Reveal Me (Shatter Me Book 5.5)

I must be out of my mind.

That’s got to be it. There’s no other reason why I’d swear in Castle’s face, scream at his daughter, fight my own friends, and still be standing here at dawn, pressing this doorbell for the third time. It’s like I’m asking to be murdered. It’s like I want Warner to just punch me in the face or something. Even now, through the thick, dumb fog of my head, I know I shouldn’t be here. I know it’s not right.

But I’m either (a) too stupid, (b) too tired, (c) too angry, or (d) all of the above, to give a proper shit about their personal space or their privacy. And then, as if on cue, I hear his muffled, angry voice through the door.

“Please, love. Just ignore it.”

“What if something’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong,” he says. “It’s just Kenji.”

“Kenji?” I hear some kind of shuffle, and my heart picks up. J always comes through. She always comes through. “How do you know it’s Kenji?”

“Call it a wild guess,” Warner says.

I ring the doorbell again.

“Coming!” J. Finally.

“She’s not coming,” Warner shouts. “Go away.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I shout back. “I want to talk to Juliette. Ella. Jella. Jello. Whatever.”

“Ella, love, please—let me kill him.”

I hear J laugh, which is sweet, actually, because it’s clear she thinks Warner’s joking. Me, on the other hand—I’m pretty sure he’s not.

Warner says something then, something I don’t hear. The room goes quiet, and, for a moment, I’m confused. And then I realize I’ve been bested. Warner probably got her back into bed.

Goddammit.

“But that’s exactly why I should answer the door,” I hear her say. More silence. Then rustling. A muted thud. “If he needs to talk to me this early in the morning, it must be important.”

Warner sighs so loudly I actually hear it through the wall.

I press the doorbell again.

A single, unintelligible cry.

“Hey,” I call out. “Seriously—someone open the door. I’m freezing my ass off out here.”

More angry mutters from Warner.

“I’ll be right there,” Jello shouts.

“What’s taking so long?” I ask.

“I’m trying to—” I hear her laugh, and then, in a soft, sweet voice clearly directed at someone else: “Aaron, please—I promise I’ll be right back.”

“J?”

“I’m trying to get dressed!”

“Oh.” I try really, really hard not to picture them both, undressed, in bed together, but somehow I can’t fight the image from materializing. “Okay, ew.”

Then: “Sweetheart, how long do you plan on being friends with him?”

J laughs again.

Man, that girl has no clue.

I mean, okay . . . It’s true that if for five seconds I stopped to put myself in Warner’s shoes, I’d understand exactly why he wants to kill me so often. If I were in bed with my girl and some needy asshole kept ringing the doorbell for no reason except that he wanted to talk through his feelings with her, I’d want to murder him, too.

Then again, I don’t have a girl, and at this rate, I probably never will. So I kind of don’t care—and Warner knows that. It’s half the reason he hates me so much. He can’t push me away without hurting J, but he can’t let me in without sharing her, either. He’s in a shitty position.

Works out for me, though.

And I’ve still got my finger hovering over the doorbell when I hear footsteps, growing closer. But when the door finally flies open, I take a sudden, jerky step back.

Warner looks furious.

His hair is disheveled, the sash on his robe tied too quickly. He’s shirtless, barefoot, and probably naked under that robe, which is the only reason I force myself to meet his eyes.

Shit.

He wasn’t joking even a little bit. He’s, like, genuinely pissed.

And his voice is low—lethal—when he says, “I should’ve let you freeze to death in Kent’s old apartment. I should’ve let those rodents devour your carefully preserved carcass. I should’ve—”

“Listen, man, I’m really not trying to—”

“Don’t interrupt me.”

My mouth snaps shut.

He takes a sharp, steady breath. His eyes are like fire. Green. Ice. Fire. In that order. “Why do you do this to me? Why?”

“Um. Okay, I know this will be hard for a narcissist like you to understand, but this has nothing to do with you. J is my friend. In fact, she was my friend first. We were friends long before you ever came around.”

Warner’s eyes widen with outrage. And before he has a chance to speak, I say—

“My bad. I’m sorry.” I hold up my hands in apology. “I forgot about the whole memory-wiping thing for a second. But honestly, whatever. As far as my memories are concerned, I knew her first.”

And then, all of a sudden—

Warner frowns.

It’s like someone hits a switch, and the fire in his eyes goes out. He’s studying me closely now, and it’s making me nervous.

“What’s going on?” he says. He tilts his head at me, and, a moment later, his eyes widen in surprise. “Why are you terrified?”

Jello shows up before I can answer.

She smiles at me—this big, bright, happy thing that always warms my heart—and I’m relieved to discover that she’s fully clothed. Not naked-under-a-bathrobe-clothed, but, like, she’s wearing a coat and shoes and she’s ready to walk out the door kind of clothed.

I feel like I can finally breathe.

But in an instant, her smile is gone. And when she goes suddenly pale, when her eyes pull together in concern—I feel the tiniest bit better. I know it sounds strange, but there’s something reassuring about her reaction; it means that at least something is right with the world. Because I knew. I knew that, unlike everyone else, she’d see right away that I wasn’t okay. That I’m not okay. No superpowers necessary.

And somehow, that means everything.

“Kenji,” she says, “what’s wrong?”

I can hardly hold it together anymore. A dull, throbbing pain is pressing against the back of my left eye; black spots fade in and out of my vision, pockmarking everything. I feel like I can’t get enough air, like my chest is too small, my brain too big.

“Kenji?”

“It’s James,” I say, my voice coming out thin. Wrong. “Anderson took him. Anderson took James and Adam. He’s holding them hostage.”