I don’t understand what they’re doing to him.
I don’t know what’s happening I don’t understand why it’s happening or why he needs a machine or why it keeps blinking or beeping and I can’t seem to move or breathe and I’m trying to remember my voice, my hands, my head, and my feet and then he
jerks.
He convulses against the stays, strains against the pain until his fists are pounding the padding of the gurney and I hear him cry out in anguish and for a moment the world stops, everything slows down, sounds are strangled, colors look smeared and the floor seems set on its side and I think wow, I think I’m actually going to die. I’m going to drop dead or
I’m going to kill the person responsible for this.
It’s one or the other.
That’s when I see Castle. Castle, standing in the corner of Adam’s room, watching in silence as this 18-year-old boy rages in agony while he does nothing. Nothing except watch, except to take notes in his little book, to purse his lips as he tilts his head to the side. To glance at the monitor on the beeping machine.
And the thought is so simple when it slips into my head. So calm. So easy.
So, so easy.
I’m going to kill him.
“Juliette—no—”
Kenji grabs me by the waist, arms like bands of iron around me and I think I’m screaming, I think I’m saying things I’ve never heard myself say before and Kenji is telling me to calm down, he’s saying, “This is exactly why I didn’t want to bring you in here—you don’t understand—it’s not what it looks like—”
And I decide I should probably kill Kenji, too. Just for being an idiot.
“LET GO OF ME—”
“Stop kicking me—”
“I’m going to murder him—”
“Yeah, you should really stop saying that out loud, okay? You’re not doing yourself any favors—”
“LET GO OF ME, KENJI, I SWEAR TO GOD—”
“Ms. Ferrars!”
Castle is standing at the end of the walkway, a few feet from Adam’s glass room. The door is open. Adam isn’t jerking anymore, but he doesn’t appear to be conscious, either.
White, hot rage.
It’s all I know right now. The world looks so black-and-white from here, so easy to demolish and conquer. This is anger like nothing I’ve known before. It’s an anger so raw, so potent it’s actually calming, like a feeling that’s finally found its place, a feeling that finally sits comfortably as it settles into my bones.
I’ve become a mold for liquid metal; thick, searing heat distributes itself throughout my body and the excess coats my hands, forging my fists with a strength so breathtaking, an energy so intense I think it might engulf me. I’m light-headed from the rush of it.
I could do anything.
Anything.
Kenji’s arms drop away from me. I don’t have to look at him to know that he’s stumbling back. Afraid. Confused. Probably disturbed.
I don’t care.
“So this is where you’ve been,” I say to Castle, and I’m surprised by the cool, fluid tone of my voice. “This is what you’ve been doing.”
Castle steps closer and appears to regret it. He looks startled, surprised by something he sees on my face. He tries to speak and I cut him off.
“What have you done to him?” I demand. “What have you been doing to him—”
“Ms. Ferrars, please—”
“He is not your experiment!” I explode, and the composure is gone, the steadiness in my voice is gone and I’m suddenly so unstable again I can hardly keep my hands from shaking. “You think you can just use him for your research—”
“Ms. Ferrars, please, you must calm yourself—”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” I can’t imagine what they must have done to him down here, testing him, treating him like some kind of specimen.
They’re torturing him.
“I would not have expected you to have such an adverse reaction to this room,” Castle says. He’s trying to be conversational. Reasonable. Charismatic, even. It makes me wonder what I must look like right now. I wonder if he’s afraid of me. “I thought you understood the importance of the research we do at Omega Point,” he says. “Without it, how could we possibly hope to understand our origins?”
“You’re hurting him—you’re killing him! What have you done—”
“Nothing he hasn’t asked to be a part of.” Castle’s voice is tight and his lips are tight and I can see his patience is starting to wear thin. “Ms. Ferrars, if you are insinuating that I’ve used him for my own personal experimentation, I would recommend you take a closer look at the situation.” He says the last few syllables with a little too much emphasis, a little too much fire, and I realize I’ve never seen him angry before.
“I know that you’ve been struggling here,” Castle continues. “I know you are unaccustomed to seeing yourself as part of a group, and I’ve made an effort to understand where you might be coming from—I’ve tried to help you adjust. But you must look around!” He gestures toward the glass walls and the people behind them. “We are all the same. We are working on the same team! I have subjected Adam to nothing I have not undergone myself. We are simply running tests to see where his supernatural abilities lie. We cannot know for certain what he is capable of if we do not test him first.” His voice drops an octave or 2. “And we do not have the luxury of waiting several years until he accidentally discovers something that might be useful to our cause right now.”
And it’s strange.
Because it’s like a real thing, this anger.
I feel it wrapping itself around my fingers like I could fling it at his face. I feel it coiling itself around my spine, planting itself in my stomach and shooting branches down my legs, up my arms, through my neck. It’s choking me. Choking me because it needs release, needs relief. Needs it now.
“You,” I tell him, and I can hardly spit the words out. “You think you’re any better than The Reestablishment if you’re just using us—experimenting on us to further your cause—”
“MS. FERRARS!” Castle bellows. His eyes are flashing bright, too bright, and I realize everyone in this underground tunnel is now staring at us. His fingers are in fists at his sides and his jaw is unmistakably set and I feel Kenji’s hand on my back before I realize the earth is vibrating under my feet. The glass walls are beginning to tremble and Castle is planted right in the middle of everything, rigid, raw with anger and indignation and I remember that he has an impossibly advanced level of psychokinesis.