Chapter One
The question everyone asks, of course, is what do we know about the empath mutation? We know the correlating empathic abilities threaten our privacy and the sanctity of our minds. We know the empaths cannot be allowed to freely use this empathy, because no amount of so-called pacifism gives them the right to use their abilities to discover emotions we do not consent to share.
But there is a far more important question they ought to be asking: whatdon’twe know about the empaths?
—C. Stone, confidential funding memo to the Empath Initiative
Reece supposed if he’d been alook on the bright sidekind of empath, he might have had a platitude ready, something pithy about how insomnia’s single perk was being awake no matter what time someone called.
But platitudes and perks and so-calledbright sideswere for people who could still lie to themselves, and no one had been able to lie to Reece since March. So when his chirpy ringtone shattered the silence of the diner, he instead jerked in surprise and dropped his cup, which crashed to the Formica table and sent orange juice flooding right off the edge onto his jeans.
He cursed and scrambled out of the booth. Under the hard stare of the lone waitress, he snatched the phone up in gloved hands and fumbled to silence it. Ducking his head so he wouldn’t have to meet her suspicious eyes, he squinted at the screen.
Unknown caller.
“Great,” he muttered. This was obviously going to be good news, an unknown caller at four a.m. on a Tuesday. He put the phone to his ear. “Who is this?”
“We’ve never been properly introduced.”
The man on the other side of the phone had a deep voice and a sugar-sweet Southern accent, and that was the extent of what Reece could read. Even before March, he’d despised how electronics stripped a voice, replacing a symphony with a cheap music box. Now it grated on him to no end to have to flounder blindly with a stranger. “How did you get this number?”
“Seattle’s only got two empaths. I’d wager everyone has your number.”
Reece narrowed his eyes. “Not my new one. And that wasn’t an answer.”
His thigh was already growing cold and sticky. He balanced the phone in the crook of his neck as he grabbed a cheap napkin from the dispenser and scrubbed at his jeans. The napkin shredded against the fabric without soaking up any juice.
There was a noise in the caller’s background, a rushing sound, as the man said, “Maybe Detective St. James gave it to me.”
Please. Jamey would eat her own badge first. “Maybe you be straight with me or I hang up.”
“Aren’t you awful prickly for an empath?”
“I don’t like phone calls.” Were those cars Reece was hearing? A highway, perhaps?
The deep drawl rolled through the phone like a lazy river. “I’m Evan Grayson.”
The hairs on the back of Reece’s neck rose. He knew that name from somewhere, like the echo of a dream that had vanished in the daylight. “Should I care?”
“You—”
“More importantly: are you driving right now?”
There was a pause.
“I knew it,” said Reece. “You shouldn’t talk on the phone when you’re behind the wheel. It’s dangerous for you and everyone else on the road.”
“That’s not more important than my name.”
“Yes it is. Cell phones cause one out of every four car crashes in the US.”
“You’ve got no idea who I am,” Grayson said, “and the empath priorities of a Care Bear.”
“Just doing my part to keep the streets safer. Somebody should and it’s obviously not going to be you.” Reece sat back down on the dry side of the booth. He was still being watched by the waitress, but then, she’d had eyes on him since he came in. More specifically, she’d had eyes on his gloves, and it wasn’t the stare of someone wanting a phone number from the short, skinny guy covered in juice. He lowered his voice. “So, Evan Grayson, what do you want?”
“Are you sitting down?”
“Dancing, actually. I can’t contain my joy that I’m party to your four a.m. reckless endangerment—”
