I know you’re concerned about his pacifism but trust me: He doesn’t need to be cold to be tough, and he doesn’t need to be cruel to be strong.
—Three-year-old internal memo from Detective St. James to Lieutenant Parson
A few blocks away from Lumen Field, icy raindrops pelted the sidewalk as a stoplight finally changed from red to green. Across the street, the walk sign lit up, the subtle chirps signaling it was safe to cross. With his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched against the falling rain, Alex stepped off the curb into the crosswalk.
And then immediately hopped backwards, back onto the sidewalk, as a white BMW coupe made a sharp right turn. It screeched to a stop directly in front of him, blocking the crosswalk.
As Alex furrowed his eyebrows, the passenger window lowered itself. He bent down and found himself looking directly into Gretel Macy’s eyes.
“Hey, Mr.Grayson,” she said pointedly.
The city rushed around them as they regarded each other, raindrops turning the pavement a slick and darker gray, the crosswalk sign changing from white to red numbers counting down, cars honking as they were forced to swerve around Gretel’s Beamer.
Alex’s hair was dripping into his eyes, his glasses streaked with droplets that obscured his view. But Gretel’s expression was closed off and would have been difficult to read even without the rain. “You know who I am?” he finally said.
“Yes. And I knowwhatyou are.”
Not a lie. “How?”
Gretel leaned forward and turned on her hazard lights. “Vivian Marist dropped some hints about empaths that she thought would turn me fully to Stone Solutions’ side.”
Another car swerved around Gretel, honking irritably. Alex pulled off his wet glasses. “And did it?” he said as he cleaned them with the hem of his shirt.
“My parents are dead because of Stone Solutions.” The hazards clicked like a metronome as raindrops fell in a steady staccato on the Beamer’s roof and hood. “Speaking of Stone Solutions, I just saw the breaking news,” Gretel said. “Charles Stone was taken into custody for securities fraud. Rumor is he tried to flee to his helicopter on site, but the police were able to catch him before he could escape. Did you have something to do with that?”
Alex shrugged his damp shoulders. “It was a team effort.”
Up ahead, a cop car was tearing down the road with its lights on. Alex hunched, sliding his glasses back on as the cruiser blew past them, turning left in the direction of the stadium. “What do you think he did?”
“Funneled money into a shell company to fund who knows what kind of twisted schemes, all the while planning to hide his actions by replacing it with the new money coming in from S.B. 1437,” Gretel said. “Stone is going to lawyer up, of course,and he’ll probably argue that he deserves whatever funding he steals for his anti-empathy work. But the other shareholders are pretty pissed, so it’s going to be a battle of money versus money. I hope they bury him.” Her gaze was still on Alex. “I read that there were more empaths at Lumen Field. What happened?”
“Stone Solutions got them.” Alex’s glasses were already spotting with raindrops again. “They’re going to be locked up, and I don’t know where.” He tried to shrug again, like that didn’t tear at him. “Wherever they go, it won’t be safe. We’re always going to be a target.”
“I guess you are.” There was real sympathy in Gretel’s voice. “But maybe empaths can find empathy in others, too.”
At the curb, another car honked twice as it was forced to make the wide turn. Alex rubbed at his dripping hair, scattering droplets. “Maybe the pacifist empaths still can,” he said. “But that’s not me anymore. Didn’t Vivian Marist tell you we’re dangerous?”
“She did.” Gretel leaned closer. “But Charles Stone murdered my parents, just like you lost yours. You’re not the same person you used to be because of it—and I’m not the same person I was before either.”
Oh.
There was a new clicking sound as the Beamer’s locks disengaged. Gretel nodded at the passenger door, the tiniest smile playing on her lips. “So are you getting in or what?”
Alex huffed, almost a laugh, his mouth also curving in a hint of a real smile for the first time in what felt like years. And then he was ducking out of the rain and into a heated passenger seat as warm as a Texas evening while the BMW pulled away from the curb and onto the road.
The afternoon had darkened and given way to a wet evening around Lumen Field. Reece sat alone on the curb in front ofthe stadium, gaze fixed on the hands clenched tightly together in his lap. The football players had left, all of them confused at their sudden rampage but none thralled or suffering any lasting harm. Several people in Stone Solutions uniforms were still milling nearby, but so far no one had put cuffs on Reece.
Amnesia, the man he now knew was Charles Stone had said.Amnesia would have to be an inevitable component of reversion, because how could the pacifist stand to know what was done under corruption? The empath would experience a full and instant breakdown.
Reece felt pretty damn close toa full and instant breakdownnow, knowing he’d been corrupted, thinking about what he might have done—
He forced his gaze up from his hands to Grayson, who was maybe thirty feet away and still talking to a very posh-looking blonde woman in a white puffy coat. He could only see Grayson’s back from this angle, but just the sight of that familiar figure helped Reece’s blood pressure return to something approximating normal.
Except normal blood pressure didn’t change the thoughts looping in Reece’s head. He’d been corrupted, and maybe he didn’t remember anything, but it was a good bet he’d done more than finally watch R-rated movies. Surely he deserved to be locked away wherever Stone Solutions wanted to put him? But if Reece was locked away, who was going to help Grayson navigate an onslaught of two years of buried emotion—
“Reece!”
“Jamey.”
