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by
Tahereh Mafi
Read between
November 15 - November 18, 2025
Watching him move is like witnessing wind: it’s only clear he’s been there when someone else falls.
No, you will not die today. My eyes flicker open. But it’s not clear, Rosabelle Wolff, whether you deserve to live.
This distinct lack of recent murdering is making me anxious.
“One day that overzealous optimism is going to get you into trouble. You think I’m being hard on you. I am. It’s because I don’t want you to die, you idiot.” I smile at the memory. That’s as close as he ever comes to saying I love you, little brother.
What would Aaron Warner Anderson do? Because that’s the question I’m about to answer. And he taught me everything I know.”
The simple game seems to please him. I find this fascinating.
As the son of a supreme commander he couldn’t have had an easy upbringing, and yet I cannot comprehend what emotional equation would account for the way he smiles, as if it costs him nothing. There’s something playful about him even in anger; I’ve never seen someone make violence seem casual. His unpredictability makes me nervous.
I keep searching him for patterns and uncover inconsistencies instead.
The profitable illusion of free will.
It’s simple logic: if we believe our choices are our own—if we do not know we are being bent into obeisance—we will not be tempted to revolt. The ultimate goal of synthetic intelligence, then, is the obliteration of organic intelligence.
I don’t like to lose control.
And yet I’ve been freed from one aggressor only to be shackled to another.
“I’m living Kenji’s dream right now,” I whisper, still petting the bird’s head. “Except for all the blood, I’m basically a fairy-tale prince. All I need is a musical number and a fairy godmother. Now get the fuck out of here.”
I react badly to the sound of children screaming. It’s the most broken thing about me; the part of me I’m always trying to manage. I grew up listening to children screaming. Fell asleep listening to children screaming. Children dying. Children disappearing. Children being tortured, starved, abused.
Eventually I learned how to fake it for his sake—timing my visits, dissociating from the moments I couldn’t escape—but I’ve tried for years to shake it off for real and never could. There’s a rage that lives inside me I’ve never been able to kill. A rage that lives buried, like magma, miles beneath still waters. The rage of a child still too young to fight the monsters when they came calling.
I slit this man’s throat. I literally killed him, and now he’s asking me if I’m okay. I think there might be something wrong with him.
grins at me like this is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and he starts pumping his legs like a kid learning to ride a bike for the first time.
His words generate within me the opposite of fear; instead, I find my thoughts dipping into the absurd. I wonder, briefly, what it must be like to be loved by someone like him. To have someone always in your corner, someone willing to fight for you.
But I’m only good at my job when I disconnect from my own humanity. The hunger helps keep me hollow. I survive only by freely and quietly dying, over and over, inside my head. Dealing with James will require accessing my soul, and few things have terrified me more.
“Hey,” I say, frustrated. No one is looking at me. No one is listening to me. God, this is exactly the kind of garbage that pushed me off the edge to begin with. No one takes me seriously.
Warner turns to look at me with a cool, inscrutable expression, and suddenly he’s not my oldest brother, my mentor, my role model, the guy I’ve been living with for ten years. Right now Warner embodies every inch of his reputation, and I swear my life flashes before my eyes. Aaron Warner Anderson is a living legend.
Adam wanted peace. Warner wanted justice. But I’d realized at a young age that you can’t have peace without securing justice; and when you’re living under tyranny you can’t secure justice without violence. I didn’t want to live a passive life. Besides, I wasn’t blind. I saw the way the world looked at Warner: with the kind of awe and fear and respect I’d always dreamed of. He’d worked hard for that kind of power, living a terrifying and propulsive life that made me think he was invincible. I wanted to be him.
By contrast, Warner rarely let me out of his sight. He tucked me under his wing, teaching me and training me. Rebuilding me. And by virtue of living in his home I’ve seen glimpses of him most people wouldn’t believe possible. Softer versions of him; laughing versions of him. Loving versions of him. Right now, all of that is gone. Right now, he’s an invulnerable shield. A wall of ice. He’s upset.
“You think coming back alive is something to be proud of? You think death is the worst thing that can happen to you? Dying is easy. Enduring your own pain is a mercy. Hell is when you’re forced to stay alive, looking on as your enemies take away someone you love—torture someone you love—while you’re helpless to save them. Sometimes we pray for death, James. Sometimes making it out alive is worse than death.”
No matter what he says, I know he’d never hurt me. He’s my big brother, and I genuinely love the guy.
It’s one of his rare grins, dimples appearing and disappearing just to mess with your head. He goes from murderer to boy next door to murderer in two seconds flat.
His eyes are a kaleidoscope of blues; like the sea, at turns tranquil and turbulent. Right now he’s unhurried and easy in his body. I have a strange thought: I wish I could gather up his calm and pull it over me, sleep beneath it as if it were a blanket.
force myself down into nothingness, disconnecting my body from my mind, crushing what’s left of me into dust. I need to pull myself together and remain that way. I can’t afford any more missteps.
the loves of our lives don’t quite love us enough,
“You don’t have to worry so much.” “That’s like telling water not to be wet,”
“She can murder whoever she wants,” Warner says flatly. “Don’t stifle her.”
She’s exhibited enough vulnerability—enough instability—in her interactions with you to prove she’s human, and that makes her weak.” “Write that down,” Kenji says. “Remember this moment. Hell, make it the title of your memoir: Being Human Makes You Weak, by Aaron Warner Anderson.”
She softens, beaming at him like he’s some kind of baby animal. Sometimes I think she sees Warner in a way literally no one else does. She seems to think he has no thorns at all.
Something about the constant dopamine hits changed my brain chemistry.
After the revolution, we established and subsidized programs to encourage people to learn practical trades. It was Warner’s idea. He argued that we had to relearn self-sufficiency as a nation; bring back manufacturing and innovation so that we’d never be so reliant on technology that we’d abandon the building blocks of life. A
I thought he was impressive at twenty; at thirty years old he radiates the kind of quiet, effortless power I find aspirational. Even now he looks anointed, his golden hair suffused with fresh sunlight.
My heart, traitorous asshole, kicks into high gear.
And then, of course, I feel shitty for feeling shitty, because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter how much she cries. I’m going to do what’s best for my family, for my people.
In some ways a stupid adversary is more dangerous than an evil one. I can’t map stupidity. I can’t extrapolate theories from stupidity. I can’t solve for patterns in stupidity.
This is without a doubt some kind of prison masquerading as a sanctuary.
Rosabelle, when there’s something you want but can’t have, you can either be patient or be creative. Choose a path. When the bullet in my mother’s gun went off, the path was chosen for me. Nothing could slow the force of a shot that expelled her from her world and me from mine.
This is what’s wrong with me— This is why I can’t seem to die and stay dead, why my skin keeps burning, my heart keeps racing, my head keeps spinning— He is what’s wrong with me. After so many years being dead inside, James makes me feel alive.
God, this is a nightmare. An actual nightmare. We’ve been doing this—I check my watch—for two hours now, and I’m already losing my cool. Warner was right. I have several more hours of this to sit through, and I don’t know how I’m going to make it. I wasn’t trained for sitting in rooms and talking about nothing. I’m drowning.
It doesn’t come naturally to me to orchestrate the downfall of vulnerable women. I liked it better when she was actively trying to murder me.
“I don’t like it when you laugh at me.” “I know,” I say. “It makes you mad. You think I’m not taking you seriously.”
“Well, you’re not,” she says sharply. “You’re not mysterious. Your methods are obvious. You rely on veils of distraction, using humor and charm to cast yourself as a hapless, incapable opponent, only to then slaughter your enemies as if it costs you nothing. You pretend to be reckless when you’re not. You pretend to be weak when you’re not. You pretend to be stupid when you’re not. You live by some impenetrable moral code, deciding at your own discretion whether something is worth dying for, and then act as if your sacrifice means nothing. You feign boredom even when you’re paying attention.
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I was made to live near water. Mountains. Open land. When I was kid, I used to pretend to be a kite. I’d jump off chairs and tables and eventually dumpsters and squat buildings, hoping to catch the wind.
It’s a hysterical, dangerous thought. As if I might ever be allowed to untie these ropes, unlock these chains.
“I’ve been fooling people all my life. You’re the only one paying attention.”
I know that the face you put on for the world isn’t the one you wear when you feel safe.
