Shatter Me Complete Collection (73 page)

My heart has exploded.

I’m thrown backward, tripping over my own feet until I hit the floor, my head slamming into the carpeted ground, my arms doing little to break my fall. It’s pain like I’ve never known it, pain I never thought I could feel, never would have even imagined. It’s like dynamite has gone off in my chest, like I’ve been lit on fire from the inside out, and suddenly everything slows down.

So this, I think, is what it feels like to die.

I’m blinking and it seems to take forever. I see an unfocused series of images in front of me, colors and bodies and lights swaying, stilted movements all blurred together. Sounds are warped, garbled, too high and too low for me to hear clearly. There are icy, electric bursts surging through my veins, like every part of my body has fallen asleep and is trying to wake up again.

There’s a face in front of me.

I try to concentrate on the shape, the colors, try to bring everything into focus but it’s too difficult and suddenly I can’t breathe, suddenly I feel like there are knives in my throat, holes punched into my lungs, and the more I blink, the less clearly I’m able to see. Soon I’m only able to take in the tightest breaths, tiny little gasps that remind me of when I was a child, when the doctors told me I suffered from asthma attacks. They were wrong, though; my shortness of breath had nothing to do with asthma. It had to do with panic and anxiety and hyperventilation. But this feeling I’m feeling right now is very similar to what I experienced then. It’s like trying to take in oxygen by breathing through the thinnest straw. Like your lungs are just closing up, gone for the holidays. I feel the dizziness take over, the light-headed feeling take over. And the pain, the pain, the
pain
. The pain is terrible. The pain is the worst. The pain never seems to stop.

Suddenly I’m blind.

I feel rather than see the blood, feel it leaking out of me as I blink and blink and blink in a desperate attempt to regain my vision. But I can see nothing but a haze of white. I hear nothing but the pounding in my eardrums and the short, the short, the short frantic gasp gasp gasps of my own breath and I feel hot, so hot, the blood of my body still so fresh and warm and pooling underneath me, all around me.

Life is seeping out of me and it makes me think about death, makes me think about how short a life I lived and how little I lived it. How I spent most of my years cowering in fear, never standing up for myself, always trying to be what someone else wanted. For 17 years I tried to force myself into a mold that I hoped would make other people feel comfortable, safe, unthreatened.

And it never helped.

I will have died having accomplished nothing. I am still no one. I am nothing more than a silly little girl bleeding to death on a psychotic man’s floor.

And I think, if I could do it over again, I’d do it so differently.

I’d be better. I’d make something of myself. I’d make a difference in this sorry, sorry world.

And I’d start by killing Anderson.

It’s too bad I’m already so close to dead.

My eyes open.

I’m looking around and wondering at this strange version of an afterlife. Odd, that Warner is here, that I still can’t seem to move, that I still feel such extraordinary pain. Stranger still to see Sonya and Sara in front of me. I can’t even pretend to understand their presence in this picture.

I’m hearing things.

Sounds are beginning to come in more clearly, and, because I can’t lift my head to look around, I try instead to focus on what they’re saying.

They’re arguing.

“You have to!” Warner shouts.

“But we can’t—we can’t t-touch her,” Sonya is saying, choking back tears. “There’s no way for us to help her—”

“I can’t believe she’s actually dying,” Sara gasps. “I didn’t think you were telling the truth—”

“She’s not dying!” Warner says. “She is not going to die! Please, listen, I’m telling you,” he says, desperate now, “you can help her—I’ve been trying to explain to you,” he says, “all you have to do is touch me and I can take your power—I can be the transfer, I can control it and redirect your Energy—”

“That’s not possible,” Sonya says. “That’s not—Castle never said you could do that—he would’ve told us if you could do that—”

“Jesus, please, just listen to me,” he says, his voice breaking. “I’m not trying to trick you—”

“You kidnapped us!” they both shout at the same time.

“That wasn’t me! I wasn’t the one who kidnapped you—”

“How are we supposed to trust you?” Sara says. “How do we know you didn’t do this to her yourself?”

“Why don’t you care?” He’s breathing so hard now. “How can you not care? Why don’t you care that she’s bleeding to death—I thought you were her friends—”

“Of course we care!” Sara says, her voice catching on the last word. “But how can we help her now? Where can we take her? Who can we take her to? No one can touch her and she’s lost so much blood already—just look at he—”

A sharp intake of breath.

“Juliette?”

Footsteps stomp stomp stomp the ground. Rushing around my head. All the sounds are banging into each other, colliding again, spinning around me. I can’t believe I’m not dead yet.

I have no idea how long I’ve been lying here.

“Juliette? JULIETTE—”

Warner’s voice is a rope I want to cling to. I want to catch it and tie it around my waist and I want him to haul me out of this paralyzed world I’m trapped in. I want to tell him not to worry, that it’s fine, that I’m going to be okay because I’ve accepted it, I’m ready to die now, but I can’t. I can’t say anything. I still can’t breathe, can hardly shape my lips into words. All I can do is take these torturous little gasps and wonder why the hell my body hasn’t given up yet.

All of a sudden Warner is straddling my bleeding body, careful not to allow any of his weight to touch me, and he shoves up my shirtsleeves. Grabs ahold of my bare arms and says, “You are going to be okay. We’re going to fix this—they’re going to help me fix this and you—you’re going to be fine.” Deep breaths. “You’re going to be perfect. Do you hear me? Juliette, can you hear me?”

I blink at him. I blink and blink and blink at him and find I’m still fascinated by his eyes. Such a startling shade of green.

“Each one of you, grab my arms,” he shouts to the girls, his hands still gripped firmly around my shoulders. “Now! Please! I’m
begging you
—”

And for some reason they listen.

Maybe they see something in him, see something in his face, in his features. Maybe they see what I see from this disjointed, foggy perspective. The desperation in his expression, the anguish carved into his features, the way he looks at me, like he might die if I do.

And I can’t help but think this is an interesting parting gift from the world.

That at least, in the end, I didn’t die alone.

I’m blind again.

Heat is pouring into my being with such intensity it’s literally taken over my vision. I can’t feel anything but hot, hot, searing hot heat flooding my bones, my nerves, my skin, my cells.

Everything is on fire.

At first I think it’s the same heat in my chest, the same pain from the hole where my heart used to be, but then I realize this heat doesn’t actually hurt. It’s a soothing kind of heat. So potent, so intense, but somehow it’s welcome. My body does not want to reject it. Does not want to flinch away from it, is not looking for a way to protect itself from it.

I actually feel my back lift off the floor when the fire hits my lungs. I’m suddenly gasping in huge, raging hyperventilated breaths, taking in lungfuls of air like I might cry if I don’t. I’m drinking oxygen, devouring it, choking on it, taking it in as quickly as possible, my entire body heaving as it strains to return to normal.

My chest feels like it’s being stitched back together, like the flesh is regenerating itself, healing itself at an inhuman rate and I’m blinking and breathing and I’m moving my head and trying to see but it’s still so blurry, still unclear but it’s getting easier. I can feel my fingers and my toes and the life in my limbs and I can actually hear my heart beating again and suddenly the faces above me come into focus.

All at once the heat is gone.

The hands are gone.

I collapse back onto the floor.

And everything goes black.

Warner is sleeping.

I know this because he’s sleeping right next to me. It’s dark enough that it takes me several tries to blink my eyes open and understand that I’m not blind this time. I catch a glimpse out the window and find the moon filled to the brim, pouring light into this little room.

I’m still here. In Anderson’s house. In what probably used to be Warner’s bedroom.

And he’s asleep on the pillow right next to me.

His features are so soft, so ethereal in the moonlight. His face is deceptively calm, so unassuming and innocent. And I think of how impossible it is that he’s here, lying next to me. That I’m here, lying next to him.

That we’re lying in his childhood bed together.

That he saved my life.

Impossible
is such a stupid word.

I shift hardly at all and Warner reacts immediately, sitting straight up, chest heaving, eyes blinking. He looks at me, sees that I’m awake, that my eyes are open, and he freezes in place.

There are so many things I want to say to him. So many things I have to tell him. So many things I need to do now, that I need to sort through, that I have to decide.

But for now, I only have one question.

“Where’s your father?” I whisper.

It takes Warner a moment to find his voice. He says, “He’s back on base. He left right after”—he hesitates, struggles for a second—“right after he shot you.”

Incredible.

He left me bleeding all over his living room floor. What a nice little present for his son to clean up. What a nice little lesson for his son to learn. Fall in love, and you get to watch your love get shot.

“So he doesn’t know I’m here?” I ask Warner. “He doesn’t know I’m alive?”

Warner shakes his head. “No.”

And I think,
Good
. That’s very good. It’ll be so much better if he thinks I’m dead.

Warner is still looking at me. Looking and looking and looking at me like he wants to touch me but he’s afraid to get too close. Finally, he whispers, “Are you okay, love? How do you feel?”

And I smile to myself, thinking of all the ways I could answer that question.

I think of how my body is more exhausted, more defeated, more drained than it’s ever been in my life. I think about how I’ve had nothing but a glass of water in 2 days. How I’ve never been more confused about people, about who they seem to be and who they actually are, and I think about how I’m lying here, sharing a bed in a house we were told doesn’t exist anymore, with one of the most hated and feared people of Sector 45. And I think about how that terrifying creature has the capacity for such tenderness, how he saved my life. How his own father shot me in the chest. How only hours earlier I was lying in a pool of my own blood.

I think about how my friends are probably still locked in battle, how Adam must be suffering not knowing where I am or what’s happened to me. How Kenji is still pulling the weight of so many. How Brendan and Winston might still be lost. How the people of Omega Point might all be dead. And it makes me think.

I feel better than I ever have in my entire life.

I’m amazed by how different I feel now. How different I know things will be now. I have so many things to do. So many scores to settle. So many friends who need my help.

Everything has changed.

Because once upon a time I was just a child.

Today I’m still just a child, but this time I’ve got an iron will and 2 fists made of steel and I’ve aged 50 years. Now I finally have a clue. I’ve finally figured out that I’m strong enough, that maybe I’m a touch brave enough, that maybe this time I can do what I was meant to do.

This time I am a force.

A deviation of human nature.

I am living, breathing proof that nature is officially screwed, afraid of what it’s done, what it’s become.

And I’m stronger. I’m angrier.

I’m ready to do something I’ll definitely regret and this time I don’t care. I’m done being nice. I’m done being nervous. I’m not afraid of anything anymore.

Mass chaos is in my future.

And I’m leaving my gloves behind.

My mother. My father. My brothers. My family. I love you laughing. I love you crying. I love you laughing and crying into every pot of tea we’ve ever finished together. You’re the most incredible people I’ve ever met and you’ll be forced to know me all my life and you’ve never once complained. Thank you always, for every hot cup. For never letting go of my hand.

Jodi Reamer. I said hello and you smiled so I asked about the weather and you said the weather? The weather is unpredictable. I said what about the road? You said the road is known to be bumpy. I said do you know what’s going to happen? You said absolutely not. And then you introduced me to some of the best years of my life. I say, forgetting you, it’s impossible.

Tara Weikum. You read the words I write with my heart and my hands and understand them with an accuracy that is both painful and astounding. Your brilliance, your patience, your unfailing kindness. Your generous smiles. It’s such an honor to work with you.

Tana. Randa. We’ve shed many tears together—in sadness, in joy. But the most tears I’ve ever wept were in the moments I spent laughing with you. Your friendship has been the greatest gift; it’s a blessing I’m determined every day to deserve.

Sarah. Nathan. For your unwavering support. You two are beyond-words amazing.

Sumayyah. For your shoulder and your ear and the safe space you grant me. I don’t know what I’d do without it.

A huge, huge thank-you to all of my dear friends at HarperCollins and Writers House who are never thanked enough for all they do: Melissa Miller, for all your love and enthusiasm; Christina Colangelo, Diane Naughton, and Lauren Flower, for your energy and passion and invaluable marketing prowess; Hallie Patterson, my exceptionally talented publicist, who is both clever and unfailingly kind. More thanks to Cara Petrus and Sarah Kaufman, for their fabulous design work; and Colin Anderson, the digital illustrator whose work continues to astound me. Thanks also to Brenna Franzitta: because I’m thankful every single day to have a copy editor as brilliant as you (and I hope I just used that colon correctly); Alec Shane, for everything, but also for knowing how to respond gracefully when oddly shaped, leaking children’s toys show up in his office; Cecilia de la Campa, for always working to make my books available all around the world; Beth Miller, for her continued support; and Kassie Evashevski at UTA, for her silent grace and razor-sharp instinct.