Ignite Me (7 page)

I wish I could listen in on their conversation, but they’re both careful to say nothing until the bathroom door shuts behind me.

ELEVEN

I take a quick shower, careful not to let the water touch my hair. I already washed it last night, and the temperature feels brisk this morning; if we’re headed out, I don’t want to risk catching a cold. It’s difficult, though, to avoid the temptation of a long shower—and hot water—in Warner’s bathroom.

I dress quickly, grabbing the folded clothes Warner left on a shelf for me. Dark jeans and a soft, navy-blue sweater. Fresh socks and underwear. A brand-new pair of tennis shoes.

The sizes are perfect.

Of course they are.

I haven’t worn jeans in so many years that at first the material feels strange to me. The fit is so tight, so tapered; I have to bend my knees to stretch the denim a little. But by the time I tug the sweater over my head, I’m finally feeling comfortable. And even though I miss my suit, there’s something nice about wearing real clothes. No fancy dresses, no cargo pants, no spandex. Just jeans and a sweater, like a normal person. It’s an odd reality.

I take a quick look in the mirror, blinking at my reflection. I wish I had something to tie my hair back with; I got so used to being able to pull it out of my face while I was
at Omega Point. I look away with a resigned sigh, hoping to get a start on this day as soon as possible. But the minute I crack open the bathroom door, I hear voices.

I freeze in place. Listening.

“—sure it’s safe, sir?”

Delalieu is talking.

“Forgive me,” the older man says quickly. “I don’t mean to seem impertinent, but I can’t help but be concerned—”

“It’ll be fine. Just make sure our troops aren’t patrolling that area. We should only be gone a few hours at the most.”

“Yes, sir.”

Silence.

Then

“Juliette,” Warner says, and I nearly fall into the toilet. “Come out here, love. It’s rude to eavesdrop.”

I step out of the bathroom slowly, face flushed with heat from the shower and the shame of being caught in such a juvenile act. I suddenly have no idea what to do with my hands.

Warner is enjoying my embarrassment. “Ready to go?”

No.

No, I’m not.

Suddenly hope and fear are strangling me and I have to remind myself to breathe. I’m not ready to face the death and destruction of all my friends. Of course I’m not.

But “Yes, of course” is what I say out loud.

I’m steeling myself for the truth, in whatever form it arrives.

TWELVE

Warner was right.

Being carted through Sector 45 was a lot easier than I expected. No one noticed us, and the empty space underneath the cart was actually spacious enough for me to sit comfortably.

It’s only when Delalieu flips open one of the cloth panels that I realize where we are. I glance around quickly, my eyes taking inventory of the military tanks parked in this vast space.

“Quickly,” Delalieu whispers. He motions toward the tank parked closest to us. I watch as the door is pushed open from the inside. “Hurry, miss. You cannot be seen.”

I scramble.

I jump out from underneath the cart and into the open door of the tank, clambering up and into the seat. The door shuts behind me, and I turn back to see Delalieu looking on, his watery eyes pinched together with worry. The tank starts moving.

I nearly fall forward.

“Stay low and buckle up, love. These tanks weren’t built for comfort.”

Warner is smiling as he stares straight ahead, his hands
sheathed in black leather gloves, his body draped in a steel-gray overcoat. I duck down in my seat and fumble for the straps, buckling myself in as best I can.

“So you know how to get there?” I ask him.

“Of course.”

“But your father said you couldn’t remember anything about Omega Point.”

Warner glances over, his eyes laughing. “How convenient for us that I’ve regained my memory.”

“Hey—how did you even get out of there?” I ask him. “How did you get past the guards?”

He shrugs. “I told them I had permission to be out of my room.”

I gape at him. “You’re not serious.”

“Very.”

“But how did you find your way out?” I ask. “You got past the guards, fine. But that place is like a labyrinth—I couldn’t find my way around even after I’d been living there for a month.”

Warner checks a display on the dashboard. Hits a few buttons for functions I don’t understand. “I wasn’t completely unconscious when I was carried in,” he says. “I forced myself to pay attention to the entrance,” he says. “I did my best to memorize any obvious landmarks. I also kept track of the amount of time it took to carry me from the entrance to the medical wing, and then from the medical wing to my room. And whenever Castle took me on my rounds to the bathroom,” he says, “I studied my surroundings, trying to
gauge how far I was from the exit.”

“So—” I frown. “You could’ve defended yourself against the guards and tried to escape much sooner. Why didn’t you?”

“I already told you,” he says. “It was oddly luxurious, being confined like that. I was able to catch up on weeks of sleep. I didn’t have to work or deal with any military issues. But the most obvious answer,” he says, exhaling, “is that I stayed because I was able to see you every day.”

“Oh.”

Warner laughs, his eyes pressed shut for a second. “You really never wanted to be there, did you?”

“What do you mean?”

He shakes his head. “If you’re going to survive,” he says to me, “you can never be indifferent to your surroundings. You can’t depend on others to take care of you. You cannot presume that someone else will do things right.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t care,” he says. “You were there, underground for over a month, grouped together with these supernaturally inclined rebels spouting big, lofty ideals about saving the world, and you say you couldn’t even find your way around. It’s because you didn’t care,” he says. “You didn’t want to participate. If you did, you would’ve taken the initiative to learn as much as possible about your new home. You would’ve been beside yourself with excitement. Instead, you were apathetic. Indifferent.”

I open my mouth to protest but I don’t have a chance.

“I don’t blame you,” he says. “Their goals were unrealistic. I don’t care how flexible your limbs are or how many objects you can move with your mind. If you do not understand your opponent—or worse, if you
underestimate
your opponent—you are going to lose.” His jaw tightens. “I kept trying to tell you,” he says, “that Castle was going to lead your group into a massacre. He was too optimistic to be a proper leader, too hopeful to logically consider the odds stacked against him, and too ignorant of The Reestablishment to truly understand how they deal with voices of opposition.

“The Reestablishment,” Warner says, “is not interested in maintaining a facade of kindness. The civilians are nothing more than peons to them. They want power,” he says to me, “and they want to be entertained. They are not interested in fixing our problems. They only want to make sure that they are as comfortable as possible as we dig our own graves.”

“No.”

“Yes,” he says. “It is exactly that simple. Everything else is just a joke to them. The texts, the artifacts, the languages. They just want to scare people, to keep them submissive, and to strip them of their individuality—to herd them into a singular mentality that serves no purpose but their own. This is why they can and will destroy all rebel movements. And this is a fact that your friends did not fully understand. And now,” he says, “they have suffered for their ignorance.”

He stops the tank.

Turns off the engine.

Unlocks my door.

And I’m still not ready to face this.

THIRTEEN

Anyone would be able to find Omega Point now. Any citizen, any civilian, anyone with working vision would be able to tell you where the large crater in Sector 45 is located.

Warner was right.

I unbuckle myself slowly, reaching blindly for the door handle. I feel like I’m moving through fog, like my legs have been formed from fresh clay. I fail to account for the height of the tank above the ground and stumble into the open air.

This is it.

The empty, barren stretch of land I’d come to recognize as the area just around Omega Point; the land Castle told us was once lush with greenery and vegetation. He said it’d been the ideal hiding place for Omega Point. But this was before things started changing. Before the weather warped and the plants struggled to flourish. Now it’s a graveyard. Skeletal trees and howling winds, a thin layer of snow powdered over the cold, packed earth.

Omega Point is gone.

It’s nothing but a huge, gaping hole in the ground about a mile across and 50 feet deep. It’s a bowlful of innards, of death and destruction, silent in the wake of tragedy. Years of effort, so much time and energy spent toward a specific
goal, one purpose: a plan to save humanity.

Obliterated overnight.

A gust of wind climbs into my clothes then, wraps itself around my bones. Icy fingers tiptoe up my pant legs, clench their fists around my knees and pull; suddenly I’m not sure how I’m still standing. My blood feels frozen, brittle. My hands are covering my mouth and I don’t know who put them there.

Something heavy falls onto my shoulders. A coat.

I look back to find that Warner is watching me. He holds out a pair of gloves.

I take the gloves and tug them on over my frozen fingers and wonder why I’m not waking up yet, why no one has reached out to tell me it’s okay, it’s just a bad dream, that everything is going to be fine.

I feel as though I’ve been scooped out from the inside, like someone has spooned out all the organs I need to function and I’m left with nothing, just emptiness, just complete and utter disbelief. Because this is impossible.

Omega Point.

Gone.

Completely destroyed.

“JULIETTE, GET DOWN—”

FOURTEEN

Warner tackles me to the ground just as the sound of gunshots fills the air.

His arms are under me, cradling me to his chest, his body shielding mine from whatever imminent danger we’ve just gotten ourselves into. My heart is beating so loudly I can hardly hear Warner’s voice as he speaks into my ear. “Are you all right?” he whispers, pulling me tighter against him.

I try to nod.

“Stay down,” he says. “Don’t move.”

I wasn’t planning on it, I don’t say to him.

“STEP AWAY FROM HER, YOU WORTHLESS SACK OF SHIT—”

My body goes stiff.

That voice. I know that voice.

I hear footsteps coming closer, crunching on the snow and ice and dirt. Warner loosens his hold around me, and I realize he’s reaching for his gun.

“Kenji—no—,” I try to shout, my voice muffled by the snow.

“GET UP!” Kenji bellows, still moving closer. “Stand up, coward!”

I’ve officially begun to panic.

Warner’s lips brush against my ear. “I’ll be right back.”

Just as I turn to protest, Warner’s weight is lifted. His body gone. He’s completely disappeared.

I scramble to my feet, spinning around.

My eyes land on Kenji.

He’s stopped in place, confused and scanning the area, and I’m so happy to see him that I can’t be bothered to care about Warner right now. I’m almost ready to cry. I squeak out Kenji’s name.

His eyes lock on to mine.

He charges forward, closing the gap between us and tackling me in a hug so fierce he practically cuts off my circulation. “Holy
shit
it’s good to see you,” he says, breathless, squeezing me tighter.

I cling to him, so relieved, so stunned. I press my eyes shut, unable to stop the tears.

Kenji pulls back to look me in the eye, his face bright with pain and joy. “What the hell are you doing out here? I thought you were
dead
—”

“I thought
you
were dead!”

He stops then. The smile vanishes from his face. “Where the hell did Warner go?” he says, eyes taking in our surroundings. “You were with him, right? I’m not losing my mind, am I?”

“Yes—listen—Warner brought me here,” I tell him, trying to speak calmly, hoping to cool the anger in his eyes. “But he’s not trying to fight. When he told me about what happened to Omega Point, I didn’t believe him, so I
asked him to show me proof—”

“Is that right?” Kenji says, eyes flashing with a kind of hatred I’ve never seen in him before. “He came to show off what they did? To show you how many people he MURDERED!” Kenji breaks away from me, shaking with fury. “Did he tell you how many children were in there? Did he tell you how many of our men and women were
slaughtered
because of him?” He stops, heaving. “Did he tell you that?” he asks again, screaming into the air. “COME BACK OUT HERE, YOU SICK BASTARD!”

“Kenji,
no
—”

But Kenji’s already gone, darting away so quickly he’s just a speck in the distance now. I know he’s searching the vast space for glimpses of Warner and I need to do something, I need to stop him but I don’t know how—

“Don’t move.”

Warner’s whispers are at my ear, his hands planted firmly on my shoulders. I try to spin around and he holds me in place. “I said don’t move.”

“What are you d—”

“Shhhh,” he says. “No one can see me.”

“
What?
” I crane my neck to try and glance behind me, but my head knocks against Warner’s chin. His
invisible
chin.

“No,” I hear myself gasp. “But you’re not touching him—”

“Look straight ahead,” he whispers. “It won’t do us any good for you to be caught talking to invisible people.”

I turn my face forward. Kenji is no longer in sight.
“How?” I ask Warner. “How did you—”

Warner shrugs behind me. “I’ve felt different since we did that experiment with your power. Now that I know exactly what it’s like to take hold of another ability, I’m more easily able to recognize it. Like right now,” he says. “I feel as though I could quite literally reach forward and take hold of your energy. It was just as simple with Kenji,” he says. “He was standing right there. My survival instincts took over.”