Free In the Air Tonight by Stephanie Tyler Page B

Internet.”
    “You’ve dealt with this a lot.”
    “I’ve tried to learn about what I have. Wanted to find ways around it, ways to deal with it. Wondered if there were other people out there like me.”
    “And there are.”
    “Yes.”
    She’d met another psychic or two in her life, mostly when she would try to find ways to shut her own gift off or get rid of it. It was only then she realized that she was truly lucky. Some of the people she’d spoken to could never turn it off—they didn’t like to go out in public and they were plagued by other people’s feelings—or spirits—all the time.
    She could just wear gloves.
    “Still, that must make it tough to touch … everything,” Mace was saying.
    “It’s not bad unless the object has a history,” she said. “I can pick up a box of cookies from a grocery store shelf and it’s not a big deal. But if it’s something like a gun used in a crime, maybe.”
    Mace seemed relieved at that—but no less than she was. Her ability could be a nightmare—if she were able to pick up feelings from every inanimate object she touched, she was pretty sure she’d go insane.
    Technically, insane was what he brother
wasn’t
. He’d been born without a conscience, the same way she’d been born with her gift. He had been formally diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder by the court-ordered psychiatrist.
    But she hadn’t needed the gift to feel the evil inside of Jeffrey. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name.
    It’s not your fault no one listened
.
    She told herself that a lot. It would help if she could truly believe it.
    “You picked a tough line of work,” he said. “Although I get it. You wanted to save people because you couldn’t on that day.”
    He made it sound so simple—and he was so completely right. “Most days, knowing I can save someone helps a lot.”
    Most days, she convinced herself it was enough. It was at night when the doubt reached in, took her by the throat and told her that it would never be enough. She could atone for a lifetime and she wouldn’t make up for the carnage.
    Gray—protective, fun, handsome Gray—was so very young to be dead and buried. The ultimate truth was that people close to her died violently—some, like her mother, by their own hands. Staying away from people, preventing intimacy, was something she always did now.
    Sure, the touch thing was a big barrier. It was also a wonderful excuse.
    “Were you with Gray when he died?” she asked, and watched Mace’s face blanch.
    “I lost my best friend, the guy I trusted most in this goddamned world. Don’t try to play me with guilt, all right?”
    She’d been doing just that—she would stop at nothing to learn the truth. Whether or not it would alienate the man helping her was something she couldn’t worry about now.
    All she knew was that while Mace had healed physically after what happened to him, he was nowhere near healed emotionally.
    Murder. Fear. Danger. All of it radiated from him … and from her as well.
    He emptied the last box and threw it toward the back door, into the pile of the other empty ones, raked a hand through his hair. “About the thing with Caleb. Look, I want him to remember. Need him to. But when he does, nothing will ever be the same.”
    “It never is,” she said quietly.

CHAPTER

5
     
    C aleb brought in a late lunch from a local restaurant, laid out the round foil trays and some plates and utensils.
    “Dig in,” he told her. “You must be starving.”
    He obviously was and her stomach began to growl from the smells wafting from the food. It looked good and fresh and she made herself a plate and sat at a table near the bar where Cael had parked himself.
    She looked around as she ate slowly and watched Mace working behind the bar. He had finished in the storeroom and gone straight to work, not stopping to eat like her and Cael. It felt … normal and comfortable. Safe, despite the fact that Mace was still not