Tahereh Mafi - Shatter Me

I take a deep breath. I know that the only real risk is death. “Yes.”

He nods. Drops his eyes, his voice. “The troops are mobilizing for some kind of attack. There have been a lot of protests from groups who were silent before, and our job is to obliterate the resistance. I think they want this attack to be their last one,” he adds quietly. “There’s something huge going on, and I’m not sure what, not yet. But whatever it is, we have to be ready to go when they are.”

I freeze. “What do you mean?”

“When the troops are ready to deploy, you and I should be ready to run. It’s the only way out that will give us time to disappear. Everyone will be too focused on the attack- it’ll buy us some time before they notice we’re missing or can get enough people together to search for us.”

“But-you mean-you’ll come with me…? You’d be willing to do that for me?”

He smiles a small smile. His lips twitch like he’s trying not to laugh. His eyes soften as they study my own. “There’s very little I wouldn’t do for you.”

I take a deep breath and close my eyes, touching my fingers to his chest, imagining the bird soaring across his skin, and I ask him the one question that scares me the most. “Why?”

“What do you mean?” He steps back.

“Why, Adam? Why do you care? Why do you want to help me? I don’t understand-I don’t know why you’d be willing to risk your life-”

But then his arms are around my waist and he’s pulling me so close and his lips are at my ear and he says my name, once, twice and I had no idea I could catch on fire so quickly. His mouth is smiling against my skin. “You don’t?”

I don’t know anything, is what I would tell him if I had any idea how to speak.

He laughs a little and pulls back. Takes my hand and studies it. “Do you remember in fourth grade,” he says, “when Molly Carter signed up for the school field trip too late? All the spots were filled, and she stood outside the bus, crying because she wanted to go?”

He doesn’t wait for me to answer.

“I remember you got off the bus. You offered her your seat and she didn’t even say thank you. I watched you standing on the sidewalk as we pulled away.”

I’m no longer breathing.

“Do you remember in fifth grade? That week Dana’s parents nearly got divorced? She came to school every day without her lunch. And you offered to give her yours.” He pauses. “As soon as that week was over she went back to pretending you didn’t exist.”

I’m still not breathing.

“In seventh grade Shelly Morrison got caught cheating off your math test. She kept screaming that if she failed, her father would kill her. You told the teacher that you were the one cheating off of her test. You got a zero on the exam, and detention for a week.” He lifts his head but doesn’t look at me. “You had bruises on your arms for at least a month after that. I always wondered where they came from.”

My heart is beating too fast. Dangerously fast. I clench my fingers to keep them from shaking. I lock my jaw in place and wipe my face clean of emotion but I can’t slow the thrumming in my chest no matter how hard I try.

“A million times,” he says, his voice so quiet now. “I saw you do things like that a million times. But you never said a word unless it was forced out of you.” He laughs again, this time a hard, heavy sort of laugh. He’s staring at a point directly past my shoulder. “You never asked for anything from anyone.” He finally meets my eyes. “But no one ever gave you a chance.”

I swallow hard, try to look away but he catches my face.

He whispers, “You have no idea how much I’ve thought about you. How many times I’ve dreamt”-he takes a tight breath-“how many times I’ve dreamt about being this close to you.” He moves to run a hand through his hair before he changes his mind. Looks down. Looks up. “God, Juliette, I’d follow you anywhere. You’re the only good thing left in this world.”

I’m begging myself not to burst into tears and I don’t know if it’s working. I’m everything broken and glued back together and blushing everywhere and I can hardly find the strength to meet his gaze.

His fingers find my chin. Tip me up.

“We have three weeks at the most,” he says. “I don’t think they can control the mobs for much longer.”

I nod. I blink. I rest my face against his chest and pretend I’m not crying.

3 weeks.

2 weeks pass.

2 weeks of dresses and showers and food I want to throw across the room. 2 weeks of Warner smiling and touching my waist, laughing and guiding the small of my back, making sure I look my best as I walk beside him. He thinks I’m his trophy. His secret weapon.

I have to stifle the urge to crack his knuckles into concrete.

But I offer him 2 weeks of cooperation because in 1 week we’ll be gone.

Hopefully.

But then, more than anything else, I’ve found I don’t hate Warner as much as I thought I did.

I feel sorry for him.

He finds a strange sort of solace in my company; he thinks I can relate to him and his twisted notions, his cruel upbringing, his absent and simultaneously demanding father.

But he never says a word about his mother.

Adam says that no one knows anything about Warner’s mother-that she’s never been discussed and no one has any idea who she is. He says that Warner is only known to be the consequence of ruthless parenting, and a cold, calculated desire for power. He hates happy children and happy parents and their happy lives.

I think Warner thinks that I understand. That I understand him.

And I do. And I don’t.

Because we’re not the same.

I want to be better.

Adam and I have little time together but nighttime. And even then, not so much. Warner watches me more closely every day; disabling the cameras only made him more suspicious. He’s always walking into my room unexpectedly, taking me on unnecessary tours around the building, talking about nothing but his plans and his plans to make more plans and how together we’ll conquer the world. I don’t pretend to care.

Maybe it’s me who’s making this worse.

“I can’t believe Warner actually agreed to get rid of your cameras,” Adam said to me one night.

“He’s insane. He’s not rational. He’s sick in a way I’ll never understand.”

Adam sighed. “He’s obsessed with you.”

“What?” I nearly snapped my neck in surprise.

“You’re all he ever talks about.” Adam was silent a moment, his jaw too tight. “I heard stories about you before you even got here. That’s why I got involved-it’s why I volunteered to go get you. Warner spent months collecting information about you: addresses, medical records, personal histories, family relations, birth certificates, blood tests. The entire army was talking about his new project; everyone knew he was looking for a girl who’d killed a little boy in a grocery store. A girl named Juliette.”

I held my breath.

Adam shook his head. “I knew it was you. It had to be. I asked Warner if I could help with the project-I told him I’d gone to school with you, that I’d heard about the little boy, that I’d seen you in person.” He laughed a hard laugh. “Warner was thrilled. He thought it would make the experiment more interesting,” he added, disgusted. “And I knew that if he wanted to claim you as some kind of sick project-” He hesitated. Looked away. Ran a hand through his hair. “I just knew I had to do something. I thought I could try to help. But now it’s gotten worse. Warner won’t stop talking about what you’re capable of or how valuable you are to his efforts and how excited he is to have you here. Everyone is beginning to notice. Warner is ruthless-he has no mercy for anyone. He loves the power, the thrill of destroying people. But he’s starting to crack, Juliette. He’s so desperate to have you… join him. And for all his threats, he doesn’t want to force you. He wants you to want it. To choose him , in a way.” He looked down, took a tight breath. “He’s losing his edge. And whenever I see his face I’m always about two inches away from doing something stupid. I’d love to break his jaw.”