Tom Ridley didn't believe in much. He believed in the factory whistle that used to mark the end of his shift at Ford. He believed in the union card gathering dust in a drawer. He believed in the government check that arrived on the first of every month and lasted until the fifteenth. He didn't believe in God, didn't believe in luck, and sure as hell didn't believe in miracles.

But he believed in pain. He could feel it. Not like he felt his own—the arthritis in his knees, the ache in his lower back from twenty years on the assembly line. He felt other people's pain. It wasn't a gift. It was a condition. The doctor called it severe empathetic resonance. Tom called it a curse.

It started after the factory closed. The unemployment, the eviction notices, the way his wife looked at him like he was already gone—it had opened something in his brain. A channel. A frequency. And through that channel came the pain of everyone around him, loud and clear and unrelenting.

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