Chapter 1

I was a fool for love.

In year three of the apocalypse, I leaned on how good Evan Stone was to me and checked up on him, clung to him, and managed every corner of his life, right down to the color of his shirts.

Then my ability leveled up, and for the first time, I heard what he was thinking.

He was thinking, 'Annoying.'

I spent three days checking and rechecking. Every thought he had about me came out the same.

He thought I was annoying.

My name was Claire Sutton, and my ability was reading minds.

That ability was what kept me alive through the third year of the apocalypse.

It did more than keep me alive. It got me into the toughest stronghold in the Wastelands and made me one of the core members of the Haven.

I knew who was hoarding food and who was planning to run, and I knew which people said they were fine while a mutant beast bite went bad under their sleeve.

Evan was the one exception.

Evan was the commander of the Haven and an Elite-Class awakened, and the wall around his mind was strong enough that my ability couldn't get through it.

He was twenty-eight and six foot two, with a face that looked cut out of stone, and out of the three hundred people in the Haven, not one could hold his stare for three seconds.

I was the only one who could.

I did more than hold his stare. I chased him across the whole Haven, trying to kiss him.

"Evan, are you happy today? Give me a kiss and then tell me.

"Evan, what time are you back from the mission? If it runs over six hours, I'm coming after you.

"Evan, take that black shirt off and put on the light gray one I set out for you."

Evan never answered.

After about the twelfth time I asked, he would set his own ration bar down in front of me and walk away.

He wouldn't even give me an okay.

But I didn't care.

I was sure he liked me.

Why was I so sure? Because he was good to me.

Then my ability leveled up.

My range doubled, and so did how deep I could reach.

The change that mattered was that I could finally get through an Elite-Class barrier.

A crack had opened in the wall.

I finally heard what Evan was thinking.

It was one word.

'Annoying.'

I froze for two seconds.

I tried again and got two words.

'Useless.'

I tried again and got two more.

'Too loud.'

That was all of it, clean and clipped, exactly like the man himself. He couldn't be bothered to spend a whole sentence on disliking me.

I didn't believe it.

I told myself I'd heard it wrong.

Something had to be wrong. He said I was annoying out loud, but he couldn't mean it, could he? People did that all the time. They said they hated a thing when underneath they actually love it.

No.

I spent three days making sure.

Every time I got close to him, the same fragments came through.

'Annoying.

'Useless.

'Too loud.'

Three days and more than a hundred checks.

He called me annoying out loud and in his head.

What he showed was what he was.

There wasn't a sliver of daylight in between.

I used to think he said one thing and felt another.

Now I knew the truth.

He meant exactly what he said.

I curled up in bed that night and turned it over until morning.

Evan was good to me, and I wasn't the only one who said so. The whole Haven knew.

The best supplies always came to me, and he put me in the safest spot on every mission.

A mutant beast raked my arm once while I was scouting the perimeter, and his hands were shaking when he reached me. An Elite-Class awakened, and his hands were shaking.

That was the day I worked up the nerve to stand in front of him. "Evan, I like you."

He was quiet for five seconds.

Then he gave me one word. "Mm."

I was out of my mind with happiness. It meant yes, didn't it?

From that day on, I was the commander's girlfriend.

I checked up on him and hung on to him. I picked his clothes, counted the men he took on missions, and tracked whether he drank enough water. I ran every last detail of his life.

There was one thing I kept pretending not to notice.

He never once said he liked me, either.

Not even once.

It was fine, or that's what I told myself. He was bad with words, and underneath, he had to be crazy about me. He treated me the way he did, so what else could it be but love?

As for why I leaned on him that hard, the answer was simple.

Because, except for him, I had nobody.

Mind reading sounded powerful, and it was, but it cost me.

Out of three hundred people in the Haven, not one of them would be a real friend to me.

They were polite to my face. "Morning, Ms. Sutton." "Thanks for the work, Ms. Sutton." Underneath, every thought was on guard.

'Is she in my head right now?'

'Don't think about anything stupid while she's standing there.'

'Claire's coming. Drop it, drop it.'

Every room I walked into went quiet, and it wasn't respect. It was fear.

In three years, nobody told me a secret, nobody pulled me aside to whisper, and nobody knocked on my door at night to ask if I was okay.

I only had Evan.

With him, I was ordinary. I couldn't hear a thing, so I had to guess.

I guessed for almost three years, and the answer never changed. He liked me, and he couldn't say it.

He was cold out loud, and inside, he had to be saying, 'I like her so much.'

Right?

Wrong.

Once I heard him, I couldn't lie to myself anymore.

All of it, the best supplies, the safest spot on every mission, his hands shaking over a cut on my arm, came from my father.

His name was Richard Sutton.