Teenage Joe Nolan's telepathy turns an intimate mistake into a dangerous lesson about secrets, long before the government sends him to Brightside.Before telepaths were rounded up and locked away in Brightside, Joe Nolan was just a teenager drowning in everyone else's thoughts. A compromising encounter with Mandy forces him to reckon with desire, secrecy, embarrassment, and the cost of knowing what someone else never meant to say out loud.A short prequel to the Brightside Saga. Read it before or after the novel; longtime readers will catch more of what it quietly reveals about Joe.Perfect for fans of Blake Crouch, Black Mirror, and psychological science-fiction thrillers.Every secret has a price. Joe is just learning the exchange rate.