Imagine Me (Shatter Me Book 6)

Ella

Juliette

Adam feels close.

I can almost see him in my mind, a blurred form, watercolors bleeding through membrane, staining the whites of my eyes. He is a flooded river, blues in lakes so dark, water in oceans so heavy I sag, surrendering to the heft of the sea.

I take a deep breath and fill my lungs with tears, feathers of strange birds fluttering against my closed eyes. I see a flash of dirty-blond hair and darkness and stone I see blue and green and

Warmth, suddenly, an exhalation in my veins—

Emmaline.

Still here, still swimming.

She has grown quiet of late, the fire of her presence reduced to glowing embers. She is sorry for taking me from myself. Sorry for the inconvenience. Sorry to have disturbed my world so deeply. Still, she does not want to leave. She likes it here, likes stretching out inside my bones. She likes the dry air and the taste of real oxygen. She likes the shape of my fingers, the sharpness of my teeth. She is sorry, but not sorry enough to go back, so she is trying to be very small and very quiet. She hopes to make it up to me by taking up as little space as possible.

I don’t know how I understand this so clearly, except that her mind seems to have fused with mine. Conversation is no longer necessary. Explanations, redundant.

In the beginning, she inhaled everything.

Excited, eager—she took it all. New skin. Eyes and mouth. I felt her marvel at my anatomy, at the systems drawing in air through my nose. I seemed to exist here almost as an afterthought, blood pumping through an organ beating merely to pass the time. I was little more than a passenger in my own body, doing nothing as she explored and decayed in starts and sparks, steel scraping against itself, stunning contractions of pain like claws digging, digging. It’s better now that she’s settled, but her presence has faded to all but an aching sadness. She seems desperate to find purchase as she disintegrates, unwittingly taking with her bits and pieces of my mind. Some days are better than others. Some days the fire of her existence is so acute I forget to draw breath.

But most days I am an idea, and nothing more.

I am foam and smoke moonlighting as skin. Dandelions gather in my rib cage, moss growing steadily along my spine. Rainwater floods my eyes, pools in my open mouth, dribbles down the hinges holding together my lips.

I

continue

to

sink.

And then—

why now?

suddenly

surprisingly

chest heaving, lungs working, fists clenching, knees bending, pulse racing, blood pumping

I float

“Ms. Ferrars— That is, Ella—”

“Her name is Juliette. Just call her Juliette, for God’s sake.”

“Why don’t we call her what she wants to be called?”

“Right. Exactly.”

“But I thought she wanted to be called Ella.”

“There was never a consensus. Was there a consensus?”

Slowly, my eyelids flutter open.

Silence explodes, coating mouths and walls and doors and dust motes. It hangs in the air, cloaking everything, for all of two seconds.

Then

Shouts, screams, a million sounds. I try to count them all and my head spins, swims. My heart is pounding hard and fast in my chest, recklessly shaking me, shaking my hands, ringing my skull. I look around fast, too fast, head whipping back and forth and everything swings around and around and

So many faces, blurred and strange.

I’m breathing too hard, spots dotting my vision, and I place two hands down on the—I look down—bed below me and squeeze my eyes shut

What am I

Who am I

Where am I

Silence again, swift and complete, like magic, magic, a hush falls over everyone, everything, and I exhale, panic draining out of me and I sit back, soaking in the dregs when

Warm hands

touch mine.

Familiar.

I go suddenly still. My eyes stay closed. Feeling moves through me like a wildfire, flames devouring the dust in my chest, the kindling in my bones. Hands become arms around me and the fire blazes. My own hands are caught between us and I feel the hard lines of his body through the soft cotton of his shirt.

A face appears, disappears, behind my eyes.

There’s something so safe here in the feel of him, in the scent of him—something entirely his own. Being near him does something to me, something I can’t even explain, can’t control. I know I shouldn’t, know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but drag the tips of my fingers down the perfect lines of his torso.

I hear his breath catch.

Flames leap through me, jump up my lungs and I inhale, dragging oxygen into my body that only fans the flames further. One of his hands clasps the back of my head, the other grasps at my waist. A flash of heat roars up my spine, reaches into my skull. His lips are at my ear whispering, whispering

Come back to life, love

I’ll be here when you wake up

My eyes fly open.

The heat is merciless. Confusing. Consuming. It calms me, settles my raging heart. His hands move along my body, light touches along my arms, the sides of my torso. I claw my way back to him by memory, my shaking hands tracing the familiar shape of his back, my cheek still pressed against the familiar beat of his heart. The scent of him, so familiar, so familiar, and then I look up—

His eyes, something about his eyes

Please, he says, please don’t shoot me for this

The room comes into focus by degrees, my head settling onto my neck, my skin settling onto my bones, my eyes staring into the very desperately green eyes that seem to know too much, too well. Aaron Warner Anderson is bent over me, his worried eyes inspecting me, his hand caught in the air like he might’ve been about to touch me.

He jerks back.

He stares, unblinking, chest rising and falling.

“Good morning,” I assume. I’m unsure of my voice, of the hour and this day, of these words leaving my lips and this body that contains me.

His smile looks like it hurts.

“Something’s wrong,” he whispers. He touches my cheek. Soft, so soft, like he’s not sure if I’m real, like he’s afraid if he gets too close I’ll just oh, look she’s gone, she’s just disappeared. His four fingers graze the side of my face, slowly, so slowly before they slip behind my head, caught in that in-between spot just above my neck. His thumb brushes the apple of my cheek.

My heart implodes.

He keeps looking at me, looking into my eyes for help, for guidance, for some sign of a protest like he’s so sure I’m going to start screaming or crying or running away but I won’t. I don’t think I could even if I wanted to because I don’t want to. I want to stay here. Right here. I want to be paralyzed by this moment.

He moves closer, just an inch. His free hand reaches up to cup the other side of my face.

He’s holding me like I’m made of feathers. Like I’m a bird. White with streaks of gold like a crown atop its head.

I will fly.

A soft, shuddering breath leaves his body.

“Something’s wrong,” he says again, but distantly, like he might be talking to someone else. “Her energy is different. Tainted.”

The sound of his voice coils through me, spirals around my spine. I feel myself straighten even as I feel strange, jet-lagged, like I’ve traveled through time. I pull myself into a seated position and Warner shifts to accommodate me. I’m tired and weak from hunger, but other than a few general aches, I seem to be fine. I’m alive. I’m breathing and blinking and feeling human and I know exactly why.

I meet his eyes. “You saved my life.”

He tilts his head at me.

He’s still studying me, his gaze so intense I flush, confused, and turn away. The moment I do, I nearly jump out of my skin. Castle and Kenji and Winston and Brendan and a ton of other people I don’t recognize are all staring at me, at Warner’s hands on me, and I’m suddenly so mortified I don’t even know what to do with myself.

“Hey, princess.” Kenji waves. “You okay?”

I try to stand and Warner tries to help me and the moment his skin brushes mine another sudden, destabilizing bolt of feeling runs me over. I stumble, sideways, into his arms and he pulls me in, his heat setting fire to my body all over again. I’m trembling, heart pounding, nervous pleasure pulsing through me.

I don’t understand.

I’m overcome by a sudden, inexplicable need to touch him, to press my skin against his skin until the friction sets fire to us both. Because there’s something about him—there’s always been something about him that’s intrigued me and I don’t understand it. I pull away, startled by the intensity of my own thoughts, but his fingers catch me under the chin. He tilts my face toward him.

I look up.

His eyes are such a strange shade of green: bright, crystal clear, piercing in the most alarming way. His hair is thick, the richest slice of gold. Everything about him is meticulous. Pristine. His breath is cool and fresh. I can feel it on my face.

My eyes close automatically. I breathe him in, feeling suddenly giddy. A bubble of laughter escapes my lips.

“Something’s definitely wrong,” someone says.

“Yeah, she doesn’t look like she’s okay.” Someone else.

“Oh, okay, so we’re all just saying really obvious things out loud? Is that what we’re doing?” Kenji.

Warner says nothing. I feel his arms tighten around me and my eyes flicker open. His gaze is fixed on mine, his eyes green flames that will not extinguish and his chest is rising and falling so fast, so fast, so fast. His lips are there, right there above mine.

“Ella?” he whispers.

I frown.

My eyes flick up, to his eyes, then down, to his lips.

“Love, do you hear me?”

When I don’t answer, his face changes.

“Juliette,” he says softly, “can you hear me?”

I blink at him. I blink and blink and blink at him and find I’m still fascinated by his eyes. Such a startling shade of green.

“We’re going to need everyone to clear the room,” someone says suddenly. Loudly. “We need to begin running tests immediately.”

The girls, I realize. It’s the girls. They’re here. They’re trying to get him away from me, trying to get him to break away from me. But Warner’s arms are like steel bands around my body.

He refuses.

“Not yet,” he says urgently. “Not just yet.”

And for some reason they listen.

Maybe they see something in him, see something in his face, in his features. Maybe they see what I see from this disjointed, foggy perspective. The desperation in his expression, the anguish carved into his features, the way he looks at me, like he might die if I do.

Tentatively, I reach up, touch my fingers to his face. His skin is smooth and cold. Porcelain. He doesn’t seem real.

“What’s wrong?” I say. “What happened?”

Impossibly, Warner goes paler. He shakes his head and presses his face to my cheek. “Please,” he whispers. “Come back to me, love.”

“Aaron?”

I hear the small hitch in his breath. The hesitation. It’s the first time I’ve used his name so casually.

“Yes?”

“I want you to know,” I tell him, “that I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“What?” He startles.

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” I say. “And I don’t think you’re a psychopath. I don’t think you’re a heartless murderer. I don’t care what anyone else says about you. I think you’re a good person.”

Warner is blinking fast now. I can hear him breathing.

In and out.

Unevenly.

A flash of stunning, searing pain, and my body goes suddenly slack. I see the glint of metal. I feel the burn of the syringe. My head begins to swim and all the sounds begin to melt together.

“Come on, son,” Castle says, his voice expanding, slowing down, “I know this is hard, but we need you to step back. We have t—”

An abrupt, violent sound gives me a sudden moment of clarity.

A man I don’t recognize is at the door, one hand on the doorframe, gasping for breath. “They’re here,” he says. “They’ve found us. They’re here. Jenna is dead.”