Shatter Me - Tahereh Mafi Page 0,49

of torture but of fear. He’s desperate to get away from me and I’m losing my grip, my wrist nearly breaking from the effort. I don’t dare remove his blindfold. I’d rather die than allow him to see this space, to see my face.

I clench my jaw so fast I’m afraid I’m going to break my teeth. If I put him down, he’ll start running. And if he starts running, he’s finished. I have to keep holding on.

The roar of an old mechanical wheeze revives my heart. The spikes slip back into the ground, one by one until they’ve all disappeared. The room is harmless again so swiftly I fear I may have imagined the danger. I drop the boy back onto the floor and bite down on my lip to swallow the pain welling in my wrist.

The child starts running and accidentally bumps my bare legs.

He screams and shudders and falls to the floor, curled up into himself, sobbing until I consider destroying myself, ridding myself of this world. Tears are streaming fast down my face and I want nothing more than to reach out to him and help him, hug him close, kiss his beautiful cheeks and tell him I’ll take care of him forever, that we’ll run away together, that I’ll play games with him and read him stories at night and I know I can’t. I know I never will. I know it will never be possible.

And suddenly the world shifts out of focus.

I’m overcome by a rage, an intensity, an anger so potent I’m almost elevated off the ground. I’m boiling with blind hatred and disgust. I don’t even understand how my feet move in the next instant. I don’t understand my hands and what they’re doing or how they decided to fly forward, fingers splayed, charging toward the window. I only know I want to feel Warner’s neck snap between my own two hands. I want him to experience the same terror he just inflicted upon a child. I want to watch him die. I want to watch him beg for mercy.

I catapult through the concrete walls.

I crush the glass with 10 fingers.

I’m clutching a fistful of gravel and a fistful of fabric at Warner’s neck and there are 50 different guns pointed at my head. The air is heavy with cement and sulfur, the glass falling in an agonized symphony of shattered hearts.

I slam Warner into the corroded stone.

“Don’t you dare shoot her,” Warner wheezes at the guards. I haven’t touched his skin yet, but I have the strangest suspicion that I could smash his rib cage into his heart if I just pressed a little harder.

“I should kill you.” My voice is one deep breath, one uncontrolled exhalation.

“You—” He tries to swallow. “You just—you just broke through concrete with your bare hands.”

I blink. I don’t dare look behind me. But I know without looking backward that he can’t be lying. I must have. My mind is a maze of impossibility.

I lose focus for one instant.

The guns

click

click

click Every moment is loaded.

“If any of you hurt her I will shoot you myself,” Warner barks.

“But sir—”

“STAND DOWN, SOLDIER—”

The rage is gone. The sudden uncontrollable anger is gone. My mind has already surrendered to disbelief. Confusion. I don’t know what I’ve done. I obviously don’t know what I’m capable of because I had no idea I could destroy anything at all and I’m suddenly so terrified so terrified so terrified of my own two hands. I stumble backward, stunned, and catch Warner watching me hungrily, eagerly, his emerald eyes bright with boyish fascination. He’s practically trembling in excitement.

There’s a snake in my throat and I can’t swallow it down. I meet Warner’s gaze. “If you ever put me in a position like that again, I will kill you. And I will enjoy it.”

I don’t even know if I’m lying.

TWENTY-SIX

Adam finds me curled into a ball on the shower floor.

I’ve been crying for so long I’m certain the hot water is made of nothing but my tears. My clothes are stuck to my skin, wet and useless. I want to wash them away. I want to drown in ignorance. I want to be stupid, dumb, mute, completely devoid of a brain. I want to cut off my own limbs. I want to be rid of this skin that can kill and these hands that destroy and this body I don’t even know how to understand.

Everything is falling apart.

“Juliette . . .” He presses his hand against the