“What?”

“He’s not dead,” Warner says, “though he is severely injured. I suspect they should be able to revive him.”

“What”—I’m panicking, panicking in my bones—“what are you talking about—”

“Please,” Warner says. “Sit down. I’ll explain.” He folds himself onto the floor and pats the place beside him. I don’t know what else to do and my legs are now officially too shaky to stand on their own.

My limbs spill onto the ground, both our backs against the wall, his right side and my left side divided only by a thin inch of air.

1

2

3 seconds pass.

“I didn’t want to believe Castle when he told me I might have a . . . a gift,” Warner says. His voice is pitched so low that I have to strain to hear it even though I’m only inches away. “A part of me hoped he was trying to drive me mad for his own benefit.” A small sigh. “But it did make a bit of sense, if I really thought about it. Castle told me about Kent, too,” Warner says. “About how he can touch you and how they’ve discovered why. For a moment I wondered if perhaps I had a similar ability. One just as pathetic. Equally as useless.” He laughs. “I was extremely reluctant to believe it.”

“It’s not a useless ability,” I hear myself saying.

“Really?” He turns to face me. Our shoulders are almost touching. “Tell me, love. What can he do?”

“He can disable things. Abilities.”

“Right,” he says, “but how will that ever help him? How could it ever help him to disable the powers of his own people? It’s absurd. It’s wasteful. It won’t help at all in this war.”

I bristle. Decide to ignore that. “What does any of this have to do with Kenji?”

He turns away from me again. His voice is softer when he says, “Would you believe me if I told you I could sense your energy right now? Sense the tone and weight of it?”

I stare at him, study his features and the earnest, tentative note in his voice.

“Yes,” I tell him. “I think I’d believe you.”

Warner smiles in a way that seems to sadden him. “I can sense,” he says, taking a deep breath, “the emotions you’re feeling most strongly. And because I know you, I’m able to put those feelings into context. I know the fear you’re feeling right now, for example, is not directed toward me, but toward yourself, and what you think you’ve done to Kenji. I sense your hesitation— your reluctance to believe that it wasn’t your fault. I feel your sadness, your grief.”

“You can really feel that?” I ask. He nods without looking at me.

“I never knew that was possible,” I tell him.

“I didn’t either—I wasn’t aware of it,” he says. “Not for a very long time. I actually thought it was normal to be so acutely aware of human emotions. I thought perhaps I was more perceptive than most. It’s a big factor in why my father allowed me to take over Sector 45,” he tells me. “Because I have an uncanny ability to tell whenever someone is hiding something, or feeling guilty, or, most importantly, lying.” A pause. “That,” he says, “and because I’m not afraid to deliver consequences if the occasion calls for it.

“It wasn’t until Castle suggested there might be something more to me that I really began to analyze it. I nearly lost my mind.” He shakes his head. “I kept going over it, thinking of ways to prove and disprove his theories. Even with all my careful deliberation, I dismissed it. And while I am a bit sorry— for your sake, not for mine—that Kenji had to be stupid enough to interfere tonight, I think it was actually quite serendipitous. Because now I finally have proof. Proof that I was wrong. That Castle,” he says, “was right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I took your Energy,” he tells me, “and I didn’t know I could. I could feel it all very vividly when the four of us connected. Adam was inaccessible— which, by the way, explains why I never suspected him of being disloyal. His emotions were always hidden; always blocked off. I was naive and assumed he was merely robotic, devoid of any real personality or interests. He eluded me and it was my own fault. I trusted myself too much to be able to anticipate a flaw in my system.”

And I want to say, Adam’s ability isn’t so useless after all, is it? But I don’t.

“And Kenji,” Warner says after a moment. He rubs his forehead. Laughs a little. “Kenji was . . . very smart. A lot smarter than I gave him credit for— which, as it turns out, was exactly his tactic. Kenji,” he says, blowing out a breath, “was careful to be an obvious threat as opposed to a discreet one.

“He was always getting into trouble—demanding extra portions at meals, fighting with the other soldiers, breaking curfew. He broke simple rules in order to draw attention to himself. In order to trick me into seeing him as an irritant and nothing more. I always felt there was something off about him, but I attributed it to his loud, raucous behavior and his inability to follow rules. I dismissed him as a poor soldier. Someone who would never be promoted. Someone who would always be recognized as a waste of time.” He shakes his head. Raises his eyebrows at the ground. “Brilliant,” he says, looking almost impressed. “It was brilliant. His only mistake,” Warner adds after a moment, “was being too openly friendly with Kent. And that mistake nearly cost him his life.”

“So—what? You were trying to finish him off tonight?” I’m still so confused, trying to make an attempt to refocus the conversation. “Did you hurt him on purpose?”

“Not on purpose.” Warner shakes his head. “I didn’t actually know what I was doing. Not at first. I’ve only ever just sensed Energy; I never knew I could take it. But I touched yours simply by touching you—there was so much adrenaline among the group of us that yours practically threw itself at me. And when Kenji grabbed my arm,” he says, “you and I, we were still connected. And I . . . somehow I managed to redirect your power in his direction. It was quite accidental but I felt it happen. I felt your power rush into me. Rush out of me.” He looks up. Meets my eyes. “It was the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever experienced.”

I think I’d fall down if I weren’t already sitting.

“So you can take—you can just take other people’s powers?” I ask him. “Apparently.”

“And you’re sure you didn’t hurt Kenji on purpose?”

Warner laughs, looks at me like I’ve just said something highly amusing. “If I had wanted to kill him, I would have. And I wouldn’t have needed such a complicated setup to accomplish it. I’m not interested in theatrics,” he says. “If I want to hurt someone, I won’t require much more than my own two hands.”

I’m stunned into silence.

“I’m actually amazed,” Warner says, “how you manage to contain so much without finding ways to release the excess. I could barely hold on to it. The transfer from my body to Kenji’s was not only immediate, it was necessary. I couldn’t tolerate the intensity for very long.”

“And I can’t hurt you?” I blink at him, astonished. “At all? My power just goes into you? You just absorb it?”

He nods. Says, “Would you like to see?”

And I’m saying yes with my head and my eyes and my lips and I’ve never been more terrified to be excited in my life. “What do I have to do?” I ask him.

“Nothing,” he says, so quietly. “Just touch me.”

My heart is beating pounding racing running through my body and I’m trying to focus. Trying to stay calm. This is going to be fine, I say to myself. It’s going to be fine. It’s just an experiment. There’s no need to get so excited about being able to touch someone again, I keep saying to myself.

But oh, I am so, so excited. He holds out his bare hand. I take it.

I wait to feel something, some feeling of weakness, some depletion of my Energy, some sign that a transfer is taking place from my body to his but I feel nothing at all. I feel exactly the same. But I watch Warner’s face as his eyes close and he makes an effort to focus. Then I feel his hand tighten around mine and he gasps.

His eyes fly open and his free hand goes right through the floor.

I jerk back, panicked. I’m tipping sideways, my hands catching me from behind. I must be hallucinating. I must be hallucinating the hole in the floor not 4 inches from where Warner is still sitting on the ground. I must’ve been hallucinating when I saw his resting palm press too hard and go right through. I must be hallucinating everything. All of this. I’m dreaming and I’m sure I’m going to wake up soon. That must be it.

“Don’t be afraid—”

“H-how,” I stammer, “how did you d-do that—”

“Don’t be frightened, love, it’s all right, I promise—it’s new for me, too—” “My—my power? It doesn’t—you don’t feel any pain?”

He shakes his head. “On the contrary. It’s the most incredible rush of adrenaline—it’s unlike anything I’ve ever known. I actually feel a little light- headed,” he says, “in the best possible way.” He laughs. Smiles to himself.

Drops his head into his hands. Looks up. “Can we do it again?” “No,” I say too quickly.

He’s grinning. “Are you sure?”

“I can’t—I just, I still can’t believe you can touch me. That you really—I mean”—I’m shaking my head—“there’s no catch? There are no conditions? You touch me and no one gets hurt? And not only does no one get hurt, but you enjoy it? You actually like the way it feels to touch me?”

He’s blinking at me now, staring like he’s not sure how to answer my question.

“Well?”

“Yes,” he says, but it’s a breathless word. “Yes, what?”

I can hear how hard his heart is beating. I can actually hear it in the silence between us. “Yes,” he says. “I like it.”

Impossible.

“You never have to be afraid of touching me,” he says. “It won’t hurt me. It can only give me strength.”

I want to laugh one of those strange, high-pitched, delusional laughs that signals the end of a person’s sanity. Because this world, I think, has a terrible, terrible sense of humor. It always seems to be laughing at me. At my expense. Making my life infinitely more complicated all the time. Ruining all of my best-laid plans by making every choice so difficult. Making everything so confusing.

I can’t touch the boy I love.

But I can use my touch to strengthen the boy who tried to kill the one I love.

No one, I want to tell the world, is laughing.

“Warner.” I look up, hit with a sudden realization. “You have to tell Castle.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because he has to know! It would explain Kenji’s situation and it could help us tomorrow! You’ll be fighting with us and it might come in handy—”

Warner laughs.

He laughs and laughs and laughs, his eyes brilliant, gleaming even in this dim light. He laughs until it’s just a hard breath, until it becomes a gentle sigh, until it dissolves into an amused smile. And then he grins at me until he’s grinning to himself, until he looks down and his gaze drops to my hand, the one lying limp on my lap and he hesitates just a moment before his fingers brush the soft, thin skin covering my knuckles.

I don’t breathe. I don’t speak.

I don’t even move.

He’s hesitant, like he’s waiting to see if I’ll pull away and I should, I know I should but I don’t. So he takes my hand. Studies it. Runs his fingers along the lines of my palm, the creases at my joints, the sensitive spot between my

thumb and index finger and his touch is so tender, so delicate and gentle and it feels so good it hurts, it actually hurts. And it’s too much for my heart to handle right now.

I snatch back my hand in a jerky, awkward motion, face flushing, pulse tripping.

Warner doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t look up. He doesn’t even seem surprised. He only stares at his now empty hands as he speaks. “You know,” he says, his voice both strange and soft, “I think Castle is little more than an optimistic fool. He tries too hard to welcome too many people and it’s going to backfire, simply because it’s impossible to please everyone.” A pause. “He is the perfect example of the kind of person who doesn’t know the rules of this game. Someone who thinks too much with his heart and clings too desperately to some fantastical notion of hope and peace. It will never help him,” he sighs. “In fact, it will be the end of him, I’m quite sure of it.

“But there is something about you,” Warner says, “something about the way you hope for things.” He shakes his head. “It’s so naive that it’s oddly endearing. You like to believe people when they speak,” he says. “You prefer kindness.” He smiles, just a little. Looks up. “It amuses me.”

All at once I feel like an idiot. “You’re not fighting with us tomorrow.” Warner is smiling openly now, his eyes so warm. “I’m going to leave.” “You’re going to leave.” I’m numb.

“I don’t belong here.”

I’m shaking my head, saying, “I don’t understand—how can you leave?

You told Castle you’re going to fight with us tomorrow—does he know you’re leaving? Does anyone know?” I ask him, searching his face. “What do you have planned? What are you going to do?”

He doesn’t answer.

“What are you going to do, Warner—”

“Juliette,” he whispers, and his eyes are urgent, tortured all of a sudden. “I need to ask you somethi—”

Someone is bolting down the tunnels. Calling my name.

Adam.