“Of course.” He captured her startled gaze when she jerked up her head, this girl who was as much daughter to him as Marlee. “Any Psy with a high-Gradient ability has to do the same—you know Judd is always aware of the exact level of his telekinetic strength.” The act was no longer a conscious one for his brother, but a near-autonomic response. “It negates the risk that he’ll cause an inadvertent injury.

“A Ps-Psy,” he continued, seeing he had her attention, “has to learn to block his psychometry on a day-to-day basis to ensure he doesn’t drown under the influx of other people’s memories and emotions.” Ps-Psy had diverse specialties within their designation, but the foundation of their power was the ability to pick up “memory echoes” left on physical objects, from a doorknob to a button.

He switched from verbal to mental speech for his next example. A telepath maintains a shield against extraneous “noise” every instant of his or her existence—you learned to do it as a child.

Sienna blew out a breath, her eyes no longer solid black. “That makes it sound so…normal.” When her X ability had never been in any way normal. “I’ll have to maintain a conscious watch until my mind learns to do so automatically.”

“It already is automatic.” The cold fire had branded her from the day the X marker first went active, becoming the central fact of her existence. “What you need to learn is how to push that awareness into the background, so it doesn’t dominate your thoughts except when necessary.” She deserved a life free of fear, and he would do everything in his power to make certain she reached for it.

Never again did he want to see the girl he’d seen after her mother, Kristine’s death. Sienna had been taken for “training” by Councilor Ming LeBon at age five and allowed no familial contact except for limited time with her mother. After his sister’s suicide, the only way Walker had been able to get in to see Sienna had been by using the most cold-blooded and mercenary of rationales—that the young girl was genetically a Lauren and her abilities belonged to the family unit. As the executor of Kristine’s estate, which included her genetic legacy, Walker had rights of access.

For Ming to deny his claim would’ve breached laws that lay at the bedrock of Psy society. And at that point, the Councilor had still worn his mask of civility; Walker had been granted permission to meet with Sienna, albeit under tightly controlled circumstances, but the girl who attended their first meeting was a twisted shadow of the vibrant, mischievous infant he remembered.

Her gaze had been cold, flat, her voice toneless…without hope.