I only know now that the scientists are wrong.
The world is flat.
I know because I was tossed right off the edge and I’ve been trying to hold on for seventeen years. I’ve been trying to climb back up for seventeen years but it’s nearly impossible to beat gravity when no one is willing to give you a hand.
When no one wants to risk touching you.
—AN EXCERPT FROM JULIETTE’S JOURNALS IN THE ASYLUM
Am I insane yet?
Has it happened yet?
How will I ever know?
—AN EXCERPT FROM JULIETTE’S JOURNALS IN THE ASYLUM
There’s a moment of pure, perfect silence before everything, everything explodes. At first, I don’t even realize what I’ve done. I don’t understand what just happened. I didn’t mean to kill these people—
And then, suddenly
It hits me
The crushing realization that I’ve just slaughtered a room of six hundred people.
It seems impossible. It seems fake. There were no bullets. No excess force, no violence. Just one, long, angry cry.
“Stop it,” I screamed. I squeezed my eyes shut and screamed it, anger and heartbreak and exhaustion and crushing devastation filling my lungs. It was the weight of recent weeks, the pain of all these years, the embarrassment of false hopes manufactured in my heart, the betrayal, the loss—
Adam. Warner. Castle.
My parents, real and imagined.
A sister I might never know.
The lies that make up my life. The threats against the innocent people of Sector 45. The certain death that awaits me. The frustration of having so much power, so much power and feeling so utterly, completely powerless
“Please,” I screamed. “Please stop—”
And now—
Now this.
My limbs have gone numb from disbelief. My ears feel full of wind, my mind disconnected from my body. I couldn’t have killed this many people, I think, I couldn’t have just killed all these people that isn’t possible, I think, it’s not possible not possible that I opened my mouth and then this
Kenji is trying to say something to me, something that sounds like we have to get out of here, hurry, we have to go now—
But I’m numb, I’m dim, I’m unable to move one foot in front of the other and someone is dragging me, forcing me to move and I hear explosions
And suddenly my mind sharpens.
I gasp and spin around, searching for Kenji but he’s gone. His shirt is soaked in blood and he’s being dragged off in the distance, his eyes half closed and
Warner is on his knees, his hands cuffed behind his back
Castle is unconscious on the floor, blood running freely from his chest
Winston is still screaming, even as someone drags him away
Brendan is dead
Lily, Ian, Alia, dead
And I’m trying to reconnect my mind, trying to work my way through the shock seizing my body and my head is spinning, spinning, and I see Nazeera out of the corner of my eye with her head in her hands and someone touches me and I jump
I jerk back
“What’s happening?” I say to no one. “What’s going on?”
“You’ve done beautiful work here, darling. You’ve really made us proud. The Reestablishment is so grateful for the sacrifices you’ve made.”
“Who are you?” I say, searching for the voice.
And then I see them, a man and a woman kneeling in front of me, and it’s only then that I realize I’m lying on the ground, paralyzed. My arms and legs are bound by pulsing, electric wires. I try to fight against them and I can’t.
My powers have been extinguished.
I look up at these strangers, eyes wide and terrified. “Who are you?” I say again, still raging against my restraints. “What do you want from me?”
“I’m the supreme commander of Oceania,” the woman says to me, smiling. “Your father and I have come to take you home.”
WARNER
JULIETTE
Why don’t you just kill yourself? someone at school asked me once.
I think it was the kind of question intended to be cruel, but it was the first time I’d ever contemplated the possibility. I didn’t know what to say. Maybe I was crazy to consider it, but I’d always hoped that if I were a good enough girl—if I did everything right, if I said the right things or said nothing at all—I thought my parents would change their minds. I thought they would finally listen when I tried to talk. I thought they would give me a chance. I thought they might finally love me.
I always had that stupid hope.
—AN EXCERPT FROM JULIETTE’S JOURNALS IN THE ASYLUM
When I open my eyes, I see stars.
Dozens of them. Little plastic stars stuck to the ceiling. They glow, faintly, in the dim light, and I sit up, head pounding, as I try to orient myself. There’s a window on my right; a sheer, gauzy curtain filters sunset oranges and blues into the room at odd angles. I’m sitting on a small bed. I look up, look around.
Everything is pink.
Pink blanket, pink pillows. Pink rug on the floor.
I get to my feet and spin around, confused, to find that there’s another, identical bed in here, but its sheets are purple. The pillows are purple.
The room is divided by an imaginary line, each half a mirror image of the other. Two desks; one pink, one purple. Two chairs; one pink, one purple. Two dressers, two mirrors. Pink, purple. Painted flowers on the walls. A small table and chairs off to one side. A rack of fluffy costume dresses. A box of tiaras on the floor. A little chalkboard easel in the corner. A bin under the window, full to the brim with dolls and stuffed animals.
This is a child’s bedroom.
I feel my heart racing. My skin goes hot and cold.
I can still feel a loss inside of me—an inherent knowledge that my powers aren’t working—and I realize only then that there are glowing, electric cuffs clamped around my wrists and ankles. I yank at them, use every bit of my strength to tear them open, and they don’t budge.
I’m growing more panicked by the moment.
I run to the window, desperate for some sense of place—for some explanation of where I am, for proof that this isn’t some kind of hallucination—and I’m disappointed; the view out the window only confuses me. I see a stunning vista. Endless, rolling hills. Mountains in the distance. A massive, glittering lake reflecting the colors of the sunset. It’s beautiful.
I step back, feeling suddenly more terrified.
My eyes move instead to the pink desk and chair, scanning their surfaces for clues. There are only stacks of colorful notebooks. A porcelain cup full of markers and glitter pens. Several pages of fluorescent stickers.
My hand shakes as I pull open the desk drawer.
Inside are stacks of old letters and Polaroids.
At first, I can only stare at them. My heartbeats echo in my head, throbbing so hard I can almost feel them in my throat. My breaths come in faster, the inhalations shallow. I feel my head spin and I blink once, twice, forcing myself to be steady. To be brave.
Slowly, very slowly, I pick up the stack of letters.
All I have to do is look at the mailing addresses to know that these letters predate The Reestablishment. They’ve all been sent to the attention of Evie and Maximillian Sommers. To a street in Glenorchy, New Zealand.