I’m standing in the middle of the room, staring at nothing.
I’m suddenly freezing. My hands, I think, are shaking. Or maybe it’s my bones. Maybe my bones are shaking. I move mechanically, so slowly, my mind still fuzzy. I’m vaguely aware that someone might be saying something to me, but I’m too focused on getting my coat because I’m so cold. It’s so cold in here. I really need my jacket. And maybe my gloves. I can’t stop shivering.
I pull my coat on. Shove my hands into the pockets. I feel like someone might be talking to me but I can’t hear anything through the weird haze muting my senses. I clench my fists and my fingers fumble against a piece of plastic.
The pager. I’d almost forgotten.
I pull it out of my pocket. It’s a tiny little thing; a thin, black rectangle with a button set flush against the length of it. I press it without thinking. I press it over and over and over again, because the action calms me. Soothes me, somehow. Click click. I like the repetitive motion. Click. Click click. I don’t know what else to do.
Click.
Hands land on my shoulders.
I turn around. Castle is standing just behind me, his eyes heavy with concern. “You’re not going to leave,” he says to me. “We’ll work things out. It’ll be all right.”
“No.” My tongue is dust. My teeth have crumbled away. “I have to go.” I can’t stop pressing the button on this pager.
Click. Click click.
“Come sit down,” Castle is saying to me. “Adam is upset, but he’ll be okay. I’m sure he didn’t mean what he said.”
“I’m pretty sure he did,” Ian says.
Castle shoots him a sharp look.
“You can’t leave,” says Winston. “I thought we were going to kick some ass together. You promised.”
“Yeah,” Lily pipes up, trying to sound upbeat. But her eyes are wary, pulled together in fear or concern and I realize she’s terrified for me.
Not of me.
For me.
It’s the strangest sensation.
Click click click. Click click.
“If you go,” she’s saying, trying to smile, “we’ll have to live like this forever. And I don’t want to live with a bunch of smelly guys for the rest of my life.”
Click. Click click.
“Don’t go,” James says. He looks so sad. So serious. “I’m sorry Adam was mean to you. But I don’t want you to die,” he says. “And I don’t wish you were dead. I swear I don’t.”
James. Sweet James. His eyes break my heart.
“I can’t stay.” My voice sounds strange to me. Broken. “He really meant what he said—”
“We’ll be a sad, sorry lot if you leave.” Brendan cuts me off. “And I have to agree with Lily. I don’t want to live like this for much longer.”
“But how—”
The front door flies open. “JULIETTE—Juliette—” I spin around.
Warner is standing there, face flushed, chest rising and falling, staring at me like I might be a ghost. He strides across the room before I have a chance to say a word and cups my face in his hands, his eyes searching me. “Are you okay?” he’s saying. “God—are you okay? What happened? Are you all right?”
He’s here.
He’s here and all I want to do is fall apart but I don’t. I won’t.
“Thank you,” I manage to say to him. “Thank you for coming—”
He wraps me up in his arms, not caring about the eight sets of eyes watching us. He just holds me, one arm tight around my waist, the other held to the back of my head. My face is buried in his chest and the warmth of him is so familiar to me now. Oddly comforting. He runs his hand up and down my back, tilts his head toward mine. “What’s wrong, love?” he whispers. “What happened? Please tell me—”
I blink.
“Do you want me to take you back?” I don’t answer.
I don’t know what I want or need to do anymore. Everyone is telling me to stay, but this isn’t their home. This is Adam’s home, and it’s so clear he hates me now. But I also don’t want to leave my friends. I don’t want to leave Kenji.
“Do you want me to leave?” Warner asks. “No,” I say too quickly. “No.”
Warner leans back, just a little. “Tell me what you want,” he says desperately. “Tell me what to do,” he says, “and I’ll do it.”
“This is, by far, the craziest shit I have ever seen,” Kenji says. “I really never would’ve believed it. Not in a million years.”
“It’s like a soap opera.” Ian nods. “But with worse acting.” “I think it’s kind of sweet,” Winston says.
I jerk back, half spinning around. Everyone is staring at us. Winston is the only one smiling.
“What’s going on?” Warner asks them. “Why does she look like she’s about to cry?”
No one answers.
“Where’s Kent?” Warner asks, eyes narrowing as he reads their faces. “What did he do to her?”
“He’s out,” Lily says. “He left a little bit ago.”
Warner’s eyes darken as he processes the information. He turns to me. “Please tell me you don’t want to stay here anymore.”
I drop my head into my hands. “Everyone wants to help—to fight— except for Adam. But they can’t leave. And I don’t want to leave them behind.”
Warner sighs. Closes his eyes. “Then stay,” he says gently. “If that’s what you want. Stay here. I can always meet you.”
“I can’t,” I tell him. “I have to go. I’m not allowed to come back here again.”
“What?” Anger. In and out of his eyes. “What do you mean you’re not
allowed?”
“Adam doesn’t want me to stay here anymore. I have to be gone before he gets back.”
Warner’s jaw tightens. He stares at me for what feels like a century. I can almost see him thinking—his mind working at an impossible rate—to find a solution. “Okay,” he finally says. “Okay.” He exhales. “Kishimoto,” he says all at once, never breaking eye contact with me.
“Present, sir.”
Warner tries not to roll his eyes as he turns toward Kenji. “I will set up your group in my private training quarters on base. I will require a day to work out the details, but I will make sure you are granted easy access and clearance to enter the grounds upon arrival. You will make yourself and your team invisible and follow my lead. You are free to stay in these quarters until we are ready to proceed with the first stage of our plan.” A pause. “Will this arrangement work for you?”
Kenji actually looks disgusted. “Hell no.” “Why not?”
“You’re going to lock us up in your ‘private training quarters’?” Kenji says, making air quotes with his fingers. “Why don’t you just say you’re going to put us in a cage and kill us slowly? You think I’m a moron? What reason would I have to believe that kind of shit?”
“I will make sure you are fed well and regularly,” Warner says by way of response. “Your accommodations will be simple, but they will not be simpler than this,” he says, gesturing to the room. “The arrangement will provide us ample opportunity to meet and structure our next moves. You must know that you’re putting everyone at risk by staying on unregulated territory. You and your friends will be safer with me.”
“Why would you do that, though?” Ian asks. “Why would you want to help us and feed us and keep us alive? That doesn’t make any sense—”
“It doesn’t need to make sense.”
“Of course it does,” Lily counters. Her eyes are hard, angry. “We’re not going to walk onto a military base just to get ourselves killed,” she snaps. “This could be some sick trick.”
“Fine,” Warner says.
“Fine, what?” Lily asks. “Don’t come.”
“Oh.” Lily blinks.
Warner turns to Kenji. “You are officially refusing my offer, then?” “Yeah, no thanks,” Kenji says.
Warner nods. Looks to me. “Should we get going?”
“But—no—” I’m panicking now, looking from Warner to Kenji and back to Warner again. “I can’t just leave—I can’t just never see them again
—”
I turn to Kenji.
“You’re just going to stay here?” I ask. “And I’ll never see you again?” “You can stay here with us.” Kenji crosses his arms against his chest.
“You don’t have to go.”
“You know I can’t stay,” I tell him, angry and hurt. “You know Adam meant what he said—he’ll go crazy if he comes back and I’m still here—”
“So you’re just going to leave, then?” Kenji says sharply. “You’re going to walk away from all of us”—he gestures to everyone—“just because Adam decided to be a douchebag? You’re trading all of us in for Warner?”
“Kenji—I’m not—I have nowhere else to live! What am I supposed to
—”
“Stay.”
“Adam will throw me out—”
“No he won’t,” Kenji says. “We won’t let him.”
“I won’t force myself on him. I won’t beg him. Let me at least leave
with a shred of dignity—”
Kenji throws his arms in the air in frustration. “This is bullshit!” “Come with me,” I say to him. “Please—I want us to stay together—”
“We can’t,” he says. “We can’t risk that, J. I don’t know what’s going on between you two,” he says, gesturing between me and Warner. “Maybe he really is different with you, I don’t know, whatever—but I can’t put all of our lives at risk based on emotions and an assumption. Maybe he cares about you,” Kenji says, “but he doesn’t give a shit about the rest of us.” He looks at Warner. “Do you?”
“Do I what?” Warner asks.
“Do you care about any of us? About our survival—our well-being?” “No.”
Kenji almost laughs. “Well at least you’re honest.”
“My offer, however, still stands. And you’re an idiot to refuse,” Warner says. “You’ll all die out here, and you know that better than I do.”
“We’ll take our chances.” “No,” I gasp. “Kenji—”
“It’ll be all right,” he says to me. His forehead is pinched, his eyes heavy. “I’m sure we’ll find a way to see each other one day. Do what you need to do.”
“No,” I’m trying to say. Trying to breathe. My lungs are swelling up, my heart racing so fast I can hear it pounding in my ears. I’m feeling hot and cold and too hot, too cold, and all I can think is no, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this, it wasn’t all supposed to fall apart, not again not again— Warner grabs my arms. “Please,” he’s saying, his voice urgent,
panicked. “Please don’t do that, love, I need you not to do that—” “Dammit, Kenji!” I explode, breaking away from Warner. “Please, for
the love of God, don’t be an idiot. You have to come with me—I need you
—”
“I need some kind of guarantee, J”—Kenji is pacing, hands in his hair
—“I can’t just trust that everything is going to be all right—”
I turn on Warner, chest heaving, fists clenched. “Give them what they want. I don’t care what it is,” I say to him. “Please, you have to negotiate. You have to make this work. I need him. I need my friends.”
Warner looks at me for a long time. “Please,” I whisper.
He looks away. Looks back at me.
He finally meets Kenji’s eyes. Sighs. “What do you want?” “I want a hot bath,” I hear Winston say.
And then he giggles. He actually giggles.
“Two of my men are ill and injured,” Kenji says, immediately switching gears. His voice is clipped, sharp. Unfeeling. “They need medicine and medical attention. We don’t want to be monitored, we don’t want a curfew, and we want to be able to eat more than the Automat food. We want protein. Fruits. Vegetables. Real meals. We want regular access to showers. We’ll need new clothes. And we want to remain armed at all times.”
Warner is standing so still beside me I can hardly hear him breathing anymore. My head is pounding so hard and my heart is still racing in my
chest, but I’ve calmed down enough that I’m able to breathe a little easier now.
Warner glances down at me.
He holds my gaze for just a moment before he closes his eyes. Exhales a sharp breath. Looks up.
“Fine,” he says.
Kenji is staring at him. “Wait—what?”
“I will be back tomorrow at fourteen hundred hours to guide you to your new quarters.”
“Holy shit.” Winston is bouncing on the couch. “Holy shit holy shit holy shit.”
“Do you have your things?” Warner asks me. I nod.
“Good,” he says. “Let’s go.”
