Imagine Me

He refuses.

“Not yet,” he says urgently. “Not just yet.”

And for some reason they listen.

Maybe they see something in him, see something in his face, in his features. Maybe they see what I see from this disjointed, foggy perspective. The desperation in his expression, the anguish carved into his features, the way he looks at me, like he might die if I do.

Tentatively, I reach up, touch my fingers to his face. His skin is smooth and cold. Porcelain. He doesn’t seem real.

“What’s wrong?” I say. “What happened?”

Impossibly, Warner goes paler. He shakes his head and presses his face to my cheek. “Please,” he whispers. “Come back to me, love.”

“Aaron?”

I hear the small hitch in his breath. The hesitation. It’s the first time I’ve used his name so casually.

“Yes?”

“I want you to know,” I tell him, “that I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“What?” He startles.

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” I say. “And I don’t think you’re a psychopath. I don’t think you’re a heartless murderer. I don’t care what anyone else says about you. I think you’re a good person.”

Warner is blinking fast now. I can hear him breathing.

In and out.

Unevenly.

A flash of stunning, searing pain, and my body goes suddenly slack. I see the glint of metal. I feel the burn of the syringe. My head begins to swim and all the sounds begin to melt together.

“Come on, son,” Castle says, his voice expanding, slowing down, “I know this is hard, but we need you to step back. We have t—”

An abrupt, violent sound gives me a sudden moment of clarity.

A man I don’t recognize is at the door, one hand on the doorframe, gasping for breath. “They’re here,” he says. “They’ve found us. They’re here. Jenna is dead.”

KENJI

The guy gasping at the doorframe is still finishing his sentence when everyone jumps into action. Nouria and Sam rush past him into the hall, shouting orders and commands—something about initiating protocol for System Z, something about gathering the children, the elderly, and the sick. Sonya and Sara press something into Warner’s hands, glance one last time at J’s limp, unconscious figure, and chase Nouria and Sam out the door.

Castle crouches to the ground, closing his eyes as he flattens his hands against the floor, listening. Feeling.

“Eleven—no twelve, bodies. About five hundred feet out. I’d guess we have about two minutes before they reach us. I’ll do my best to slow them down until we can clear out of here.” He looks up. “Mr. Ibrahim?”

I don’t even realize Haider is here with us until he says, “That’s more than enough time.”

He stalks across the room to the wall opposite Juliette’s bed, running his hands along the smooth surface, ripping down picture frames and monitors as he goes. Glass and wood shatter in a heap on the floor. Nazeera gasps, goes suddenly still. I turn, terrified, to face her and she says—

“I need to tell Stephan.”

She dashes out the door.

Warner is unhooking Juliette from the bed, removing her needles, bandaging her wounds. Once she’s free, he wraps her sleeping body in the soft blue robe hanging nearby, and at nearly the exact same moment, I hear the telltale ticking of a bomb.

I glance back, at the wall where Haider still stands. Two carefully spaced explosives are now affixed to the plaster, and I hardly even have time to digest this before Haider bellows at us to move out into the hall. Warner is already halfway out the door, holding the carefully wrapped bundle of J in his arms. I hear Castle’s voice—a sudden cry—and my own body is lifted and thrown out the door, too.

The room explodes.

The walls shake so hard it rattles my teeth, but when the tremors settle, I rush back into the room.

Haider blew off a single wall.

A perfect, exact rectangle of wall. Gone. I didn’t even know such a feat was possible. Pieces of brick and wood and drywall are scattered on the open ground beyond J’s room, and cold night winds rush in, slapping me awake. The moon is excessively full and bright tonight, a spotlight shining directly into my eyes.

I’m stunned.

Haider explains without prompting: “The hospital is too big, too complicated—we needed an efficient exit. The Reestablishment won’t care about collateral damage when they come for us—in fact, they might be craving it—but if we’re to have any hope of sparing innocent lives, we have to remove ourselves as far from the central buildings and common spaces as possible. Now move out,” he shouts. “Let’s go.”

But I’m reeling.

I blink at Haider, still recovering from the blast, the lingering whisper of whiskey in my brain, and now this:

Proof that Haider Ibrahim has a conscience.

He and Warner stalk past me, through the open wall, and start running into the gleaming woods, Warner with J in his arms. Neither of them bothers to explain what they’re thinking. Where they’re going. What the hell is going to happen next.

Well, actually, I think that last part is obvious.

What’s going to happen next is that Anderson is going to show up and try to murder us.

Castle and I lock eyes—we’re the last people still standing in what remains of J’s hospital room—and we chase after Warner and Haider toward a clearing at the far end of the Sanctuary, as far away from the tents as possible. At one point Warner breaks off from our group, disappearing down a path so dark I can’t see the end of it. When I move to follow, Haider barks at me to leave him alone. I don’t know what Warner does with Juliette, but when he rejoins us, she’s no longer in his arms. He says something, briefly, to Haider, but it sounds like French. Not Arabic. French.

Whatever. I don’t have time to think about it.

It’s already been five minutes, by my estimate. Five minutes, which means they should be here any second now. There are twelve bodies incoming. There are only four of us here.

Me, Haider, Castle, Warner.

I’m freezing.

We’re standing quietly in the darkness, waiting for death, and the individual seconds seem to tick by with excruciating slowness. The smell of wet earth and decaying vegetation fills my head and I look down, feeling but not seeing the thick pile of leaves underfoot. They’re soft and slightly damp, rustling a little when I shift my weight.

I try not to move.

Every sound unnerves me. A sudden shudder of branches. An innocent breeze. My own ragged breaths.

It’s too dark.

Even the bright, robust moon isn’t enough to properly penetrate these woods. I don’t know how we’re going to fight anyone if we can’t see what’s coming. The light is uneven, scattering through branches, shattering across the soft earth. I look down, examining a narrow shaft of light illuminating the tops of my boots, and watch as a spider scuttles up and around the obstacle of my feet.

My heart is pounding.

There’s no time. If only we had more time.

It’s all I can think. Over and over again. They caught us off guard, we weren’t prepared, it didn’t have to go down like this. My head is spinning with what-ifs and maybes and it could’ve beens even as I face down the reality right in front of me. Even as I stare straight into the black hole devouring my future, I can’t help but wonder if we could’ve done this differently.