The second she stepped through the door, the air changed. Not just the room—the field.

Emotions hit like artillery fire. No warning, no formation, no rhythm. One heartbeat and the landscape of feeling around me went from quiet control to open chaos.

This wasn’t normal bleed-over. This was resonance.

My ability’s always been a weapon I handle with gloves on—pressure, precision, discipline. Push calm here, suppress fear there, keep the balance steady. But when she walked in, every filter I’d built fractured at once.

It was like someone cut the wires on a radio and turned the volume to full. Every emotion in range—mine, theirs, hers—fed into itself, escalating. Fear sharpened to panic. Curiosity burned into hunger. The current surged until it wasn’t clear where I ended.

For a few seconds, I forgot to breathe. My knees almost gave. The Major in me catalogued symptoms out of habit: — Pulse elevated. — Venom surge. — Sensory overlap. — No visible threat, but emotional intensity critical.

She was the source. But not deliberate—no malice in it. Just raw power, wild and untuned.

I tried to push back, to stabilize the field. Sent calm outward in waves. It came back doubled. My own emotion—fear, grief, desire—all mirrored, magnified, thrown back like sunlight off glass.

Every defense I’d built—the Cullens’ peace, Alice’s light touch, Carlisle’s quiet order—gone in a heartbeat.

For the first time in decades, I felt everything. Not sensed—felt.

The weight of every kill. The love I never said. The hunger I never fed. All of it lit up, alive again, crowding my chest until it hurt to stand.

And beneath it all—her signature. Not chaos now, but rhythm. The pulse of someone who felt everything too, maybe more.

I wasn’t just reading her. I was connected.

The strategist in me whispered: Find the edge, define the threat, build control. But the empath—the man—knew control was gone.

This wasn’t an enemy. It was exposure.

And for the first time since I was turned, I didn’t know whether to brace or to surrender.