Imagine Me (Shatter Me, #6)

by Tahereh Mafi

I notice for the first time that he’s got a huge gash across his chest. Several cuts on his arms. A nasty scratch on his neck. Blood is dripping slowly down his torso,

and Warner doesn’t even seem to notice.

Scars all over his back, blood smeared across his front...

I know he’s being stubborn and stupid and cruel. But I can’t find the strength to be mad at him right now. I can’t.

My heart is breaking for the guy.

Superman (my new nickname for Stephan),

Which means the tension in here is insane right now. Even Castle seems a little nervous around Warner, like he’s not sure about him anymore.

For a couple of months we forgot that Warner was scary. He smiled like four and a half times and we decided to forget that he was basically a psychopath with a long history of ruthless murder.

The only people unperturbed are the supreme kids. They look right at home with this version of him.

But now? No problem. Super comfortable with psycho Warner. Old pals.

J is posted up inside the MT—an obvious nickname for their medical tent—which

Castle and I connect glances: we seem to have walked into a private argument. Good.

“Hey, Sam,” I say, “did you know that your wife wants to kill Juliette?” Castle gasps.

“It’s not that simple,” says Nouria, who shoots me a look so venomous I almost feel bad for being petty.

“Haider is crying. Haider Ibrahim. Son of the supreme commander of Asia.

He’s sitting in a hospital chair crying because Warner hurt his feelings. I don’t know how you can defend that.”

Nazeera looks at me like she feels sorry for me. That’s enough to straighten my spine.

How do you think she’d feel about you letting someone murder a child?” Warner stands up.

Fast, too fast. Warner is on his feet and I’m suddenly sorry.

“What happened to you, man?” I whisper. “Where’d you go?” “Hell,” he says. “I’ve finally found hell.”

I wake in waves, consciousness bathing me slowly. I break the surface of sleep, gasping for air before I’m pulled under

She went quiet once she settled here, in my mind. She stilled, retreated. Hid from me, from the world.

I feel heavy with her presence but she does not speak, she only decays, her mind decomposing slowly,

Today, there is a boy. Not one of the regular boys. Not Aaron or Stephan or Haider. This is a new boy, a boy I’ve never met before.

Mum tilts her head at the boy. Studies him. “He’s what, six years old now?”

I wonder if its adam

“Has it really been that long?” Mr. Anderson looks at the boy. “Unfortunately.”

Mr. Anderson is an awful person, and he hurts Aaron all the time.

To think this is 5yr old ella saying this actually kills me

Now that I think about it, there’s something about this boy that reminds me of Aaron. Something about his eyes.

The boy looks up, then. His eyes are a deep, dark blue. He’s the saddest boy I’ve ever met, and it makes me sad just to look at him.

“I’m A-Adam,” he says quietly. He turns red again.

I TOLD YOU THIS BOOK IS MESSED UPPPP

I take his hand in mine. Smile at him. “We’re going to be friends, okay? Don’t worry about Mr. Anderson. No one likes him. ...

His hand trembles in mine, but he do...

“I don’t know,” he whispers. “He’s prett...

“And I don’t care if you lot think it’s weird. I’ve little left of England, save this.”

That shuts us up.

“Let’s put it to a vote: Who here thinks Ian is annoyed that J didn’t fall in love with him when she showed up at Point?”

Winston and Brendan share a look. Slowly, they both lift their hands.

I don’t know how I understand this so clearly, except that her mind seems to have fused with mine.

Hands become arms around me and the fire blazes. My own hands are caught between us and I feel the hard lines of his body through the soft cotton of his shirt.

His lips are at my ear whispering, whispering Come back to life, love I’ll be here when you wake up

His eyes, something about his eyes Please, he says, please don’t shoot me for this

my eyes staring into the very desperately green eyes that seem to know too much, too well.

Aaron Warner Anderson is bent over me, his worried eyes inspecting me, his hand caught in the air like he might’ve been about to touch me.

He jerks...

“Oh, okay, so we’re all just saying really obvious things out loud? Is that what we’re doing?” Kenji.

“Please,” he whispers. “Come back to me, love.” “Aaron?” I hear the small hitch in his breath. The hesitation. It’s the first time I’ve used his name so casually. “Yes?”

Nazeera, Haider, Warner, Stephan. They walk calmly through the wreckage, faces unchanged and solemn. I don’t know what they’ve seen—what they’ve been a part of—that makes them able to stand here, still relatively cool in the face of so much human devastation, and I don’t think I want to know.

No matter what comes next, we fight to the death. That was always the plan, from the first. And it’s what we’ll do now. Round two.

It’s not until Anderson jerks the small figure upright, nudging his head back with a gun, that I feel the blood exit my heart.

Anderson presses the gun to James’s throat, and my knees nearly give out.