Release Me: Chapter 2

Ruin

x x x

"…I wish you'd stop expecting me to use my power to kill people."

He shrugs. "I never said you had to. But it will happen along the way; it's an inevitability in war. Killing is statistically impossible to avoid."

~Juliette and Warner, Unravel Me

x x x

I can feel his eyes on the back of my head.

"I know you want this to end well. All happily-ever-after for all freaks of nature sort of thing. But it's not going to happen with this plan. No," he continues in his whisper soft voice, and I collapse on the couch in frustration, "you will definitely get yourself killed. I've already had to watch you almost die. I realise it's horribly selfish of me love, but please don't make me go through that again. Especially if it's easily avoidable."

"Well, I'm open to suggestions," I say, rolling over onto my back and staring up at ceiling. My eyes need to be anywhere but his face.

"I'm sure Castle is planning something stupid, too," Warner says, and it's the first time today I've heard any real emotion in his voice. Almost annoyed. Like he's been inconvenienced by the whole situation. "But even I have to admit it's probably going to be a much better plan than yours. His plan probably won't be a mass suicide."

Heat flushes through my chest and cheeks—I roll up onto my elbows, provoked.

So much for not looking at him.

"And still you haven't offered anything to this conversation but criticism! I've told you already. I can't go back to Castle! If we're going to kill Anderson successfully, I need to stay dead."

It didn't hurt when I said it this time. I was glad—happy that my both my body and heart had resigned itself to the complete destruction of the small, fragile life I'd managed to build myself in the months since I'd escaped from the insane asylum. Glad that I knew exactly what the news would do to Adam—and to a lesser extent, James, Kenji and Castle.

To Adam, it would do exactly what "dying" did to me.

For the second time since I'd fallen in love with Adam Kent, I would once again set the dynamite off in his chest and make his heart explode; all in the name of doing all I possibly could do to protect him.

Exactly what monsters do.

"That is not such a bad idea," Warner replies in an even voice. His eyes are full of an expression I don't understand as he looks at me. "But beyond that, you have nothing that could be even construed as a decent strategy." It hasn't escaped my notice how he maintains a good deal of distance between us when he can. Right now he stands leaning casually against the door-frame of the small sitting room, watching me with a carefully blank expression. I hate, hate, hate that I can't stand him being so far away from me, that it makes me edgy like those fidgety people I used to see on the streets when I was little—all scratching and desperate in their withdrawal.

"I've agreed to help you," he continues and the tone of his voice makes me want punch something. "But I won't endorse a suicide mission, Juliette."

I didn't know whether it was the tone of his voice or his body language—it all just screamed and screamed bored at the top of its lungs—or whether it was that he was so far away all the time—but I snapped. I hadn't slept properly since I'd been shot—a combination of nightmares and guilt kept me up most of the night—and Warner's careful indifference was really starting play on all my insecurities about why people avoided me. And that was even more frustrating because I didn't want to care that he was avoiding me.

But I did.

And it hurt.

I deserved it.

I hated that too.

"Could you at least pretend to care about this for one second, Warner! Just one!" I swing my feet over the side of the couch, needing to stand. "This is important. I need your help and so far you've proven to be good for nothing!"

I can feel a storm brewing in the room — feel the atmosphere, the air, becoming thick and hot and electric; feel the eerie calm building in my chest that tells me I'm about to lose my temper, my control.

Warner can feel it too. I can see it on his face — the way the boredom shatters from his expression and reforms as a strange mix of apprehension and laugher in his eyes.

So dangerous.

"That's a shame," he whispers in that quiet way of his and I feel myself slipping further. Like he knows he's the one holding my hand while I'm dangling from the edge of a cliff and I'm falling, falling, falling…

"I rather thought I was good for a few things, especially when it came to you." I hear rather than see him shift his weight from one foot to another. "For example"— step, step, step — "you're looking more alive, love, then you were three days ago."

His words to do something strange to my body — like Warner's reached inside me a pulled a plug loose, disconnecting everything from my brain.

He's just standing there, waiting and waiting — closer now, but still well out of reach — and I can't look at him.

"That's not what I was talking about and you know it," I say, feeling numb. Calm. Hot. "Or is it that you enjoy holding that over my head?"

It was the wrong thing to say and the right thing to say. So right because I want him to feel it —the anger, the hurt, the frustration of it all. I want to push him like he's pushing me — all kicking and screaming right off the edge.

"What?" The word hisses out from in-between his teeth like the bite of a whip against my skin. "You think that's why I did it? Why I saved you? To hold it over your head like some sort of sick victory?" He's so angry now and it's enough for my eyes to meet his now and they're as glorious — furious — as I expected them to be; bright, hungry, emerald flames.

I want to feel triumphant, happy to have finally pushed him where he's pushed me — beyond caring. But his words are stopping me. They stop me feeling so much of what I should feel for him. Anger is so easy — blind and unadulterated, we're both caught in its web now, I think.

"Tell me!" Warner demands, his whole body shaking, face twisting into something as horrible as it is beautiful — a marvelous defense.

Slipping, slipping, slipping…"You don't get to demand anything from me."

"No?" I see his lips form the word, the expression in his eyes making it a question.

My head moves — a brief shake — and he snarls, "then don't demand it from me. I don't want your demands, your accusations, and your — your pity. If you think for one second I want a bar of whatever this is, you're more naïve then I gave you credit for." His voice breaks and I almost do, can feel the cracks working their way up my tenuous hold on reality.

Wrong, wrong, wrong…

Slipping, slipping, slipping…

He turns his back to me and I fall apart, shatter all over the ground.

The world is slipping too, shaking, falling around me — like it can't keep it together either — and all I can think is, this makes sense. This is exactly what I feel like on the inside — no longer anything but rubble and shaking and quaking and unsteady. That this — this chaos is all I'm capable of, all I create in people's lives. It's all I'm good for. Lamps, vases, tables smash across the floor and it's all I can do to slump to the ground.

"Juliette." The word, that sound, makes me focus — makes my head turn away from the ruin of the world and focus on its source. "You need to stop."

And there's so much in his face all at once that I'm unable to read, I look away. A chunk of plasterboard comes loose from the roof and crashes behind him. "This accomplishes nothing."

I wait to feel something at the condescension in his words, but I don't. Some small, still-rational part of me agrees with him — I'm not being strong or brave or even active — being here, but the larger part of me that's still angry suffocates the rationality out of me before I can agree with Warner.

Instead, I just stare at him. Stare and stare without really wanting to say anything — or maybe I do? — and so I shouldn't have felt surprised that he wasn't surprised when I look up at him and say, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" An automatic response.

For everything, I want say. For lying to you, I should say out loud. For lying to myself, most of all. For hurling lies at him like knives when he came to see me in my room that night. That I'm still so confused about what I'm doing — what I'm feeling, but I do want him and I know I shouldn't. I know. But all the knowing in the world doesn't seem to change what I want — what my body wants. And why won't this ache in my chest go away so I can think—

"What are you sorry for, Juliette?" He just standing there — too close, far too close and looking at me — really, really looking at me and I forget how to breathe. He reaches down for me — for my arm to pull me from the floor — and the instant his skin touches mine, everything stills.

He hoists me to my feet so we're standing chest to chest — as close as two human beings can be without touching — and releases me. I remember how to breathe again and wish that I hadn't —that somehow that part of my brain had shut up shop and moved away so that the scent rolling off his skin would stop reminding me of what it feels like to have his lips and his hands eating my skin.

"Why won't you answer me, love? You can't apologize and not say what it's for." He's speaking but his words are nothing more than a warm breath caressing my face.

I try to tell him, but I'm drowning in an ocean of words and it's too dark to see what any of them are. I'm no good with words — not with inspiring ones, or apologetic ones. Not even ones that are capable of making others happy. It was just like Warner said—I was only good at using demanding words — ones that make people angry and hurt.

Warner was so good at using words the right way…

Maybe that was one of the things that made him so dangerous.

And just when I thought that perhaps I'd somehow come up with a way to tell him everything I was thinking, I see his hands move and stretch and reach for my face and the words fade like a breeze on my tongue. He's doing it again—holding me like I'm made of glass. His touch is no more than a feather brushing my cheek.

Deep breath.

"Very well. Though I refuse to accept your apology until I know exactly what it's for, would you mind if I asked you a question instead?"

"No," and it's not even a word, just air.

I can feel his hands starting to shake, feel the spasms in his fingers as he runs them along my face. I'm waiting, waiting, waiting for him to ask, and the shine in his beautiful eyes tells me that whatever he wants to ask would make him vulnerable and he's struggling, really struggling to find the words to ask the question and I can see it — see that he's also drowning in an ocean of words he can't make out.

All at once his eyes harden and the shaking stops and he asks, "Do you still want my help?" and I know immediately that's not what he wanted to ask me — not at all — that they were the first words he could find to pull himself out of the water. Of course, I want to say. I need your help. Would surely die without it, but that's not what I say.

No.

Warner stands there unmoving just holding and holding me and I don't move either. And again, having never been able to handle words properly in my life, I don't say what's in my head. Instead I'm focusing on his face — on the rueful twist of his mouth and the pain and hope he's so obviously trying to hide behind his not-so-impenetrable mask — and I lift my bare hand up to cover one of his resting on my neck. He flinches and tries to withdraw it, but I tighten my grip around his knuckles so that he knows I don't want him to move. His hand is stiff, but it stays where it is.

I say rather shakily, "I never pity-pitied you. Not once." Deep breath, "I lie-lied about that. I'm so…I-I understand…" my voice dies, suddenly unsure of myself, but he's watching me intently, not moving or breathing. His hands have turned into a cage, keeping me trapped in his gaze, so I continue. "I-I under-stand what it's like to…what a life like yours is, because…because my-mine was the s-same."

His silence unnerves me, but his arms slacken and fall to his sides, breaking the spell that had compelled me to speak, so I turn my face away, feeling incredibly vulnerable and a little foolish.

I try to laugh and it sounds brittle and horrible. "You probably didn't want to hear that. Nothing you didn't know already. Sorry." I wait a moment to see if he'll say something — please, please, please! Anything! — and when he doesn't I stare blindly at the rubble behind him like it's the most fascinating thing in the world. "But to answer your question from earlier, y-yes. I-I do need your help. Thank you." My heart won't shut up and my throat feels like it full of cotton balls and butterflies and it's all I can do to keep myself from running for the door.

On second thought, I decide, leaving probably is the best idea. Just as I make a break for the door, Warner grabs my hand and spins me around to face him. His hands are on my back, pressing me against him in the next instant and his lips are grazing my face and I'm breathing in short, surprised gasps like a fish out of water and all I can smell is that unique scent that's so obviously him — all fresh soap and something sweet and hot — before he breathes, "Apology accepted." And he's kissing me with his sweet peppermint lips, so so so soft I think for a moment I'm imagining it, and just as I feel my fingers sink into the collar of his shirt he's setting me down on my unsteady feet and laughs — just laughs — the kind of bending over hey, that was hilarious laughter and my heads still spinning and I'm so confused and when I lick my lips I can still taste peppermint and why can't I breathe?

"What's so funny, Warner?"

"My father," he says, breathing hard and laughing at himself still. "Will be giving a speech to the masses in 2 weeks, in the local city square." His eyes find mine and all I can think is wow, I would crawl over broken glass for that smile and he finishes with, "that's our only chance — he'll be outside. Security will be tight, but if we don't kill him then, we never will."

"Good," is all I can manage to say.

What I feel is altogether another matter. My stomach quivers with the uneasiness of his easy suggestion for Anderson. Where had that particular solution been in the beginning?

A/N: Hello, fellow Shatter Me fanatics! I'm feeling a bit of a need to explain myself here about this "story". See, it's not a story. It's a series of quite dramatic scenes I'd written between either Juliette and Warner or Juliette, Warner and Adam, plus a few minor characters (those to come) in an attempt to write a story, which of course never came to fruition honestly because I'm too lazy and I really, really, really like Juliette and Warner together and I know that for most parts in the next book for various reasons, there won't be a whole lot of what happened in the infamous chapter 62 of Unravel Me happening in Ignite Me. Now, I could be wrong, but seeing as the last two books haven't set much of a precedent for that kind of thing, I'm not counting on it.

I don't know about you guys, but I really want to see what happens when Adam finds out Juliette's alive and has been spending the entire time he thought she was dead gallivanting about the city with Warner for however long it takes the three of them to all run into each other again. It's not that I dislike Adam, I just think that by now, it's pretty obvious that her and Adam's relationship is non-existent, so it's time we all stop pretending.

Anywho, that's it from me! Review if you want! Or don't. OH! If anyone is interested in Beta-reading, I'd be VERY happy for you to take everything I have and fix it for me. Not as big on editing as I used to be. Less time on a computer, the better! After work I've kinda had enough, so yeah. If someone reading this would like to be my Beta, that'd be so AWESOME!

Cherrio!

~Warui-Usagi~