Page 24 of Silver Elite

“If you have my file, then you should have all my mentalist reports, too.”

Jim was smart. First thing he did when we left the Blacklands and resettled in Ward Z was send me for a children’s mental health assessment. I was an accomplished liar then, too.

“She concluded that whatever trauma I experienced as a kid caused memory loss,” I go on. “Nobody knows exactly what happened to my parents, but they may have died in an Aberrant attack. I guess there’d been some ambushes in the area where Jim found me wandering.”

“Right.” Ford chuckles. “This benevolent nomad who found you on the side of the road, took you under his wing, and adopted you as his own. How nice of him.”

“It’s a really fucking depressing world you live in if you think people can’t help others. Is it so hard to believe someone might just be a good person?”

“Julian Ash was not a good person.”

“Stop calling him that,” I snap, and then glimpse the hint of a shift in Struck’s expression. She’s starting to believe me.

I haven’t won Ford over yet. As for the man at the door, I have no idea where he stands on any of this.

“Jim is a good person,” I insist. “I’ve lived with him since I was eight years old. That’stwelveyears. Trust me, if he was an Aberrant super soldier, I would have known about it. He would have slipped up at some point.”

“You did know about it,” Ford says. “Because you’re lying to us right now.”

“I’m not lying. I live on a ranch. Jim is a rancher.Wasa rancher.”

A lump forms in my throat. I don’t even have to fake this part. The memory of his bullet-ridden body crumpling to the wooden platform is like a knife directly to the heart.

“Ranchers, huh?” Ford leans back in his chair again. “How many head of cattle?”

“Two hundred.” I frown, pretending not to understand why he’s asking.

“What kind?”

“Cows. Some heifers. You should know,” I can’t help but jeer. “Our cattle feed you and your army.”

Struck speaks again. “You know, I’ve never been on a ranch. Why don’t you tell us about the ranching life?”

Ford nods, looking amused. “Yes, sweetling. Enlighten us. Describe a day in the life of a rancher.”

I stare at them. “Seriously? You guys think I’ve been pretend-ranching my entire life? Why don’t you come talk to me after you’ve had your entire arm up a cow during calving season, keen?”

“Describe your day.” Ford is unfazed by my sarcasm.

With feigned annoyance, I go along with their request. For the next hour, it’s a barrage of questions from the relentless duo, and not a single word from the dark-haired man. My eyes flit toward him more than once. Assessing. Sometimes admiring. His short-sleeved version of the Command uniform means I can see tattoos swirling out of his sleeves, winding around his biceps and forearms. I can’t make out what they are.

When Struck brings up the incitement incident again, I force myself to focus.

“Do you see what I’m wearing?” I gesture to myself. I’m in a tank top. “If I was standing in the crowd, somehow inside the heads of eight people and forcing them to do whatever the hell they were doing, someone would have seen me doing it. The Aberrant glow when they do their psychic stuff.” I play as dumb as I can, choosing words a lowly Prime villager would use.

“Why did you run then?” Struck asks, slanting her head. “Why were you spotted trying to flee the scene of—”

“Because you just killed my uncle!”

I take a breath and pretend to calm myself down.

Really, I’m steady as can be. Not rattled in the slightest. I feel grief, yes. Concern, perhaps, about how long they’ll hold me here. But I know eventually they’ll release me back to my ward. I’ve done nothing wrong. Not to them, anyway.

The only crime I committed is not being able to save Jim’s life.

That’ll be something I punish myself for until my dying breath.

“I’m sorry.” I exhale again. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. But I didn’tdoanything. All I know is that I was enjoying myself at my village’s Liberty Day celebration a couple of nights ago”—I spare a glance at the silent soldier—“and the next morning, the Command came and took my uncle away. Do you honestly think I was just going to stay in Z? Of course not. You took my uncle.Of courseI came here to get him back.”

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