Someone is ripping my skin off.
“Adam, it seems, played his part a little too excellently. He is a fine soldier. One of the best, in fact.” Warner spares him a glance before smiling at me. “But don’t worry, he doesn’t know what you’re capable of. Not yet, anyway.”
I claw at the panic, I swallow the agony, I beg myself not to look in his direction but I fail I fail I fail. Adam meets my eyes in the same split second I meet his but he looks away so quickly I’m not sure if I imagined it.
I am a monster.
“I’m not as cruel as you think,” Warner continues, a musical lilt in his voice. “If you’re so fond of his company I can make this”—he gestures between myself and Adam—“a permanent assignment.”
“No,” I breathe.
Warner curves his lips into a careless grin. “Oh yes. But be careful, pretty girl. If you do something . . . bad . . . he’ll have to shoot you.”
There are wire cutters carving holes in my heart. Adam doesn’t react to anything Warner says.
He is doing a job.
I am a number, a mission, an easily replaceable object; I am not even a memory in his mind.
I am nothing.
I didn’t expect his betrayal to bury me so deep.
“If you accept my offer,” Warner interrupts my thoughts, “you will live like I do. You will be one of us, and not one of them. Your life will change forever.”
“And if I do not accept?” I ask, catching my voice before it cracks in fear.
Warner looks genuinely disappointed. His hands are clasped together in dismay. “You don’t really have a choice. If you stand by my side you will be rewarded.” He presses his lips together. “But if you choose to disobey? Well . . . I think you look rather lovely with all your body parts intact, don’t you?”
I’m breathing so hard my frame is shaking. “You want me to torture people for you?”
His face breaks into a brilliant smile. “That would be wonderful.”
The world is bleeding.
I don’t have time to form a response before he turns to Adam. “Show her what she’s missing, would you?”
Adam answers a beat too late. “Sir?”
“That is an order, soldier.” Warner’s eyes are trained on me, his lips twitching with suppressed amusement. “I’d like to break this one. She’s a little too feisty for her own good.”
“You can’t touch me,” I spit through clenched teeth.
“Wrong,” he singsongs. He tosses Adam a pair of black gloves. “You’re going to need these,” he says with a conspiratorial whisper.
“You’re a monster.” My voice is too even, my body filled with a sudden rage. “Why don’t you just kill me?”
“That, my dear, would be a waste.” He steps forward and I realize his hands are carefully sheathed in white leather gloves. He tips my chin up with one finger. “Besides, it’d be a shame to lose such a pretty face.”
I try to snap my neck away from him but the same steel-toed boot slams into my spine and Warner catches my face in his grip. I suppress a scream. “Don’t struggle, love. You’ll only make things more difficult for yourself.”
“I hope you rot in hell.”
Warner flexes his jaw. He holds up a hand to stop someone from shooting me, kicking me in the spleen, cracking my skull open, I have no idea. “You’re a fighter for the wrong team.” He stands up straight. “But we can change that. Adam,” he calls. “Don’t let her out of your sight. She’s your charge now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter Ten
Adam puts on the gloves but he doesn’t touch me. “Let her up, Roland. I’ll take it from here.”
The boot disappears. I struggle to my feet and stare at nothing. I won’t think about the horror that awaits me. Someone kicks in the backs of my knees and I nearly stumble to the ground. “Get going,” a voice growls from behind. I look up and realize Adam is already walking away. I’m supposed to be following him.
Only once we’re back in the familiar blindness of the asylum hallways does he stop walking.
“Juliette.” One soft word and my joints are made of air.
I don’t answer him.
“Take my hand,” he says.
“I will never,” I manage between broken bites of oxygen. “Not ever.”
A heavy sigh. I feel him shift in the darkness and soon his body is too close so disarmingly close to mine. His hand is on my lower back and he’s guiding me through the corridors toward an unknown destination. Every inch of my skin is blushing. I have to hold myself upright to keep from falling backward into his arms.
The distance we’re walking is much longer than I expected. When Adam finally speaks I suspect we’re close to the end. “We’re going to go outside,” he says near my ear. I have to ball my fists to control the thrills tripping my heart. I’m almost too distracted by the feel of his voice to understand the significance of what he’s saying. “I just thought you should know.”
An audible intake of breath is my only response. I haven’t been outside in almost a year. I’m painfully excited but I haven’t felt natural light on my skin in so long I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it. I have no choice.
The air hits me first.
Our atmosphere has little to boast of, but after so many months in a concrete corner even the wasted oxygen of our dying Earth tastes like heaven. I can’t inhale fast enough. I fill my lungs with the feeling; I step into the slight breeze and clutch a fistful of wind as it weaves its way through my fingers.
Bliss unlike anything I’ve ever known.
The air is crisp and cool. A refreshing bath of tangible nothing that stings my eyes and snaps at my skin. The sun is high today, blinding as it reflects the small patches of snow keeping the earth frozen. My eyes are pressed down by the weight of the bright light and I can’t see through more than two slits, but the warm rays wash over my body like a jacket fitted to my form, like the hug of something greater than a human. I could stand still in this moment forever. For one infinite second I feel free.
Adam’s touch shocks me back to reality. I nearly jump out of my skin and he catches my waist. I have to beg my bones to stop shaking. “Are you okay?” His eyes surprise me. They’re the same ones I remember, blue and bottomless like the deepest part of the ocean. His hands are gentle so gentle around me.