Fear spiked, but the psychic grip only pressed closer, making her breathing thin with panic.
In this strange moment on a crowded, overfull bus, she acknowledged a truth she’d ignored up until now.
The killer wasn’t just strong; he was familiar. Beneath the suffocating intimacy came the worst realization of all: he felt like her—the same kind of power, just shaped differently. Audrey recoiled inside herself, terrified not just of what he could do, but of what that familiarity might mean.
He killed your family, she thought, appalled.
But there was no time to dwell on such disturbing thoughts. His aura pressed further. It probed at her consciousness. He tested for a way in, tried to go deeper into the parts she kept buried. He crawled through the unseen corridors of her mind, exposing every secret, weighing her with an intimacy that felt like suffocation rather than comfort. Questions clawed at her: what did he want, what could he see, could he change her in some way?
Her muscles seized, every nerve rigid under an icy psychic grip. Only Cary had managed such an invasion, and with her, it was always a delicate whisper. This was a brute force intrusion, a violation that lit every instinct on fire. Audrey shoved back with everything she had, psychic energy flaring, her aura expanding and colliding with his as she resisted.
A growl reverberated through her skull, foreign and feral and threaded with surprise. He hadn’t expected her to push back, and violence radiated from him.
Then—impact.
He threw her out—abruptly, ruthlessly. The psychic connection severed with a yank, so fierce it felt like a hot wire snapping free inside her head. Pain erupted behind her eyes, then her skull hit the seat in front of her. Numb and dazed, she slumped backward.
With the connection gone, the noise returned in a rush. It was loud, merciless, and she couldn’t escape. Her breath tore from her throat.
Every minute in this steel-moving cage was a liability.
They finally slowed near a vast downtown station of gleaming metal and glass. Skyscrapers blotted out the gray sky. People swarmed below while trains roared. Audrey stood on shaking legs. She needed off the bus—not because of the police or the cameras, but because she was being maneuvered.
Moving with the line of passengers toward the exit, sweat dampened the back of her neck. Her shield was ragged, but she kept working at it, forcing the noise down, layer by layer.
The bus was almost empty by the time she stumbled off.
Brisk air slapped her face. Noise—announcements, footsteps, engines, squeaks—assaulted her. Tense, Audrey reached out, searching for that impossible frequency.
But she found nothing. Just ordinary people living ordinary lives.
He was gone.
Frustration scorched through her limbs.
The bus freeze replayed in her mind. The woman had stopped because Audrey had told her to. If she could do it on purpose again, then maybe she wasn’t losing her sanity.
She studied the crowd for someone normal, someone safe.
A man near the ticket kiosk argued with a clerk, irritation buzzing off him in bright, harmless bursts. His mind hung open in the careless way most people’s did. Audrey knew right away that he was late for work and was blaming everyone else.
Narrowing her focus, she pushed, intentionally repeating what she’d just done on the bus.
Stop.
The man froze mid-sentence, mouth parted, fingers suspended in the air. Power slid into place inside her. It felt subtle and nothing like the chaotic noise she usually fought. Fear slithered inside her, too, because this wasn’t just listening to a mind anymore.
It was controlling a mind.
His thoughts fluttered in mounting confusion beneath her grip. With awful clarity, Audrey understood how easy it would be to redirect them. She could make him apologize, leave, or even kneel.
The realization opened inside her like a dark flower.
He is mine.
There was a sinister appeal to bending the world rather than bowing to it. She liked it and held the man there a few seconds longer than she should have. The power felt natural, which frightened her more than the killer had.
What am I doing?
