Chapter 482
JAYDEN
“Yes,” I said.
“To keep her safe,” Nina said.
“Yes,” I said.
“From the attack,” Nina said.
“Yes,” I said.
:
VPW
+10 free Cons
“And the pack got attacked,” she said, “by enemies, yes, and she handled it, yes, but also-”
“Also there was an active bunker below her,” I said.
“That would have-”
“Yes,” I said.
“If she’d found it,” Nina said, “or gone near it, or if the fighting had moved toward-”
“Yes,” I said.
“We,” Nina said, “are bad people.”
“We’re not bad people,” I said. “We’re people who had nine months of consecutive crises and one thing fell through the-”
“Jordan,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“We built a bunker to kill our Alpha’s mate and then forgot about it,” she said.
The laugh arrived in me at approximately the same time it broke through whatever Nina had been using to contain it, and we both lost it simultaneously in the specific way you lost it when something was genuinely terrible and also genuinely absurd and the two qualities together exceeded the capacity of any reasonable containment.
1/5
10:58 Thu, Apr 30
Chapter 482
:
+10 Free Coins
The laugh was the helpless kind. The kind that arrived when you’d had nine months of impossible things and one more impossible thing had arrived and the only available response was this.
Nina was wheezing.
I couldn’t speak.
We looked at each other and lost it again.
“The other packs,” Nina managed, “are going to ask.”
“She’s fine,” I said, through the laughing. “She’s fine, it didn’t—”
“We collectively forgot,” Nina said, “about a bunker designed to kill her.”
“We were busy,” I said.
“We were busy,” Nina said. “That’s what we have. We were busy. Yes, we built the bunker during the curse years. Yes, Ivory designed the sensory triggers specifically to respond to moon- adjacent power. Yes, we enhanced the response system after the third red-tab incident because Ivory was worried about a repeat attempt. Yes, Aria has been in this pack for nine months. Yes, we forgot entirely.” She paused for breath. “We were busy.”
“The sequence of events-” I started.
“Jordan,” she said.
“Is genuinely mitigating,” I said.
“It is,” she said. “But it doesn’t change that the bunker exists and is active and Aria doesn’t know and Kael doesn’t know what’s in it.”
I looked at her.
“Does Kael know,” I said.
“He knows it exists,” she said. “He mentioned it to Aria this morning. He doesn’t know the specific enhancements. Those were Ivory’s design, my installation, Elite’s structural work. We kept it quiet because the details of what the bunker could contain weren’t something we wanted generally known. Even to Kael.”
“So Kael,” I said slowly, “told Aria this morning that the bunker exists and is there to protect the pack in emergencies.”
2/5
10:58 Thu, Apr 30
Chapter 482
“Yes,” Nina said.
:
VPN
+10 Free Coins
“Without knowing that the bunker’s enhanced defensive systems would activate on Aria specifically,” I said.
“Yes,” Nina said.
“And he told her this,” I said, “as part of the conversation where he was apologizing for not giving her the full picture of how the pack works.”
Nina looked at me.
“He was apologizing,” I said, “for not giving her complete information. And one of the specific examples he used was the bunker.” I stopped. “He used the bunker as an example of something she should have been told about. As part of an apology for not including her in the full picture. And the bunker is the thing that would—”
“Yes,” Nina said.
“The full picture,” I said.
“Yes,” Nina said.
“Includes the part where the bunker would hurt her,” I said.
“Yes,” Nina said.
“Which nobody told him,” I said.
“No,” Nina said.
We looked at each other.
“He’s going to find out,” I said.
“He’s going to find out,” Nina confirmed.
“At some point,” I said.
“At some point,” she agreed.
“When he does,” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
315
10:58 Thu, Apr 30
Chapter 482
“His reaction,” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Is going to be-”
“Significant,” she said.
“And directed at-”
:
VFN
+10 Free Coins
“Us,” she said. “Primarily. With some directed at Ivory for the design specification and Elite for the structural implementation, but primarily us.”
I looked at the ceiling.
Nina looked at the ceiling.
“Does Ivory know,” I said. “That she forgot to tell Aria about it.”
“Ivory,” Nina said, “has been a bit occupied. With being taken and held in a basement with wolfsbane chains and rescued and recovering from the emergency compound wearing off.” She paused. “She probably hasn’t gotten to the bunker yet in her mental accounting.”
“When she does,” I said.
“She’s going to document it,” Nina said. “In the folder. With a color tab.”
“What color,” I said.
“Red,” Nina said. “Definitely red.”
“Because it’s the highest threat,” I said.
“Because we almost killed our Luna,” Nina said.
“We didn’t almost kill her,” I said. “She didn’t-”
“Jordan,” Nina said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Stop saying she didn’t go near it,” Nina said. “It’s not comforting. It was there. It’s still there. She still doesn’t know. That’s the situation.”
“We need to tell someone,” I said.
4/5
10:58 Thu, Apr 30
Chapter 482
“We need to tell someone,” Nina agreed.
“Who,” I said.
Nina was quiet for a moment.
“Option one,” she said. “We tell Kael.”
:
VPW
+10 Free Coins
“He just apologized to Aria for not giving her the full picture,” I said. “Using the bunker as an example. If we tell him the bunker is actually one more piece of incomplete information-”
“His reaction will be thorough,” Nina said.
“Yes,” I said. “Directed at everyone involved.”
“Including us,” she said.
“Significantly at us,” I said.
“Option two,” Nina said. “We tell Ivory.”
“Ivory is currently recovering from a kidnapping,” I said. “And running on emergency compound and spite. Adding ‘we built something that would hurt Aria and forgot about it’ to Ivory’s current processing load-”
“She’s going to find out anyway,” Nina said. “Her mental accounting is comprehensive and she’s going to get to the bunker. The question is whether we tell her first or she arrives at it herself.”
“If she arrives at it herself,” I said, “we get the version where she’s been thinking about it without the warning.”
“Which is worse,” Nina said.
“Significantly,” I said. “Ivory with unprocessed information is more thorough than Ivory who’s been briefed.”
“Option three,” Nina said.
“There’s an option three,” I said.
“We,” Nina said, very carefully, “pretend we didn’t remember.”
575