Reece snorted. His gaze lingered on the nickname for a moment.DidGrayson call all empaths Care Bear? He had to, didn’t he? Why would Reece have anything that was special, that was just for him?
He set the phone down, taking a slow, deep breath. He rolled onto his side on the couch, eyeing his duffel full of clothes on the floor where Jamey had left it. After a moment, he bent down and unzipped the duffel. He didn’t have a ton of clothes, so it was easy to find what he wanted: an oversized University of Texas zip-up sweatshirt, still soft with newness. He pulled off his own raggedy hoodie and tossed it to the side and then slipped Grayson’s on over his T-shirt instead.
Jamey was right; an empath pining for the world’s most emotionally unavailable man would be the icing on Reece’s endless cake of bad decisions.
So it was a good thing Reece was smart enough to keep everything platonic. Grayson was afriend. Reece could platonically text Grayson while eating candy from Grayson’s platonic gift basket in the hoodie that he had borrowed from Grayson. Platonically.
No feelings involved. Totally fine.
CHAPTER THREE
Readers are always hungry for any kind of news about the Dead Man, and here atEyes on Empaths, we deliver like no one else!
WHAT WE KNOW: Agent Evan Miguel Grayson is from Texas. He’s TALL. And he’s HOT.
WHAT WE DON’T: How did he become the Dead Man anyway?
Rest assuredEyes on Empathsis always hunting for the story behind the Dead Man. WHO or WHAT could have transformed a tall, hot Southern gentleman into a shadow agent and defender of the world?
For in-depth coverage of my three-minute LIVE encounter with Agent Grayson, read November’s four-thousand-word feature story with its EXCLUSIVE photo. (Please give the page time to load; there are a lot of comments.)
—GRETEL MACY, BLOGGING FOREYES ON EMPATHS
Gretel sat inthe back row of the cavernous conference room on the ground floor of Stone Solutions, attention mostly on her phone as her dad addressed the full crowd of American Minds Intact members.
“We have been dealt the deepest of wounds,” Beau Macy was saying. Every chair was full, with spillover guests lounging against the walls. “Losing so many of our champions in barely more than a day.”
A notification lit Gretel’s phone screen; a new comment on the blog.
You write the best Dead Man stories!
A tiny smile curled on Gretel’s lips, disappearing as her gaze went back to her draft for the day’s blog post. Her dad’s monologuing made for pretty dry copy.
“An unthinkable tragedy,” said Beau. “A critical blow.”
She tilted her head back, gaze skimming the crowd. The new cop was here again, one Officer Stensby from the Seattle Police Department. He’d been coming to most of their meetings the past three weeks, since Senator Hathaway’s murder. He was usually with one of the regulars, a big, blond ex-military type who still wore camo everywhere, but tonight Stensby was alone.
“A grievous setback.” Beau leaned forward on the podium. “An almost insurmountable barrier.”
Nothing new to add to the post, and nothing but increasingly dramatic ways to saywe need to regroup. Not much here to interestEyes on Empathsreaders; they liked speculation and theories, going especially wild for anything about the Dead Man.
The most popular post of all time was, of course, the picture she’d taken of the Dead Man pinning a handcuffed empath, Reece Davies, over the hood of a Smart car outside of Senator Hathaway’s building. It was hard to see the Dead Man’s face, bent as he was over Reece. But it was still a hell of a shot.
And yes, a small but enthusiastic group of her readers thought the picture was hot. Which was not the point of the picture; the point was to show the Dead Man in action, righteously defending the world against the empath threat. But try telling that to the person who had written fanfiction and shared it in the comments.
“An effort to bury us—” Beau enunciated each word into the microphone “—the likes of which we’ve never seen before.”
To be fair, Gretel wasn’t sure what to make of Reece anymore. It was true that he’d thrown on a disguise, taken off his gloves, and snuck into Stone Solutions. She’d seen it with her own eyes.
But she’d also seen that he hadn’t fought back against the guards who’d caught him, even when they’d gotten rough. So yes, maybe he had dangerous powers, but the pacifism was real too.
“But even though we face unimaginable adversity...” Beau paused for effect. “AMI will not be defeated.”
A cheer rose up in the room, the audience breaking into applause around her.
Gretel sighed.
She sat through another thirty minutes of her dad’s speeches before the meeting finally adjourned. Gretel polished off her last sentence and posted the article toEyes on Empaths—she’d definitely written better, but this meeting didn’t deserve better anyway—then stood, smoothing her pencil skirt and picking up her bag.
