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

We’re walking through an entire city underground, hallways
and passageways, smooth stone floors, rough walls left
untouched. There are circular disks drilled into the ground,
glowing with artificial light every few feet. I notice
computers, all kinds of gadgets I don’t recognize, doors
cracked open to reveal rooms filled with nothing but
technological machinery.
“How do you find the electricity necessary to run this
place?” I look more closely at the unidentifiable machines,
the flickering screens, the unmistakable humming of
hundreds of computers built into the framework of this
underground world.
Kenji tugs on a stray strand of my hair. I spin around. “We
steal it.” He grins. Nods down a narrow path. “This way.”
People both young and old and of all different shapes and
ethnicities shuffle in and out of rooms, all along the halls.
Many of them stare, many of them are too distracted to
notice us. Some of them are dressed like the men and
women who rushed out to our car last night. It’s an odd kind
of uniform. It seems unnecessary.
“So . . . everyone dresses like that?” I whisper, gesturing
to the passing strangers as inconspicuously as possible.
Kenji scratches his head. Takes his time answering. “Not
everyone. Not all the time.”
“What about you?” I ask him.
“Not today.”
I decide not to indulge his cryptic tendencies, and instead
ask a more straightforward question. “So are you ever going
to tell me how you healed so quickly?”
“Yes,” Kenji says, unfazed. “We’re going to tell you a lot of
things, actually.” We make an abrupt turn down an
unexpected hallway. “But first—” Kenji pauses outside of a
huge wooden door. “Castle wants to meet you. He’s the one
who requested you.”
“Requested—?”