Ignite Me (30 page)

My head is spinning. Everything goes hot and cold and
something is stirring to life inside of me and my hands reach for his chest, looking for something to hold on to and my eyes are trying and failing to stay open and I’m only just conscious enough to whisper his name.

“Yes, love?”

I try to say more but my mouth won’t listen.

“Are you asleep now?” he asks.

Yes, I think. I don’t know. Yes.

I nod.

“That’s good,” he says quietly. He lifts my head, pulls my hair away from my neck so my face falls more easily onto the pillow. He shifts so he’s beside me on the bed. “You need to sleep more,” he says.

I nod again, curling onto my side. He pulls the blankets up around my arms.

He kisses the curve of my shoulder. My shoulder blade. Five kisses down my spine, one softer than the next. “I will be here every night,” he whispers, his words so soft, so tortured, “to keep you warm. I will kiss you until I can’t keep my eyes open.”

My head is caught in a cloud.

Can you hear my heart?
I want to ask him.

I want you to make a list of all of your favorite things
,
and I want to be on it
.

But I’m falling asleep so fast I’ve lost my grasp on reality, and I don’t know how to move my mouth. Time has fallen all around me, wrapped me in this moment.

And Warner is still talking. So quietly, so softly. He
thinks I’m asleep now. He thinks I can’t hear him.

“Did you know,” he’s whispering, “that I wake up, every morning, convinced you’ll be gone?”

Wake up
, I keep telling myself.
Wake up
.
Pay attention
.

“That all of this,” he says, “these moments, will be confirmed as some kind of extraordinary dream? But then I hear you speak to me,” he says. “I see the way you look at me and I can feel how real it is. I can feel the truth in your emotions, and in the way you touch me,” he whispers, the back of his hand brushing my cheek.

My eyes flicker open. I blink once, twice.

His lips are set in a soft smile.

“Aaron,” I whisper.

“I love you,” he says.

My heart no longer fits in my chest.

“Everything looks so different to me now,” he says. “It feels different. It tastes different. You brought me back to life.” He’s quiet a moment. “I have never known this kind of peace. Never known this kind of comfort. And sometimes I am afraid,” he says, dropping his eyes, “that my love will terrify you.”

He looks up, so slowly, gold lashes lifting to reveal more sadness and beauty than I’ve ever seen in the same moment. I didn’t know a person could convey so much with just one look. There’s extraordinary pain in him. Extraordinary passion.

It takes my breath away.

I take his face in my hands and kiss him, so slowly.

His eyes fall closed. His mouth responds to mine. His hands reach up to pull me closer and I stop him.

“No,” I whisper. “Don’t move.”

He drops his hands.

“Lie back,” I whisper.

He does.

I kiss him everywhere. His cheeks. His chin. The tip of his nose and the space between his eyebrows. All across his forehead and along his jawline. Every inch of his face. Small, soft kisses that say so much more than I ever could. I want him to know how I feel. I want him to know it the way only he can, the way he can sense the depth of emotion behind my movements. I want him to know and never doubt.

And I want to take my time.

My mouth moves down to his neck and he gasps, and I breathe in the scent of his skin, take in the taste of him and I run my hands down his chest, kissing my way across and down the line of his torso. He keeps trying to reach for me, keeps trying to touch me, and I have to tell him to stop.

“Please,” he says, “I want to feel you—”

I gentle his arms back down. “Not yet. Not now.”

My hands move to his pants. His eyes fly open.

“Close your eyes,” I have to tell him.

“No.” He can hardly speak.

“Close your eyes.”

He shakes his head.

“Fine.”

I unbutton his pants. Unzip.

“Juliette,” he breathes. “What—”

I’m pulling off his pants.

He sits up.

“Lie down. Please.”

He’s staring at me, eyes wide.

He finally falls back.

I tug his pants off all the way. Toss them to the floor.

He’s in his underwear.

I trace the stitching on the soft cotton, following the lines on the overlapping pieces of his boxer-briefs as they intersect in the middle. He’s breathing so fast I can hear him, can see his chest moving. His eyes are squeezed shut. His head tilted back. His lips parted.

I touch him again, so gently.

He stifles a moan, turns his face into the pillows. His whole body is trembling, his hands clutching at the sheets. I run my hands down his legs, gripping them just above his knees and inching them apart to make room for the kisses I trail up the insides of his thighs. My nose skims his skin.

He looks like he’s in pain. So much pain.

I find the elastic waist of his underwear. Tug it down.

Slowly.

Slowly.

The tattoo is sitting just below his hip bone.

h e l l  i s  e m p t y

a n d  a l l  t h e  d e v i l s  a r e  h e r e

I kiss my way across the words.

Kissing away the devils.

Kissing away the pain.

FIFTY-NINE

I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows propped up on my knees, face dropped into my hands.

“Are you ready?” he asks me.

I look up. Stand up. Shake my head.

“Breathe, sweetheart.” He stands in front of me, slips his hands around my face. His eyes are bright, intense, steady, and so full of confidence. In me. “You are magnificent. You are extraordinary.”

I try to laugh and it comes out all wrong.

Warner leans his forehead against mine. “There is nothing to fear. Nothing to worry about. Grieve nothing in this transitory world,” he says softly.

I tilt back, a question in my eyes.

“It’s the only way I know how to exist,” he says. “In a world where there is so much to grieve and so little good to take? I grieve nothing. I take everything.”

I stare into his eyes for what feels like forever.

He leans into my ear. Lowers his voice. “Ignite, my love. Ignite.”

Warner has called for an assembly.

He says it’s a fairly routine procedure, one wherein the
soldiers are required to wear a standard black uniform. “And they will be unarmed,” Warner said to me.

Kenji and Castle and everyone else are coming to watch, care of Kenji’s invisibility, but I’m the only one who’s going to speak today. I told them I wanted to lead. I told them I’d be willing to take the first risk.

So here I am.

Warner walks me out of his bedroom door.

The halls are abandoned. The soldiers patrolling his quarters are gone, already assembled and awaiting his presence. The reality of what I’m about to do is only just starting to sink in.

Because no matter the outcome today, I am putting myself on display. It is a message from me to Anderson. A message I know he’ll receive.

I am alive.

I will use your own armies to hunt you down.

And I will kill you.

Something about this thought makes me absurdly happy.

We walk into the elevator and Warner takes my hand. I squeeze his fingers. He smiles straight ahead. And suddenly we’re walking out of the elevator and through another door and right into the open courtyard I’ve only ever stood in once before.

How odd, I think, that I should return to this roof not as a captive. No longer afraid. And clinging fast to the hand of the same blond boy who brought me here before.

How very strange this world is.

Warner hesitates before moving into view. He looks at me for confirmation. I nod. He releases my hand.

We step forward together.

SIXTY

There’s an audible gasp from the soldiers standing just below.

They definitely remember me.

Warner pulls a square piece of mesh out of his pocket and presses it to his lips, just once, before holding it in his fist. His voice is amplified across the crowd when he speaks.

“Sector 45,” he says.

They shift. Their right fists rise up to fall on their chests, their left fists released, dropping to their sides.

“You were told,” he says, “a little over a month ago, that we’d won the battle against a resistance group by the name of Omega Point. You were told we decimated their home base and slaughtered their remaining men and women on the battlefield. You were told,” he says, “never to doubt the power of The Reestablishment. We are unbeatable. Unsurpassed in military power and land control. You were told that we are the future. The only hope.”

His voice rings out over the crowd, his eyes scanning the faces of his men.

“And I hope,” he says, “that you did not believe it.”

The soldiers are staring, stunned, as Warner speaks. They seem afraid to step out of line in case this turns out to
be some kind of elaborate joke, or perhaps a test from The Reestablishment. They do nothing but stare, no longer taking care to make their faces appear as stoic as possible.

“Juliette Ferrars,” he says, “is not dead. She is here, standing beside me, despite the claims made by our supreme commander. He did, in fact, shoot her in the chest. And he did leave her to die. But she was able to survive his attack on her life, and she has arrived here today to make you an offer.”

I take the mesh from Warner’s hand, touch it to my lips just as he did. Drop it into my fist.

I take a deep breath. And say six words.

“I want to destroy The Reestablishment.”

My voice is so loud, so powerfully projected over the crowd, that for a moment it surprises me. The soldiers are staring at me in horror. Shock. Disbelief. Astonishment. They’re starting to whisper.

“I want to lead you into battle,” I say to them. “I want to fight back—”

No one is listening to me anymore.

Their perfectly organized lines have been abandoned. They’re now converging together in one mass, speaking and shouting and trying to deliberate among themselves. Trying to understand what’s happening.

I can’t believe I lost their attention so quickly.

“Don’t hesitate,” Warner says to me. “You must react.
Now
.”

I was hoping to save this for later.

Right now, we’re only about fifteen feet off the ground, but Warner told me there are four more levels, if I want to go all the way up. The highest level houses the speakers designated for this particular area. It has a small maintenance platform that is only ever accessed by technicians.

I’m already climbing my way up.

The soldiers are distracted again, pointing at me as I scale the stairs; still talking loudly with one another. I have no idea if it’s possible for news of this situation to have already reached the civilians or the spies who report back to the supreme. I have no time to care right now because I haven’t even finished giving my speech, and I’ve already lost them.

This isn’t good.

When I finally reach the top level, I’m about a hundred feet off the ground. I’m careful as I step onto the platform, but I’m more careful not to look down for too long. And when I’ve finally planted my feet, I look up and around the crowd.

I have their attention again.

I close my fist over the microphonic mesh.

“I only have one question,” I say, my words powerful and clear, projecting into the distance. “What has The Reestablishment ever done for you?”

They’re actually looking at me now. Listening.

“They have given you nothing but meager wages and promises for a future that will never come. They have divided your families and forced them across what’s left of this earth. They have starved your children and destroyed
your homes. They lie to you, over and over again, forcing you to take jobs in their army so they might control you. And you have no other choice,” I say. “No other options. So you fight in their wars, and you kill your own friends, just so you might feed your families.”

Yes, I have their attention now.

“The person you allow to lead this nation is a coward,” I say to them. “He is a weak man who’s too afraid to show his face to the public. He lives in secrecy, hides from the people who rely on him, and yet he’s taught you to fear him,” I say. “He’s taught you to cower when his name is spoken.

“Maybe you haven’t met him yet,” I say. “But I have. And I was not impressed.”

I can’t believe no one has shot me yet. I don’t care if they’re supposed to be unarmed. Someone probably has a gun. And no one has shot me yet.

“Join a new resistance,” I say to them, calling out to the crowd. “We are the majority, and we can stand united. Will you continue to live like this?” I ask them, pointing to the compounds in the distance. “Will you continue to starve? Because they will continue to lie to you!” I say. “Our world is not beyond repair. It’s not beyond saving. We can be our own army,” I say to them. “We can stand together. Join me,” I say, “and I promise things will change.”

“How?” I hear someone shout. “How can you promise something like that?”

“I am not intimidated by The Reestablishment,” I tell them. “And I have more strength than you might realize. I
have the kind of power that the supreme commander cannot stand against.”

“We already know what you can do!” someone else yells. “That didn’t save you before!”

“No,” I say to them, “you don’t know what I can do. You have no idea what I can do.”

I reach my arms out in front of me, both hands pointed in the direction of the crowd. I try to find a good middle. And then I focus.

Feel your power
, Kenji said to me once.
It’s a part of you—a part of your body and mind. It will listen to you if you can learn how to control it
.

I plant my feet. Steel myself.

And then I pry the crowd apart.

Slowly.

I focus my energy on recognizing the individual bodies and allow my power to move fluidly, working around the soldiers in a gentle fashion, as opposed to rushing through them and accidentally ripping them apart. My power clings to their forms as my fingers would, finally finding a perfect center that divides the group into two halves. They’re already looking at each other from across the courtyard, trying to understand why they can’t move against the invisible walls pushing them apart.