He reached for his coat and withdrew his pocket flashlight. Turning so his back blocked his actions, he picked up Ms. Pelletier’s right hand again and flicked on the blue light. It lit up like Christmas: UV marker on the back of her hand. A loop like a messy, lowercase “L” that looked like it had been hastily hand-drawn.
Keeping his back to the room to block the resident’s view, Grayson snapped a couple pictures. It was the kind of thing clubs or events might do, to mark people who were old enough to drink, or who’d already paid and could reenter. He might be able to find the club that marked hands like this.
But Ms. Pelletier would have had to take off her gloves to get this mark, and an empath going without gloves was illegal—illegal in Canada too. An empath wouldn’t do it.
Another memory of Reece came to mind, this time the security footage of him walking bare-handed into Stone Solutions.
Well. Most empaths wouldn’t do it.
Reece skipped his new building’s elevator, bypassing the little lobby on the fourth floor and heading toward the end of the hall instead. He didn’t want to be in a closed-in metal box with other people, didn’t want to meet the eyes of the lobby’s doormen. The fire stairs were a better exit; they didn’t use electricity, they led to the ground floor of the parking garage, and best of all, they were empty.
He made his way to his car and a few minutes later, he was driving south on I-5 without a real destination, one thought overriding everything else.
He’dchanged Jamey.Hewas the reason she was the way she was.
Eventually he took an exit, heading west as he wound his way through some of the towns that scrunched together to fill the corridor between Seattle and Tacoma. The direction was reflex as much as anything else; maybe it was because he’d been raised near the ocean, but when the world stopped making sense, his instincts led him to the water, to watch the endless waves and let them carry the weight of his thoughts.
He ended up at a small park along the sound, where the shore stretched beyond sight in both directions. The tide was out, leaving behind glistening gray rocks under a lighter gray sky. He followed it, leaving the car behind to walk down to the beach, hands stuck deep in the pockets of Grayson’s hoodie. He was mostly alone; just a bird-watcher with binoculars and two sets of parents investigating the tide pools with their toddlers.
He sat down on a mostly dry rock, watching the families for a moment. Jamey had a picture of them on the beach that their mom had taken twenty years ago, when they were six and twelve. Back then, he used to talk to everyone he saw, learning the complexities of emotions the way other kids learned colors; purple was made from red and blue, like hurt might be made of betrayal and loneliness.
Reece would wander too far, and inevitably either tire himself out or piss someone off, and Jamey would show up and rescue him. The picture was of one of the countless piggyback rides she used to give him, because she’d already been as strong as an adult at that point. And that was his fault—he’d been changing her, morphing her into the perfect protector. Had she even wanted to rescue him? Or had he given her no choice, fucked up her instincts along with her strength and senses?
He wanted to believe he would never. But corruption had turned Cora into a killer, and he already knew it was inside him too.
He’d been about to tell Jamey about the emails, but how could he? For fuck’s sake, she’d become a detective so she could protect other people as her job. Had he made her want that? How could he ask her to rescue him yet again when the only reason she might want to was because he’d changed her?
How could he ever ask Grayson for help when Grayson’s brother had done the same thing to him?
He glanced down at the hoodie he was wearing. The one he wore because it made him feel better. That maybe Grayson had only shared with him because his empath brother had made him want to protect empaths.
Reece tightened his jaw and looked out at the ocean. Maybe AMI and Stone Solutions were right. Maybe empaths were too dangerous. Abominations that shouldn’t even exist.
Maybe it was pointless to fight the corruption. Why resist so hard if he’d been evil since he was a kid? He could let go, just let it take over—
His phone pinged.
Reece blinked, his thoughts slipping away like the tide rolling out, and picked up the phone.
Grayson: You ever go to clubs?
Reece blinked at the text.
Reece: Why? You planning an outing for us that doesn’t involve handcuffs?
Grayson: When I get sass instead of answers?
Grayson: No.
Reece cracked a smile.
Reece: I’ve gone. Very occasionally.
Grayson: If the club wants to stamp your hand, what do you do?
Reece: I just have them stamp high up on my arm instead. Obviously empaths don’t take the gloves off in public.
Grayson: Obviously. Except for that one time when you did. And it made the news.
