Shatter Me - Tahereh Mafi Page 0,58

lose everything so soon.

“Oh—no.” He shakes his head. “Sorry, I forgot to tell you—one of the reasons why Warner wanted me collecting these samples? Is because you’re immune to it, too. He was studying you. He said he found the information in your hospital records. That you’d been tested—”

“But no one ever—”

“—probably without your knowledge, and despite testing positive for the radiation, you were entirely whole, biologically. There was nothing inherently wrong with you.”

Nothing inherently wrong with you.

The observation is so blatantly false I actually start laughing. I try to stifle my incredulity. “There’s nothing wrong with me? You’re kidding, right?”

Adam stares at me so long I begin to blush. He tips my chin up so I meet his eyes. Blue blue blue boring into me. His voice is deep, steady. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh.”

He’s so excruciatingly correct I don’t know how to respond except with the truth. My smile is tucked into a straight line. “Laughter comes from living.” I shrug, try to sound indifferent. “I’ve never really been alive before.”

His eyes haven’t wavered in their focus. He’s holding me in place with the strength of one powerful pull coming from deep within him. I can almost feel his heart beating against my skin. I can almost feel his lips breathing against my lungs. I can almost taste him on my tongue.

He takes a shaky breath and pulls me close. Kisses the top of my head.

“Let’s go home,” he whispers.

TWENTY-NINE

Home.

Home.

What does he mean?

I part my lips to ask the question and his sneaky smile is the only answer I receive. I’m embarrassed and excited and anxious and eager. My stomach is filled with beating drums pounded into synchronicity by my heart. I’m practically humming with electric nerves.

Every step is a step away from the asylum, away from Warner, away from the futility of the existence I’ve always known. Every step is one I take because I want to. For the first time in my life, I walk forward because I want to, because I feel hope and love and the exhilaration of beauty, because I want to know what it’s like to live. I could jump up to catch a breeze and live in its windblown ways forever.

I feel like I’ve been fitted for wings.

Adam leads me into an abandoned shed on the outskirts of this wild field, overgrown by rogue vegetation and crazed bushlike tentacles, scratchy and hideous, likely poisonous to ingest. I wonder if this is where Adam meant for us to stay. I step into the dark space and squint. An outline comes into focus.

There’s a car inside.

I blink.

Not just a car. A tank.

Adam almost can’t control his own eagerness. He looks at my face for a reaction and seems pleased with my astonishment. His words tumble out. “I convinced Warner I’d managed to break one of the tanks I brought up here. These things are designed to run on electricity—so I told him the main unit fried on contact with the chemical traces. That it was corrupted by something in the atmosphere. He arranged for a car to deliver and collect me after that, and said we should leave the tank where it is.” He almost smiles. “Warner was sending me up here against his father’s wishes, and didn’t want anyone to find out he’d broken a 500-thousand-dollar tank. The official report says it was hijacked by rebels.”

“Couldn’t someone else have come up and seen the tank sitting here?”

Adam opens the passenger door. “The civilians stay far, far away from this place, and no other soldier has been up here. No one else wanted to risk the radiation.” He cocks his head. “It’s one of the reasons why Warner trusted me with you. He liked that I was willing to die for my duty.”

“He never thought you’d step out of line,” I murmur, comprehending.

Adam shakes his head. “Nope. And after what happened with the tracking serum, he had no reason to doubt that crazy things were possible up here. I deactivated the tank’s electrical unit myself, just in case he wanted to check.” He nods back to the monstrous vehicle. “I had a feeling it would come in handy one day. It’s always good to be prepared.”

Prepared. He was always prepared. To run. To escape.

I wonder why.

“Come here,” he says, his voice noticeably gentler. He reaches for me in the dim light and I pretend it’s a happy coincidence that his hands brush my bare thighs. I pretend it doesn’t feel