Unravel Me: The Juliette Chronicles Book 2

them both down my pants. This was just before he ordered those men to come and get me. The ones in the strange suits with the thick gloves and the gas masks with the foggy plastic windows hiding their eyes. They were aliens, I remember thinking. I remember thinking they must’ve been aliens because they couldn’t have been human, the ones who handcuffed my hands behind my back, the ones who strapped me to my seat. They stuck Tasers to my skin over and over for no reason other than to hear me scream but I wouldn’t. I whimpered but I never said a word. I felt the tears streak down my cheeks but I wasn’t crying.
    I think it made them angry.
    They slapped me awake even though my eyes were open when we arrived. Someone unstrapped me without removing my handcuffs and kicked me in both kneecaps before ordering me to rise. And I tried. I tried but I couldn’t and finally 6 hands shoved me out the door and my face was bleeding on the concrete for a while. I can’t really remember the part where they dragged me inside.
    I feel cold all the time.
    I feel empty, like there is nothing inside of me but this broken heart, the only organ left in this shell. I feel the bleats echo within me, I feel the thumping reverberate around my skeleton. I have a heart, says science, but I am a monster, says society. And I know it, of course I know it. I know what I’ve done. I’m not asking for sympathy.
    But sometimes I think—sometimes I wonder—if I were a monster, surely, I would feel it by now?
    I would feel angry and vicious and vengeful. I’d know blind rage and bloodlust and a need for vindication.
    Instead I feel an abyss within me that’s so deep, so dark I can’t see within it; I can’t see what it holds. I do not know what I am or what might happen to me.
    I do not know what I might do again.

THIRTY-EIGHT
    An explosion.
    The sound of glass shattering.
    Someone yanks me back just as I pull the trigger and the bullet hits the window behind Anderson’s head.
    I’m spun around.
    Kenji is shaking me, shaking me so hard I feel my head jerk back and forth and he’s screaming at me, telling me we have to go, that I need to drop the gun, he’s breathing hard and he’s saying, “I’m going to need you to walk away, okay? Juliette? Can you understand me? I need you to back off right now. You’re going to be okay—you’re going to be all right—you’re going to be fine, you just have to—”
    “No, Kenji—” I’m trying to stop him from pulling me away, trying to keep my feet planted where they are because he doesn’t understand. He needs to understand. “I have to kill him. I have to make sure he dies,” I’m telling him. “I just need you to give me another second—”
    “No,” he says, “not yet, not right now,” and he’s looking at me like he’s about to break, like he’s seen something in my face that he wishes he’d never seen, and he says, “We can’t. We can’t kill him yet. It’s too soon, okay?”
    But it’s not okay and I don’t understand what’s happening but Kenji is reaching for my hand, he’s prying the gun out of the fingers I didn’t realize were wrapped so tightly around the handle. And I’m blinking. I feel confused and disappointed. I look down at my hands. At my suit. And I can’t understand for a moment where all the blood came from.
    I glance at Anderson.
    His eyes are rolled back in his head. Kenji is checking his pulse. Looks at me, says, “I think he fainted.” And my body has begun to shake so violently I can hardly stand.
    What have I done.
    I back away, needing to find a wall to cling to, something solid to hold on to and Kenji catches me, he’s holding me so tightly with one arm and cradling my head with his other hand and I feel like I might want to cry but for some reason I can’t. I can’t do anything but endure these tremors rocking the length of my entire frame.
    “We have to go,” Kenji says to me, stroking my hair in a show of tenderness I know is rare for him. I close my eyes against his shoulder, wanting to draw strength from his warmth. “Are you going to be okay?” he asks me. “I need you to walk with me, all right? We’ll have to run, too.”
    “Warner,” I gasp, ripping out of Kenji’s embrace, eyes wild. “Where’s—”
    He’s unconscious.
    A heap on the floor. Arms bound behind his back, an empty syringe tossed on the carpet beside him.
    “I took care of Warner,” Kenji says.
    Suddenly everything is slamming into me all