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Watching the recording play through a few times, Black felt his jaw harden.

He agreed with Dex, Rafe, and the rest of the team. While he leaned strongly towards seer, it was too close to call forabsolutecertain.

Which was infuriating.

“What about Rucker’s files?” he asked, glancing around the room. “Has anyone found the specs anywhere on those? For the implants, I mean?”

“Not yet,” Vixen said, a little sourly. She exchanged a look with Rafe, and then with Javier. “We were kind of waiting for Jem to help us with that. Any word on when he’ll be joining us? He’s the best tech guy we’ve got.”

Black grunted at that, noncommittal.

Even so, he felt his teeth grind until they hurt.

24

THE FEAR

“She’sgaos-damned dangerous,” Jem growled. “What part of that is difficult to understand?”

I frowned, unable to keep it off my lips.

I opened my mouth, closed it.

To say I felt the need to be cautious with Jem right then would be a massive understatement. While most of my caution felt treatment-related––meaning, I didn’t want to shut Jem down or make him too combative, or cause him to walk away––the sheer level of his aggression brought up defensive and aggressive reactions of my own.

That part of me felt ready to bolt out of the room if the need arose.

Or possibly to draw a weapon.

I was seer, so it wasn’t only his voice, or his facial expression I had to deal with, or even the way he clenched his fists, thighs, shoulders, arms, and chest, as if actively restraining himself from punching me in the face.

I also had to deal with his living light.

His highly-structured and terrifyingly muscularaleimislammed into mine, furious, violent, unable to comprehend whywe couldn’t all see this thing the wayhesaw it. Or, at the very least, if wecouldn’tsee it, why we wouldn’t simplydowhat he fucking told us to do, and fix what he clearly knew to be a life-threatening problem for him.

I’d never been afraid of Jem before.

I could admit I was afraid of him now.

Mostly, though, I was trying to make sense of this. I was trying to make sense of him.

“It’s crystal fucking clear!” Jem snarled, fists clenched on his thighs.

I nodded, keeping my expression as still as I could.

“Stop fucking nodding at me like you think I’m batshit crazy,” Jem growled.

“You don’t get to tell me how to react to this, Jem,” I warned.

I saw something in his eyes flicker, as if some distant, moreJempart of him recognized the truth in what I’d said. The pressure on myaleimilightened, but not enough to keep mine from sparking around me in a futile-feeling attempt to shield.

Black more or less forced me to wear an ankle-holster and a gun while I was in here, as much as it struck me as foolish at the time. I knew how well-trained Jem was. I wouldn’t be able to unholster it before he had hold of my wrist and twisted that gun up to press the barrel against my head. The earpiece wouldn’t do me much good either. And that didn’t even get into how easily Jem could probably overpower my light.

It made me realize, with a near-anger at myself, that I should be in sight-training.

Really, I should have started eighteen months ago, when my light first changed. Instead, I hadn’t done shit, and now I felt helpless, especially against a seer like Jem.

Of course, I might have felt like that, anyway. Not many seers on our team could stand up to Dalejem. Yarli, maybe. Maybe Black.