by Tahereh Mafi
Warner stalks past my prone body, his motions so intense I’m startled upright, into a sitting position.
I have no idea how he’s still moving.
He’s not even wearing shoes. No shirt, no socks, no shoes. Just a pair of sweatpants. I notice for the first time that he’s got a huge gash across his chest. Several cuts on his arms. A nasty scratch on his neck. Blood is dripping slowly down his torso, and Warner doesn’t even seem to notice. Scars all over his back, blood smeared across his front. He looks insane. But he’s still moving, his eyes hot with rage and something else— Something that scares the shit out of me.
He catches up to Stephan, who’s still holding J—who’s still having seizures—and I crawl toward a tree, using the trunk to hoist myself off the ground. I drag myself after them, flinching involuntarily at a sudden breeze. I turn too fast, scanning the open woods for debris or a flying boulder, and find only Nazeera, who rests a hand on my arm.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “We’re safe within the borders of the Sanctuary.”
I blink at her. And then around, at the familiar white tents that cloak every solid, freestanding structure on the glorified campsite that is this place of refuge.
Nazeera nods. “Yeah—that’s what the tents are for. Nouria enhanced all of her light protections with some kind of antidote that makes us immune to the illusions Emmaline creates. Both acres of land are protected, and the reflective material covering the tents provides more assured protection indoors.”
“How do you know all of that?”
“I asked.”
I blink at her again. I feel dumb. Numb. Like I broke something deep inside my brain. Deep inside my body.
“Juliette,” I say.
It’s the only word I’ve got right now, and Nazeera doesn’t even bother to correct me, to tell me her real name is Ella. She just takes my hand and squeezes.
ELLA
JULIETTE
When I dream, I dream of sound.
Rain, taking its time, softly popping against concrete. Rain, gathering, drumming, until sound turns into static. Rain, so sudden, so strong, it startles itself. I dream of water dripping down lips and tips of noses, rain falling off branches into shallow, murky pools. I hear death when puddles shatter, assaulted by heavy feet.
I hear leaves—
Leaves, shuddering under the weight of resignation, yoked to branches too easily bent, broken. I dream of wind, lengths of it. Yards of wind, acres of wind, infinite whispers fusing to create a single breeze. I hear wind comb the wild grass of distant mountains, I hear wind howling confessions in empty, lonely plains. I hear the sh sh sh of desperate rivers trying to hush the world in a fruitless effort to hush itself.
But
buried
in the din
is a single scream so steady it goes every day unheard. We see, but do not understand the way it stutters hearts, clenches jaws, curls fingers into fists. It’s a surprise, always a surprise, when it finally stops screaming long enough to speak.
Fingers tremble.
Flowers die.
The sun flinches, the stars expire.
You are in a room, a closet, a vault, no key—
Just a single voice that says
Kill me
KENJI
J is sleeping.
She seems so close to death I can hardly look at her. Skin so white it’s blue. Lips so blue they’re purple. Somehow, in the last couple of hours, she lost weight. She looks like a little bird, young and small and fragile. Her long hair is fanned around her face and she’s motionless, a little blue doll with her face pointed straight up at the ceiling. She looks like she could be lying in a casket.
I don’t say any of this out loud, of course.
Warner seems pretty close to death himself. He looks pale, disoriented. Sickly.
And he’s become impossible to talk to.
These past months of forced camaraderie nearly had me brainwashed; I’d almost forgotten what Warner used to be like.
Cold. Cutting. Eerily quiet.
He seems like an echo of himself right now, sitting stiffly in a chair next to her bed. We dragged J back here hours ago and he still won’t really look at anyone. The cut on his chest looks even worse now, but he does nothing about it. He disappeared at one point, but only for a couple of minutes, and returned wearing his boots. He didn’t bother to wipe the blood off his body. Didn’t stop long enough to put on a shirt. He could easily steal Sonya’s and Sara’s powers to heal himself, but he makes no effort. He refuses to be touched. He refuses to eat. The few words out of his mouth were so scathing he made three different people cry. Nouria finally told him that if he didn’t stop attacking her teammates she’d take him out back and shoot him. I think it was Warner’s lack of protest that kept her from following through.
He’s nothing but thorns.
Old Kenji would’ve shrugged it off and rolled his eyes. Old Kenji would’ve thrown a dart at Dickhead Warner and, honestly, would’ve probably been happy to see him suffer like this.
But I’m not that guy anymore.
I know Warner too well now. I know how much he loves J. I know he’d turn his skin inside out just to make her happy. He wanted to marry her, for God’s sake. And I just watched him nearly kill himself to save her, suffering for hours through the worst levels of hell just to keep her alive.
Almost two hours, to be exact.
Warner said he’d been out there with J for nearly an hour before I showed up, and it was at least another forty-five minutes before the girls were able to stabilize her. He spent nearly two hours physically fighting to keep Juliette from harm, protecting her with his own body as he was lashed by fallen trees, flying rocks, errant debris, and violent winds. The girls said they could tell just by looking at him that he had at least two broken ribs. A fracture in his right arm. A dislocated shoulder. Probably internal bleeding. They raged at him so much that he finally sat down in a chair, wrapped his good hand around the wrist of his injured arm, and pulled his own shoulder back in place. The only proof of his pain was a single, sharp breath.
Sonya screamed, rushing forward, too late to stop him.
And then he broke open the seam at the ankle of his sweatpants, tore off a length of cotton, and made a sling for his freshly socketed arm. Only after that did he finally look up at the girls.
“Now leave me alone,” he said darkly.
Sonya and Sara looked so frustrated—their eyes blazing with rare anger—I almost didn’t recognize them.
I know he’s being an asshole.
I know he’s being stubborn and stupid and cruel. But I can’t find the strength to be mad at him right now. I can’t.
My heart is breaking for the guy.
We’re all standing around J’s bed, just staring at her. A monitor beeps softly in the corner. The room smells like chemicals. Sonya and Sara had to inject J with serious tranquilizers in order to get her body to settle, but it seemed to help: the moment she slowed down, the world outside did, too.
The Reestablishment was quick on the uptake, doing such seamless damage control I almost couldn’t believe it. They capitalized on the problem, claiming that what happened this morning was a taste of future devastation. They claimed that they managed to get it under control before it got any worse, and they reminded the people to be grateful for the protections provided by The Reestablishment; that, without them, the world would be a lot worse. It fairly scared the shit out of everyone. Things feel a lot quieter now. The civilians seem subdued in a way they weren’t before. It’s stunning, really, how The Reestablishment managed to convince people that the sky collapsing while the sun just disappeared for a full minute were normal things that could happen in the world.
It’s unbelievable that they feed people that kind of bullshit, and it’s unbelievable that people eat it up.
But when I’m being super honest with myself, I’ll admit that what scares me the most is that, if I didn’t know any better, I might’ve eaten t
hat shit up, too.
I sigh, hard. Drag a hand down my face.
This morning feels like a weird dream.
Surreal, like one of those melting clock paintings The Reestablishment destroyed. And I’m so wrung out, so tired, I don’t even have the energy to be angry. I’ve only got enough energy to be sad.
We’re all just really, really sad.
The few of us who could squeeze into this room: me, Castle, Nouria, Sam, Superman (my new nickname for Stephan), Haider, Nazeera, Brendan, Winston, Warner. All of us, sad, sorry sacks. Sonya and Sara left for a bit, but they’ll be coming back soon, and when they do, they’ll be sad, too.
Ian and Lily wanted to be here, but Warner kicked them out. He just straight up told them to get out, for reasons he didn’t offer to disclose. He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t even look at Ian. Just told him to turn around and leave. Brendan was so stunned his eyes nearly fell out of his head. But all of us were too afraid of Warner to say anything.
A small, guilty part of me wondered if maybe Warner knew that Ian talked shit about him that one time, that Warner knew (who knows how) that Ian didn’t want to make the effort to go after him and J when we lost them at the symposium.
I don’t know. It’s just a theory. But it’s obvious Warner is done playing the game. He’s done with courtesy, done with patience, done with giving a single shit about anyone but J. Which means the tension in here is insane right now. Even Castle seems a little nervous around Warner, like he’s not sure about him anymore.
The problem is, we all got too comfortable.
For a couple of months we forgot that Warner was scary. He smiled like four and a half times and we decided to forget that he was basically a psychopath with a long history of ruthless murder. We thought he’d been reformed. Gone soft. We forgot that he was only tolerating any of us because of Juliette.
And now, without her—
He no longer seems to belong.
Without her, we’re fracturing. The energy in this room has palpably changed. We don’t really feel like a team anymore, and it’s scary how quickly it happened. If only Warner weren’t so determined to be a dickhead. If only he weren’t so eager to put on his old skin, to alienate everyone in this room. If only he’d muster the smallest bit of goodwill, we could turn this whole thing around.
Seems unlikely.
I’m not as terrified as the others, but I’m not stupid, either. I know his threats of violence aren’t a bluff. The only people unperturbed are the supreme kids. They look right at home with this version of him. Haider, maybe most of all. That dude always seemed on edge, like he had no idea who Warner had turned into and he didn’t know how to process the change. But now? No problem. Super comfortable with psycho Warner. Old pals.
Nouria finally breaks the silence.
Gently, she clears her throat. A couple of people lift their heads. Warner glares at the floor.
“Kenji,” she says softly, “can I talk to you for a minute? Outside?”
My body stiffens.
I look around, uncertain, like she’s got me confused with someone else. Castle and Nazeera turn sharply in my direction, surprise widening their eyes. Sam, on the other hand, is staring at her wife, struggling to hide her frustration.
“Um”—I scratch my head—“maybe we should talk in here,” I say. “As a group?”
“Outside, Kishimoto.” Nouria is on her feet, the softness gone from her voice, her face. “Now, please.”
Reluctantly, I get to my feet.
I lock eyes with Nazeera, wondering if she has an opinion on the situation, but her expression is unreadable.
Nouria calls my name again.
I shake my head but follow her out the door. She leads me around a corner, into a narrow hallway.
It smells overwhelmingly like bleach.
J is posted up inside the MT—an obvious nickname for their medical tent—which feels like a misnomer, actually, because the tent element is entirely superficial. The inside of the building is a lot more like a proper hospital, with individual suites and operating rooms. It blew my mind a little the first time I first walked through here, because this space is super different from what we had at Omega Point and Sector 45. But then, before Sonya and Sara showed up, the Sanctuary had no healers. Their medical work was a lot more traditional: practiced by a handful of self-taught doctors and surgeons. There’s something about their old-fashioned, life-threatening medical practices that makes this place feel a lot more like a relic of our old world. A building full of fear.
Out here, in the main corridor, I can hear more clearly the standard sounds of a hospital—machines beeping, carts rolling, occasional moans, shouts, pages over an intercom. I flatten myself against the wall as a team of people barrels past, pushing a gurney down the hallway. Its occupant is an elderly man hooked up to an IV, an oxygen mask on his face. When he sees Nouria, he lifts his hand in a weak wave. Attempts a smile.
Nouria gives him a bright smile in return, holding it steady until the man is wheeled into another room. The moment he’s out of sight, she corners me. Her eyes flash, her dark brown skin glowing in the dim light like a warning. My spine straightens.
Nouria is surprisingly terrifying.
“What the hell happened out there?” she says. “What did you do?”
“Okay, first of all”—I hold up both hands—“I didn’t do anything. And I already told you guys exactly what happened—”
“You never told me that Emmaline tried to access your mind.”
That stops me up. “What? Yes I did. I literally told you that. I used those exact words.”
“But you didn’t provide the necessary details,” she says. “How did it start? What did it feel like? Why did she let go?”
“I don’t know,” I say, frowning. “I don’t understand what happened—all I’ve got are guesses.”
“Then guess,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “Unless— She’s not still in your head, is she?”
“What? No.”
Nouria sighs, more irritation than relief. She touches her fingers to her temples in a show of resignation. “This doesn’t make sense,” she says, almost to herself. “Why would she try so hard to infiltrate Ella’s mind? Why yours? I thought she was fighting against The Reestablishment. This feels more like she’s working for them.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so. When Emmaline was in my head it felt more to me like a desperate, last-ditch effort—like she was worried J wouldn’t have the heart to kill her, and she was hoping I’d get it done faster. She called me brave, but weak. Like, I don’t know, maybe this sounds crazy, but it felt almost like Emmaline thought— for a second—that if I’d made it that far in her presence, I might’ve been strong enough to contain her. But then she jumped in my head and realized she was wrong. I wasn’t strong enough to hold her mind, and definitely not strong enough to kill her.” I shrug. “So she bailed.”
Nouria straightens. When she looks at me, she looks stunned. “You think she’s really that desperate to die? You think she wouldn’t put up a fight if someone tried to kill her?”
“Yeah, it’s awful,” I say, looking away. “Emmaline’s in a really bad place.”
“But she can exist, at least partially, in Ella’s body.” Nouria frowns. “Both consciousnesses in one person. How?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug again. “J said that Evie did a bunch of work on her muscles and bones and stuff while she was in Oceania—priming her for Operation Synthesis—to basically become Emmaline’s new body. So I think, ultimately, J playing host to Emmaline is what Evie had planned all along.”
“And Emmaline must’ve known,” Nouria says quietly.
It’s my turn to frown. “What are you getting at?”
“I don’t know, exactly. But this situation complicates things. Because if our goal was to kill Emmaline, and Emmaline is now living in Ella’s body—”
“Wait.” My stomach does a terrifying flip. “Is that why we’re out here? I
s this why you’re being so secretive?”
“Lower your voice,” Nouria says sharply, glancing at something behind me.
“I will not lower my fucking voice,” I say. “What the hell are you thinking? What are you— Wait, what do you keep looking at?” I crane my neck but see only a blank wall behind my head. My heart is racing, my mind working too fast. I whip back around to face her.
“Tell me the truth,” I demand. “Is this why you cornered me? Because you’re trying to figure out if we can kill J while she’s got Emmaline inside of her? Is that it? Are you insane?”
Nouria glares at me. “Is it insane to want to save the world? Emmaline is at the center of everything wrong with our universe right now, and she’s trapped inside a body lying in a room just down the hall. Do you know how long we’ve been waiting for a moment like this? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t love this line of thinking, Kishimoto, but I’m not—”
“Nouria.”
At the sound of her wife’s voice, Nouria goes visibly still. She takes a step back from me, and I finally relax. A little.
We both turn around.
Sam’s not alone. Castle is standing next to her, both of them looking more than a little pissed.
“Leave him alone,” Castle says. “Kenji’s been through enough already. He needs time to recuperate.”
Nouria tries to respond, but Sam cuts her off. “How many times are we going to talk about this?” she says. “You can’t just shut me out when you’re stressed. You can’t just go off on your own without telling me.” Her blond hair falls into her eyes and, frustrated, she shoves the strands out of her face. “I’m your partner. This is our Sanctuary. Our life. We built it together, remember?”
“Sam.” Nouria sighs, squeezing her eyes closed. “You know I’m not trying to shut you out. You know that’s not—”
“You are literally shutting me out. You literally shut the door.”