Page 180 of Hunters and Prey

Dex, in particular, one of Black’s highest lieutenants and a man I’d begun to think of as a close friend, wouldn’t even look at me.

Again, I couldn’t blame him one iota for that.

Not only would he be angry for personal reasons, Dex was military, through and through. Black recruited him out of an operation they worked together in the Middle East, where Dex had been with the Marines, digging terrorists out of bunkers in shot up towns and cities across Iraq and Syria. Black had been a civilian contractor by then, and he’d recruited Dex and Kiko both by the end of that mission.

The two of them had been his closest lieutenants ever since.

They would die for Black.

They also valued the chain of command more than any two people I’d ever met before in my life, apart from maybe Nick, who’d also spent years in the military.

While Black was outside the conference room, that silence never got broken.

I didn’t want to give them a feeble group apology about how sorry I was, or say a bunch of things that were more about ending my discomfort than telling them the truth.

I needed to talk to them individually, one on one.

So I just stood there, and let them hate me.

Even Angel didn’t try to break that silence.

Black returned to the conference room after about ten minutes. His expression flat, he acted like he hadn’t just left me in a pack of angry wolves who’d spent most of those ten minutes wanting to beat the shit out of me.

“I’ve sent for food,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact. “There’s something else we need to discuss. It’s important.”

He glanced at me, pursing his lips.

“…It’s also about Miri.”

Tensing, I looked at him, then back around the room.

I got hard stares in return, at least from those who would look at me at all.

Black looked around at them, too, but his face betrayed nothing.

“It turns out… my wife teleports,” he said, his voice still matter-of-fact. “As in, she just fucking vanishes sometimes. Then she shows up somewhere else.”

That got their attention.

I saw eyes shift back towards Black, widening as if they couldn’t help themselves.

Before any of them could speak, or probably even fully absorb what he’d said, Black went on, his long hands and fingers resting on his hips.

“We need to figure out how,” he said, blunt. “And why. And what the fuck it means.” Giving me another grim stare in the silence that fell over the room, he added, “…and we need to figure out if we can teach her to control it, before she gets herself killed.”

I stared at him. I suspect my jaw was hanging as much as the rest of theirs.

Truthfully, I was stunned he’d told them.

It was a huge security risk.

It was a great big damned enormous security risk to have so many people know something like that, given how valuable that knowledge might end up being.

Brick would certainly want access to someone who could teleport.

Not to mention my uncle.

Thinking about that, and about the night before, I wondered if the fact that Brick had already witnessed me doing it had something to do with why Black had decided to be open about it with his team. Or maybe it was more about rebuilding his team’s trust, and keeping us all on the same page.

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