Ignite Me

FORTY-TWO

“I am going to kill you.”

“He wasn’t like that when I went to visit,” Kenji says to me. “I swear. He was fine. He was sad.”

“Yeah, well, obviously seeing my face isn’t bringing back happy memories for him.”

Kenji sighs. Looks away. “I’m really sorry,” he says. “I swear. But he wasn’t lying, J. They were down to practically nothing the last time I went back there. Kent said half their supplies went bad because he didn’t realize the blast had broken some of the shelves in their storage room. Some of the jars had cracked open and there were rodents and shit eating their food. And they were all alone out there. It’s cold as all hell and you have no idea how depressing it was, seeing them like that, and James—”

“I get it, Kenji.” I blow out a breath. Fold myself onto the floor. “I really do.”

I look up, look around. Everyone is busying themselves with some kind of task. Running or sketching or training or lifting weights. I think we’re all exhausted by this drama. No one wants to deal with it anymore.

Kenji sits down across from me.

“He can’t keep treating me like that,” I finally say. “And I won’t keep having the same conversation with him.” I look up. “You brought him here. He’s your responsibility. We have three weeks before we initiate this plan, and we’re already cutting it really close. I need to be able to come down here and train every day, and I don’t want to have to worry about him freaking out on me.”

“I know,” he says. “I know.”

“Good.”

“Hey, so—were you serious?” Kenji asks. “When you said Warner doesn’t care about him being here?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Kenji raises his eyebrows. “That’s . . . weird.”

“One day,” I say to him, “you’ll realize that Warner is not as crazy as you think he is.”

“Yeah,” Kenji says. “Or maybe one day we’ll be able to reprogram that chip in your head.”

“Shut up.” I laugh, shoving him a little.

“All right. Up. Let’s go. It’s time to work.”