Chapter 17 James
James
I hold the potato firmly on the cutting board, then bring the knife down too hard, nicking the vegetable and nearly taking
off my hand. The potato goes flying, ricocheting off a bottle of olive oil before hitting the ground, then rolling under the
cabinet. The bottle topples over, glass clattering against stone.
Shit.
“You’re not trying to kill the potato,” Nazeera says, crossing her arms as she leans against the wall, watching me with an amused smile. She’s wearing
an oversized sweatshirt, her hands tucked into the front pocket, the hood pulled up. “Your food, by this point in the process,
should already be dead.”
“Right,” I say, my head pounding. “Good point.”
I swipe the potato off the ground, then rinse it at the sink before putting it back on the cutting board.
For a moment, I stare at the mess.
Potato peels are piled in a small heap on the counter, leafy celery and carrot tops stacked beside them, papery onion skins
fluttering as I move, generating wind.
I gather the leavings and toss them in the compost bin.
“This is more complicated than I thought it would be,” I say, fighting to take a full breath.
My heart is racing for no reason.
I glance out the window, then at Nazeera, the warmth in her familiar eyes a welcome diversion from my own mind. I’ve known
her for nearly as long as I’ve known Kenji. For a few years the two of them were a package deal; she’s always been like an
older sister to me.
“You’ll be all right,” she says. “You already have excellent knife skills. You just need to slow down.”
I cast her a dubious look. “Slow down more than this?”
I’ve been hacking away for at least a couple of hours, and I’m just getting worse. The problem is, I’m restless and distracted.
But also—there’s no consistency to chopping things. Every vegetable has to be cleaned and cut differently, and some of them
fight back when you hurt them.
Slicing the onion nearly took me out.
“Slow down your movements,” she clarifies, grinning. “Apply firm but steady pressure and you’ll get the hang of it. You have to learn the technique
before you can speed up. Remember: you’re not dismembering a body. You’re just making big things smaller.”
“Right.” I exhale, trying to loosen the tension in my shoulders. I stare at the little bowls arranged before me.
Nazeera insisted I prep everything before I actually start cooking, an extra step I resented before arriving at this moment.
I’m realizing only now that if I’d just started cooking right away—without a plan or even a sense of how long it would take me to chop everything—I’d for sure have burned the kitchen to the ground.
I look over the selection of unevenly diced celery, carrots, and onions, and for a second I actually feel a little proud.
Then embarrassed. Then irritated. Then I remember the chicken is still in the fridge.
I think it’s time for a break.
I abandon the cutting board and drop down into a chair at the kitchen table, absently rubbing my eyes, which are still stinging
from the onions.
When I hear a fragment of what sounds like conversation, I look up.
Nazeera is staring at me.
“Did you say something?” I ask her.
“Yeah.” She smiles, but her eyes are concerned. “I said, are you all right?”
“Oh.” I run a hand through my hair. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
I stare out the window as a bone-deep fatigue settles inside me. Cold sunlight gleams over the quiet afternoon. Only a few
people dot the sidewalks, some pushing strollers. A dog barks. A single car drives by. Wind pushes through the big tree in
the front yard, and I stare at its shifting branches as my heart continues to race.
I glance at the clock.
Warner is supposed to be here for a meeting in about half an hour, and the closer we get to the appointed hour the more impatient
I become. Pressure keeps building in my head.
I can’t seem to get myself under control.
I startle at the sound of wood shifting against wood. Nazeera pulls up a chair, sits down.
“You never answered my question,” she says.
I turn to look at her, but I’m distracted by a shaft of light beyond her head, dust motes suspended like insects in amber.
“What?”
“James,” she says.
“Yeah?”
“Look at me for a second.”
I meet her light brown eyes, drum my fingers against my thigh. “I’m looking at you.”
“Maybe you should go for a walk,” she says.
I shake my head. “I went for a run earlier.”
“You already hit the gym?”
“Twice.”
“Did you eat anything?”
“I had a protein shake.”
“That’s not enough food,” she points out.
I push up in my seat, thinking I might try to chop that potato again, then sit back down. Then glance at the clock. “I’m not
hungry.”
“Not hungry,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “Sure. Okay.”
For a minute, we both stare out the window in silence.
Finally Nazeera says, “Kind of a strange time to decide you want to learn how to cook.”
I glance at her, but she’s still staring outside, her eyes tracking a bird. I return my gaze to the window, feeling suddenly subdued. “Yeah,” I say. “Well.”
She clears her throat, then says my name with intention—
“Don’t you want to check on Juliette?” I ask, cutting her off before she can interrogate me.
Nazeera hesitates, drawing back. “She’s napping.”
“Wake her up.”
“James—”
“How’s your house?” I ask. “Unheated? Unfurnished? Twin mattress still tossed in the middle of the living room, single bulb
burning from the ceiling?”
She almost laughs. “I bought sheets.”
“Still in the bag?”
“Shut up,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You know I’m only here every couple of months, and when I’m here I’m usually here. I don’t have time to fix it up.”
“You’ve got time now,” I point out.
“Are you asking me to leave?”
“Nope,” I say, shaking my head. “You stay. Hand over your keys and I’ll leave. I’ll even put those sheets on the mattress.”
I pause. “Do you own a pillow yet, or are you still using a garbage bag stuffed with old laundry?”
“I did that once—”
“Save your lies for a different James,” I say to her. “An uglier, stupider one.”
“Okay.” She nods, pretending to be impressed. “Well, at least now I can tell Juliette that Warner was right to shoot you. If you’re going to be this weird about having a simple conversation, the situation is worse than I realized.”
“Exactly.” I hold out my hand. “Give me your keys. Or wait—do you even bother to lock your door?”
“Look, you can’t do this.” She rests her elbows on the table, leaning forward to look at me. “You can’t fall for her. This
is a really, really bad idea. You know that, right? Please tell me you know that.”
My heart stalls, then picks up speed too quickly. The sensation makes me so uncomfortable that my next words come out a little
mean. “You know Kenji’s still madly in love with you, right?”
Nazeera noticeably stiffens, like I’ve broken an unspoken rule.
I have.
But she started it.
We both fall silent, sharpening our knives.
“There’s no happily ever after with someone like her,” she says, her eyes narrowing. “No matter what happens next, it won’t
end with you cooking her dinner.”
My headache suddenly intensifies.
I clench and unclench my fists under the table, then roll my neck, trying to release the tension. “You know, you never struck
me as a coward,” I say. “Why keep pretending you and Kenji aren’t meant to be together?”
“James—”
“And it’s not just me,” I say. “Everyone is confused. You’re here every couple of months.
You manage to avoid each other in the beginning, but then your schedules inevitably collide, resulting in a series of emotional breakdowns.
And then I sit here and picture you going back to your empty house with its one light and bag of sheets and I’m wondering if you wish things had worked out differently. ”
Nazeera draws breath, enough to know I’ve done some damage. “Wow,” she says softly. “Direct hit. This must be serious. You
must really be suffering.”
I drag my hands down my face, sitting back in my seat. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
We’re both quiet for too long, unspoken tension building, straining the silence.
“Falling in love feels a little like dying,” she finally says. “No one really tells you that.”
“Fuck,” I breathe, gripping the table. “I don’t want to hear that.”
“No one wants to hear it. But the poets keep trying to warn us.”
“I feel like I’m having a series of heart attacks,” I say, forcing the words out. “I don’t know how to sit down anymore. I
don’t even know how to stand still. I feel sick. I seriously think I’m losing my mind.”
“James,” she says gently. She rests a hand on my arm and I nearly flinch at the contact. “It’s only been three days. She’s
not dead—”
I make an angry sound.
“She’s not,” Nazeera insists. “He didn’t really kill her, you know that. Warner used her powers against her to put her into a sort of . . . coma. She’s a major flight risk. We still don’t know if we can trust her. It’s the safest way to keep her contained while she recovers—”
“Except that we don’t know anything about her supposed powers,” I say sharply, looking up. “Warner’s just guessing. The fact
that he can sense and manipulate other people’s abilities doesn’t mean he knows exactly how to use them. We have no idea whether
she’ll actually wake up—or if he’s kept her unconscious for so long that it breaks something inside of her—”
“You know what? This is my fault,” she says, drawing her hands back into her lap. “You shouldn’t be learning to chop vegetables.
I shouldn’t have taken you to the farmers market—”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I ask, reeling.
“Everything,” Nazeera says, turning to face me. “You’re not thinking straight. I shouldn’t have indulged your fantasies—”
“Fantasies?”
“—and if anyone else were acting this way you’d be the first to call them out for disloyalty to the Republic. The fact that
you’re questioning a decision to restrain a violent, known assassin of The Reestablishment is genuinely concerning.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I say, closing my eyes. “My head hurts. My chest hurts—”
“James, I need you to be realistic,” she says, tempering her tone. “If you allow yourself to wallow in this daydream, things
will only get worse.”
“What daydream?” Now I’m getting offended.
“You really think you can date this girl?” she asks, giving me a hard look. “You think someone like her even knows how to
be in a relationship? A girl like that doesn’t even know how to relax. She walks into a room and immediately identifies the
exits before deciding which everyday objects might double as weapons—”
“That’s called being creative—”
“—she’s not meeting strangers and wondering what they like to do in their spare time; she meets new people and assesses their
strengths and weaknesses in order to determine the best way to kill them—”
“She’s just a planner. She likes to plan ahead—”
“You think it would ever occur to her to do something for fun, or buy you a present on your birthday, or express her feelings
without fear?”
I blink at her. “Wait, I’m sorry, are we talking about you or Rosabelle?”
“She’s a trained executioner,” Nazeera says, ignoring this. “She’s spent her entire life being emotionally and physically
tortured by one of the most tyrannical, oppressive regimes our world has ever known. Even if she wasn’t an active threat to
everything we’ve built; even if it wouldn’t label you a traitor by association; even if you wouldn’t lose the respect of your
peers, the good opinion of your subordinates, the admiration of the children and widows of our fallen soldiers—”
“Now you’re just exaggerating—”
“—she’s too volatile to make the cut as a candidate for your affections. She’s like a stick of dynamite. Looks harmless until you strike a match.”
I shake my head slowly.
I turn to the window again, closing my eyes as my heart pounds, then contracts. I take an uneven breath, watching a pair of
squirrels chase each other up the trunk of a tree. And then I say, almost to myself, “I don’t need her to buy me a present
on my birthday.”
Nazeera sighs. “Did you hear anything I just said to you?”
“Unfortunately.”
“And?”
“Look, I just want to see her,” I say roughly. “He won’t even let me see her.”
“Can you blame him?”
My jaw tenses. “Not really.”
“Listen, I’m saying this because I care about you: falling in love with a girl like that wouldn’t just be stupid, it would
be dangerous. You have to be careful. If you keep acting like this in front of other soldiers, publicly defending her against
the judgment of their own general, you’ll put Warner in an impossible situation—”
“Yeah, look, I realize—”
“And you really need to cut him some slack. You think Warner’s being hard on you but he’s trying so hard to protect you from
the consequences of your own actions—”
“Believe it or not,” I say, cutting her off. “I know this.”
Nazeera freezes. “You do?”
“Yes. I do. I’m not an idiot.”
She lifts her eyebrows. “If that’s true, you might want to be a little more obvious about it.”
I shoot her a look, then sit back in my seat, rubbing my hands on my jeans. I feel like my chest is caving in. “I’m not falling
in love,” I say thickly. “I’m just—I just want to know if she’s okay.”
“That’s good,” Nazeera says. “That’s a good start. Denial is a powerful tool.”
“You would know.” I glance at her. “You’re the expert.”
“Okay, I’m done being nice to you.” She flattens her hands on the table. “You’ve used up all your goodwill for the day. If
you’re looking for compassion, try again tomorrow.”
I flash her a smile.
She flips me off.
“Nice,” I say. “Mature.”
“Says the guy who can’t chop a potato.”
“Hey, when are you leaving again?” I ask. “I really need something to look forward to right now.”
She flips me off with both hands.
Her hood has shifted back a little, a few strands of dark hair escaping her ponytail, framing her striking face. She scowls
at me, and I can’t help but laugh.
The first time I met Nazeera was the day she saved my life.
I was ten.
I’d been abducted by my own psychopathic father and left to rot in prison until the day he decided to use me as leverage. My affectionate dad was holding a knife to my throat, threatening to kill me, and then—
Nazeera.
A miracle.
She literally flew me out of there. I remember staring at her in that dumbstruck way of children; understanding, without really
understanding, that I was looking at something beautiful.
When I see her now, I remember feeling safe.
My lifted spirits diminish at the memory, displaced by a sudden, weightier thought.
“Hey, seriously, though, when are you going to put him out of his misery? You two are soulmates. We all know it. I know you know it.”
She averts her eyes. “Listen, James—”
“And maybe no one’s told you this, but he hasn’t so much as looked at another woman since the day you left.”
She recoils, as if struck, just as the front door opens with a bang.