An entire classroom of people had seen her stagger into the hall and pass out. Teddy’s head throbbed. She was embarrassed. She tried to avoid Molly’s gaze and focused on the items mounted on the wall just to her right: hypodermic needle container, emergency call button, blood pressure cuff.
“I’m at the infirmary?”
“It was quite a fall,” Molly said, stepping closer.
“How bad was the seizure?” Teddy asked.
“Seizure?” Molly’s brows drew together. She came to a stop beside Teddy’s bed.
“I—” Teddy began, then she stopped, trying to remember. She recalled a pounding headache, the flashing lights, the dizzying disorientation—everything that indicated a seizure was imminent. “Tell me what happened.”
“We were practicing telepathy,” Molly said. “Things got . . . strange.” She shifted uncomfortably, as if unsure whether she should reveal the rest.
“We’re at a school for psychics; everything is strange,” Teddy said.
Molly let out a breath. “You didn’t just receive the thought I projected—you went into everyone’s heads. Just jumped right in. It’s kind of a faux pas among psychics, actually. They have a line about it in the Code of Ethics. You should have heard Liz Cook go on about it.”
“Am I in trouble?” Teddy asked. She immediately thought of Clint and his warnings, of Boyd and her obvious desire to see Teddy out of school for any minor infraction.
Molly looked confused. “Trouble? Are you kidding me? Everyone thought you were amazing—well, except Liz. Dunn said there’s a name for what you did. It’s called—”
“Astral telepathy. Clint told me when I took my exam,” Teddy said.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
Teddy shrugged. She’d done it only the one time. “I have no control over it, Molly. Part of me isn’t fully convinced I’m not epileptic.”
“Dunn said that wasn’t a seizure. It’s just what happens when you’re psychically overstimulated. Your body shuts down. Something like that used to happen to me, too.” Teddy thought she saw Molly shudder. “We all react to our abilities in different ways.”
Teddy stared at the ceiling as she tried to process what Molly had said. Even though Clint had told her the same thing months ago, she found it hard to let go of the past. Especially after what appeared to have been a seizure. For as long as she could remember, she had thought she was the victim of shitty brain chemistry and neurons that randomly and repeatedly misfired. Five-five, dark hair, pale blue eyes, epileptic.
Because for those few brief seconds, when she’d slammed through the mental barriers that separated her from her classmates, Teddy hadn’t felt like a victim. Instead, she’d felt completely in control. And even more than that—she had felt powerful. Well, until she’d passed out. So why had it taken her so long to believe that maybe something wasn’t wrong with her but right?
It was the same feeling she had when she was riding high at a poker table. When she knew that the player across the table was bluffing. When she could see the unseen. It wasn’t the risk she liked, it was the certainty. She shivered as the realization began to form in her mind that what she loved best about poker hadn’t made her a gambler at all but, at heart, a psychic.
Teddy blinked away tears. Her throat squeezed shut and her breath caught. She was too overwhelmed to hide her feelings anymore.
“I’m happy for you,” Molly said.
Teddy turned, stunned to see the tears she’d struggled to hold back also brimming in Molly’s eyes.
“Empath, remember?” Molly pointed to her temple. “I can feel what you’re feeling. Not that I want to. I don’t. I really, really don’t. I just can’t help it sometimes.”
“I feel . . .” Teddy struggled to catalog the emotions careening within her: anger, fear, joy, sadness, and something else, something more important than all the others. “Relief.”
“No kidding.” Molly gave a choked laugh. “So knock it off, all right?”
The two were quiet for a minute.
“Did I miss anything important in class after”—Teddy gestured to her head—“you know?”
“No, you pretty much caused a standstill. Especially after you discovered that Liz used steroids.”
“I said that out loud?” Teddy groaned. “I don’t remember doing that.” She tried to recall the information she had gleaned while inside her classmates’ minds, but it was fragments, too jumbled to make sense of.
“Remember any other juicy tidbits about the Alphas?” Molly winked.
Teddy tilted her head. As she looked at Molly, a memory came flooding back. Well, not a memory but a feeling. The last psychic impression, before contact had been broken, had been with Molly. Molly, upset—or had she been frightened? She definitely hadn’t wanted Teddy in her mind: that, Teddy was sure of. She remembered brushing up against a wall, like in Clint’s mind. Clint’s wall had been steel; Molly’s . . . was it sand?
Molly shifted in her seat. Teddy had to remind herself that Molly couldn’t read her thoughts, just her emotions. Teddy rubbed her forehead. “It’s kind of been a long day,” she said.
Molly looked tired, too. Teddy guessed her own emotional whirlwind had taken a toll on Molly. Teddy smiled, trying to change the subject. “I’ll let you know if anything comes to me later.”
Molly was about to say something when she was interrupted by a series of coughs at the door. Jeremy, deliberately trying to get their attention. “I thought I would bring Teddy notes from the Forensics class she missed,” he said. “I was looking for you, Molly, since you skipped, too.”
“I was going to find you later, but I wanted to check on Teddy first,” Molly said. They were turning into that couple—the kind who couldn’t be out of each other’s sight longer than ten minutes. Considering Molly’s empathic abilities, codependency seemed both annoying and unhealthy.
Teddy slid her legs off the bed. She was ready to get out of this place. “How’d I get
