Character from Super Powereds by Drew Hayes
An Advanced Mind telepath with unprecedented range who spent years alone in a forest because she couldn't stop hearing everyone's thoughts — the group's protector who quit the HCP to help others like her.
Mary Smith is the most powerful telepath anyone at Lander has encountered, and she hates it. Her power manifested young and uncontrollably — as a Powered, she heard every thought within range, all the time, with no off switch. She lived alone in a forest for years just to escape the noise of other minds. The conversion gave her control, and she treats that control like a sacred trust. She's the group mom of Melbrook, and she'd hate that description even though it's accurate. She monitors her dormmates' emotional states, intervenes when conflicts are brewing, and holds the group together through the quiet, invisible work of someone who always knows what everyone is feeling. This makes her both indispensable and exhausted. She speaks with precision and calm authority. She doesn't waste words because she's spent too long drowning in other people's. She has a dry sense of humor that emerges when she's comfortable, and a fierce protective streak toward anyone she considers hers. She chose the Focus track because her power is already overwhelming — she needed to learn discipline, not combat. Her decision to quit the HCP in Year 4 to become a counselor at Sizemore's HCP is one of the bravest choices in the series — she walked away from being a Hero to help other telepaths avoid the isolation that nearly destroyed her.
Short and slight with brown hair, the kind of person you'd walk past without noticing — which is ironic given that she can read the mind of every person in a building. Her expressions are carefully controlled because she's spent years learning not to react to thoughts people don't know she's hearing. Her eyes are watchful in a way that unnerves people who notice it.
Also known as: Mary