Unravel Me (6 page)

“No,” he says. “I legit could not move. I could hardly breathe.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Have you ever done that before?”

“No.” I’m shaking my head. “I mean I don’t think I …” I gasp, as the memory of Warner
and his torture chamber rushes to the forefront of my mind; I have to close my eyes
against the influx of images. The barest recollection of that event is enough to make
me feel unbearably nauseous; I can already feel my skin break into a cold sweat. Warner
was testing me, trying to put me in a position where I’d be forced to use my power
on a toddler. I was so horrified, so enraged that I crashed through the concrete barrier
to get to Warner, who was waiting on the other side. I’d pinned
him
against the wall, too. Only I didn’t realize he was cowed by my strength. I thought
he was afraid to move because I’d gotten too close to touching him.

I guess I was wrong.

“Yeah,” Kenji says, nodding at something he must see on my face. “Well. That’s what
I thought. We’ll have to remember this juicy tidbit when we get around to our real
training sessions.” He throws me a loaded look. “Whenever that actually happens.”

I’m nodding, not really paying attention. “Sure. Fine. But first, take me to the research
rooms.”

Kenji sighs. Waves his hand with a bow and a flourish. “After you, princess.”

We’re trailing down a series of corridors I’ve never seen before.

We’re passing all of the regular halls and wings, past the training room I normally
occupy, and for the first time since I’ve been here, I’m really paying attention to
my surroundings. All of a sudden my senses feel sharper, clearer; my entire being
feels like it’s humming with a renewed kind of energy.

I am electric.

This entire hideout has been dug out of the ground—it’s nothing but cavernous tunnels
and interconnected passageways, all powered by supplies and electricity stolen from
secret storage units belonging to The Reestablishment. This space is invaluable. Castle
told us once that it took him at least a decade to design it, and a decade more to
get the work done. By then he’d also managed to recruit all of the other members of
this underground world. I can understand why he’s so relentless about security down
here, why he’s not willing to let anything happen to it. I don’t think I would either.

Kenji stops.

We reach what looks like a dead end—what could be the very end of Omega Point.

Kenji pulls out a key card I didn’t know he was hiding, and his hand fumbles for a
panel buried in the stone. He slides the panel open. Does something I can’t see. Swipes
the key card. Hits a switch.

The entire wall rumbles to life.

The pieces are coming apart, shifting out of place until they reveal a hole big enough
for our bodies to clamber through. Kenji motions for me to follow his lead and I scramble
through the entryway, glancing back to watch the wall close up behind me.

My feet hit the ground on the other side.

It’s like a cave. Massive, wide, separated into 3 longitudinal sections. The middle
section is the most narrow and serves as a walkway; square glass rooms fit with slim
glass doors make up the left and right sections. Each clear wall acts as a partition
to rooms on either side—everything is see-through. There’s an electric aura engulfing
the entire space; each cube is bright with white light and blinking machinery; sharp
and dull hums of energy pulse through the vast dimensions.

There are at least 20 rooms down here.

10 on either side, all of them unobstructed from view. I recognize a number of faces
from the dining hall down here, some of them strapped to machines, needles stuck in
their bodies, monitors beeping about some kind of information I can’t understand.
Doors slide open and closed open and closed open and closed; words and whispers and
footsteps, hand gestures and half-formed thoughts collect in the air.

This.

This is where everything happens.

Castle told me 2 weeks ago—the day after I arrived—that he had a pretty good idea
why we are the way we are. He said that they’d been doing research for years.

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.

They’re
torturing
him.

“I would not have expected you to have such an adverse reaction to this room,” Castle
says. He’s trying to be conversational. Reasonable. Charismatic, even. It makes me
wonder what I must look like right now. I wonder if he’s afraid of me. “I thought
you understood the importance of the research we do at Omega Point,” he says. “Without
it, how could we possibly hope to understand our origins?”

“You’re hurting him—you’re
killing
him! What have you done—”

“Nothing he hasn’t asked to be a part of.” Castle’s voice is tight and his lips are
tight and I can see his patience is starting to wear thin. “Ms. Ferrars, if you are
insinuating that I’ve used him for my own personal experimentation, I would recommend
you take a closer look at the situation.” He says the last few syllables with a little
too much emphasis, a little too much fire, and I realize I’ve never seen him angry
before.

“I know that you’ve been struggling here,” Castle continues. “I know you are unaccustomed
to seeing yourself as part of a group, and I’ve made an effort to understand where
you might be coming from—I’ve tried to help you adjust. But you must look around!”
He gestures toward the glass walls and the people behind them. “We are all the same.
We are working on the same team! I have subjected Adam to nothing I have not undergone
myself. We are simply running tests to see where his supernatural abilities lie. We
cannot know for certain what he is capable of if we do not test him first.” His voice
drops an octave or 2. “And we do not have the luxury of waiting several years until
he accidentally discovers something that might be useful to our cause right now.”

And it’s strange.

Because it’s like a real thing, this anger.

I feel it wrapping itself around my fingers like I could fling it at his face. I feel
it coiling itself around my spine, planting itself in my stomach and shooting branches
down my legs, up my arms, through my neck. It’s choking me. Choking me because it
needs release, needs relief. Needs it now.

“You,” I tell him, and I can hardly spit the words out. “You think you’re any better
than The Reestablishment if you’re just
using us
—experimenting on us to further your cause—”

“MS. FERRARS!” Castle bellows. His eyes are flashing bright, too bright, and I realize
everyone in this underground tunnel is now staring at us. His fingers are in fists
at his sides and his jaw is unmistakably set and I feel Kenji’s hand on my back before
I realize the earth is vibrating under my feet. The glass walls are beginning to tremble
and Castle is planted right in the middle of everything, rigid, raw with anger and
indignation and I remember that he has an impossibly advanced level of psychokinesis.

I remember that he can move things with his mind.

He lifts his right hand, palm splayed outward, and the glass panel not a few feet
away begins to shake, shudder, and I realize I’m not even breathing.

“You do not want to upset me.” Castle’s voice is far too calm for his eyes. “If you
have a problem with my methods, I would gladly invite you to state your claims in
a rational manner. I will not tolerate you speaking to me in such a fashion. My concerns
for the future of our world may be more than you can fathom, but you should not fault
me for your own ignorance!” He drops his right hand and the glass buckles back just
in time.

“My
ignorance
?” I’m breathing hard again. “You think because I don’t understand why you would subject
anyone to—to
this
—” I wave a hand around the room. “You think that means I’m
ignorant
—?”

“Hey, Juliette, it’s okay—,” Kenji starts.

“Take her away,” Castle says. “Take her back to her training quarters.” He shoots
an unhappy look at Kenji. “And you and I—we will discuss this later. What were you
thinking,
bringing her here? She’s not ready to see this—she can hardly even handle
herself
right now—”

He’s right.

I can’t handle this. I can’t hear anything but the sounds of machines beeping, screeching
in my head, can’t see anything but Adam’s limp form lying on a thin mattress. I can’t
stop imagining what he must’ve been going through, what he had to endure just to understand
what he might be and I realize it’s all my fault.

It’s my fault he’s here, it’s my fault he’s in danger, it’s my fault Warner wants
to kill him and Castle wants to test him and if it weren’t for me he’d still be living
with James in a home that hasn’t been destroyed; he’d be safe and comfortable and
free from the chaos I’ve introduced to his life.