Restore Me (Shatter Me, #4)

by Tahereh Mafi

It is the next part of Juliette’s life that I was most familiar with.

The supreme commanders of the world have always known Juliette Ferrars.

They’ve been watching her grow up. She and her sister were handed over by their psychotic parents, whose allegiance to The Reestablishment overruled all else.

You, who are reading this now, you must react. Finish what I could not do. The younger sister is a failed experiment. She is, as we feared, disconnected from humanity.

Worse, she’s become a distraction for Aaron.

THE BEST DISTRACTION MIGHT I ADD

It’s a shame, really, that she is nothing like her elder sister. Instead, Juliette Ferrars has become an incurable cancer we must cut out of our lives for good.

So. They knew his story. They’ve known about my feelings for her.

Brown-haired and bony. Jerking uncontrollably underwater. Long brown waves suspended, like jittery eels, around her face. Electric wires threaded under her skin. Several tubes permanently attached to her neck and torso.

She’d been living underwater for so long when I first saw her that she hardly resembled a person. Her flesh was milky and shriveled, her mouth stretched out in a grotesque O, wrapped around a regulator that forced air into her lungs.

Oh my word.

She’s only a year older than Juliette. And she’s been held in captivity for twelve years.

Still alive, but onl...

SHES STILL ALIVE????

I had no idea she was Juliette’s sister. I had no idea she was anyone at all. When I first met my assignment, she had no name.

WHAT DID HE DO TO HER

I was given only instructions, and ordered to follow them. I didn’t know who or what I’d been assigned to oversee.

I slam the back of my head against the wall, once. Hard. My eyes squeeze shut.

Juliette has no idea she ever had a real family—a horrible, insane family—but a family nonetheless.

And now I have to confess. Not just this, but the truth about her sister—that she is still alive and being actively tortured by The Reestablishment.

That I contributed to that torture. Or this: That I am the true monster, completely and utterly unworthy of her love.

Juliette will never, ever forgive me. I will lose her. And it will kill me.

I see Warner first.

He’s standing in a corner of the room, eyes bloodshot, yesterday’s clothes rumpled on his body, and he’s staring at me with a look of unmasked fear that surprises me.

It’s entirely unlike him. Warner rarely shows em...

Warner has gone gray. He looks frozen in his skin.

“There’s no sun today,” Sonya says quietly. “It’s snowing again.”

“No, love,” he says, sounding strange. “You can’t go outside again. Not—not just yet. Please.” The look on his face is enough to break my heart.

He just looks at me, his eyes red-rimmed and raw. If I didn’t know him any better I’d think he’d been crying.

“Sweetheart.” and for some reason I hold my breath. “I have to talk to you,” he says. He whispers it, actually.

I spin around too fast, my reflexes faster than even my mind. I’ve got his hand pinched up at the wrist and wound behind his back and I’ve slammed him chest-first into the wall before I realize it’s Kent.

James will not be convinced. He peers into my face. “Were you crying?”

I squint at him. “How old are you? Nine?” “I’m about to turn eleven!” “You’re very small for eleven.” And then he punches me. Hard. In the thigh.

“Owwwwwww,” he cries, overzealous in his exaggeration of the simple sound. He shakes out his fingers. Scowls at me. “Why does your leg feel like stone?”

“Next time,” I say, “you should try picking on someon...

I didn’t hit my growth spurt until I was about twelve or thirteen, and if you’re anything like me—” Kent clears his throat, hard, and I catch myself. “That is—if you’re anything like, ah, your brother, I’m sure you’ll be just fine.”

“Adam is the best, isn’t he? I hope I’m just like him.” I feel the smile break off my face. This little boy. He’s also mine, my brother, and he may never know it.

Her cheeks are pink from the shower. Her eyes are big and bright as she smiles as me. She’s so beautiful. So unbelievably beautiful.

I love how gentle she is with me when we’re alone. How soft and kind she can be in our quiet moments. How she never hesitates to defend me. I love her.

And he says he didn’t know, and his voice breaks when he says it,

“I perpetuated your sister’s torture,” he says, his voice raw, broken, “her confinement. I was ordered to oversee her continued imprisonment. I gave the orders that kept her there. Every day.

“Please,” he says, and tears are falling silently down his face, and he’s visibly shaking as he says,

this— This is agony. This is what they talk about when they talk about heartbreak.

If I weren’t better informed, I’d think I were having an actual heart attack.

It feels as though a truck has run over me, broken every bone in my chest, and now it’s stuck here, the weight of it crushing my lungs. I can’t breathe. I can’t even see straight.

This is not a heart attack, I tell myself. Not a heart attack. I know better. I’m having a panic attack.

my poor boy

I’ve struggled with occasional anxiety over the course of my life, but I’ve generally been able to manage

But the older I got, the less powerless I became, and I found ways to manage my triggers; I found the safe spaces in my mind; I educated myself in cognitive behavioral therapies; and with time, I learned to cope.

And I don’t know how to save myself this time.

And I’ve just collapsed, supine on the floor, my hand pressed against the pain in my chest,

“What’s wrong with you, man?” “I can’t breathe,” I whisper. “What do you mean, you can’t breathe? Did she shoot you again?”

I’ve never actually taken this medication before, but I’ve kept the prescription current at my medic’s request. In case of emergencies.

These drugs are slowing me down, softening my senses. I touch a hand to my lips, beg them to stay closed. I hope I haven’t taken too much of the medicine.

Kenji’s eyes widen, surprised, and he laughs. He nods at my face and says, “Aw, you’ve got dimples. I didn’t know that. That’s cute.” “Shut up.” I frown. “Go away.”