Unravel Me (Shatter Me, #2)

by Tahereh Mafi

We are pissed and we will punish you and we will make you pay for the blood you spill so freely.

All standing before what could be called a firing squad of 6 soldiers.

The soldiers are deciding what to do. How to kill them. How to dispose of the 27 sets of eyes staring straight ahead.

This is the moment, this is where we have to let go, this is where we fight alone, just the 3 of us, 3 ancient kids fighting to save 26 faces or we die trying.

I still haven’t forgotten the one man we weren’t able to save. I haven’t forgotten number 27.

The flames lick the earth, lapping up the oxygen, and even the rain can’t douse the devastation all at once.

Dead dead dead is everywhere. So many bodies mixed and meshed into the earth that I have no idea whether they’re ours or theirs and I’m beginning to wonder what it means, I’m beginning to doubt myself and this weapon in my hand and I can’t help but wonder about these soldiers, I wonder how they could be just like Adam, just like a million other tortured, orphaned souls who simply needed to survive and took the only job they could get.

My conscience has declared war against itself.

“Are you listening? Pay close attention now. Are you watching?” He pulls out a gun. And shoots me in the chest.

For 17 years I tried to force myself into a mold that I hoped would make other people feel comfortable, safe, unthreatened. And it never helped.

will have died having accomplished nothing. I am still no one. I am nothing more than a silly little girl bleeding to death on a psychotic man’s floor.

And I think, if I could do it over again, I’d do it so differently. I’d be better. I’d make something of myself. I’d make a di...