“What are you talking about?” Adam cuts me off, alarmed. “Warner is an animal—”
I take a steadying breath. I need to remember how little they know Warner, how little they’ve heard from his point of view; I have to remind myself what I used to think of him just a few days ago.
Warner’s revelations are still so recent. I don’t know how to properly defend him or how to reconcile these polarizing impressions of him, and for a moment it makes me furious with him and his stupid pretenses, for ever having put me in this position. If only he didn’t come across as a sick, twisted psycho, I wouldn’t have to stand up for him right now.
“He wants to take down The Reestablishment,” I try to explain. “And he wants to kill Anderson, too—”
The room explodes into more arguments. Shouts and epithets that all boil down to no one believing me, everyone thinking I’m insane and that Warner’s brainwashed me; they think he’s a proven murderer who locked me up and tried to use me to torture people.
And they’re not wrong. Except that they are.
I want so desperately to tell them they don’t understand.
None of them know the truth, and they’re not giving me a chance to explain. But just as I’m about to say something else in my own defense, I catch a glimpse of Ian out of the corner of my eye.
He’s laughing at me.
Out loud, slapping his knee, head thrown back, howling with glee at what he thinks is my stupidity, and for a moment I seriously begin to doubt myself and everything Warner said to me.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
How will I ever really know if I can trust him? How do I know he wasn’t lying to me like he always did, like he claims he has been from the beginning?
I’m so sick of this uncertainty. So sick and tired of it.
But I blink and I’m being pulled out of the crowd, tugged toward James’s bedroom door; to the storage closet that used to be his room. Adam pulls me inside and shuts the door on the insanity behind us. He’s holding my arms, looking into my eyes with a strange, burning intensity that startles me.
I’m trapped.
“What’s going on?” he asks. “Why are you defending Warner? After everything he did to you, you should hate him—you should be furious—”
“I can’t, Adam, I—”
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“I just—it’s not that easy anymore.” I shake my head, try to explain the unexplainable. “I don’t know what to think of him now. There are so many things I misunderstood. Things I couldn’t comprehend.” I drop my eyes. “He’s really . . .” I hesitate, conflicted.
I don’t know how to tell the truth without sounding like a liar.
“I don’t know,” I finally say, staring into my hands. “I don’t know. He’s just . . . he’s not as bad as I thought.”
“Wow.” Adam exhales, shocked. “He’s not as bad as you thought. He’s not as bad as you thought? How on earth could he be any better than you thought—?”
“Adam—”
“What the hell are you thinking, Juliette?”
I look up. He can’t hide the disgust in his eyes.
I panic.
I need to find a way to explain, to present an irrefutable example—proof that Warner is not who I thought he was—but I can already tell that Adam has lost confidence in me, that he doesn’t trust me or believe me anymore, and I flounder.
He opens his mouth to speak.
I beat him to it. “Do you remember that day you found me crying in the shower? After Warner forced me to torture that toddler?”
Adam hesitates before nodding slowly, reluctantly.
“That was one of the reasons I hated him so much. I thought he’d actually put a child in that room—that he’d stolen someone’s kid and wanted to watch me torture it. It was just so despicable,” I say. “So disgusting, so horrifying. I thought he was inhuman. Completely evil. But . . . it wasn’t real,” I whisper.
Adam looks confused.
“It was just a simulation,” I try to explain. “Warner told me it was a simulation chamber, not a torture room. He said it all happened in my imagination.”
“Juliette,” Adam says. Sighs. He looks away, looks back at me. “What are you talking about? Of course it was a simulation.”
“What?”
Adam laughs a small, confused sort of laugh.
“You knew it wasn’t real . . . ?” I ask.
He stares at me.
“But when you found me—you said it wasn’t my fault—you told me you’d heard about what happened, and that it wasn’t my fault—”
Adam runs a hand through the hair at the back of his neck. “I thought you were upset about breaking down that wall,” he says. “I mean, I knew the simulation would probably be scary as hell, but I thought Warner would’ve told you what it was beforehand. I had no idea you’d walked into something like that thinking it was going to be real.” He presses his eyes shut for a second. “I thought you were upset about learning you had this whole new crazy ability. And about the soldiers who were injured in the aftermath.”
I’m blinking at him, stunned.
All this time, a small part of me was still holding on to doubt—believing that maybe the torture chamber was real and that Warner was just lying to me. Again.
But now, to have confirmation from Adam himself.
I’m floored.
Adam is shaking his head. “That bastard,” he’s saying. “I can’t believe he did that to you.”
I lower my eyes. “Warner’s done a lot of crazy things,” I say, “but he really thought he was helping me.”
“But he wasn’t helping you,” Adam says, angry again. “He was torturing you—”
“No. That’s not true.” I focus my eyes on a crack in the wall. “In some strange way . . . he did help me.” I hesitate before meeting Adam’s gaze. “That moment in the simulation chamber was the first time I ever allowed myself to be angry. I never knew how much more I could do—that I could be so physically strong—until that moment.”
I look away.
Clasp and unclasp my hands.
“Warner puts up this facade,” I’m saying. “He acts like he’s a sick, heartless monster, but he’s . . . I don’t know . . .” I trail off, my eyes trained on something I can’t quite see. A memory, maybe. Of Warner smiling. His gentle hands wiping away my tears. It’s okay, you’re okay, he’d said to me. “He’s really—”