Jess’s Reviews > Release Me > Status Update

Her mouth curves into a smile and lingers, and it feels like possibly my greatest achievement.
I want this job. I'd be good at this job.
I want to take care of her. I can make her laugh. I could make her happy.

She laughs softly beside me and I have another minor heart attack. "You don't count," she says, finally putting me out of my misery. She turns her eyes up to the night sky.
"There's no one in the world like you."

I hadn't realized that she needed to police herself around her own sister. It had never occurred to me, until just now, that there was no one in the world she could freely talk to.
No one she could trust.

"Clara's mind doesn't belong to her," she says, looking away. "I can't trust her, not even if I want to."

I shake my head. "We're more deeply infiltrated than we realized."
"Infiltrated? You mean you think our own soldiers are working against us?"
"There's no other way they would've been able to orchestrate and execute a complex operation like this from within our borders. It makes me wonder how deep the corrupted veins run through our systems."

"You kissed my chest," he says finally.
"Your heart," I whisper.

"James. I need you to understand this: Your world is dangerously vulnerable. The Reestablishment has been pushing pieces carefully into place for years. They have every intention of taking back their power-and you shouldn't trust anyone," I say. "Spies and agents have infiltrated nearly every corner of your society."

Everything about him has become my favorite thing.
I never had a preference for blue eyes before I met him. I never knew I cared for freckles until I saw his face. I didn't know I could love the way someone walked until I watched him enter a room.

I want things from James I never thought I could want from anyone. I've been starved for years but I've never known this kind of hunger.