m on my knees. I’m trying to shake him awake but he’s not moving, he’s not responding and I have no idea what just happened.

I have no idea if Kenji is dead.





FIFTY-SEVEN


I’m definitely screaming.

Arms are pulling me up off the floor and I hear voices and sounds I don’t care to recognize because all I know is that this can’t happen, not to Kenji, not to my funny, complicated friend who keeps secrets behind his smiles and I’m ripping away from the hands holding me back and I’m blind, I’m bolting into the dining hall and a hundred blurry faces blend into the background because the only one I want to see is wearing a navy-blue blazer and headful of dreads tied into a ponytail.

“Castle!” I’m screaming. I’m still screaming. I may have fallen to the floor, I’m not sure, but I can tell my kneecaps are starting to hurt and I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care—“Castle! It’s Kenji—he’s—please—”

I’ve never seen Castle run before.

He charges through the room at an inhuman speed, past me and into the hall. Everyone in the room is up, frantic, some shouting, panicked, and I’m chasing Castle back into the tunnel and Kenji is still there. Still limp. Still.

Too still.

“Where are the girls?” Castle is shouting. “Someone—get the girls!” He’s cradling Kenji’s head, trying to pull Kenji’s heavy body into his arms and I’ve never heard him like this before, not even when he talked about our hostages, not even when he talked about what Anderson has done to the civilians. I look around and see the members of Omega Point standing all around us, pain carved into their features and so many of them have already started crying, clutching at each other and I realize I never fully recognized Kenji. I didn’t understand the reach of his authority. I’d never really seen just how much he means to the people in this room.

How much they love him.

I blink and Adam is one of 50 different people trying to help carry Kenji and now they’re running, they’re hoping against hope and someone is saying, “They’ve gone to the medical wing! They’re preparing a bed for him!” And it’s like a stampede, everyone rushing after them, trying to find out what’s wrong and no one will look at me, no one will meet my eyes and I pull myself away, out of sight, around the corner, into the darkness. I taste the tears as they fall into my mouth, I count each salty drop because I can’t understand what happened, how it happened, how this is even possible because I wasn’t touching him, I couldn’t have been touching him please please please I couldn’t have touched him but then I freeze. Icicles form along my arms as I realize: I’m not wearing my gloves.

I forgot my gloves. I was in such a rush to get here tonight that I just jumped out of the shower and left my gloves in my room and it doesn’t seem real, it doesn’t seem possible that I could’ve done this, that I could’ve forgotten, that I could be responsible for yet another life lost and I just I just I just

I fall to the floor.

“Juliette.”

I look up. I jump up.

I say, “Stay away from me” and I’m shaking, I’m trying to push the tears back but I’m shrinking into nothingness because I’m thinking this must be it. This must be my ultimate punishment. I deserve this pain, I deserve to have killed one of my only friends in the world and I want to shrivel up and disappear forever. “Go away—”

“Juliette, please,” Warner says, coming closer. His face is cast in shadow. This tunnel is only half lit and I don’t know where it leads. All I know is that I do not want to be alone with Warner.