Page 11 of Silver Elite

“I made your parents a promise not to let you die. It’s not the same situation.”

“Maybe I promised Rachel not to letherson die. I mean, it was a promise made three seconds after the hybrid came, but I still fulfilled it.”

“I don’t want you dra—”

“—drawing attention to myself,” I finish, grumbling under my breath. “Yes. I get it. But I’m an adult and I know how to handle myself. In case you’ve forgotten, I work for the network.”

He gives a cynical chuckle. “You don’t work for them. You’ve run a few minor ops with them. That means nothing.”

I open my mouth indignantly, but he cuts me off.

“You’ve never been in combat. Never had to try to survive in the city.”

“I survived in much worse,” I argue.

“No, you haven’t. It’s a pit of vipers down there. You can’t lower your guard in the Point. Ever.”

“I have an edge,” I remind him, trying not to appear too smug as I hold out my bare arms. I switch over to telepathy to prove my point.“See? Nothing happening in my veins. I can operate in the city without detection.”

“Sure, kid. Until you accidentally incite. And then how do you talk your way out of that, huh?”

The reminder has me reaching down to rub my hip. A reflexive response. It doesn’t escape me that the burn exists in the first place because of this man. My guardian. The person who is supposed to protect me.

Itreallyhurt. I still remember the smell of burning flesh. It was for my own good, I recognize that now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t hate him a little bit for doing that to me.

“Stop being dramatic. I haven’t incited in years,” I grumble.

Yet he’s not wrong. When it does happen, it’s often unexpectedly. Over the years, we trained hard to try to control it, but always to no avail. I can’t even sayhowI incite. The first time I incited Jim, I was seven years old. By then, we’d been practicing for hours, days, months, in our clearing. Every morning, we sat facing each other, his knife beside him on the grass, while he ordered me to open a path, push my way into his mind, and command him to pick up the knife. Pick up the knife and cut a line in his palm.

“Say it again, Wren,” he’d ordered that morning.

So I did. Over and over again in my mind.Pick up the knife, pick up the knife.Yet his hand didn’t move.

Eventually, I started whining. “I don’t wanna do it anymore. Please.”

“You have to. You need to be able to control this power.”

“Butwhy.”

“Because they’ll kill you if they know you have it.” Jim had never minced his words, not even around scared little girls. “Try saying it out loud,” he advised. “I heard that helps sometimes.”

Dutifully, I used my voice. “Pick up the knife, pick up the knife…”

Over and over and over again. I grew so frustrated and furious with all the pointless practicing, my brain humming louder and louder, until finally a surge of energy coursed through me and—

He picked up the knife and sliced a line through the center of his palm. I was so frightened I ran into our hut and didn’t leave it for hours.

“Are you still planning on going to Ward T sometime this week?”I ask, changing the subject. I’m tired of the lecture. I receive at least one Jim lecture a day, and we already filled the quota this morning when he chastised me for forgetting to muck Kelley’s stall.

“Likely the day after tomorrow. Let me know if you want me to pick anything up when I’m there.”

“I will, thanks. And don’t you dare leave without saying goodbye.”

“Never,” he says gruffly, and any irritation I feel about his lectures melts away.

When I was ten, he disappeared for a week on a mission with the Uprising. Just up and left without a word. He sent Tana’s dad to the ranch to stay with me, then returned days later and was utterly clueless as to why I couldpossiblybe upset with him. After enduring my silent treatment for a full day, he promised to never leave again without bidding me goodbye first.

Jim is a hard man, but I know he loves me. I’m sure this wasn’t the life he’d envisioned for himself. Fifteen years ago, he went from a thirty-year-old Command colonel to a hunted deserter, in charge of a five-year-old with whose safety he’d been entrusted. He was forced to leave everything behind. His career, his home, his friends. But he did it. For my parents. For me.

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