An old newspaper clipping, dulled to faint yellow, had been shoved between page two and three, detailing the horrifying events without a trace of the heavy emotion involved.

The house had burned. It’d started in an upstairs bedroom, spreading downstairs and engulfing the entire home. There had been only one survivorHayden.

I wiped under my eyes with the back of my hand and started to close the file. But toward the end of the page, I stopped. The times Hayden struggled for control flashed before me. The day Kurt had pushed me, and when I’d found the car in my locker and the trashcan had exploded. The times we’d argued and I smelled the distinct odor of smokelike the smell of ozone burningnot fire. Had that been one of the reasons he’d backed off from me? Maybe it hadn’t just been my suspicions. Maybe he feared losing control again because of me, like both Parker and Kurt had warned me.

I swallowed past the lump in my throat and closed the file. Sorrow burned through me. I couldn’t even begin to understand what he’d gone throughwas still going through. My heart felt like it would rip open. The guilt I carried with me over Dustin’s death was nothing compared to what he must feel.

After reading about Hayden, I didn’t care what Cromwell thought about me or the Assimilation program. If anything, it gave me more reason to figure out a way to control whatever it was I had. I’d always thought I had it badthat what’d happened to me was the worst thing ever. Now I knew that wasn’t the case.

God, I felt like a douche.

Leaning forward, I put Hayden’s file back and started to close the drawer when I saw another file labeled only with initials: “J. G.” I pulled it out and flipped it open. There was a picture of a girl about my age, but the photo looked old and grainy.

Whoever she was, she’d been a pretty girl with long brown hair and glasses resting on the tip of her nose, but the photo also captured an intense, frightened look in her eyes. Now even more curious, I shuffled through the file, stopping on a paper with notes written in Cromwell’s hand. Most of it, like the chick’s full name and any info that would reveal her identity, had been blacked out like in the other file. There was still enough left for me to read, and what I learned shocked and confused the hell out of me.

Cromwell had really, really lied to me.

This girl had been a part of the Assimilation program, which had turned out to be a complete failure. She’d been unable to control her gift and had committed suicide at the Facility.

She’d only been sixteen, and she’d been able to kill with a touch.