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“You—you—” I sputter.

“You should be thanking me. I saved you

from that sick hole of an asylum—I brought
you into a position of power. I’ve given you
everything you could possibly need to be
comfortable.” He levels his gaze at me. “Now
I need you to focus. I need you to relinquish
your hopes of living like everyone else. You
are not normal. You never have been, and
you never will be. Embrace who you are.”

“I”—I swallow—“I am not—I’m not—I’m—”

“A murderer?”

“NO—”

“An instrument of torture?”

“STOP—”

“You’re lying to yourself.”

I’m ready to destroy him.

He cocks his head and presses back a

smile. “You’ve been on the edge of insanity
your entire life, haven’t you? So many
people called you crazy you actually started
to believe it. You wondered if they were right.
You wondered if you could fix it. You thought
if you could just try a little harder, be a little
better, smarter, nicer—you thought the world
would change its mind about you. You
blamed yourself for everything.”

I gasp.

My bottom lip trembles without my

permission. I can hardly control the tension
in my jaw.

I don’t want to tell him he’s right.

“You’ve suppressed all your rage and

resentment because you wanted to be
loved,” he says, no longer smiling. “Maybe I
understand you, Juliette. Maybe you should
trust me. Maybe you should accept the fact
that you’ve tried to be someone you’re not
for so long and that no matter what you did,
those bastards were never happy. They were
never satisfied. They never gave a damn, did
they?” He looks at me and for a moment he
seems almost human. For a moment I want
to believe him. For a moment I want to sit on
the floor and cry out the ocean lodged in my
throat.

“It’s time you stopped pretending,” he says,

so softly. “Juliette—” He takes my face in his
gloved hands, so unexpectedly gentle. “You
don’t have to be nice anymore. You can
destroy all of them. You can take them down
and own this whole world and—”

A steam engine hits me in the face.

“I don’t want to destroy anyone,” I tell him. “I

don’t want to hurt people—”

“But they deserve it!” He pushes away from

me, frustrated. “How could you not want to
retaliate? How could you not want to fight
back—”

I stand up slowly, shaking with anger, hoping

my legs won’t collapse beneath me. “You
think that because I am unwanted, because I
am neglected and—and discarded—” My
voice inches higher with every word, the
unrestrained emotions suddenly screaming
through my lungs. “You think I don’t have a
heart? You think I don’t feel? You think that
because I can inflict pain, that I should?
You’re just like everyone else. You think I’m a
monster just like everyone else. You don’t
understand me at all—”

“Juliette—”

“No.”

I don’t want this. I don’t want his life.

I don’t want to be anything for anyone but

myself. I want to make my own choices and
I’ve never wanted to be a monster. My words
are slow and steady when I speak. “I value
human life a lot more than you do, Warner.”

He opens his mouth to speak before he

stops. Laughs out loud and shakes his head.

Smiles at me.

“What?” I ask before I can stop myself.

“You just said my name.” He grins even

wider. “You’ve never addressed me directly
before. That must mean I’m making progress
with you.”

“I just told you I don’t—”

He cuts me off. “I’m not worried about your

moral dilemmas. You’re just stalling for time
because you’re in denial. Don’t worry,” he
says. “You’ll get over it. I can wait a little
longer.”

“I’m not in denial—”

“Of course you are. You don’t know it yet,

Juliette, but you are a very bad girl,” he says,
clutching his heart. “Just my type.”

This conversation is impossible.

“There is a soldier living in my room.” I’m

breathing hard. “If you want me to be here,
you need to get rid of the cameras.”

Warner’s eyes darken for just an instant.

“Where is your soldier, anyway?”

“I wouldn’t know.” I hope to God I’m not

blushing. “You assigned him to me.”

Learn more

“Yes.” He looks thoughtful. “I like watching

you squirm. He makes you uncomfortable,
doesn’t he?”

I think about Adam’s hands on my body and

his lips so close to mine and the scent of his
skin drenched in a steaming downpour
soaking the two of us together and suddenly
my heart is two fists pounding on my ribs
demanding escape. “Yes.” God. “Yes. He
makes me very . . . uncomfortable.”

“Do you know why I chose him?” Warner

asks, and I’m run over by a tractor trailer.

Adam was chosen.

Of course he was. He wasn’t just any soldier

sent to my cell. Warner does nothing without
reason. He must know Adam and I have a
history. He is more cruel and calculative than
I gave him credit for.

“No.” Inhale. “I don’t know why.” Exhale. I

can’t forget to breathe.

“He volunteered,” Warner says simply, and

I’m momentarily dumbstruck. “He said he’d
gone to school with you so many years ago.
He said you probably wouldn’t remember
him, that he looks a lot different now than he
did back then. He put together a very
convincing case.” A beat of breath. “He said
he was thrilled to hear you’d been locked
up.” Warner finally looks at me.

My bones are like cubes of ice clinking

together, chilling me to my core.

“I’m curious,” he continues, tilting his head

as he speaks. “Do you remember him?”

“No,” I lie, and I’m not sure I’m alive. I’m

trying to untangle the truth from the false
from assumptions from the postulations but
run-on sentences are twisting around my
throat.

Adam knew me when he walked into that

cell.

He knew exactly who I was.

He already knew my name.

Oh

Oh

Oh

This was all a trap.

“Does this information make you . . . angry?”

he asks, and I want to sew his smiling lips
into a permanent scowl.

I say nothing and somehow it’s worse.

Warner is beaming. “I never told him, of

course, why it was that you’d been locked up
—I thought the experiment in the asylum
should remain untainted by extra information
—but he said you were always a threat to
the students. That everyone was always
warned to stay away from you, though the
authorities never explained why. He said he
wanted to get a closer look at the freak
you’ve become.”

My heart cracks. My eyes flash. I’m so hurt

so angry so horrified so humiliated and
burning with indignation so raw that it’s like a
fire raging within me, a wildfire of decimated
hopes. I want to crush Warner’s spine in my
hand. I want him to know what it’s like to
wound, to inflict such unbearable agony on
others. I want him to know my pain and
Jenkins’ pain and Fletcher’s pain and I want
him to hurt. Because maybe Warner is right.

Maybe some people do deserve it.

“Take off your shirt.”

For all his posturing, Warner looks genuinely

surprised, but he wastes no time unbuttoning
his jacket, slipping off his gloves, and peeling
away the thin cotton shirt clinging closest to
his skin.

His eyes are bright, sickeningly eager; he

doesn’t mask his curiosity.

Warner drops his clothes to the floor and

looks at me almost intimately. I have to
swallow back the revulsion bubbling in my
mouth. His perfect face. His perfect body. His
eyes as hard and beautiful as frozen
gemstones. He repulses me. I want his
exterior to match his broken black interior. I
want to cripple his cockiness with the palm of
my hand.

He walks up to me until there’s less than a

foot of space between us. His height and
build make me feel like a fallen twig. “Are
you ready?” he asks, arrogant and foolish.

I contemplate breaking his neck.

“If I do this you’ll get rid of all the cameras in

my room. All the bugs. Everything.”

He steps closer. Dips his head. He’s staring

at my lips, studying me in an entirely new
way. “My promises aren’t worth much, love,”
he whispers. “Or have you forgotten?” 3
inches forward. His hand on my waist. His
breath sweet and warm on my neck. “I’m an
exceptional liar.”

Realization slams into me like 200 pounds of

common sense. I shouldn’t be doing this. I
shouldn’t be making deals with him. I
shouldn’t be contemplating torture dear God
I have lost my mind. My fists are balled at my
sides and I’m shaking everywhere. I can
hardly find the strength to speak. “You can
go to hell.”

I’m limp.

I trip backward against the wall and slump

into a heap of uselessness; desperation. I
think of Adam and my heart deflates.

I can’t be here anymore.

I fly to the double doors facing the room and

yank them open before Warner can stop me.
But Adam stops me instead. He’s standing
just outside. Waiting. Guarding me wherever
I go.

I wonder if he heard everything and my eyes

fall to the floor, the color flushed from my
face, my heart in pieces in my hand. Of
course he heard everything. Of course he
now knows I’m a murderer. A monster. A
worthless soul stuffed into a poisonous body.

Warner did this on purpose.

And I’m standing between them. Warner with

no shirt on. Adam looking at his gun.

“Soldier.” Warner speaks. “Take her back up

to her room and disable all the cameras. She
can have lunch alone if she wants, but I’ll
expect her for dinner.”

Adam blinks for a moment too long. “Yes,

sir.”

“Juliette?”

I freeze. My back is to Warner and I don’t

turn around.

“I do expect you to hold up your end of the

bargain.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

It takes 5 years to walk to the elevator. 15

more to ride it up. I’m a million years old by
the time I walk into my room. Adam is still,
silent, perfectly put together and mechanical
in his movements. There’s nothing in his
eyes, in his limbs, in the motions of his body
that indicate he even knows my name.

I watch him move quickly, swiftly, carefully

around the room, finding the little devices
meant to monitor my behavior and disabling
them one by one. If anyone asks why my
cameras aren’t working, Adam won’t get in
trouble. This order came from Warner. This
makes it official.

This makes it possible for me to have some

privacy.

I thought I would need privacy.

I’m such a fool.

Adam is not the boy I remember.

I was in third grade.

I’d just moved into town after being thrown

out of asked to leave my old school. My
parents were always moving, always running
away from the messes I made, from the
playdates I’d ruined, from the friendships I
never had. No one ever wanted to talk about
my “problem,” but the mystery surrounding
my existence somehow made things worse.
The human imagination is often disastrous
when left to its own devices. I only heard bits
and pieces of their whispers.

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