Unravel Me: The Juliette Chronicles Book 2

hell,” Warner says, “doesn’t mean you’ll ever deserve her.”
    And Adam doesn’t answer.
    He just watches, eyes focused, as Warner and Castle disappear around the corner.

FORTY-EIGHT
    James joins us during our training session before dinner.
    He’s been hanging out with us a lot since we got back, and we all seem happier when he’s around. There’s something about his presence that’s so disarming, so welcome. It’s so good to have him back.
    I’ve been showing him how easily I can break things now.
    The bricks are nothing. It feels like crushing a piece of cake. The metal pipes bend in my hands like plastic straws. Wood is a little tricky because if I break it the wrong way I can catch a splinter, but just about nothing is difficult anymore. Kenji has been thinking of new ways to test my abilities; lately he’s been trying to see if I can project—if I can focus my power from a distance.
    Not all abilities are designed for projection, apparently. Lily, for example, has that incredible photographic memory. But she’d never be able to project that ability onto anyone else.
    Projection is, by far, the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted to do. It’s extremely complicated and requires both mental and physical exertion. I have to be wholly in control of my mind, and I have to know exactly how my brain communicates with whichever invisible bone in my body is responsible for my gift. Which means I have to know how to locate the source of my ability—and how to focus it into one concentrated point of power I can tap into from anywhere.
    It’s hurting my brain.
    “Can I try to break something, too?” James is asking. He grabs one of the bricks off the stack and weighs it in his hands. “Maybe I’m super strong like you.”
    “Have you ever felt super strong?” Kenji asks him. “Like, you know, abnormally strong?”
    “No,” James says, “but I’ve never tried to break anything, either.” He blinks at Kenji. “Do you think maybe I could be like you guys? That maybe I have some kind of power, too?”
    Kenji studies him. Seems to be sorting some things out in his head. Says, “It’s definitely possible. Your brother’s obviously got something in his DNA, which means you might, too.”
    “Really?” James is practically jumping up and down.
    Kenji chuckles. “I have no idea. I’m just saying it might be possi —no,” he shouts, “James—”
    “Oops.” James is wincing, dropping the brick to the floor and clenching his fist against the gash bleeding in the palm of his hand. “I think I pressed too hard and it slipped,” he says, struggling not to cry.
    “You think ?” Kenji is shaking his head, breathing fast. “Damn, kid, you can’t just go around slicing your hand open like that. You’re going to give me a freaking heart attack. Come here,” he says, more gently now. “Let me take a look.”
    “It’s okay,” James says, cheeks flushed, hiding his hand behind his back. “It’s nothing. It’ll go away soon.”
    “That kind of cut is not just going to go away,” Kenji says. “Now let me take a look at it—”
    “Wait.” I interrupt him, caught by the intense look on James’ face, the way he seems to be so focused on the clenched fist he’s hiding. “James—what do you mean it’ll ‘go away’? Do you mean it’s going to get better? On its own?”
    James blinks at me. “Well yeah,” he says. “It always gets better really quickly.”
    “What does? What gets better really quickly?” Kenji is staring too now, already catching on to my theory and throwing looks at me, mouthing Holy shit over and over again.
    “When I get hurt,” James says, looking at us like we’ve lost our minds. “Like if you cut yourself,” he says to Kenji, “wouldn’t it just get better?”
    “It depends on the size of the cut,” Kenji tells him. “But for a gash like the one on your hand?” He shakes his head. “I’d need to clean it to make sure it didn’t get infected. Then I’d have to wrap it up in gauze and some kind of ointment to keep it from scarring. And then,” he says, “it would take at least a couple days for it to scab up. And then it would begin to heal.”
    James is blinking like he’s never heard of something so absurd in his life.
    “Let me see your hand,” Kenji says to him.
    James hesitates.
    “It’s all right,” I tell him. “Really. We’re just curious.”
    Slowly, so slowly, James shows us his clenched fist. Even more slowly, he