Imagine Me (Shatter Me Book 6)

Kenji

J is sleeping.

She seems so close to death I can hardly look at her. Skin so white it’s blue. Lips so blue they’re purple. Somehow, in the last couple of hours, she lost weight. She looks like a little bird, young and small and fragile. Her long hair is fanned around her face and she’s motionless, a little blue doll with her face pointed straight up at the ceiling. She looks like she could be lying in a casket.

I don’t say any of this out loud, of course.

Warner seems pretty close to death himself. He looks pale, disoriented. Sickly.

And he’s become impossible to talk to.

These past months of forced camaraderie nearly had me brainwashed; I’d almost forgotten what Warner used to be like.

Cold. Cutting. Eerily quiet.

He seems like an echo of himself right now, sitting stiffly in a chair next to her bed. We dragged J back here hours ago and he still won’t really look at anyone. The cut on his chest looks even worse now, but he does nothing about it. He disappeared at one point, but only for a couple of minutes, and returned wearing his boots. He didn’t bother to wipe the blood off his body. Didn’t stop long enough to put on a shirt. He could easily steal Sonya’s and Sara’s powers to heal himself, but he makes no effort. He refuses to be touched. He refuses to eat. The few words out of his mouth were so scathing he made three different people cry. Nouria finally told him that if he didn’t stop attacking her teammates she’d take him out back and shoot him. I think it was Warner’s lack of protest that kept her from following through.

He’s nothing but thorns.

Old Kenji would’ve shrugged it off and rolled his eyes. Old Kenji would’ve thrown a dart at Dickhead Warner and, honestly, would’ve probably been happy to see him suffer like this.

But I’m not that guy anymore.

I know Warner too well now. I know how much he loves J. I know he’d turn his skin inside out just to make her happy. He wanted to marry her, for God’s sake. And I just watched him nearly kill himself to save her, suffering for hours through the worst levels of hell just to keep her alive.

Almost two hours, to be exact.

Warner said he’d been out there with J for nearly an hour before I showed up, and it was at least another forty-five minutes before the girls were able to stabilize her. He spent nearly two hours physically fighting to keep Juliette from harm, protecting her with his own body as he was lashed by fallen trees, flying rocks, errant debris, and violent winds. The girls said they could tell just by looking at him that he had at least two broken ribs. A fracture in his right arm. A dislocated shoulder. Probably internal bleeding. They raged at him so much that he finally sat down in a chair, wrapped his good hand around the wrist of his injured arm, and pulled his own shoulder back in place. The only proof of his pain was a single, sharp breath.

Sonya screamed, rushing forward, too late to stop him.

And then he broke open the seam at the ankle of his sweatpants, tore off a length of cotton, and made a sling for his freshly socketed arm. Only after that did he finally look up at the girls.

“Now leave me alone,” he said darkly.

Sonya and Sara looked so frustrated—their eyes blazing with rare anger—I almost didn’t recognize them.

I know he’s being an asshole.

I know he’s being stubborn and stupid and cruel. But I can’t find the strength to be mad at him right now. I can’t.

My heart is breaking for the guy.

We’re all standing around J’s bed, just staring at her. A monitor beeps softly in the corner. The room smells like chemicals. Sonya and Sara had to inject J with serious tranquilizers in order to get her body to settle, but it seemed to help: the moment she slowed down, the world outside did, too.

The Reestablishment was quick on the uptake, doing such seamless damage control I almost couldn’t believe it. They capitalized on the problem, claiming that what happened this morning was a taste of future devastation. They claimed that they managed to get it under control before it got any worse, and they reminded the people to be grateful for the protections provided by The Reestablishment; that, without them, the world would be a lot worse. It fairly scared the shit out of everyone. Things feel a lot quieter now. The civilians seem subdued in a way they weren’t before. It’s stunning, really, how The Reestablishment managed to convince people that the sky collapsing while the sun just disappeared for a full minute were normal things that could happen in the world.

It’s unbelievable that they feed people that kind of bullshit, and it’s unbelievable that people eat it up.

But when I’m being super honest with myself, I’ll admit that what scares me the most is that, if I didn’t know any better, I might’ve eaten that shit up, too.

I sigh, hard. Drag a hand down my face.

This morning feels like a weird dream.

Surreal, like one of those melting clock paintings The Reestablishment destroyed. And I’m so wrung out, so tired, I don’t even have the energy to be angry. I’ve only got enough energy to be sad.

We’re all just really, really sad.

The few of us who could squeeze into this room: me, Castle, Nouria, Sam, Superman (my new nickname for Stephan), Haider, Nazeera, Brendan, Winston, Warner. All of us, sad, sorry sacks. Sonya and Sara left for a bit, but they’ll be coming back soon, and when they do, they’ll be sad, too.

Ian and Lily wanted to be here, but Warner kicked them out. He just straight up told them to get out, for reasons he didn’t offer to disclose. He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t even look at Ian. Just told him to turn around and leave. Brendan was so stunned his eyes nearly fell out of his head. But all of us were too afraid of Warner to say anything.

A small, guilty part of me wondered if maybe Warner knew that Ian talked shit about him that one time, that Warner knew (who knows how) that Ian didn’t want to make the effort to go after him and J when we lost them at the symposium.

I don’t know. It’s just a theory. But it’s obvious Warner is done playing the game. He’s done with courtesy, done with patience, done with giving a single shit about anyone but J. Which means the tension in here is insane right now. Even Castle seems a little nervous around Warner, like he’s not sure about him anymore.

The problem is, we all got too comfortable.

For a couple of months we forgot that Warner was scary. He smiled like four and a half times and we decided to forget that he was basically a psychopath with a long history of ruthless murder. We thought he’d been reformed. Gone soft. We forgot that he was only tolerating any of us because of Juliette.

And now, without her—

He no longer seems to belong.

Without her, we’re fracturing. The energy in this room has palpably changed. We don’t really feel like a team anymore, and it’s scary how quickly it happened. If only Warner weren’t so determined to be a dickhead. If only he weren’t so eager to put on his old skin, to alienate everyone in this room. If only he’d muster the smallest bit of goodwill, we could turn this whole thing around.

Seems unlikely.

I’m not as terrified as the others, but I’m not stupid, either. I know his threats of violence aren’t a bluff. The only people unperturbed are the supreme kids. They look right at home with this version of him. Haider, maybe most of all. That dude always seemed on edge, like he had no idea who Warner had turned into and he didn’t know how to process the change. But now? No problem. Super comfortable with psycho Warner. Old pals.

Nouria finally breaks the silence.

Gently, she clears her throat. A couple of people lift their heads. Warner glares at the floor.

“Kenji,” she says softly, “can I talk to you for a minute? Outside?”

My body stiffens.

I look around, uncertain, like she’s got me confused with someone else. Castle and Nazeera turn sharply in my direction, surprise widening their eyes. Sam, on the other hand, is staring at her wife, struggling to hide her frustration.

“Um”—I scratch my head—“maybe we should talk in here,” I say. “As a group?”

“Outside, Kishimoto.” Nouria is on her feet, the softness gone from her voice, her face. “Now, please.”

Reluctantly, I get to my feet.

I lock eyes with Nazeera, wondering if she has an opinion on the situation, but her expression is unreadable.

Nouria calls my name again.

I shake my head but follow her out the door. She leads me around a corner, into a narrow hallway.

It smells overwhelmingly like bleach.

J is posted up inside the MT—an obvious nickname for their medical tent—which feels like a misnomer, actually, because the tent element is entirely superficial. The inside of the building is a lot more like a proper hospital, with individual suites and operating rooms. It blew my mind a little the first time I first walked through here, because this space is super different from what we had at Omega Point and Sector 45. But then, before Sonya and Sara showed up, the Sanctuary had no healers. Their medical work was a lot more traditional: practiced by a handful of self-taught doctors and surgeons. There’s something about their old-fashioned, life-threatening medical practices that makes this place feel a lot more like a relic of our old world. A building full of fear.

Out here, in the main corridor, I can hear more clearly the standard sounds of a hospital—machines beeping, carts rolling, occasional moans, shouts, pages over an intercom. I flatten myself against the wall as a team of people barrels past, pushing a gurney down the hallway. Its occupant is an elderly man hooked up to an IV, an oxygen mask on his face. When he sees Nouria, he lifts his hand in a weak wave. Attempts a smile.

Nouria gives him a bright smile in return, holding it steady until the man is wheeled into another room. The moment he’s out of sight, she corners me. Her eyes flash, her dark brown skin glowing in the dim light like a warning. My spine straightens.

Nouria is surprisingly terrifying.

“What the hell happened out there?” she says. “What did you do?”

“Okay, first of all”—I hold up both hands—“I didn’t do anything. And I already told you guys exactly what happened—”

“You never told me that Emmaline tried to access your mind.”

That stops me up. “What? Yes I did. I literally told you that. I used those exact words.”

“But you didn’t provide the necessary details,” she says. “How did it start? What did it feel like? Why did she let go?”

“I don’t know,” I say, frowning. “I don’t understand what happened—all I’ve got are guesses.”

“Then guess,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “Unless— She’s not still in your head, is she?”

“What? No.”

Nouria sighs, more irritation than relief. She touches her fingers to her temples in a show of resignation. “This doesn’t make sense,” she says, almost to herself. “Why would she try so hard to infiltrate Ella’s mind? Why yours? I thought she was fighting against The Reestablishment. This feels more like she’s working for them.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think so. When Emmaline was in my head it felt more to me like a desperate, last-ditch effort—like she was worried J wouldn’t have the heart to kill her, and she was hoping I’d get it done faster. She called me brave, but weak. Like, I don’t know, maybe this sounds crazy, but it felt almost like Emmaline thought—for a second—that if I’d made it that far in her presence, I might’ve been strong enough to contain her. But then she jumped in my head and realized she was wrong. I wasn’t strong enough to hold her mind, and definitely not strong enough to kill her.” I shrug. “So she bailed.”

Nouria straightens. When she looks at me, she looks stunned. “You think she’s really that desperate to die? You think she wouldn’t put up a fight if someone tried to kill her?”

“Yeah, it’s awful,” I say, looking away. “Emmaline’s in a really bad place.”

“But she can exist, at least partially, in Ella’s body.” Nouria frowns. “Both consciousnesses in one person. How?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug again. “J said that Evie did a bunch of work on her muscles and bones and stuff while she was in Oceania—priming her for Operation Synthesis—to basically become Emmaline’s new body. So I think, ultimately, J playing host to Emmaline is what Evie had planned all along.”

“And Emmaline must’ve known,” Nouria says quietly.

It’s my turn to frown. “What are you getting at?”

“I don’t know, exactly. But this situation complicates things. Because if our goal was to kill Emmaline, and Emmaline is now living in Ella’s body—”

“Wait.” My stomach does a terrifying flip. “Is that why we’re out here? Is this why you’re being so secretive?”

“Lower your voice,” Nouria says sharply, glancing at something behind me.

“I will not lower my fucking voice,” I say. “What the hell are you thinking? What are you— Wait, what do you keep looking at?” I crane my neck but see only a blank wall behind my head. My heart is racing, my mind working too fast. I whip back around to face her.

“Tell me the truth,” I demand. “Is this why you cornered me? Because you’re trying to figure out if we can kill J while she’s got Emmaline inside of her? Is that it? Are you insane?”

Nouria glares at me. “Is it insane to want to save the world? Emmaline is at the center of everything wrong with our universe right now, and she’s trapped inside a body lying in a room just down the hall. Do you know how long we’ve been waiting for a moment like this? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t love this line of thinking, Kishimoto, but I’m not—”

“Nouria.”

At the sound of her wife’s voice, Nouria goes visibly still. She takes a step back from me, and I finally relax. A little.

We both turn around.

Sam’s not alone. Castle is standing next to her, both of them looking more than a little pissed.

“Leave him alone,” Castle says. “Kenji’s been through enough already. He needs time to recuperate.”

Nouria tries to respond, but Sam cuts her off. “How many times are we going to talk about this?” she says. “You can’t just shut me out when you’re stressed. You can’t just go off on your own without telling me.” Her blond hair falls into her eyes and, frustrated, she shoves the strands out of her face. “I’m your partner. This is our Sanctuary. Our life. We built it together, remember?”

“Sam.” Nouria sighs, squeezing her eyes closed. “You know I’m not trying to shut you out. You know that’s not—”

“You are literally shutting me out. You literally shut the door.”

My eyebrows fly up my forehead. Castle and I connect glances: we seem to have walked into a private argument.

Good.

“Hey, Sam,” I say, “did you know that your wife wants to kill Juliette?”

Castle gasps.

Sam’s body goes slack. She stares at Nouria, stunned.

“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “Nouria wants to murder her right now, actually, while she’s still comatose. What do you think?” I tilt my head at Sam. “Good idea? Bad idea? Maybe sleep on it?”

“That can’t be true,” Sam says, still staring at her wife. “Tell me he’s joking.”

“It’s not that simple,” says Nouria, who shoots me a look so venomous I almost feel bad for being petty. I don’t actually want Nouria and Sam to fight, but whatever. She can’t casually suggest murdering my best friend and expect me to be nice about it. “I was just pointing out th—”

“Okay, enough.”

I look up at the sound of Nazeera’s voice. I have no idea when she showed up, but she’s suddenly in front of us, arms crossed against her chest. “We’re not doing this. No side conversations. No subgroups. We all need to talk about the impending shitstorm headed our way, and if we’re going to have any chance of figuring out how to fight it, we have to stick together.”

“Which impending shitstorm?” I ask. “Please be specific.”

“I agree with Nazeera,” Sam says, her eyes narrowing at her wife. “Let’s all go back inside the room and talk. To each other. At the same time.”

“Sam,” Nouria tries again. “I’m not—”

“Bloody hell.” Stephan stops short at the sight of us, his shoes squeaking on the tile. He seems to tower over our group, looking too polished and civilized to belong here. “What on earth are you lot doing out here?”

Then, quietly, to Nazeera: “And why’ve you left us alone with him? He’s being a proper ass. Nearly made Haider cry just now.”

Nazeera sighs, closing her eyes as she pinches the bridge of her nose. “Haider does this to himself. I don’t understand why he’s deluded himself into thinking Warner is his best friend.”

“That, he might well be,” Stephan says, frowning. “The bar is quite low, as you know.”

Nazeera sighs again.

“If it makes Haider feel any better, Warner’s being equally horrible to just about everyone,” Sam says. She looks at Nouria. “Amir still won’t tell me what Warner said to him, by the way.”

“Amir?” Castle frowns. “The young man who oversees the patrol unit?”

Sam nods. “He quit this morning.”

“No.” Nouria blinks, stunned. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish I were. I had to give his job to Jenna.”

“This is crazy.” Nouria shakes her head. “It’s only been three days and already we’re falling apart.”

“Three days?” says Stephan. “Three days since we arrived, is that it? That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

“We are not falling apart,” Nazeera says suddenly. Angrily. “We can’t afford to fall apart. Not right now. Not with The Reestablishment about to appear at our doorstep.”

“Wait—what?” Sam frowns. “The Reestablishment has no idea where we—”

“God, this is so depressing,” I groan, running both hands through my hair. “Why are we all at each other’s throats right now? If Juliette were awake, she’d be so pissed at all of us. And she’d be super pissed at Warner for acting like this, for pushing us apart. Doesn’t he realize that?”

“No,” Castle says quietly. “Of course he doesn’t.”

A sharp knock knock—

And we all look up.

Winston and Brendan are peering around the corner at us, Brendan’s closed fist held aloft an inch from the wall. He knocks once more against the plaster.

Nouria exhales loudly. “Can we help you?”

They march over to us, their expressions so different it’s almost—almost—funny. Like light and dark, these two.

“Hello, everyone,” Brendan says, smiling brightly.

Winston yanks the glasses off his face. Glowers. “What the hell is going on? Why are you all having a conference out here on your own? And why did you leave us alone with him?”

“We didn’t,” I try to say.

“We’re not,” Sam and Nazeera say at the same time.

Winston rolls his eyes. Shoves his glasses back on. “I’m getting too fucking old for this.”

“You just need some coffee,” Brendan says, gently patting Winston’s shoulder. “Winston doesn’t sleep very well at night,” he explains to the rest of us.

Winston perks up. Goes instantly pink.

I smile.

I swear, it’s all I do. I just smile, and in a fraction of a second Winston’s locked eyes with me, his death stare screaming, Shut your mouth, Kishimoto, and I don’t even have a chance to be offended before he turns abruptly away, his ears bright red.

An uncomfortable silence descends.

I wonder, for the first time, if it’s really possible that Brendan has no idea how Winston feels about him. He seems oblivious, but who knows. It’s definitely not a secret to the rest of us.

“Well.” Castle takes a sharp breath, claps his hands together. “We were about to go back inside the room to have a proper discussion. So if you gentlemen”—he nods at Winston and Brendan—“wouldn’t mind turning back the way you came? We’re getting a bit cramped in the hall.”

“Right.” Brendan glances quickly behind him. “But, um, do you think we might wait another minute or so? Haider was crying, you see, and I think he’d appreciate the privacy.”

“Oh, for the love of God,” I groan.

“What happened?” Nazeera asks, concern creasing her forehead. “Should I go in there?”

Brendan shrugs, his extremely white face glowing almost neon in this dark corridor. “He said something to Warner in Arabic, I believe. And I don’t know exactly what Warner said back to him, but I’m pretty sure he told Haider to sod off, in one way or another.”

“Asshole,” Winston mutters.

“It’s true, unfortunately.” Brendan frowns.

I shake my head. “All right, okay, I know he’s being a dick, but I think we can cut Warner a little slack, right? He’s devastated. Let’s not forget the hell he went through this morning.”

“Pass.” Winston crosses his arms, anger seeming to lift him out of embarrassment. “Haider is crying. Haider Ibrahim. Son of the supreme commander of Asia. He’s sitting in a hospital chair crying because Warner hurt his feelings. I don’t know how you can defend that.”

“To be fair,” Stephan interjects, “Haider’s always been a bit delicate.”

“Listen, I’m not defending Warner, I’m just—”

“Enough.” Castle’s voice is loud. Sharp. “That is quite enough.” Something tugs gently at my neck, startling me, and I notice Castle’s hands are up in the air. Like he just physically turned our heads to face him. He points back down the hall, toward J’s recovery room. I feel a slight push at my back.

“Back inside. All of you. Now.”

Haider doesn’t seem any different when we step back inside the room. No evidence of tears. He’s standing in a corner, alone, staring into the middle distance. Warner is in exactly the same position we left him in, sitting stiffly beside J.

Staring at her.

Staring at her like he might be able to will her back into consciousness.

Nazeera claps her hands together, hard. “All right,” she says, “no more interruptions. We need to talk about strategy before we do anything else.”

Sam frowns. “Strategy for what? Right now, we need to discuss Emmaline. We need to understand the events of the morning before we can even think about discussing the next steps forward.”

“We are going to talk about Emmaline, and the events of the morning,” Nazeera says. “But in order to discuss the Emmaline situation, we’ll need to talk about the Ella situation, which will necessitate a conversation about a larger, overarching strategy—one that will dovetail neatly with a plan to get the supreme kids back.”

Castle stares at her, looking just as confused as Sam. “You want to discuss the supreme kids right now? Isn’t it better if we star—”

“Idiots,” Haider mutters under his breath.

We ignore him.

Well, most of us. Nazeera is shaking her head, giving the room at large that same look she gives me so often—the one that expresses her general exhaustion at being surrounded by idiots.

“How are you so unable to see how these things connect? The Reestablishment is looking for us. More specifically, they’re looking for Ella. We were supposed to be in hiding, remember? But Emmaline’s egregious display this morning just blew the cover on our location. We all saw the news—you all read the emergency reports. The Reestablishment did serious damage control to subdue the citizens. That means they know what happened here.”

Again, more blank stares.

“Emmaline just led them directly to Ella,” she says. She says this last sentence really slowly, like she fears for our collective intelligence. “Whether on purpose or by accident, The Reestablishment now has an approximate idea of our location.”

Nouria looks stricken.

“Which means,” Haider says, drawing the words out with his own irritating condescension, “they’re much closer to finding us now than they were a few hours ago.”

Everyone sits up straighter in their chairs. The air is suddenly different, intense in a new way. Nouria and Sam exchange worried glances.

It’s Nouria who says, “You really think they know where we are?”

“I knew this would happen,” Sam says, shaking her head.

Castle stiffens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sam bristles, but her words are calm when she says: “We took an enormous risk letting your team stay here. We risked our livelihood and the safety of our own men and women to allow you to take shelter among us. You’re here for three days and already you’ve managed to disclose our location to the world.”

“We haven’t disclosed anything— And what happened today was no one’s fault—”

Nouria lifts a hand. “Stop,” she says, shooting a look at Sam, a look so brief I almost miss it. “We’re losing our focus again. Nazeera was right when she said we were all in this together. In fact, we came together for the express purpose of defeating The Reestablishment. It’s what we’ve always been working toward. We were never meant to live forever in self-made cages and communities.”

“I understand that,” Sam says, her steady voice belying the anger in her eyes. “But if they really know which sector to search, we could be discovered in a matter of days. The Reestablishment will be increasing their military presence within the hour, if they haven’t done so already.”

“They have done,” Stephan says, looking just as exasperated as Nazeera. “Of course they have.”

“So naive, these people,” Haider says, shooting a dark look at his sister.

Nazeera sighs.

Winston swears.

Sam shakes her head.

“So what do you propose?” Winston says, but he’s not looking at Nouria or Sam or Castle. He’s looking at Nazeera.

Nazeera doesn’t hesitate.

“We wait. We wait for Ella to wake up,” she says. “We need to know as much as we can about what happened to her, and we need to prioritize her security above all else. There’s a reason why Anderson wants her so desperately, and we need to find out what that reason is before we take any next steps.”

“But what about a plan for getting the other kids back?” Winston asks. “If we wait for Ella to wake up before making a move to save them, we could be too late.”

Nazeera shakes her head. “The plan for the other kids has to be tied up in the plan to save Ella,” she says. “I’m certain that Anderson is using the kidnapping of the supreme kids as bait. A bullshit lure designed to draw us out into the open. Plus, he designed that scheme before he had any idea we’d accidentally out ourselves, which only further supports my theory that this was a bullshit lure. He was only hoping we’d step outside of our protections just long enough to give away our approximate location.”

“Which we’ve now done,” Brendan says, quietly horrified.

I drop my head in my hands. “Shit.”

“It seems clear that Anderson wasn’t planning on doing any kind of honest trade for the hostages,” Nazeera says. “How could he possibly? He never told us where he was. Never told us where to meet him. And most interestingly: he didn’t even ask for the rest of the supreme kids. Whatever his plans are, he doesn’t seem to require the full set of us. He didn’t want Warner or me or Haider or Stephan. All he wanted was Ella, right?” She glances at Nouria. “That’s what you said. That he only wanted Ella?”

“Yes,” Nouria says. “That’s true— But I still don’t think I understand. You just laid out all the reasons for us to go to war, but your plan of attack involves doing nothing.”

Nazeera can’t hide her irritation. “We should still be making plans to fight,” she says. “We’ll need a plan to find the kids, steal them back, and then, eventually, murder our parents. But I’m proposing we wait for Ella until we make any moves. I’m suggesting we do a full and complete lockdown here at the Sanctuary until Ella is conscious. No going in or out until she wakes up. If you need emergency supplies, Kenji and I can use our stealth to go on discreet missions to find what you need. The Reestablishment will have soldiers posted up everywhere, monitoring every movement in this area, but as long as we remain isolated, we should be able to buy ourselves some time.”

“But we have no idea how long it’ll take for Ella to wake up,” Sam says. “It could be weeks—it could be never—”

“Our mission,” Nazeera says, cutting her off, “has to be about protecting Ella at all costs. If we lose her, we lose everything. That’s it. That’s the whole plan right now. Keeping Ella alive and safe is the priority. Saving the kids is secondary. Besides, the kids will be fine. Most of us have been through worse in basic training simulations.”

Haider laughs.

Stephan makes an amused sound of agreement.

“But what about James?” I protest. “What about Adam? They’re not like you guys. They’ve never been prepared for this shit. For God’s sake, James is only ten years old.”

Nazeera looks at me then, and for a moment, she falters. “We’ll do our best,” she says. And though her words sound genuinely sympathetic, that’s all she gives me. Our best.

That’s it.

I feel my heart rate begin to spike.

“So we’re just supposed to risk letting them die?” Winston asks. “We’re just supposed to gamble on a ten-year-old’s life? Let him remain imprisoned and tortured at the hands of a sociopath and hope for the best? Are you serious?”

“Sometimes sacrifices are necessary,” Stephan says.

Haider merely shrugs.

“No way, no way,” I say, panicking. “We need another plan. A better plan. A plan that saves everyone, and quickly.”

Nazeera looks at me like she feels sorry for me.

That’s enough to straighten my spine.

I spin around, my panic transforming quickly into anger. I home in on Warner, sitting in the corner like a useless sack of meat. “What about you?” I say to him. “What do you think about this? You’re okay with letting your own brothers die?”

The silence is suddenly suffocating.

Warner doesn’t answer me for a long time, and the room is too stunned at my stupidity to interfere. I just broke a tacit agreement to pretend Warner doesn’t exist, but now that I’ve provoked the beast, everyone wants to see what happens next.

Eventually, Warner sighs.

It’s not a calm, relaxing sound. It’s a harsh, angry sound that only seems to leave him more tightly wound. He doesn’t even lift his head when he says, “I’m okay with a lot of things, Kishimoto.”

But I’m too far gone to turn back now.

“That’s bullshit,” I say, my fists clenching. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. You’re better than this.”

Warner says nothing. He doesn’t move a muscle, doesn’t stop staring at the same spot on the floor. And I know I shouldn’t antagonize him—I know he’s in a fragile state right now—but I can’t help it. I can’t let this go, not like this.

“So that’s it? After everything—that’s it? You’re just going to let James die?” My heart is pounding, hard and heavy in my chest. I feel my frustration peaking, spiraling. “What do you think J would say right now, huh? How do you think she’d feel about you letting someone murder a child?”

Warner stands up.

Fast, too fast. Warner is on his feet and I’m suddenly sorry. I was feeling a little brave but now I’m feeling nothing but regret. I take an uncertain step back. Warner follows. Suddenly he’s standing in front of me, studying my eyes, but it turns out I can’t hold his gaze for longer than a second. His eyes are such a pale green they’re disorienting to look at on his good days. But today— Right now—

He looks insane.

I notice, when I turn away, that he’s still got blood on his fingers. Blood smeared across his throat. Blood streaking through his gold hair.

“Look at me,” he says.

“Um, no thanks.”

“Look at me,” he says again, quietly this time.

I don’t know why I do it. I don’t know why I give in. I don’t know why there’s still a part of me that believes in Warner and hopes to see something human in his eyes. But when I finally look up, I lose that hope. Warner looks cold. Detached. All wrong.

I don’t understand it.

I mean, I’m devastated, too. I’m upset, too, but I didn’t turn into a completely different person. And right now, Warner seems like a completely different person. Where’s the guy who was going to propose to my best friend? Where’s the guy having a panic attack on his bedroom floor? Where’s the guy who laughed so hard his cheeks dimpled? Where’s the guy I thought was my friend?

“What happened to you, man?” I whisper. “Where’d you go?”

“Hell,” he says. “I’ve finally found hell.”