Flashback ( PDFDrive )

She reached up, tugging on an itchy eyelash. That’s . . . different
Keefe guessed most of the story on his own, and I couldn’t deny it because
Empaths are annoyingly impossible to lie to.
Telepaths are supposed to be the same way. Especially your Cognate.
But I’m not lying to you. I’m just . . . trying to keep my promise to Dex. He
didn’t want me telling anyone what happened.
So if I guessed, you’d tell me?
I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right to betray Dex after he saved our lives.
True, he thought, fidgeting with his Cognate rings again, sliding
them halfway off and then shoving them back down. I guess you’re right.
I just . . . hate that it’s a secret between us—and not because I want the
gossip. It damages our connection, you know? And especially now, with all
the limits we’re trying to work around, thanks to the echoes, it’s just . . . a
drag that there has to be one more thing.
She wanted him to be wrong.
Wanted to argue that it shouldn’t—didn’t—matter.
But like he’d said, there were shades of trust—and her Cognate
should probably hold all the brightest, clearest spaces.
So she squeezed Ella tighter, trying to find some sort of line she
could walk between all of her loyalties.
What if, she thought slowly, I told you I’m pretty sure you already
guessed most of what happened? Would that be enough?
It . . . might be.
His mind blinked to an image: two periwinkle cloth bracelets
stitched with the words Sophie Foster + Dex Dizznee.
He’d guessed the color wrong, but . . .
Yeah.