Tahereh Mafi - Shatter Me

“We are nothing . You are nothing to me-”

“I know what you want.” He leans in, drops his voice.

“I know what your little heart has always longed for. I can give you the acceptance you seek. I can be your friend .” I freeze. Falter. Fail to speak.

“I know everything about you, love.” He grins. “I’ve wanted you for a very long time. I’ve waited forever for you to be ready. I’m not going to let you go so easily.”

“I don’t want to be a monster,” I say, perhaps more for my sake than his.

“Don’t fight what you’re born to be.” He grasps my shoulders. “Stop letting everyone else tell you what’s wrong and right. Stake a claim! You cower when you could conquer. You have so much more power than you’re aware of and quite frankly I’m”-he shakes his head-“fascinated.”

“I am not your freak ,” I snap. “I will not perform for you.”

He tightens his hold around my arms and I can’t squirm away from him. He leans in dangerously close to my face and I don’t know why but I can’t breathe. “I’m not afraid of you, my dear,” he says softly. “I’m absolutely enchanted.”

“Either you get rid of the cameras or I will find and break every single one of them.” I’m a liar. I’m lying through my teeth but I’m angry and desperate and horrified. Warner wants to morph me into an animal who preys on the weak. On the innocent.

If he wants me to fight for him, he’s going to have to fight me first.

A slow smile spreads across his face. He touches gloved fingers to my cheek and tilts my head up, catching my chin in his grip when I flinch away. “You’re absolutely delicious when you’re angry.”

“Too bad my taste is poisonous for your palate.” I’m vibrating in disgust from head to toe.

“That detail makes this game so much more appealing.”

“You’re sick, you’re so sick- ”

He laughs and releases my chin only to take inventory of my body parts. His eyes draw a lazy trail down the length of my frame and I feel the sudden urge to rupture his spleen. “If I get rid of your cameras, what will you do for me?” His eyes are wicked.

“Nothing.”

He shakes his head. “That won’t do. I might agree to your proposition if you agree to a condition.”

I clench my jaw. “What do you want?”

The smile is bigger than before. “That is a dangerous question.”

“What is your condition ?” I clarify, impatient.

“Touch me.”

“What?” My gasp is so loud it catches in my throat only to race around the room.

“I want to know exactly what you’re capable of.” His voice is steady, his eyebrows taut, tense.

“I won’t do it again!” I explode. “You saw what you made me do to Jenkins-”

“Screw Jenkins,” he spits. “I want you to touch me - I want to feel it myself -”

“No-” I’m shaking my head so hard it makes me dizzy. “No. Never. You’re crazy-I won’t-”

“You will, actually.”

“I will NOT-”

“You will have to… work… at one point or another,” he says, making an effort to moderate his voice. “Even if you were to forgo my condition, you are here for a reason, Juliette. I convinced my father that you would be an asset to The Reestablishment. That you’d be able to restrain any rebels we-”

“You mean torture -”

“Yes.” He smiles. “Forgive me, I mean torture. You will be able to help us torture anyone we capture.” A pause. “Inflicting pain, you see, is an incredibly efficient method of getting information out of anyone. And with you?” He glances at my hands. “Well, it’s cheap. Fast. Effective.” He smiles wider. “And as long as we keep you alive, you’ll be good for at least a few decades. It’s very fortunate that you’re not battery-operated.”

“You- you -” I sputter.

“You should be thanking me. I saved you from that sick hole of an asylum-I brought you into a position of power. I’ve given you everything you could possibly need to be comfortable.” He levels his gaze at me. “Now I need you to focus. I need you to relinquish your hopes of living like everyone else. You are not normal. You never have been, and you never will be. Embrace who you are .”

“I”-I swallow-“I am not-I’m not-I’m-”

“A murderer?”

“NO-”

“An instrument of torture?”

“STOP-”

“You’re lying to yourself.”

I’m ready to destroy him.

He cocks his head and presses back a smile. “You’ve been on the edge of insanity your entire life, haven’t you? So many people called you crazy you actually started to believe it. You wondered if they were right. You wondered if you could fix it. You thought if you could just try a little harder, be a little better, smarter, nicer-you thought the world would change its mind about you. You blamed yourself for everything.”

I gasp.

My bottom lip trembles without my permission. I can hardly control the tension in my jaw.

I don’t want to tell him he’s right.

“You’ve suppressed all your rage and resentment because you wanted to be loved,” he says, no longer smiling. “Maybe I understand you, Juliette. Maybe you should trust me. Maybe you should accept the fact that you’ve tried to be someone you’re not for so long and that no matter what you did, those bastards were never happy. They were never satisfied. They never gave a damn, did they?” He looks at me and for a moment he seems almost human. For a moment I want to believe him. For a moment I want to sit on the floor and cry out the ocean lodged in my throat.

“It’s time you stopped pretending,” he says, so softly. “Juliette-” He takes my face in his gloved hands, so unexpectedly gentle. “You don’t have to be nice anymore. You can destroy all of them. You can take them down and own this whole world and-”

A steam engine hits me in the face.

“I don’t want to destroy anyone,” I tell him. “I don’t want to hurt people-”

“But they deserve it!” He pushes away from me, frustrated. “How could you not want to retaliate? How could you not want to fight back -”

I stand up slowly, shaking with anger, hoping my legs won’t collapse beneath me. “You think that because I am unwanted, because I am neglected and-and discarded -” My voice inches higher with every word, the unrestrained emotions suddenly screaming through my lungs. “You think I don’t have a heart? You think I don’t feel ? You think that because I can inflict pain, that I should? You’re just like everyone else. You think I’m a monster just like everyone else. You don’t understand me at all-”

“Juliette-”

“No.”

I don’t want this. I don’t want his life.

I don’t want to be anything for anyone but myself. I want to make my own choices and I’ve never wanted to be a monster. My words are slow and steady when I speak. “I value human life a lot more than you do, Warner.”

He opens his mouth to speak before he stops. Laughs out loud and shakes his head.

Smiles at me.

“What?” I ask before I can stop myself.

“You just said my name.” He grins even wider. “You’ve never addressed me directly before. That must mean I’m making progress with you.”

“I just told you I don’t-”

He cuts me off. “I’m not worried about your moral dilemmas. You’re just stalling for time because you’re in denial. Don’t worry,” he says. “You’ll get over it. I can wait a little longer.”

“I’m not in denial- ”

“Of course you are. You don’t know it yet, Juliette, but you are a very bad girl,” he says, clutching his heart. “Just my type.”