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Chapter no 39

Unravel Me (Shatter Me Book 2)

โ€œShit.โ€

Kenji presses his eyes shut like he canโ€™t believe this is happening. โ€œShit shitย shit.โ€ He shifts Warner against his shoulders, wavers between being sensitive and being a soldier and says, โ€œAdam, man, Iโ€™m sorry, but we really have to get out of hereโ€”โ€

Adam gets up, blinking back what I can only imagine are a thousand thoughts, memories, worries, hypotheses, and I call his name but itโ€™s like he canโ€™t even hear it. Heโ€™s confused, disoriented, and Iโ€™m wondering how this man could possibly be his father when Adam told me his dad was dead.

Now is not the time for these conversations.

Something explodes in the distance and the impact rattles the ground, the windows, the doors of this house, and Adam seems to snap back to reality. He jumps forward, grabs my arm, and weโ€™re bolting out the door.

Kenji is in the lead, somehow managing to run despite the weight of Warnerโ€™s body, limp, hanging over his shoulder, and heโ€™s shouting at us to stay close behind. Iโ€™m spinning, analyzing the chaos around us. The sounds of gunshots are too close too close too close.

โ€œWhere are Ian and Emory?โ€ I ask Adam. โ€œDid you get them out?โ€

โ€œA couple of our guys were fighting not too far from here and managed to commandeer one of the tanksโ€”I got them to carry those two back to Point,โ€ he tells me, shouting so I can hear him. โ€œIt was the safest transport possible.โ€

Iโ€™m nodding, gasping for air as we fly through the streets and Iโ€™m trying to focus on the sounds around us, trying to figure out whoโ€™s winning, trying to figure out if our numbers have been decimated. We round the corner.

Youโ€™d think itโ€™d be a massacre.

50 of our people are fighting against 500 of Andersonโ€™s soldiers, who are unloading round after round, shooting at anything that could possibly be a target. Castle and the others are holding their ground, bloody and wounded but fighting back as best they can. Our men and women are armed and storming forward to match the shots of the opposition; others are fighting the only way they know how: one man has his hands to the ground, freezing the earth beneath the soldiersโ€™ feet, causing them to lose balance; another man is darting through the soldiers with such speed heโ€™s nothing but a blur, confusing the men and knocking them down and stealing their guns. I look up and see a woman hiding in a tree, throwing what must be knives or arrows in such rapid

succession that the soldiers donโ€™t have a moment to react before theyโ€™re hit from above.

Then thereโ€™s Castle in the middle of it all, his hands outstretched over his head, collecting a whirlwind of particles, debris, scattered strips of steel and broken branches with nothing more than the coercion of his fingertips. The others have formed a human wall around him, protecting him as he forms a cyclone of such magnitude that even I can see heโ€™s straining to maintain control of it.

Then

he lets go.

The soldiers are shouting, screaming, running back and ducking for cover but most are too slow to escape the reach of so much destruction and theyโ€™re down, impaled by shards of glass and stone and wood and broken metal but I know this defense wonโ€™t last for long.

Someone has to tell Castle.

Someone has to tell him to go, to get out of here, that Anderson is down and that we have 2 of our hostages and Warner in tow. He has to get our men and women back to Omega Point before the soldiers get smart and someone throws a bomb big enough to destroy everything. Our numbers wonโ€™t hold up for much longer and this is the perfect opportunity for them to get safe.

I tell Adam and Kenji what Iโ€™m thinking.

โ€œBut how?โ€ Kenji shouts above the chaos. โ€œHow can we get to him? If we run through there weโ€™re dead! We need some kind of distractionโ€”โ€

โ€œWhat?โ€ I yell back.

โ€œAย distraction!โ€ he shouts. โ€œWe need something to throw off the soldiers long enough for one of us to grab Castle and give him the green lightโ€”we donโ€™t have much timeโ€”โ€

Adam is already trying to grab me, heโ€™s already trying to stop me, heโ€™s already begging me not to do what he thinks Iโ€™m going to do and I tell him itโ€™s okay. I tell him not to worry. I tell him to get the others to safety and promise him Iโ€™m going to be just fine but he reaches for me, heโ€™s pleading with his eyes and Iโ€™m so tempted to stay here, right next to him, but I break away. I finally know what I need to do; Iโ€™m finally ready to help; Iโ€™m finally kind of a little bit sure that maybe this time I might be able to control it and I have to try.

So I stumble back. I close my eyes.

I let go.

I fall to my knees and press my palm to the ground and feel the power coursing through me, feel it curdling in my blood and mixing with the anger, the passion, the fire inside of me and I think of every time my parents called me a monster, a horrible terrifying mistake and I think of all the nights I sobbed myself to sleep and see all the faces that wanted me dead and then itโ€™s like a slide show of images reeling through my mind, men and women and children, innocent protesters run over in the streets; I see guns and bombs, fire and devastation, so much suffering suffering suffering and I steel myself. I flex my fist. I pull back my arm and

I

s h a t t e r

whatโ€™s left of this earth.

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