Ignite Me (Shatter Me #3)(22)
Author: Tahereh Mafi

I swallow, hard, offering Ian what I’m hoping is a strong smile.

He doesn’t smile back.

“How are you still alive?” he demands, with no preamble. “You don’t look like anyone beat the shit out of you, so, I mean, no offense or whatever, but I don’t trust you.”

“We’re getting to that part,” Kenji says, cutting Adam off just as he begins to protest on my behalf. “She has a solid explanation, I promise. I already know all the details.” He shoots Ian a sharp look, but Ian doesn’t seem to notice. He’s still staring at me, one eyebrow raised as if in challenge.

I cock my head at him, considering him closely.

Kenji snaps his fingers in front of my face. “Focus, princess, I’m already getting bored.” He glances around the room, looking for anyone we might’ve missed for the reintroductions. “James,” he says, his eyes landing on the upturned face of my only ten-year-old friend. “Anything you want to say to Juliette before we get started?”

James looks at me, his blue eyes bright below his sandy-blond hair. He shrugs. “I never thought you were dead,” he says simply.

“Is that right?” Kenji says with a laugh.

James nods. “I had a feeling,” he says, tapping his head.

Kenji grins. “All right, well, that’s it. Let’s get started.”

“What about Ca—,” I begin to say, but stop dead at the flicker of alarm that flits in and out of Kenji’s features.

My gaze lands on Castle, studying his face in a way I hadn’t when I first arrived.

Castle’s eyes are unfocused, his eyebrows furrowed as if he’s caught in an endlessly frustrating conversation with himself; his hands are knotted together in his lap. His hair has broken free of its always-perfect ponytail at the nape of his neck, and his dreads have sprung around his face, falling into his eyes. He’s unshaven, and looks as though he’s been dragged through mud; as though he sat down in that chair the moment he walked in and hasn’t left it since.

And I realize that of the group of us, Castle has been hit the hardest.

Omega Point was his life. His dreams were in every brick, every echo of that space. And in one night, he lost everything. His hopes, his vision for the future, the entire community he strove to build. His only family.

Gone.

“He’s had it really rough,” Adam whispers to me, and I’m startled by his presence, not realizing he was standing beside me again. “Castle’s been like that for a little while now.”

My heart breaks.

I try to meet Kenji’s eyes, try to apologize wordlessly, to tell him I understand. But Kenji won’t look at me. It takes him a few moments to pull himself together, and only then does it hit me just how hard all of this must be for him right now. It’s not just Omega Point. It’s not just everyone he’s lost, not just all the work that’s been destroyed.

It’s Castle.

Castle, who’s been like a father to Kenji, his closest confidant, his dearest friend.

He’s become a husk of who he was.

My heart feels weighed down by the depth of Kenji’s pain; I wish so much that I could do something to help. To fix things. And in that moment I promise myself I will.

I’ll do everything I can.

“All right.” Kenji claps his hands together, nods a few times before taking a tight breath. “Everyone all warm and fuzzy? Good? Good.” He nods again. “Now let me tell you the story of how our friend Juliette was shot in the chest.”

NINETEEN

Everyone is gaping at me.

Kenji has just finished giving them every detail I shared with him, taking care to leave out the parts about Warner telling me he loves me, and I’m silently grateful. Even though I told Adam that he and I shouldn’t be together anymore, everything between us is still so raw and unresolved. I’ve tried to move on, to distance myself from him because I wanted to protect him; but I’ve had to mourn Adam’s loss in so many different ways now that I’m not sure I even know how to feel anymore.

I have no idea what he thinks of me.

There are so many things Adam and I need to talk about; I just don’t want Warner to be one of them. Warner has always been a tense topic between us—especially now that Adam knows they’re brothers—and I’m not in the mood for arguing, especially not on my first day back.

But it seems I won’t be able to get off that easily.

“Warner saved your life?” Lily asks, not bothering to hide her shock or her repulsion. Even Alia is sitting up and paying attention now, her eyes glued to my face. “Why the hell would he do that?”

“Dude, forget that,” Ian cuts in. “What are we going to do about the fact that Warner can just steal our powers and shit?”

“You don’t have any powers,” Winston answers him. “So you don’t have anything to worry about.”

“You know what I mean,” Ian snaps, a hint of color flushing up his neck. “It’s not safe for a psycho like him to have that kind of ability. It freaks me the hell out.”

“He’s not a psych—,” I try to say, but the room erupts into a cacophony of voices, all vying for a chance to be heard.

“What does this even mean—”

“—dangerous?”

“So Sonya and Sara are still alive—”

“—actually saw Anderson? What did he look like?”

“But why would he even—”

“—okay, but that’s not—”

“WAIT,” Adam cuts everyone off. “Where the hell is he now?” He turns to look me in the eye. “You said Warner brought you out here to show you what happened to Omega Point, but then the minute Kenji shows up, he just disappears.” A pause. “Right?”

I nod.

“So—what?” he says. “He’s done? He’s just walking away?” Adam spins around, looks at everyone. “Guys, he knows that at least one of us is still alive! He’s probably gone to get backup, to find a way to take the rest of us out—” He stops, shakes his head, hard. “Shit,” he says under his breath. “SHIT.”

Everyone freezes at the same time. Horrified.

“No,” I say quickly, holding up both hands. “No—he’s not going to do that—”

Eight pairs of eyes turn on me.

“He doesn’t care about killing you guys. He doesn’t even like The Reestablishment. And he hates his father—”