Page 56 of Silver Elite

If they discover what I can do, they’ll kill me. And I have absolutely no control over whether they find out. Stir up my emotions violently enough, and I might incite without warning. Reveal myself against my own will. Or worse…unintentionally hurt someone I care about. Maybe even kill them.

When I feel Wolf trying to link, I cling to that thread of energy like I’m drowning and it’s a life preserver. Anything to derail the train of thought I’ve been careening toward.

“Hey, Daisy.”His weariness engulfs my senses.

“Well, shit. You sound as done as I feel.”

“I am. So fucking done.”He sighs.“It’s been a long day.”

“Everything keen?”

“For the most part. What are you doing right now?”

“Thinking.”I settle onto my back and rest my head against my pillow.“Remembering.”

“Hmm. What are we remembering?”

“How I almost killed my father that one time.”

His answering laugh holds a wry note.“Ah. I remember that. When you were thirteen? Fourteen?”

“Fourteen,”I confirm.

“You realize you didn’t do it on purpose, right?”

He’s not wrong—it was entirely accidental. He just happens to be missing about, oh, all the context.

I adore Wolf, but what I share with him will always be partially redacted. He doesn’t know that the father I often refer to is Jim, who wasn’t even blood-related to me.

He doesn’t know I possess more than the power of telepathy.

And he certainly doesn’t know that the night Jim’s truck flew off the road and rolled half a dozen times before coming to a stop in a heap of crushed metal…it happened because I incited Jim to do it.

“Of course I realize it,”I answer.

“The roads were wet. You hit the gas too hard and skidded off the shoulder.”

There wasn’t a drop of rain that night. And I wasn’t in the driver’s seat.

“It was an accident,”Wolf says.

It was a moment of raw, immature rage.

Uncle Jim had dragged me out of the town square where Tana and I had been sharing some pints of ale with a few Hamlett boys. Much older boys. He humiliated me in front of my friends. Hauled me over his shoulder and threw me into the passenger side of the truck while I cursed and shouted at him. He ignored my protests and started driving home. Didn’t even look at me as I growled for him to turn the truck around and take me back to my friends.

We were halfway to the ranch when my frustration spilled over. When I yelled out the angry command. “Turn the truck aroundnow!”

And he did. Giving the steering wheel a tug so sharp and abrupt that our truck flipped itself over.

“I’m aware of all this,”I tell Wolf.“But that doesn’t negate how terrifying it was. We were lucky to be alive.”

Jim was lucky to be alive.

I always wondered if he’d have preferred I died that night. I know he loved me, but…I was a burden to him. I know I was.

I press my lips together to suppress a sob and distract myself by lobbing an accusation at Wolf.

“Somehow you always turn conversations around to make them about me. Tell me why you sound so exhausted tonight.”

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