Allie's War Season Four by JC Andrijeski Page A

going psych 101 on that just made Jon angry.
    He knew the truth. He’d been the weak link. Cass knew that. Now Revik, Wreg and the rest of the seers knew it, too. Sure, they claimed they’d gotten all of that out of Jon’s light now. They’d spent weeks...months...teaching him shielding, how to access the shields in the construct, how to feel foreign lights interfering with his. He still took two hours of private lessons from Balidor every day to improve his ability to shield and spot leaks.
    Jon worked hard, making sure he learned all of it. But all of it was after the fact.
    Nothing he did now changed what happened to Allie because of him.
    Jon honestly didn’t know if anyone, Revik included, could ever make it right, in terms of Allie herself. But that felt irrelevant, too, at least in terms of Jon’s own priorities. Even if Allie woke up tomorrow, Jon doubted that feeling would change. He would be damned if he didn’t do everything in his power to balance the scales in some way, however inadequately, and however long it took.
    That meant, Revik owned his ass.
    That meant doing pretty much anything Revik told him to do, without question, hesitation or complaint...and sure as hell without giving Revik shit for his emotional state.
    Really, the only times Jon had even spoken to Wreg in the past few weeks had been during infiltration training. He hadn’t wanted Wreg for that, either, knowing it wouldn’t do either of them any favors, but somehow, Balidor kept finding things that Wreg could teach Jon better than he could. Balidor seemed to know Jon didn’t want it. Jon even wondered if Balidor was attempting to force the two of them together on purpose, maybe to help them resolve their issues in some way. What Balidor didn’t seem to realize was, as far as Jon was concerned, there was nothing to resolve.
    This wasn’t Wreg’s fault. Jon wasn’t angry at Wreg at all. He didn’t blame the other man for anything. There wasn’t anything to explain.
    At base, this wasn’t even Wreg’s problem.
    Jon asked Balidor to keep him out of important discussions, too...really anything that might jeopardize the mission Revik had planned. After a few months, Balidor told him how ridiculous that was. He told Jon that his shielding abilities rivaled that of some of his top infiltrators now, partly due to structures Allie had influenced in his light as they’d grown up together. Balidor showed him those things, and explained how the openings that Shadow and Cass used before no longer existed in his light, that they were all repaired.
    Jon didn’t care much about that, either.
    He would never be Cass’s way in to Revik, Allie or any of the others again, even if he had to put a gun in his mouth.
    When Jon glanced over that time, Revik was looking at him.
    The seer’s angular face hadn’t moved.
    “Sit,” Revik told him.
    Jon realized only then that he was just standing there.
    Feeling his face warm, he slid down onto the second recliner, easing his weight into the worn, dark-red leather. He pushed at the arms to recline it backwards manually, only then noticing the two seers standing on the other end of the chair, waiting for him.
    They began working over him, as soon as he’d reclined.
    Ignoring them, too, Jon turned his head, choosing instead to watch Loki and Gar go through the motions of checking Revik’s stats. Both frowned down at portable monitors, recorders that would monitor Revik’s brainwaves and aleimi while he was in the Barrier. Jon watched them check Revik’s transmitter, too, as well as what Jon recognized as an ‘emergency-terminate’ charge, essentially an electrode that could shock the user hard enough for their base, survival instincts to kick in, jerking them out of the Barrier.
    They would use that only if Revik ran into something he couldn’t handle. Like if he and Jon got jumped by a few dozen of Shadow’s infiltrators, for example.
    Feeling that sick feeling in his gut worsen, Jon looked away