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Nick definitely felt those stares. He looked around and scowled at all of them. He clearly thought exactly none of us were on his side when it came to Jem.

“Do you have any idea where he might have taken them?” I asked Nick. “Can you think of anywhere he’d go that would require Black’s plane?”

Because that was another thing that happened.

Jem used that extra twenty or so minutes while we were scrambling around the California Street Building, trying to turn off alarms, to take one of the company cars to the airport ahead of us, and steal Black’s private plane. He’d pushed Black’s ground crew, dismissed all of his flight personnel, then pushed San Francisco air traffic control to get it up into the air.

He’d also taken off without logging a flight plan.

I couldn’t help but be disturbed by the forethought and planning that had to have gone into some of this. Even Jem couldn’t have done it entirely on the spur of the moment. That meant the counseling session with me had likely been part of his plan, if only to distract me and Black into thinking he was complying with Black’s wishes.

I understood Nick’s stubborn compulsion to understand why.

I couldn’t make sense of any of this, either.

I definitely couldn’t figure out why he’d taken Angel.

Javier made sense, in a brutally pragmatic way. Javier was a pilot. Jem was a pilot too, and together, the two of them could have easily gotten Black’s plane into the air. They’d also be able to land it in a new airport and take off for a second destination, maybe after pushing ground crew to refuel and run a few safety checks.

But why the fuck had Jem taken Angel?

Was she there to convince me and Nick to keep our distance?

“We don’t have time for this,” Black growled quietly.

I bit my lip, but did my best to clear my mind.

He was right.

Yarli was coordinating long-distance with Rafe, Sully, Vixen, and others, trying to find Jem and Aura in the Barrier, although Black seemed to have little hope of that working. Dexter was trying to determine their flightpath with the help of Black’s contacts in the military, mostly via satellite and radar, using footage from the S.F.O. airport.

But Black was right. We didn’t have time for this.

Every one of us needed to be looking for Jem, especially if Nick couldn’t help us.

Nick glared at me, then around at the rest of the seers and humans filling the glass-enclosed room. It struck me again thatNick really was alone in a lot of ways, and probably felt it keenly right then. The only vampire in a sea of warm-blooded bodies that only somewhat looked like him, he normally did his best to “blend” with the rest of us, but for the first time in a while, I wondered how much it bothered him, being entirely cut off from his own kind.

“Whatever he wants with them,” Nick spoke up next. “He won’t hurt them. He definitely won’t hurt Ange or Javi. He won’t hurt the girl, even if––”

“You don’t believe that,” Black said.

Nick gave him another icy look.

He went on to me like Black hadn’t spoken.

“All I’m saying is, even if Jemdiddo this, on his own, I mean, and even if he’s angry at the girl or doesn’t trust her for some reason… he won’thurther.” Nick’s marble-white skin seemed to shift even whiter as his eyes grew a darker shade of blood-red. “If he took Aura away, and it was his own choice, it’s because he reallydoesthink she poses a danger. That doesn’t mean he’ll fucking kill her. Hell,Iposed a bigger danger and he didn’t kill me. You’re acting like she’s already dead. Like he’s some kind of serial killer––”

“No.” Black’s voice came out harsher that time.

I started to speak, but Black glared a warning at me that time.

He aimed a much harder version at Nick.

“We’re not playing this game anymore, Naoko,” Black warned. “What exactly has been going on with Jem? Because he might not be getting fed on regularly by Brick and his merry fucks, but this weird behavior from him definitely isn’tnew.It’s been going on for a while, hasn’t it? And you’ve been helping him to hide it.”

Nick scowled. Still leaning against the wall, he refolded his arms.

Black’s gold eyes grew darker.