Shatter Me (27 page)

And I nearly lose it right there. “I need you to drive.”

He takes a tight breath. Nods several times. “My right leg is still good,” he says to me, but I don’t think I’d care even if it weren’t. We need to get to his safe place, and my driving isn’t going to get us anywhere.

Kenji settles a sleeping James into the passenger side, and I’m so happy he’s not awake for this moment.

I grab the duffel bags and carry them to the backseat. Kenji slides in front. Looks in the rearview mirror. “Good to see you alive, Kent.”

Adam almost smiles. Shakes his head. “Thank you for taking care of James.”

“You trust me now?”

A small sigh. “Maybe.”

“I’ll take a
maybe
.” He grins. Turns on the car. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Adam is shaking.

His bare body is finally cracking under the cold weather, the hours of torture, the strain of holding himself together for so long. I’m scrambling through the duffel bags, searching for a coat, but all I find are shirts and sweaters. I don’t know how to get them on his body without causing him pain.

I decide to cut them up. I take the butterfly knife to a few of his sweaters and slice them open, draping them around his figure like a blanket. I glance up. “Kenji—does this car have a heater?”

“It’s on, but it’s pretty crappy. It’s not working very well.”

“How much longer until we get there?”

“Not too much.”

“Have you seen anyone that might be following us?”

“No.” He pauses. “It’s weird. I don’t understand why no one has noticed a car flying through these streets after curfew. Something’s not right.”

“I know.”

“And I don’t know what it is, but obviously my tracker serum isn’t working. Either they really just don’t give a shit about me, or it’s legit not working, and I don’t know why.”

A tiny detail sits on the outskirts of my consciousness. I examine it. “Didn’t you say you slept in a shed? That night you ran away?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Where was it . . . ?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Some huge field. It was weird. Crazy shit growing in that place. I almost ate something I thought was fruit before I realized it smelled like ass.”

My breath catches. “It was an empty field? Barren? Totally abandoned?”

“Yeah.”

“The nuclear field,” Adam says, a dawning realization in his voice.

“What nuclear field?” Kenji asks.

I take a moment to explain.

“Holy crap.” Kenji grips the steering wheel. “So I could’ve died? And I didn’t?”

I ignore him. “But then how did they find us? How did they figure out where you live—?”

“I don’t know,” Adam sighs. Closes his eyes. “Maybe Kenji is lying to us.”

“Come on, man, what the hell—”

“Or,” Adam interrupts, “maybe they bought out Benny.”

“No.” I gasp.

“It’s possible.”

We’re all silent for a long moment. I try to look out the window but it’s very nearly useless. The night sky is a vat of tar suffocating the world around us.

I turn to Adam and find him with his head tilted back, his hands clenched, his lips almost white in the blackness. I wrap the sweaters more tightly around his body. He stifles a shudder.

“Adam . . .” I brush a strand of hair away from his forehead. His hair has gotten a little long and I realize I’ve never really paid attention to it before. It’s been cropped short since the day he stepped into my cell. I never would’ve thought his dark hair would be so soft. Like melted chocolate. I wonder when he stopped cutting it.

He flexes his jaw. Pries his lips open. Lies to me over and over again. “I’m okay.”

“Kenji—”

“Five minutes, I promise—I’m trying to gun this thing—”

I touch his wrists, trace the tender skin with my fingertips. The bloodied scars. I kiss the palm of his hand. He takes a broken breath. “You’re going to be okay,” I tell him.

His eyes are still closed. He tries to nod.

“Why didn’t you tell me you two were together?” Kenji asks unexpectedly. His voice is even, neutral.

“What?” Now is not the time to be blushing.

Kenji sighs. I catch a glimpse of his eyes in the rearview mirror. The swelling is almost completely gone. His face is healing. “I’d have to be
blind
to miss something like that. I mean, hell, just the way he looks at you. It’s like the guy has never seen a woman in his life. Like putting food in front of a starving man and telling him he can’t eat it.”

Adam’s eyes fly open. I try to read him but he won’t look at me.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Kenji says again.

“I never had a chance to ask,” Adam answers. His voice is less than a whisper. His energy levels are dropping too fast. I don’t want him to have to talk. He needs to conserve his strength.

“Wait—are you talking to me or her?” Kenji glances back at us.

“We can discuss this later—,” I try to say, but Adam shakes his head.

“I told James without asking you. I made . . . an assumption.” He stops. “I shouldn’t have. You should have a choice.

You should always have a choice. And it’s your choice if you want to be with me.”

“Hey, so, I’m just going to pretend like I can’t hear you guys anymore, okay?” Kenji makes a random motion with his hand. “Go ahead and have your moment.”

But I’m too busy studying Adam’s eyes, his soft soft lips. His furrowed brow.

I lean into his ear, lower my voice. Whisper the words so only he can hear me.

“You’re going to get better,” I promise him. “And when you do, I’m going to show you exactly what choice I’ve made. I’m going to memorize every inch of your body with my lips.”

He exhales suddenly, shaky, uneven. Swallows hard.

His eyes are burning into me. He looks almost feverish, and I wonder if I’m making things worse.

I pull back and he stops me. Rests his hand on my thigh. “Don’t go,” he says. “Your touch is the only thing keeping me from losing my mind.”

FORTY-TWO

“We’re here, and it’s nighttime. So according to my calculations, we must not have done anything stupid.”

Kenji shifts into park. We’re underground again, in some kind of elaborate parking garage. One minute we were aboveground, the next we’ve disappeared into a ditch. It’s next to impossible to locate, much less to spot in the darkness. Kenji was telling the truth about this hideout.

I’ve been busy trying to keep Adam awake for the past few minutes. His body is fighting exhaustion, blood loss, hunger, a million different points of pain. I feel so utterly useless.

“Adam has to go straight to the medical wing,” Kenji announces.

“They have a medical wing?” My heart is parasailing in the springtime.

Kenji grins. “This place has everything. It will blow your goddamn mind.” He hits a switch on the ceiling. A faint light illuminates the old sedan. Kenji steps out the door. “Wait here—I’ll get someone to bring out a stretcher.”

“What about James?”

“Oh.” Kenji’s mouth twitches. “He, uh—he’s going to be asleep for a little while longer.”

“What do you mean . . . ?”

He clears his throat. Once. Twice. Smooths out the wrinkles in his shirt. “I, uh, may or may not have given him something to . . . ease the pain of this journey.”

“You gave a ten-year-old a
sleeping pill
?” I’m afraid I’m going to break his neck.

“Would you rather he were awake for all of this?”

“Adam is going to kill you.”

Kenji glances at Adam’s drooping lids. “Yeah, well, I guess I’m lucky he won’t be able to kill me tonight.” He hesitates. Ducks into the car to run his fingers through James’s hair. Smiles a little. “The kid is a saint. He’ll be perfect in the morning.”

“I can’t
believe
you—”

“Hey, hey—” He holds up his hands. “Trust me. He’s going to be just fine. I just didn’t want him to be any more traumatized than he had to be.” He shrugs. “Hell, maybe Adam will agree with me.”

“I’m going to murder you.” Adam’s voice is a soft mumble.

Kenji laughs. “Keep it together, bro, or I’ll think you don’t really mean it.”

Kenji disappears.

I watch Adam, encourage him to stay awake. Tell him he’s almost safe. Touch my lips to his forehead. Study every shadow, every outline, every cut and bruise of his face. His muscles relax, his features lose their tension. He exhales a little more easily. I kiss his top lip. Kiss his bottom lip. Kiss his cheeks. His nose. His chin.

Everything happens so quickly after that.

4 people run out toward the car. 2 older than me, 2 older than them. A pair of men. A pair of women. “Where is he?” the older woman asks. They’re all looking around, anxious. I wonder if they can see me staring at them.

Kenji opens Adam’s door. Kenji is no longer smiling. In fact, he looks . . . different. Stronger. Faster. Taller, even. He’s in control. A figure of authority. These people
know
him.

Adam is lifted onto the stretcher and assessed immediately. Everyone is talking at once. Something about broken ribs. Something about losing blood. Something about airways and lung capacity and
what happened to his wrists?
Something about checking his pulse and
how long has he been bleeding?
The young male and female glance in my direction. They’re all wearing strange outfits.

Strange suits. All white with gray stripes down the side. I wonder if it’s a medical uniform.

They’re carrying Adam away.

“Wait—” I trip out of the car. “Wait! I want to go with him—”

“Not now.” Kenji stops me. Softens. “You can’t be with him for what they need to do. Not now.”

“What do you mean? What are they going to do to him?” The world is fading in and out of focus, shades of gray flickering as stilted frames, broken movements. Suddenly nothing makes sense. Suddenly everything is confusing me. Suddenly my head is a piece of pavement and I’m being trampled to death. I don’t know where we are. I don’t know who Kenji is. Kenji was Adam’s friend. Adam knows him. Adam. My Adam. Adam who is being taken away from me and I can’t go with him and I want to go with him but they won’t let me go with him and I don’t know why—

“They’re going to help him—
Juliette
—I need you to focus. You can’t fall apart right now. I know it’s been a crazy day—but I need you to stay calm.” His voice. So steady. So suddenly articulate.

“Who
are
you . . . ?” I’m beginning to panic. I want to grab James and run but I can’t. He’s done something to James and even if I knew how to wake him up, I can’t touch him. I want to rip my nails out.
“Who are you—”

Kenji sighs. “You’re starving. You’re exhausted. You’re processing shock and a million other emotions right now. Be logical. I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe now. Adam is safe. James is safe.”

“I want to be with him—I want to see what they’re going to do to him—”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“What are you going to do to me? Why did you bring me here . . . ?” My eyes are wide, darting in every direction. I’m spinning, stranded in the middle of the ocean of my own imagination and I don’t know how to swim. “What do you want from me?”

Kenji looks down. Rubs his forehead. Reaches into his pocket. “I really didn’t want to have to do this.”

I think I’m screaming.

FORTY-THREE

I’m an old creaky staircase when I wake up.

Someone has scrubbed me clean. My skin is like satin. My eyelashes are soft, my hair is smooth, brushed out of its knots; it gleams in the artificial light, a chocolate river lapping the pale shore of my skin, soft waves cascading around my collarbone. My joints ache; my eyes burn from an insatiable exhaustion. My body is naked under a heavy sheet. I’ve never felt so pristine.

I’m too tired to be bothered by it.

My sleepy eyes take inventory of the space I’m in, but there’s not much to consider. I’m lying in bed. There are 4 walls. 1 door. A small table beside me. A glass of water on the table. Fluorescent lights humming above me. Everything is white.

Everything I’ve ever known is changing.

I reach for the glass of water and the door opens. I pull the sheet up as high as it will go.

“How are you feeling?”

A tall man is wearing plastic glasses. Black frames. A simple sweater. Pressed pants. His sandy-blond hair falls into his eyes.

He’s holding a clipboard.

“Who are you?”

He grabs a chair I hadn’t noticed was sitting in the corner. Pushes it forward. Sits down beside my bed. “Do you feel dizzy? Disoriented?”

“Where’s Adam?”

He’s holding his pen to a sheet of paper. Writing something down. “Do you spell your last name with two
r
s? Or just one?”

“What did you do with James? Where’s Kenji?”

He stops. Looks up. He can’t be more than 30. He has a crooked nose. A day of scruff. “Can I at least make sure you’re doing all right? Then I’ll answer your questions.

I promise. Just let me get through the basic protocol here.”

I blink.

How do I feel. I don’t know.

Did I have any dreams. I don’t think so.

Do I know where I am. No.

Do I think I’m safe. I don’t know.

Do I remember what happened. Yes.

How old am I. 17.

What color are my eyes. I don’t know.

“You don’t know?” He puts down his pen. Takes off his glasses. “You can remember exactly what happened yesterday, but you don’t know the color of your own eyes?”

“I think they’re green. Or blue. I’m not sure. Why does it matter?”

“I want to be sure you can recognize yourself. That you haven’t lost sight of your person.”

“I’ve never really known my eye color, though. I’ve only looked in the mirror once in the last three years.”

The stranger stares at me, his eyes crinkled in concern. I finally have to look away.

“How did you touch me?” I ask.

“I’m sorry?”

“My body. My skin. I’m so . . . clean.”

“Oh.” He bites his thumb. Marks something on his papers. “Right. Well, you were covered in blood and filth when you came in, and you had some minor cuts and bruises. We didn’t want to risk infection. Sorry for the personal intrusion—but we can’t allow anyone to bring that kind of bacteria in here. We had to do a superficial detox.”