“There’s more.”
I laugh, out loud. The sound is insane.
“Ms Ferrars will find out about all this very soon,” Castle says to me. “So I would advise you to get ahead of these revelations. Tell her everything as soon as possible. You must confess. Do it now.”
“What?” I say, stunned. “Why me?”
“Because if you don’t tell her soon,” he says, “I assure you, Mr Warner, that someone else will—”
“I don’t care,” I say. “You tell her.”
“You’re not hearing me. It is imperative that she hear this from you. She trusts you. She loves you. If she finds out on her own, from a less worthy source, we might lose her.”
“I’ll never let that happen. I’ll never let anyone hurt her again, even if that means I’ll have to guard her myself—”
“No, son.” Castle cuts me off. “You misunderstand me. I did not mean we would lose her physically.” He smiles, but the result is strange. Scared. “I meant we would lose her. Up here”—he taps his head—“and here”—he taps his heart.
“What do you mean?”
“Simply that you must not live in denial. Juliette Ferrars is not who you think she is, and she is not to be trifled with. She seems, at times, entirely defenseless. Naive. Even innocent. But you cannot allow yourself to forget the fist of anger that still lives in her heart.”
My lips part, surprised.
“You’ve read about it, haven’t you? In her journal,” he says. “You’ve read where her mind has gone—how dark it’s been—”
“How did you—”
“And I,” he says, “I have seen it. I’ve seen her lose control of that quietly contained rage with my own eyes. She nearly destroyed all of us at Omega Point long before your father did. She broke the ground in a fit of madness inspired by a simple misunderstanding,” he says. “Because she was upset about the tests we were running on Mr Kent. Because she was confused and a little scared. She wouldn’t listen to reason—and she nearly killed us all.”
“That was different,” I say, shaking my head. “That was a long time ago. She’s different now.” I look away, failing to control my frustration at his thinly veiled accusations. “She’s happy—”
“How can she be truly happy when she’s never dealt with her past? She’s never addressed it—merely set it aside. She’s never had the time, or the tools, to examine it. And that anger—that kind of rage,” Castle says, shaking his head, “does not simply disappear. She is volatile and unpredictable. And heed my words, son: Her anger will make an appearance again.”
“No.”
He looks at me. Picks me apart with his eyes. “You don’t really believe that.”
I do not respond.
“Mr Warner—”
“Not like that,” I say. “If it comes back, it won’t be like that. Anger, maybe—yes—but not rage. Not uncontrolled, uninhibited rage—”
Castle smiles. It’s so sudden, so unexpected, I stop midsentence.
“Mr Warner,” he says. “What do you think is going to happen when the truth of her past is finally revealed to her? Do you think she will accept it quietly? Calmly? If my sources are correct—and they usually are—the whispers underground affirm that her time here is up. The experiment has come to an end. Juliette murdered a supreme commander. The system won’t let her go on like this, her powers unleashed, unchecked. And I have heard that the plan is to obliterate Sector 45.” He hesitates. “As for Juliette herself,” he says, “it is likely they will either kill her, or place her in another facility.”
My mind spins, explodes. “How do you know this?”
Castle laughs briefly. “You can’t possibly believe that Omega Point was the only resistance group in North America, Mr Warner. I’m very well connected underground. And my point still stands.” A pause. “Juliette will soon have access to the information necessary to piece together her past. And she will find out, one way or another, your part in all of it.”
I look away and back again, eyes wide, my voice fraying. “You don’t understand,” I whisper. “She would never forgive me.”
Castle shakes his head. “If she learns from someone else that you’ve always known she was adopted? If she hears from someone else that you tortured her sister?” He nods. “Yes, it’s true, she will likely never forgive you.”
For a sudden, terrible moment, I lose feeling in my knees. I’m forced to sit down, my bones shaking inside me.
“But I didn’t know,” I say, hating how it sounds, hating that I feel like a child. “I didn’t know who that girl was, I didn’t know Juliette had a sister—I didn’t know—”
“It doesn’t matter. Without you, without context, without an explanation or an apology, all of this will be much harder to forgive. But if you tell her yourself and tell her now? Your relationship might still stand a chance.” He shakes his head. “Either way, you must tell her, Mr Warner. Because we have to warn her. She needs to know what’s coming, and we have to start planning. Your silence on the subject will end only in devastation.”
JULIETTE
I am a thief.
I stole this notebook and this pen from one of the doctors, from one of his lab coats when he wasn’t looking, and I shoved them both down my trousers. This was just before he ordered those men to come and get me. The ones in the strange suits with the thick gloves and the gas masks with the foggy plastic windows hiding their eyes. They were aliens, I remember thinking. I remember thinking they must’ve been aliens because they couldn’t have been human, the ones who handcuffed my hands behind my back, the ones who strapped me to my seat. They stuck Tasers to my skin over and over for no reason other than to hear me scream but I wouldn’t. I whimpered but I never said a word. I felt the tears streak down my cheeks but I wasn’t crying.
I think it made them angry.
They slapped me awake even though my eyes were open when we arrived. Someone unstrapped me without removing my handcuffs and kicked me in both kneecaps before ordering me to rise. And I tried. I tried but I couldn’t and finally six hands shoved me out the door and my face was bleeding on the concrete for a while. I can’t really remember the part where they dragged me inside.
I feel cold all the time.
I feel empty, like there is nothing inside of me but this broken heart, the only organ left in this shell. I feel the bleats echo within me, I feel the thumping reverberate around my skeleton. I have a heart, says science, but I am a monster, says society. And I know it, of course I know it. I know what I’ve done. I’m not asking for sympathy. But sometimes I think—sometimes I wonder—if I were a monster—surely, I would feel it by now?
I would feel angry and vicious and vengeful. I’d know blind rage and bloodlust and a need for vindication.
Instead, I feel an abyss within me that’s so deep, so dark I can’t see within it; I can’t see what it holds. I do not know what I am or what might happen to me.