Unravel Me (17 page)

“Yeah,” I say, slumping against the wall. “I guess that part wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Right?” Kenji perks up. “That would be awesome. And then—you know, if you leave your
gloves on—you could just crush random stuff without actually killing anyone. Then
you wouldn’t feel so bad, right?”

“I guess not.”

“So. Great. You just need to relax.” He gets to his feet. Grabs the brick he was toying
with earlier. “Come on,” he says. “Get up. Come over here.”

I walk over to his side of the room and stare at the brick he’s holding. He gives
it to me like he’s handing over some kind of family heirloom. “Now,” he says. “You
have to let yourself get comfortable, okay? Allow your body to touch base with its
core. Stop blocking your own Energy. You’ve probably got a million mental blocks in
your head. You can’t hold back anymore.”

“I don’t have
mental blocks
—”

“Yeah you do.” He snorts. “You definitely do. You have severe mental constipation.”

“Mental
what
—”

“Focus your anger on the brick. On the
brick
,” he says to me. “Remember. Open mind. You
want
to crush the brick. Remind yourself that this is what you want. It’s
your
choice. You’re not doing this for Castle, you’re not doing it for me, you’re not
doing it to fight anyone. This is just something you feel like doing. For fun. Because
you feel like it. Let your mind and body take over. Okay?”

I take a deep breath. Nod a few times. “Okay. I think I’m—”

“Holy
shit
.” He lets out a low whistle.

“What?” I spin around. “What happened—”

“How did you not just feel that?”

“Feel what—”

“Look in your hand!”

I gasp. Stumble backward. My hand is full of what looks like red sand and brown clay
pulverized into tiny particles. The bigger chunks of brick crumble to the floor and
I let the debris slip through the cracks between my fingers only to lift the guilty
hand to my face.

I look up.

Kenji is shaking his head, shaking with laughter. “I am so jealous right now you have
no idea.”

“Oh my God.”

“I know. I KNOW. So badass. Now think about it: if you can do that to a
brick
, imagine what you could do to the human
body
—”

That wasn’t the right thing to say.

Not now. Not after Adam. Not after trying to pick up the pieces of my hopes and dreams
and fumbling to glue them back together. Because now there’s nothing left. Because
now I realize that somewhere, deep down, I was harboring a small hope that Adam and
I would find a way to work things out.

Somewhere, deep down, I was still clinging to possibility.

And now that’s gone.

Because now it’s not just my skin Adam has to be afraid of. It’s not just my touch
but my grip, my hugs, my hands, a kiss—anything I do could injure him. I’d have to
be careful just holding his
hand
. And this new knowledge, this new information about just exactly how deadly I am—

It leaves me with no alternative.

I will forever and ever and ever be alone because no one is safe from me.

I fall to the floor, my mind whirring, my own brain no longer a safe space to inhabit
because I can’t stop thinking, I can’t stop wondering, I can’t stop anything and it’s
like I’m caught in what could be a head-on collision and I’m not the innocent bystander.

I’m the train.

I’m the one careening out of control.

Because sometimes you see yourself—you see yourself the way you
could
be—the way you
might
be if things were different. And if you look too closely, what you see will scare
you, it’ll make you wonder what you might do if given the opportunity. You know there’s
a different side of yourself you don’t want to recognize, a side you don’t want to
see in the daylight. You spend your whole life doing everything to push it down and
away, out of sight, out of mind. You pretend that a piece of yourself doesn’t exist.

You live like that for a long time.

For a long time, you’re safe.

And then you’re not.

Another morning.

Another meal.

I’m headed to breakfast to meet Kenji before our next training session.

He came to a conclusion about my abilities yesterday: he thinks that the inhuman power
in my touch is just an evolved form of my Energy. That skin-to-skin contact is simply
the rawest form of my ability—that my true gift is actually a kind of all-consuming
strength that manifests itself in every part of my body.

My bones, my blood, my skin.

I told him it was an interesting theory. I told him I’d always seen myself as some
sick version of a Venus flytrap and he said, “OH MY GOD. Yes. YES. You are exactly
like that. Holy shit, yes.”

Beautiful enough to lure in your prey, he said.

Strong enough to clamp down and destroy, he said.

Poisonous enough to digest your victims when the flesh makes contact.

“You
digest
your prey,” he said to me, laughing as though it was amusing, as though it was funny,
as if it was perfectly acceptable to compare a girl to a carnivorous plant. Flattering,
even. “Right? You said that when you touch people, it’s, like, you’re taking their
energy, right? It makes you feel stronger?”

I didn’t respond.

“So you’re
exactly
like a Venus flytrap. You reel ’em in. Clamp ’em down. Eat ’em up.”

I didn’t respond.

“Mmmmmmm,” he said. “You’re like a sexy, super-scary plant.”

I closed my eyes. Covered my mouth in horror.

“Why is that so wrong?” he said. Bent down to meet my gaze. Tugged on a lock of my
hair to get me to look up. “Why does this have to be so horrible? Why can’t you see
how
awesome
this is?” He shook his head at me. “You are seriously missing out, you know that?
This could be so cool if you would just
own
it.”

Own it.

Yes.

How easy it would be to just clamp down on the world around me. Suck up its life force
and leave it dead in the street just because someone tells me I should. Because someone
points a finger and says “Those are the bad guys. Those men over there.” Kill, they
say. Kill because you trust us. Kill because you’re fighting for the right team. Kill
because they’re bad, and we’re good. Kill because we tell you to. Because some people
are so stupid that they actually think there are thick neon lines separating good
and evil. That it’s easy to make that kind of distinction and go to sleep at night
with a clear conscience. Because it’s okay.

It’s okay to kill a man if someone else deems him unfit to live.

What I really want to say is who the hell are you and who are you to decide who gets
to die. Who are you to decide who should be killed. Who are you to tell me which father
I should destroy and which child I should orphan and which mother should be left without
her son, which brother should be left without a sister, which grandmother should spend
the rest of her life crying in the early hours of the morning because the body of
her grandchild was buried in the ground before her own.

What I really want to say is who the hell do you think you are to tell me that it’s
awesome to be able to kill a living thing, that it’s interesting to be able to ensnare
another soul, that it’s fair to choose a victim simply because I’m capable of killing
without a gun. I want to say mean things and angry things and hurtful things and I
want to throw expletives in the air and run far, far away; I want to disappear into
the horizon and I want to dump myself on the side of the road if only it will bring
me toward some semblance of freedom but I don’t know where to go. I have nowhere else
to go.

And I feel responsible.

Because there are times when the anger bleeds away until it’s nothing but a raw ache
in the pit of my stomach and I see the world and wonder about its people and what
it’s become and I think about hope and maybe and possibly and possibility and potential.
I think about glasses half full and glasses to see the world clearly. I think about
sacrifice. And compromise. I think about what will happen if no one fights back. I
think about a world where no one stands up to injustice.

And I wonder if maybe everyone here is right.

If maybe it’s time to fight.

I wonder if it’s ever actually possible to justify killing as a means to an end and
then I think of Kenji. I think of what he said. And I wonder if he would still call
it awesome if I decided to make
him
my prey.

I’m guessing not.

Kenji is already waiting for me.

He and Winston and Brendan are sitting at the same table again, and I slide into my
seat with a distracted nod and eyes that refuse to focus in front of me.

“He’s not here,” Kenji says, shoving a spoonful of breakfast into his mouth.

“What?” Oh how fascinating look at this fork and this spoon and this table. “What
do y—”

“Not here,” he says, his mouth still half full of food.

Winston clears his throat, scratches the back of his head. Brendan shifts in his seat
beside me.

“Oh. I—I, um—” Heat flushes up my neck as I look around at the 3 guys sitting at this
table. I want to ask Kenji where Adam is, why he isn’t here, how he’s doing, if he’s
okay, if he’s been eating regularly. I want to ask a million questions I shouldn’t
be asking but it’s blatantly clear that none of them want to talk about the awkward
details of my personal life. And I don’t want to be that sad, pathetic girl. I don’t
want pity. I don’t want to see the uncomfortable sympathy in their eyes.

So I sit up. Clear my throat.

“What’s going on with the patrols?” I ask Winston. “Is it getting any worse?”

Winston looks up midchew, surprised. He swallows down the food too quickly and coughs
once, twice. Takes a sip of his coffee—tar black—and leans forward, looking eager.
“It’s getting weirder,” he says.

“Really?”

“Yeah, so, remember how I told you guys that Warner was showing up every night?”

Warner. I can’t get the image of his smiling, laughing face out of my head.

We nod.

“Well.” He leans back in his chair. Holds up his hands. “Last night? Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Brendan’s eyebrows are high on his forehead. “What do you mean, nothing?”

“I mean no one was there.” He shrugs. Picks up his fork. Stabs at a piece of food.
“Not Warner, not a single soldier. Night before last?” He looks around at us. “Fifty,
maybe seventy-five soldiers. Last night, zero.”

“Did you tell Castle about this?” Kenji isn’t eating anymore. He’s staring at Winston
with a focused, too-serious look on his face. It’s worrying me.

“Yeah.” Winston nods as he takes another sip of his coffee. “I turned in my report
about an hour ago.”

“You mean you haven’t gone to sleep yet?” I ask, eyes wide.

“I slept yesterday,” he says, waving a haphazard hand at me. “Or the day before yesterday.
I can’t remember. God, this coffee is disgusting,” he says, gulping it down.

“Right. Maybe you should lay off the coffee, yeah?” Brendan tries to grab Winston’s
cup.

Winston slaps at his hand, shoots him a dark look. “Not all of us have electricity
running through our veins,” he says. “I’m not a freaking powerhouse of energy like
you are.”

“I only did that once—”

“Twice!”

“—and it was an emergency,” he says, looking a little sheepish.

“What are you guys talking about?” I ask.

“This guy”—Kenji jerks a thumb at Brendan—“can, like,
literally
recharge his own body. He doesn’t need to sleep. It’s insane.”

“It’s not fair,” Winston mutters, ripping a piece of bread in half.

I turn to Brendan, jaw unhinged. “No way.”

He nods. Shrugs. “I’ve only done it once.”

“Twice!” Winston says again. “And he’s a freaking fetus,” he says to me. “He’s already
got way too much energy as it is—shit, all of you kids do—and yet he’s the one who
comes with a rechargeable battery life.”

“I am not a
fetus
,” Brendan says, spluttering, glancing at me as heat colors his cheeks. “He’s—that’s
not—you’re
mad,
” he says, glaring at Winston.

“Yeah,” Winston says, nodding, his mouth full of food again. “I am mad. I’m pissed
off.” He swallows. “And I’m cranky as hell because I’m tired. And I’m hungry. And
I need more coffee.” He shoves away from the table. Stands up. “I’m going to go get
more coffee.”

“I thought you said it was disgusting.”

He levels a look at me. “Yes, but I am a sad, sad man with very low standards.”

“It’s true,” Brendan says.

“Shut up, fetus.”

“You’re only allowed one cup,” Kenji points out, looking up to meet Winston’s eyes.

“Don’t worry, I always tell them I’m taking yours,” he says, and stalks off.

Kenji is laughing, shoulders shaking.

Brendan is mumbling “I am
not
a fetus” under his breath, stabbing at his food with renewed vigor.

“How old
are
you?” I ask, curious. He’s so white-blond and pale-blue-eyed that he doesn’t seem
real. He looks like the kind of person who could never age, who would remain forever
preserved in this ethereal form.

“Twenty-four,” he says, looking grateful for a chance at validation. “Just turned
twenty-four, actually. Had my birthday last week.”

“Oh, wow.” I’m surprised. He doesn’t look much older than 18. I wonder what it must
be like to celebrate a birthday at Omega Point. “Well, happy birthday,” I say, smiling
at him. “I hope—I hope you have a very good year. And”—I try to think of something
nice to say—“and a lot of happy days.”

He’s staring back at me now, amused, looking straight into my eyes. Grinning. He says,
“Thanks.” Smiles a bit wider. “Thanks very much.” And he doesn’t look away.

My face is hot.

I’m struggling to understand why he’s still smiling at me, why he doesn’t stop smiling
even when he finally looks away, why Kenji keeps glancing at me like he’s trying to
hold in a laugh and I’m flustered, feeling oddly embarrassed and searching for something
to say.