Shatter Me

Juliette walks into a spacious living room with rugs, chairs, and a sofa, “green and red and orange hues, warm lamps softly lit in the large space” (217). She feels comfortable and safe in this place. Juliette is surprised to learn that James, who is only 10, lives there alone, and only Benny, an elderly lady, visits him and brings food packages. James tells Juliette that many other orphaned children live on this street and they even have school.

James tries to heat up some food and Juliette is stunned when she sees on the plate “a small square [...] like a bouillon cube” (218). Adam explains that because of food shortages people now eat these squares: they put them in a machine resembling a microwave, but it’s called the Automat, and it “takes the molecular composition of the food and multiplies it [...], so it makes you feel fuller, longer” (219). Since Juliette has been isolated for so long, she is shocked to see that “people have become so desperate they’re faking food” (219).

James tells Juliette everything about their life: how there’s a curfew mandatory for everyone but soldiers, how people get different amounts of food because they are “sorted based on what they can provide to The Reestablishment, and not because they’re human beings with the right not to starve to death” (219). Adam instructs his brother not to tell anyone that they are here, not even Benny.

After James falls asleep, Adam tells Juliette that he hasn’t seen his brother in six months but has talked to him on the phone, using an untraceable line, and that’s how James knows so much about Juliette. He then confesses that he felt drawn to Juliette since the very first time he saw her because she had “this goodness [he] never found in [his] life” (221). He had meant to talk to her but was too scared and ever since she had disappeared, he has been trying to find her. He had to take care of his brother, so he didn’t have any option except to join the army. As Juliette watches Adam carry James to his room, she realizes that the reason he’s so desperate to fight back is that “he’s fighting for so much more than himself” (223).

When Adam comes back to the living room, Juliette asks him where got his bird tattoo, and he says that he “kept dreaming about this white bird” because it gave him hope (225). Juliette confesses that she used to dream about this bird too, “this exact one” (225), and he cannot believe that even their dreams have been the same.

Afterward, Adam cleans Juliette’s wounds in a bathroom, and when Juliette comes back to the living room, she sees blankets and pillows on the floor, which Adam had prepared for them. Although they are both exhausted, Juliette asks Adam to touch her, because she is “aching, desperate, dying for his touch” (228). Adam touches her “like he’s never dared to before” when suddenly they hear a door open (228). James comes into the room and asks Adam if he can sleep with him. Although it’s dark, Juliette can tell that James has been having nightmares and crying. Adam brings his pillow and a blanket to the living room and tucks James to sleep next to him. Before he falls asleep, he apologizes for not finishing what he has started, and Juliette says that she will wait for the right timing.

Although Adam and Juliette fall asleep deliberately keeping a distance between them, they wake up in each other’s arms. When Juliette opens her eyes, she sees that James is angrily staring at them. He wonders how it’s possible that Adam can touch Juliette and doubts his brother’s words about her magic powers.

Seeing that James is upset that he has to share his brother with someone else, Adam takes him to another room to talk to him privately. While they are gone, Juliette wonders how Adam is going to explain to his little brother her presence in their house and their lives. When the brothers return, Juliette hears James say that he knows what a girlfriend is. Adam tells James to get ready for school and promises that he will be there when he returns. Juliette watches the brothers and realizes that “this is the kind of bond [she’s] never had, will never have” (234). Yet being in a loving family makes Juliette feel so human that she starts to believe that “maybe [she] could be a part of this world” (234).

James is at school, Adam is in the shower, and Juliette is alone when she hears a loud knock on the door. Startled and horrified, she reaches for the duffle bags and grabs two guns. As the knocking gets harder, Adam runs out of the shower, and Juliette tosses him one of the firearms without saying a word. Adam says that it can’t be Warner because he “wouldn’t be knocking” (237), so maybe it’s Benny checking up on James. They hear the person banging on the door call Adam’s name and asking to be let in. Adam recognizes the voice and opens the door to see Kenji standing there.

When Adam lets him in, they see that he looks bruised and has a bullet in his leg. Adam takes Kenji to the bathroom to clean his wounds and to try to take the bullet out of his leg. When Adam comes back, he explains that Kenji used to be “a sort of friend of [his] back on base” (240). After Adam and Juliette ran away Warner tortured him to get information, so he had to run away. Adam is worried that because of the tracker serum that Kenji has, Warner might find them, so they need to pack and leave today.

When Kenji emerges from the bathroom, he doesn’t hide his surprise that Adam ran away with Juliette and that he can touch her. When Adam asks him how he knew about this place, Kenji explains that after he got shot some man carried him and dropped him off at the door, telling him “to shut up about Adam, because Adam lives right here” (242).

Adam doesn’t believe Kenji, and he is furious at him for ruining a safe shelter that he has tried so hard to set up for his brother. Kenji assures him that he knows of a very safe place where they can all hide. Adam doesn’t believe him, and Kenji makes him even madder by trying to flirt with Juliette, even though she keeps telling him that she’s not interested. When Kenji tells her that this is only because he is in a dire state right now and that she will change her mind, Adam “elbows him in the face and doesn’t apologize” (244).