“And you considered the possible repercussions worth the risk of

disregarding one of the few rules you agreed to when you signed up for this team?”

Oh shit! Something more serious was at play here, and I started to worry for Kayden. Hell, I started to worry for me. Maybe I should have asked him a few

more questions, but it was a little hard to ask the right ones, if you don’t know

what you’re doing in the first place.

He held her gaze without flinching. “I did, yes.”

Breaking their silent staring contest wasn’t something I really wanted to do,

but I waded in bravely. “What kind of repercussions are we talking about here?”

For a few heartbeats, Delacourt continued to watch Kayden. Then she turned

all that disconcerting regard to me. “When two sympathetic abilities, such as a Tracker and a Watcher—”

“Watcher?”

“Someone who views the past or present, but can’t actively change it,” Tag,

the ever helpful, clarified.

Delacourt nodded. “When similar talents combine their energies, strange

changes take place.”

“Define strange,” I prompted.

“When discussing psychic abilities, it depends on the individuals involved.

Combining two talents has three outcomes.” She began to tick them off with her

fingers. “One, one ability will cancel out the other. Two, one ability will become dominant, or three, the two will combine into something unique to the pairing.”

“There’s a fourth,” Kayden added.

For a moment, something peeked from behind her controlled expression, but

I didn’t know her well enough to understand it. She turned back to him. “Yes, there is, but it comes only if you merge two talents continually over an extended

period of time. Unless there’s something neither of you shared, I think we can consider that off the table.”

What the hell were they talking about?

Before I could ask, Delacourt continued, “What were your results?”

When Kayden played statue, I answered. “All it did was amp things up.” Her

attention swung back to me, so I fumbled along. “For both of us.”

Since Kayden didn’t refute my statement, I kept going. “The first time,

before Kayden came crashing in, I couldn’t hear a thing.” I managed the small

white lie as memories rose to replay in vivid detail. “The images…memories,”—

the same memories making it so hard to get through this now— “they had no soundtrack until he joined in.” Hidden by the edge of the table, my hands curled

into fists. Suck it up, Cyn. “Plus, I couldn’t make out Ellery’s face either, thanks to some strange staticky mask. When we combined our talents, the mask cleared

enough to confirm Ellery’s identity.”

“The energy signatures were stronger,” Kayden finally spoke. “I think that’s

why I caught a glimpse of Ramirez’s face.”

“And you don’t think that could be attributed to the situation you two were

viewing?” Delacourt asked. “According to our phone conversation, Shaw, Arden

watched her sister being killed. You don’t think that might have more bearing on

the intensity of what you two saw than combining your talents?”

The stark words triggered a sucker punch of grief. While I did my best to relearn how to breathe, Kayden put a warm hand on my shoulder in an

unexpected show of support, before answering Delacourt. “What happened

didn’t change. The first time through, Cyn had no audio, and her visual was limited. When we linked up, not only did she get more information, but so did

I.”

Still stinging from the colonel’s unintentional hit, I didn’t mask the cutting edge in my voice. “Which means between the two of us, we got a positive ID, a

soundtrack, and a possible lead. So, yeah, I’d have to agree with Kayden, it was

worth it.”

She studied both of us, and whatever thoughts spun in her head were

indecipherable to us mere mortals. Finally, she said, “Perhaps repeat

performances should be avoided.”

It came across as an order, not a question. I didn’t dare look at Kayden as he