Juliette is asleep.
She emerged from the shower, climbed into my lap and promptly fell asleep against my neck, all the while mumbling things I know for certain she’ll regret having said in the morning. It took every bit of my self-control to unhook her soft, warm figure from around me, but somehow I managed it. I tucked her into bed and left, the pain of peeling myself away from her not unlike what I imagine it’d be like to peel the skin off my own body. She begged me to stay and I pretended not to hear her. She told me she loved me and I couldn’t bring myself to respond.
She cried, even with her eyes closed.
But I can’t trust that she knows what she’s doing or saying in this compromised state; no, I know better. She has no experience with alcohol, but I can only imagine that when her good sense is returned to her in the daylight, she will not want to see my face. She won’t want to know that she made herself so vulnerable in front of me. I wonder whether she’ll even remember what happened.
As for me, I am beyond despair.
It’s past three in the morning and I feel as though I’ve not slept in days. I can hardly bear to close my eyes; I can’t be left alone with my mind or the many frailties of my person. I feel shattered, held together by nothing but necessity.
I have tried in vain to articulate the mess of emotion cluttering my mind—to Kenji, who wanted to know what happened after he left; to Castle, who cornered me not three hours ago, demanding to know what I’d said to her; even to Kent, who managed to look only a little pleased upon discovering that my brand-new relationship had already imploded.
I want to sink into the earth.
I can’t go back to our bedroom—my bedroom—where the proof of her is still fresh, too alive; and I can no longer escape to the simulation chambers, as the soldiers are still stationed there, relocated in all the aftermath of the new construction.
I’ve no reprieve from the consequences of my actions.
Nowhere to rest my head for longer than a moment before I’m discovered and duly chastened.
Lena, laughing loudly in my face as I walked past her in the hall.
Nazeera shaking her head as I bid good night to her brother.
Sonya and Sara shooting me mournful looks upon discovering me crouched in a corner of the unfinished medical wing. Brendan, Winston, Lily, Alia, and Ian popping their heads out of their brand-new bedrooms, stopping me as I tried to get away, asking so many questions—so loudly and forcefully—that even a groggy James came to find me, tugging at my sleeve and asking me over and over again whether or not Juliette was okay.
Where did this life come from?
Who are all these people to whom I’m suddenly beholden?
Everyone is so justifiably concerned about Juliette—about the well-being of our new supreme commander—that I, because I am complicit in her suffering, am safe nowhere from prying eyes, questioning looks, and pitying faces. It’s alarming, having so many people privy to my private life. When things were good between us I had to answer fewer questions; I was a subject of lesser interest. Juliette was the one who maintained these relationships; they were not for me. I never wanted any of this. I didn’t want this accountability. I don’t care for the responsibility of friendships. I only wanted Juliette. I wanted her love, her heart, her arms around me. And this was part of the price I paid for her affection: these people. Their questions. Their unvarnished scorn for my existence.
So. I’ve become a wraith.
I stalk these quiet halls. I stand in the shadows and hold myself still in the darkness and wait for something. For what, I don’t know.
Danger.
Oblivion.
Anything at all to inform my next steps.
I want renewed purpose, a focus, a job to do. And then all at once I’m reminded that I am the chief commander and regent of Sector 45, that I have an infinite number of things to oversee and negotiate—and somehow that’s no longer enough for me. My daily tasks are not enough to distract my mind; my deeply regimented routines have been dismantled; Delalieu is struggling under the weight of my emotional erosion and I cannot help but think of my father again and again—
How right he was about me.
He’s always been right.
I’ve been undone by emotion, over and over. It was emotion that prompted me to take any job—at any cost—to be nearer to my mother. It was emotion that led me to find Juliette, to seek her out in search of a cure for my mother. It was emotion that prompted me to fall in love, to get shot and lose my mind, to become a broken boy all over again—one who’d fall to his knees and beg his worthless, monstrous father to spare the girl he loved. It was emotion, my flimsy emotions that cost me everything.
I have no peace. No purpose.
How I wish I’d ripped this heart from my chest long ago.
Still, there is work to be done.
The symposium is now less than twelve hours away and I never had a chance to go over the details with Juliette. I didn’t think things would turn out like this. I never thought that business would go on as usual after the death of my father. I thought a greater war was imminent; I thought for certain the other supreme commanders would come for us before we’d had even a chance to pretend we had true control of Sector 45. It hadn’t occurred to me that they’d have more sinister plans in mind. It hadn’t occurred to me to spend more time prepping her for the tedious formalities—these monotonous routines—embedded in the structure of The Reestablishment. But I should have known better. I should have expected this. I could have prevented this.
I thought The Reestablishment would fall.
I was wrong.
Our supreme commander has hours to prepare before having to address a room of the 554 other chief commanders and regents in North America. She will be expected to lead. To negotiate the many intricacies of domestic and international diplomacy. Haider, Nazeera, and Lena will all be waiting to send word back to their murderous parents. And I should be by her side, helping and guiding and protecting her. Instead, I have no idea what kind of Juliette will emerge from my father’s rooms in the morning. I have no idea what to expect from her, how she will treat me, or where her mind will go.
I have no idea what’s going to happen.
And I have no one to blame but myself.