Unravel Me: The Juliette Chronicles Book 2

me.”

FIFTY-EIGHT
    “What?”
    “He’s not dead,” Warner says, “though he is severely injured. I suspect they should be able to revive him.”
    “What”—I’m panicking, panicking in my bones—“what are you talking about—”
    “Please,” Warner says. “Sit down. I’ll explain.” He folds himself onto the floor and pats the place beside him. I don’t know what else to do and my legs are now officially too shaky to stand on their own.
    My limbs spill onto the ground, both our backs against the wall, his right side and my left side divided only by a thin inch of air.
    1
    2
    3 seconds pass.
    “I didn’t want to believe Castle when he told me I might have a . . . a gift ,” Warner says. His voice is pitched so low that I have to strain to hear it even though I’m only inches away. “A part of me hoped he was trying to drive me mad for his own benefit.” A small sigh. “But it did make a bit of sense, if I really thought about it. Castle told me about Kent, too,” Warner says. “About how he can touch you and how they’ve discovered why. For a moment I wondered if perhaps I had a similar ability. One just as pathetic. Equally as useless.” He laughs. “I was extremely reluctant to believe it.”
    “It’s not a useless ability,” I hear myself saying.
    “Really?” He turns to face me. Our shoulders are almost touching. “Tell me, love. What can he do?”
    “He can disable things. Abilities.”
    “Right,” he says, “but how will that ever help him? How could it ever help him to disable the powers of his own people? It’s absurd. It’s wasteful . It won’t help at all in this war.”
    I bristle. Decide to ignore that. “What does any of this have to do with Kenji?”
    He turns away from me again. His voice is softer when he says, “Would you believe me if I told you I could sense your energy right now? Sense the tone and weight of it?”
    I stare at him, study his features and the earnest, tentative note in his voice. “Yes,” I tell him. “I think I’d believe you.”
    Warner smiles in a way that seems to sadden him. “I can sense,” he says, taking a deep breath, “the emotions you’re feeling most strongly. And because I know you, I’m able to put those feelings into context. I know the fear you’re feeling right now, for example, is not directed toward me, but toward yourself, and what you think you’ve done to Kenji. I sense your hesitation—your reluctance to believe that it wasn’t your fault. I feel your sadness, your grief.”
    “You can really feel that?” I ask.
    He nods without looking at me.
    “I never knew that was possible,” I tell him.
    “I didn’t either—I wasn’t aware of it,” he says. “Not for a very long time. I actually thought it was normal to be so acutely aware of human emotions. I thought perhaps I was more perceptive than most. It’s a big factor in why my father allowed me to take over Sector 45,” he tells me. “Because I have an uncanny ability to tell whenever someone is hiding something, or feeling guilty, or, most importantly, lying.” A pause. “That,” he says, “and because I’m not afraid to deliver consequences if the occasion calls for it.
    “It wasn’t until Castle suggested there might be something more to me that I really began to analyze it. I nearly lost my mind.” He shakes his head. “I kept going over it, thinking of ways to prove and disprove his theories. Even with all my careful deliberation, I dismissed it. And while I am a bit sorry—for your sake, not for mine—that Kenji had to be stupid enough to interfere tonight, I think it was actually quite serendipitous. Because now I finally have proof. Proof that I was wrong. That Castle,” he says, “was right.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I took your Energy,” he tells me, “and I didn’t know I could. I could feel it all very vividly when the four of us connected. Adam was inaccessible—which, by the way, explains why I never suspected him of being disloyal. His emotions were always hidden; always blocked off. I was naive and assumed he was merely robotic, devoid of any real personality or interests. He eluded me and it was my own fault. I trusted myself too much to be able to anticipate a flaw in my system.”
    And I want to say, Adam’s ability isn’t so useless after all, is it?
    But I don’t.
    “And Kenji,” Warner says after a moment. He rubs his forehead. Laughs a little. “Kenji was . . . very smart. A lot smarter