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I ask the cracks in the concrete wall.
I tell the wall.
But things happen when people touch me. Strange things. Bad things.
It’s a home, a center for troubled youth, for neglected children from broken families, a safe house for the psychologically disturbed.
Because I’m a monster.
“My name is Juliette.”
Sometimes our winter days hit 92 degrees.
I’d like to stare at the curve of his lips for the rest of my life.
“You can’t t-touch me.”
“Maybe I want to touch you.”
I was dragged away for a murder I didn’t know I could commit.
I never wanted to hurt the only person who never wanted to hurt me.
Adam steps into the doorway beside the blond and gestures with his weapon toward a narrow hallway. “Move.”
Adam is pointing a gun at my chest.
His eyes are the palest shade of emerald I’ve ever seen. He’s beautiful.
Warner.
“I have a proposition for you.”
I am not even a memory in his mind.
“You want me to torture people for you?” His face breaks into a brilliant smile. “That would be wonderful.”
“I’d like to break this one. She’s a little too feisty for her own good.”
Kent,” he calls. “Don’t let her out of your sight. She’s your charge now.” “Yes, sir.”
“Take my hand,” he says. “I will never. Not ever.”
The Reestablishment promised us hope for a better future.
Despite everything he’s done I don’t know if I’m capable of hating him. Not Adam. Not the boy I used to know.
He saved my notebook. Adam saved the only thing I own.
It’s not what you think.
“You hurt him,” I find myself saying. “You shouldn’t care,” he says
“Private Fletcher was found on unregulated grounds, fraternizing with civilians believed to be rebel party members. He had stolen food and supplies from storage units dedicated to Sector 45 citizens. It is not known whether he betrayed sensitive information.”
“You disgust me.” I stare hard into his crystal-cold eyes.
“Where is Adam?
I’ve cared about Adam Kent since I was in third grade.
Adam did not betray me.
he pulls me into his arms and lifts me into the shower.
“I can touch you,” he says, and I wonder why there are hummingbirds in my heart. “I didn’t understand until the other night,”
and he’s holding me the way no one has ever held me before. Like he wants me.
“I’m going to get you out of here,”
The bird on his chest. A tattoo. A white bird with streaks of gold like a crown atop its head. It’s flying.
I’m the bird and I’m flying away.
My body is a carnivorous flower, a poisonous houseplant, a loaded gun with a million triggers and he’s more than ready to fire.
Hope is hugging me, holding me in its arms, wiping away my tears and telling me that today and tomorrow and two days from now I will be just fine and I’m so delirious I actually dare to believe it.
“Looking at you makes me sick.”
“I am not your toy,”
“The world is disgusted by you,”
“Everyone you’ve ever known has hated you. Run from you. Abandoned you. Your own parents gave up on you
I’m giving you an opportunity no one would ever offer you. I’m willing to treat you as an equal.
I can put power in your hands. I can make them suffer for what they did to you.”
“I have no respect for you.”
“You killed a little boy.”
“Touch me.”
This time I’m in his arms and against the wall and I’m trembling
