Shatter-Me-PDF-Shatter-Me-Series-Shatter-Me-Shatter-Me-1-Tahereh-Mafi (1)

shredded dress. The slit Warner created now stops at my hip
bone. I must look like a crazed animal.
Adam doesn’t seem to mind.
He’s slowed down, too. We’re moving at a brisk walk now,
no longer barreling through the streets. I realize we must be
closer to some semblance of safety, but I’m not sure if I
should ask questions now, or save them for later. Adam
answers my silent thoughts.
“They won’t be able to track me out here,” he says, and it
dawns on me that all soldiers must have some kind of
tracking device on their person. I wonder why I never got
one.
It shouldn’t be this easy to escape.
“Our trackers aren’t tangible,” he explains. We make a left
into another alleyway. The sun is just dipping below the
horizon. I wonder where we are. How far away from
Reestablished settlements we must be that there are no
people here. “It’s a special serum injected into our
bloodstream,” he continues, “and it’s designed to work with
our bodies’ natural processes. It would know, for example, if
I died. It’s an excellent way to keep track of soldiers lost in
combat.” He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. He
smiles a crooked smile I want to kiss.
“So how did you confuse the tracker?”
His grin grows bigger. He waves one hand around us. “This
space we’re standing in? It was used for a nuclear power
plant. One day the whole thing exploded.”
My eyes are as big as my face. “When did that happen?”
“About five years ago. They cleaned it up pretty quickly.
Hid it from the media, from the people. No one really knows
what happened here. But the radiation alone is enough to
kill.” He pauses. “It already has.”
He stops walking. “I’ve been through this area a million
times already, and I haven’t been affected by it. Warner
used to send me up here to collect samples of the soil. He
wanted to study the effects.” He runs a hand through his