Ignite Me

THIRTY

Warner still hasn’t said a single word to me.

We’re in his room now, courtesy of Delalieu, who Warner was quick to dismiss. It feels strange and familiar to be back here, in this room that I’ve found both fear and comfort in.

Now it feels right to me.

This is Warner’s room. And Warner, to me, is no longer something to be afraid of.

These past few months have transformed him in my eyes, and these past two days have been full of revelations that I’m still recovering from. I can’t deny that he seems different to me now.

I feel like I understand him in a way I never did before.

He’s like a terrified, tortured animal. A creature who spent his whole life being beaten, abused, and caged away. He was forced into a life he never asked for, and was never given an opportunity to choose anything else. And though he’s been given all the tools to kill a person, he’s too emotionally tortured to be able to use those skills against his own father—the very man who taught him to be a murderer. Because somehow, in some strange, inexplicable way, he still wants his father to love him.

And I understand that.

I really, really do.

“What happened?” Warner finally says to me.

I’m sitting on his bed; he’s standing by the door, staring at the wall.

“What do you mean?”

“With Kent,” he says. “Earlier. What did he say to you?”

“Oh.” I flush. Embarrassed. “He kicked me out of his house.”

“But why?”

“He was mad,” I explain. “That I was defending you. That I’d invited you to come back at all.”

“Oh.”

I can almost hear our hearts beat in the silence between us.

“You were defending me,” Warner finally says.

“Yes.”

He says nothing.

I say nothing.

“So he told you to leave,” Warner says, “because you were defending me.”

“Yes.”

“Is that all?”

My heart is racing. I’m suddenly nervous. “No.”

“There were other things?”

“Yes.”

Warner blinks at the wall. Unmoving. “Really.”

I nod.

He says nothing.

“He was upset,” I whisper, “because I didn’t agree that you were crazy. And he was accusing me”—I hesitate—“of being in love with you.”

Warner exhales sharply. Touches a hand to the doorframe.

My heart is pounding so hard.

Warner’s eyes are glued to the wall. “And you told him he was an idiot.”

Breathe. “No.”

Warner turns, just halfway. I see his profile, the unsteady rise and fall of his chest. He’s staring directly at the door now, and it’s clear it’s costing him a great deal of effort to speak. “Then you told him he was crazy. You told him he had to be out of his mind to say something like that.”

“No.”

“No,” he echoes.

I try not to move.

Warner takes a hard, shaky breath. “Then what did you say to him?”

Seven seconds die between us.

“Nothing,” I whisper.

Warner stills.

I don’t breathe.

No one speaks for what feels like forever.

“Of course,” Warner finally says. He looks pale, unsteady. “You said nothing. Of course.”

“Aaron—” I get to my feet.

“There are a lot of things I have to do before tomorrow,” he says. “Especially if your friends will be joining us on base.” His hands tremble in the second it takes him to reach for the door. “Forgive me,” he says. “But I have to go.”