The Voices excerpt

    Wren dared to think about the possibility. Could she do it again? Could she intentionally send a message without words or motions?

    "If I can, I'll be the best charades player in the history of the world." She said aloud, dizzy with excitement.
Wren glanced around, searching. Listening. She heard a voice.

   Ellie.

   It was a clear message, and she knew precisely who was thinking it: the bus driver. Suddenly Wren also knew that Ellie, whoever she was, had short, dark brown hair and a sweet smile and had stuck by the bus driver through everything, even the death of his son and his alcoholism.
   Ellie sounded like a truly praiseworthy individual, but meanwhile the bus driver was so lost in thinking about her that he'd forgotten about his bus and the road and the upcoming crosswalk. Wren peered across the street where one of her fellow students from the university was waiting, his head bent over his phone.
   Everything about him seemed wrapped up in texting, and knowing what she knew about the bus driver, and the impending scene, Wren decided that if there was ever a time to attempt sending a message, it was now. She decided to make it something simple, nothing difficult, nothing long: just one word.

Bus. 

She bound all her energy into the word. She focused. Closing her eyes, she pictured each letter suspended in space in front of her. B U S.
  
   B U S 

   I can do this. She thought, determinedly. 

   Her mind tensed like a powerful muscle, coiling and ready to strike. Then she sent it, bursting open into a flurry of force in his subconscious. And for one brief moment, it was as if their two minds were working together in a common purpose.
Communication.
Preservation.
Bus.

   Wren opened her eyes and watched as the tableau unfolded. The student was already nearing the other end of the crosswalk, still texting, and the bus was barreling forward toward him. Then there was a moment of recognition and the young man dropped his phone, blinking confusedly. His head shot up and he swiveled around in time to stumble backwards into the street. A barrage of honking followed as the cars in the intersection swerved. Wildly, the student scrambled backwards as the bus crawled to a stop, sticking out into the intersection by a car length. Several people pulled the young man up out of the road as the light flashed green and the world moved on.

   Wren, her head reeling, as images and words coursed through it, hurried around the corner, afraid of something she couldn't define. Her brain roiled in the turmoil of the young man's mind as her being drifted through his. For a moment she felt as if she was standing in a theater watching a performance. She closed her eyes and saw a smiling woman with black hair: his mother. And she saw a whiteboard and a professor and another whiteboard and then suddenly there was Malchioveli, teaching. And images of Montgomery Hall. Then a fairground somewhere in the middle of a small down, Tennessee. He was from Tennessee. She saw a swimming pool and sudden fear gripped her as she realized that she couldn't breathe. She was drowning in his memory, but it passed in a flash as suddenly as it had come. In that moment, before she opened her eyes, she heard him speak.

   Who are you? 

   Before she could stop herself, Wren heard her own voice echo back.

  Wren. 

  Panicking, Wren tore open her eyes, breaking the connection somehow. She could still hear his thoughts, and knew that she had to run. She broke off in the direction of the campus, her breath coming in heavy rasps, thick and terrifying as the memory of drowning lingered in her mind. She ran as fast as she could, sneakers pounding on the pavement. She was too afraid to look back for fear he'd be following.
  Although her first attempt at a two-sided telepathic conversation had been a success, her secret wasn't totally secret anymore.
  He knew.