Shatter Me - Tahereh Mafi Page 0,59
incredible to have him struggle with the rips in my dress as he helps me into the tank. I pretend I can’t see the way he’s looking at me as the last of the sun falls below the horizon.
“I need to take care of your legs,” he says, a whisper against my skin, electric in my blood. For a moment I don’t even understand what he means. I don’t even care. My thoughts are so impractical I surprise myself. I’ve never had the freedom to touch anyone before. Certainly no one has ever wanted my hands on them. Adam is an entirely new experience.
Touching him is all I want to think about.
“The cuts aren’t too bad,” he continues, the tips of his fingers running across my calves. I suck in my breath. “But we’ll have to clean them up, just in case. Sometimes it’s safer being cut by a butcher knife than being scratched by a random scrap of metal. You don’t want it to get infected.”
He looks up. His hand is now on my knee.
I’m nodding and I don’t know why. I wonder if I’m trembling on the outside as much as I am on the inside. I hope it’s too dark for him to see just how flushed my face is, just how embarrassing it is that he can’t touch my knee without making me crazy. I need to say something. “We should probably get going, right?”
“Yeah.” He takes a deep breath and seems to return to himself. “Yeah. We have to go.” He peers through the evening light. “We have some time before they realize I’m still alive. And we have to use it to our advantage.”
“But once we leave this place—won’t the tracker start back up again? Won’t they know you’re not dead?”
“No.” He jumps into the driver’s side and fumbles for the ignition. There’s no key, just a button. I wonder if it recognizes Adam’s thumbprint as authorization. A small sputter and the machine roars to life. “Warner had to renew my tracker serum every time I got back. Once it’s gone? It’s gone.” He grins. “So now we can really get the hell out of here.”
“But where are we going?” I finally ask.
He shifts into gear before he responds.
“My house.”
THIRTY
“You have a house?” I’m too shocked for manners.
Adam laughs and pulls out of the field. The tank is surprisingly fast, surprisingly swift and stealthy. The engine has quieted to a soothing hum, and I wonder if that’s why they switched their tanks from gas to electric. It’s certainly less conspicuous this way. “Not exactly,” he answers. “But a home of sorts. Yeah.”
I want to ask and don’t want to ask and need to ask and never want to ask. I have to ask. I steel myself. “Your fathe—”
“He’s been dead for a while now.” Adam’s not smiling anymore. His voice is tight with something only I would know how to place. Pain. Bitterness. Anger.
“Oh.”
We drive in silence, each of us absorbed in our own thoughts. I don’t dare ask what became of his mother. I only wonder how he turned out so well despite having such a despicable father. And I wonder why he ever joined the army if he hates it so much. Right now, I’m too shy to ask. I don’t want to infringe on his emotional boundaries.
God knows I have a million of my own.
I peer out the window and strain my eyes to see what we’re passing through, but I can’t make out much more than the sad stretches of deserted land I’ve grown accustomed to. There are no civilians where we are: we’re too far from Reestablished settlements and civilian compounds. I notice another tank patrolling the area not 100 feet away, but I don’t think it sees us. Adam is driving without headlights, presumably to draw as little attention to us as possible. I wonder how he’s even able to navigate. The moon is the only lamp to light our way.
It’s eerily quiet.
For a moment I allow my thoughts to drift back to Warner, wondering what must be going on right now, wondering how many people must be searching for me, wondering what lengths he’ll go to until he has me back. He wants Adam dead. He wants me alive. He won’t stop until I’m trapped beside him.
He can never never never know that I can touch him.
I can only imagine what he’d do if he had access to my body.
I breathe in one quick, sharp, shaky breath