Defy Me - Tahereh Mafi Page 0,15

thinking.

Juliette might be dead.

I get to my feet. I pull my shirt on quickly, careful not to meet her eyes. For some reason, I can’t bring myself to look at Nazeera. I have no regrets about kissing her—it’s just that I also feel suddenly guilty, like I was doing something wrong. Something selfish and inappropriate.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know what got into me.”

Nazeera is tugging on her boots. She looks up, surprised. “What do you mean?”

“What we just”—I sigh, hard—“I don’t know. I forgot, for a moment, everything we have to do. The fact that Juliette might be out there, somewhere, being tortured to death. Warner might be dead. We’ll have to pack up and run, leave this place behind. God, there’s so much happening and I just— My head was in the wrong place. I’m sorry.”

Nazeera is standing up now. She looks upset. “Why do you keep apologizing to me? Stop apologizing to me.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I wince. “I mean— You know what I mean. Anyway, we should go.”

“Kenji—”

“Listen, you said you didn’t want a relationship, right? You didn’t want to be my girlfriend? You don’t think that this”—I mimic what she did earlier, motioning between us—“could ever work? Well, then—” I take a breath. Run a hand through my hair. “This is what not being my girlfriend looks like. Okay? There are only a few people in my life who actually care about me, and right now my best friend is probably being murdered by a bunch of psychopaths, and I should be out there, doing something.”

“I didn’t realize you and Warner were so close,” she says quietly.

“What?” I frown. “No, I’m talking about Juliette,” I say. “Ella. Whatever.”

Nazeera’s eyebrows go high.

“Anyway, I’m sorry. We should probably just keep this professional, right? You’re not looking for anything serious, and I don’t know how to have casual relationships anyway. I always end up caring too much, to be honest, so this probably wasn’t a good idea.”

“Oh.”

“Right?” I look at her, hoping, suddenly, that there was something I missed, something more than the cool distance in her eyes. “Didn’t you just tell me that we’re too different? That you don’t even live here?”

She turns away. “Yes.”

“And have you changed your mind in the last thirty seconds? About being my girlfriend?”

She’s still staring at the wall when she says, “No.”

Pain shoots up my spine, gathers in my chest. “Okay then,” I say, and nod. “Thanks for your honesty. I have to go.”

She cuts past me, walks out the door. “I’m coming, too.”

Juliette

I’ve been sitting in the back of a police car for over an hour. I haven’t been able to cry, not yet. And I don’t know what I’m waiting for, but I know what I did, and I’m pretty sure I know what happens next.

I killed a little boy.

I don’t know how I did it. I don’t know why it happened. I just know that it was me, my hands, me. I did that. Me.

I wonder if my parents will show up.

Instead, three men in military uniforms march up to my window. One of them flings open the door and aims a machine gun at my chest.

“Get out,” he barks. “Out with your hands up.”

My heart is racing, terror propelling me out of the car so fast I stumble, slamming my knee into the ground. I don’t need to check to know that I’m bleeding; the pain of the fresh wound is already searing. I bite my lip to keep from crying out, force the tears back.

No one helps me up.

I want to tell them that I’m only fourteen, that I don’t know a lot about a lot of things, but that I know enough. I’ve watched TV shows about this sort of thing. I know they can’t charge me as an adult. I know that they shouldn’t be treating me like this.

But then I remember that the world is different now. We have a new government now, one that doesn’t care how we used to do things. Maybe none of that matters anymore.

My heart beats faster.

I’m shoved into the backseat of a black car, and before I know it, I’m deposited somewhere new: somewhere that looks like an ordinary office building. It’s tall. Steel gray. It seems old and decrepit—some of its windows are cracked—and the whole thing looks sad.

But when I walk inside I’m stunned to discover a blinding, gleaming interior. I look around, taking in the marble floors, the rich carpets and furnishings. The