Unravel Me: The Juliette Chronicles Book 2

the taste of my mouth— never mind that it wasn’t something I actually wanted—I just can’t do it.
    Not now. Not after everything.
    So this situation is entirely my own fault. And I have to deal with it.
    I steel myself and step forward.
    There are 2 men I’ve never met before standing guard outside Warner’s door. This doesn’t mean much, but it gives me a modicum of calm. I nod hello in the guards’ direction and they greet me with such enthusiasm I actually wonder whether they’ve confused me with someone else.
    “Thanks so much for coming,” one of them says to me, his long, shaggy blond hair slipping into his eyes. “He’s been completely insane since he woke up—throwing things around and trying to destroy the walls—he’s been threatening to kill all of us. He says you’re the only one he wants to talk to, and he’s only just calmed down because we told him you were on your way.”
    “We had to take out all the furniture,” the other guard adds, his brown eyes wide, incredulous. “He was breaking everything . He wouldn’t even eat the food we gave him.”
    The antonym of excellent.
    The antonym of excellent.
    The antonym of excellent.
    I manage a feeble smile and tell them I’ll see what I can do to sedate him. They nod, eager to believe I’m capable of something I know I’m not and they unlock the door. “Just knock to let us know when you’re ready to leave,” they tell me. “Call for us and we’ll open the door.”
    I’m nodding yes and sure and of course and trying to ignore the fact that I’m more nervous right now than I was meeting his father. To be alone in a room with Warner—to be alone with him and to not know what he might do or what he’s capable of and I’m so confused, because I don’t even know who he is anymore.
    He’s 100 different people.
    He’s the person who forced me to torture a toddler against my will. He’s the child so terrorized, so psychologically tormented that he’d try to kill his own father in his sleep. He’s the boy who shot a defecting soldier in the forehead; the boy who was trained to be a cold, heartless murderer by a man he thought he could trust. I see Warner as a child desperately seeking his dad’s approval. I see him as the leader of an entire sector, eager to conquer me, to use me. I see him feeding a stray dog. I see him torturing Adam almost to death. And then I hear him telling me he loves me, feel him kissing me with such unexpected passion and desperation that I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know what I’m walking into.
    I don’t know who he’ll be this time. Which side of himself he’ll show me today.
    But then I think this must be different. Because he’s in my territory now, and I can always call for help if something goes wrong.
    He’s not going to hurt me.
    I hope.

FORTY-FIVE
    I step inside.
    The door slams shut behind me but the Warner I find inside this room is not one I recognize at all. He’s sitting on the floor, back against the wall, legs outstretched in front of him, feet crossed at the ankles. He’s wearing nothing but socks, a simple white T-shirt, and a pair of black slacks. His coat, his shoes, and his fancy shirt are all discarded on the ground. His body is toned and muscular and hardly contained by his undershirt; his hair is a blond mess, disheveled for what’s probably the first time in his life.
    But he’s not looking at me. He doesn’t even look up as I take a step closer. He doesn’t flinch.
    I’ve forgotten how to breathe again.
    Then
    “Do you have any idea,” he says, so quietly, “how many times I’ve read this?” He lifts his hand but not his head and holds up a small, faded rectangle between 2 fingers.
    And I’m wondering how it’s possible to be punched in the gut by so many fists at the same time.
    My notebook.
    He’s holding my notebook.
    Of course he is.
    I can’t believe I’d forgotten. He was the last person to touch my notebook; the last person to see it. He took it from me when he found that I’d hidden it in the pocket of my dress back on base. This was just before I escaped, just before Adam and I jumped out the window and ran away. Just before Warner realized he could touch me.
    And now, to know that he’s read my most painful thoughts, my most anguished confessions—the things I wrote while in complete and utter isolation, certain that I would die in that very cell, so certain no one would ever read the things I wrote down—to know that