Page 21 of Silver Elite

All eight rifles are pointed at the floor now.

I realize they can hear me. They canhearme. I feel a familiar surge, like my mind is suddenly alive, exploding with energy. It’s the same way I felt the first time I was able to incite Jim in the Blacklands.

That day, I was so startled that I broke the link.

It won’t happen today. I’m not going to stop. I’m not going to scare myself into stopping.

A sense of calm washes over me as I stare at the eight people who want to murder my uncle.

Raise your guns to your head,I tell them.Do it.

I watch their faces. Their features are frozen masks of confusion and fright. Good, let them feel what I’m feeling.

Raise your guns to your head.

I suck in a breath as a wave of dizziness suddenly overcomes me. I sway slightly. It’s taking a lot of mental energy to do this, more than I’m accustomed to.

I notice Jim’s head turn sharply toward the crowd, seeking me out. I see a glint of silver as his veins begin to flow. I suspect he’s trying tocontact me, but there’s no room in my head because I’ve got eight open paths as I struggle to incite the command.

Raise your guns to your head. Raise your guns to your head.

My body feels the toll of incitement, sweat beading across my forehead, my limbs beginning to grow weak. This hadn’t happened with Jim, this fatigue. But it’s working. They’re doing it. The barrels of their rifles are moving. Slowly. Inch by inch.

“What are you doing?” the colonel shouts at his squad.

The stocky man, the one who seemed downright giddy at the prospect of killing somebody, now helplessly fights my command. Fights his own hands as they slowly twist the rifle around. Sweat drips down his face.

Press the barrel to your forehead. Do it now.

“I can’t stop this,” he gasps out. “Someone else is controlling me!”

Screams and gasps rip through the crowd. The entire squad is now pointing their weapons to their foreheads.

I can scarcely breathe. It’s taking every ounce of concentration to introduce the final command.

Pull the trigger, pull the trigger, pull the trigger—

My lungs seize, no oxygen able to get in. It’s too difficult. Fireworks explode in my brain. Strange flecks, like gold dust, swirl in my field of vision. I blink, trying to clear them. The lightheadedness is getting worse. I don’t know how to control this. I can barely incite one mind, let alone eight, and panic bubbles inside me again because I know I’m losing my grip. It’s as if I’m in the creek at the ranch, reaching for the rocks that are wet and slimy with moss, trying to climb out of the water and constantly sliding back in. It’s too slippery. I’m trying to find my grip, trying to hold it, trying to—

Pull the trigger, pull the trigger—

My control breaks.

The guns slap forward like an elastic band snapping apart. One, two, three, eight. All of them swing at Jim, and my last command—pull the trigger—is all they know.

They fire.

Cries mingle with the sound of gunfire. I almost collapse as bullets pierce into Jim’s chest, sending him flying backward. Even as he falls,his shirt stained red, he twists his head toward me. For one heart-stopping second, his eyes lock with mine and I hear him in my head.

“Goodbye, little bird.”

He’s dead by the time he hits the ground. The link is abruptly gone. He’s not in my head anymore. I can’t feel his energy. I can’t feel anything. For a moment I stand there, utterly numb. The crowd is still in an uproar. Some scream with excitement. Others in horror because they’re able to comprehend what they just witnessed.

“Inciter,” I hear someone hiss.

I don’t know if it’s directed at me, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t draw any suspicion.

Incitement is punishable by death. Not just that, but it’s the only high crime in the Continent where the perpetrator doesn’t get to plead their case to the Tribunal. Which is a big hellfucking deal. Even an assassination attempt on the General lands you a hearing with the Tribunal.

---