Shatter Me

Adam is pointing a gun at Warner’s head, but Warner manages to pull out his weapon and point it at Juliette. Adam quickly slams Warner’s head, and as Warner’s grip on the gun wavers, Juliette takes his gun from him. She also points it at Warner’s head, and the two men are impressed with her skill. Adam tells Juliette to get out while there’s no one in the building. She grabs their duffle bags and tosses them to Adam. Warner tries to convince Juliette that she is making a huge mistake and “throwing away an entire future” by running away (183). He asks Juliette how she knows she can trust Adam and for a moment she hesitates, but then shakes her head and tells Adam to go before it’s too late. Warner continues to persuade Juliette that Adam is just using her to get out, while he, Warner, “could love [her]” (183). Adam is starting to lose his temper and orders Warner to make the call so that they can leave. Warner refuses and continues telling Juliette that if she stays, they “would be unstoppable” (184). He goes on to tell her that if she leaves, she will continue to be isolated and lonely like she has always been.

Adam interrupts Warner and says that Juliette belongs with him and Warner begins to understand what is happening. Juliette moves to the window and says that if Warner doesn’t let them out, she will jump. She knows that Warner has pulled a false alarm and that soldiers will be back any minute now. Adam binds Warner’s hands and feet together with plastic zip ties and prepares for them to climb down a rope from the 15th floor. Adam has to go first so that he can catch Juliette. Warner is angry and confused as he realizes that this must mean that Adam can touch her.

Adam breaks the window glass, and a loud alarm goes off. They can hear soldiers running to their room as Adam climbs down. Juliette runs after him, but Warner tries to grab her leg. Juliette almost trips but manages to get to the window. She is in excruciating pain as she climbs down because her legs are bare. Juliette takes a deep breath and hopes that Warner doesn’t realize that he just touched her leg and nothing happened.

By the time Juliette lands in Adam’s open arms, she is in severe pain. They immediately start to run through a bare landscape, hearing “the sound of boots pounding the pavement, the screech of tires peeling out of underground storage units, and alarms wailing in [their] wake” (192). It is hard for Juliette to keep up with Adam as they are “darting in million directions” (193). She has been locked up for so long that her body is not used to exercise. Juliette is breathing so heavily that Adam has to stop and pull her into a side street. While Juliette is catching her breath, they hear gunshots and Juliette realizes that the target is not her, but Adam. They start to run again, and this time Adam is carrying Juliette on his back. They outmaneuver their chasers by avoiding main streets, and Juliette concludes that Adam must have planned this escape for a long time.

After they jump over a stretch of chain-link fence, they no longer run, and Juliette assumes they are close to safety. Adam tells her that The Reestablishment won’t be able to track him there and Juliette realizes that all soldiers have a tracking device. Adam explains that it’s not a device, but a serum injected into the bloodstream, and it signals when a soldier dies. He tells Juliette that a nuclear power plant used to be where they are standing right now, but it exploded and the radiation spread rapidly. Warner used to send Adam there to get samples of soil so that he could study side effects.

The first time Adam went there an alarm went off signaling that he is dead, so Warner was stunned when Adam came back alive. This made Adam think that “there’s something about the chemicals here that counteracts the molecular composition of the tracking device” (197), so now everyone is getting a signal that Adam is dead. He assures Juliette that this radiation cannot kill her because one of the reasons Warner had sent for samples of solid was because he was studying Juliette. Tests have shown that “despite testing positive for the radiation [...] there was nothing inherently wrong with [her]” (198). Juliette laughs, and Adam pulls her close, saying that it’s time to go home.

Adam and Juliette reach an abandoned shed on the edge of a wild field. For a moment Juliette thinks that this is where Adam had intended for them to stay, but once they come inside, she sees outlines of a tank. Adam eagerly explains that once he managed to convince Warner that he had broken one of his tanks while on an assignment here. Since Warner was sending Adam to get the soil samples against his father’s orders, he didn’t want anyone to know about the damaged tank so “the official report says it was hijacked by rebels” (199). No one had seen the tank in the shed because civilians stay out of that field and soldiers are afraid to go there because of radiation. Just in case of exposure, Adam had deactivated the tank’s electrical unit.

Adam looks at Juliette’s wounds and tells her he has to clean them so that they won’t get infected. Then Juliette says that they’d better go, and Adam starts the engine. He assures her that even after they leave this area, his tracker won’t start back up, so now they can really leave. He then tells Juliette they are going to his house.

Juliette cannot hide her amazement that Adam has a house, and she cannot help asking him about his father. Adam says that he had died a while ago and, despite having many other questions, Juliette decides not to ask anything else. While Adam is driving, Juliette looks out the window and tries to see what they are passing through. Her thoughts drift to Warner, and she wonders how far he will go trying to get her back. She keeps replaying how he had touched her earlier and nothing happened. Juliette cannot believe that both Adam and Warner are immune to her touch. She convinces herself that it wasn’t Warner touching her, that perhaps it was just something lying on the floor.

Adam takes Juliette’s hand, and she starts crying at the thought that he can touch her. She begins to tell him that she cannot believe he cares about her more than anyone ever has but forces herself to suppress her emotions. Adam doesn’t say anything until he pulls into an underground garage. He then leans close to her and tells her that he has been in love with her for a very long time but didn’t do anything about it because he didn’t feel like he deserved her. They kiss and begin to have intimate contact, but before things can get any further, they hear someone call Adam’s name.

Adam jumps out of the tank and warmly greets a young boy. He then tells him that there’s someone he would like him to meet. Juliette feels very self-conscious as she gets out of the tank and sees a boy with “dirty-blond hair framing a round face with blue eyes that look too familiar” (210). Adam then introduces her to his little brother James.