“Comth on, baby,” Marinah called from behind me.
I turned to see her standing there, her massive hand extended toward me, making mine look like a child’s in comparison.With a final kick to Campbell’s ruined skull, I stepped away and joined her.
The men’s faces held a mix of admiration and awe.
“Check every whistle we have,” I told the men.“Destroy the ones that are defective and create as many as are needed to replace the bad ones.”
We walked to our motorcycles, straddling the seats like we owned the world.
“You’re controlling your Nova,” I said, stating the obvious.
“Idth called medithation,” she replied with what may have been a smile, her voice still carrying that guttural edge of her Nova form.
Chapter Fourteen
Marinah
I slept like the dead.When King walked back into the room, the smell of bacon drifted in with him, impossible to ignore.
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” he said softly.
I rolled over and squinted at him.“Why are you whispering?”
“If you were still asleep, I was hoping you wouldn’t hear me,” he replied, a grin tugging at his lips.
“Do you have any idea how much work we have ahead of us?”I asked, already feeling the weight of everything we needed to prepare.At King’s insistence, we actually slept last night instead of working through the night.
“You said it yourself,” he challenged.“We’re ready and have been for years.”
I couldn’t argue with that.The truth was, King had prepared for this moment for longer than I cared to admit.The next forty-eight hours would bring pandemonium, and sleep would be in short supply.The full night of rest would help us get through it.Tossing the bedding aside, I stood up while King set the tray down and removed the lids.
The sight and smell of food made my stomach clench in hunger.Shifting straight into Nova had taken more out of me than I’d realized.I’d had a huge dinner the night before, but my stomach had forgotten.
“Your half is two pounds of bacon, a dozen eggs, and ten pieces of toast,” King said, eyeing me seriously.“Don’t touch my half.”
“I love you and won’t touch your food,” I promised with a sweet smile, crossing my fingers behind my back.
Callie scrambled out of my way as I practically charged the table.Her hiss of displeasure didn’t even faze me.I pointed toward her food bowl near the bathroom door, where her water dish sat as well.
“Cat food,” I said pointedly, before gesturing to my plate.“Warrior food.”
Her indignant stare was almost enough to make me laugh, but I was too busy piling bacon onto my toast to care.
An exaggerated huff escaped King.“How did you know the whistles were damaged?”he asked curiously, though there was burning fury in his eyes.He’d been stewing over this since yesterday.
After the Campbell incident, we returned to the citadel on the motorbikes.The roar of the engines drowned out any chance for conversation.As soon as we arrived, one of the men reminded me of Ruth’s pending punishment.Apparently, she’d been up to her usual antics, and the entire citadel was living in fear of what she’d do next.She had a way of weaseling around the rules I set in place.It was hard to fault her, so I planned to add new rules to get rid of the loopholes she found.
I’d headed straight for the gym, leaving King no opportunity to question me.Two hours of dealing with Ruth, who could barely lift her arms by the end, and her right-hand boy, Che, who she’d roped into trying to get her out of trouble, had worn me out.King had finally put his foot down and forced me to eat while he checked on Nokita’s progress.I was asleep before he returned.
Between bites of bacon, eggs, and toast, I finally answered.“Knet and the Federation had a plan in place.It’s the only thing that made sense.Why else would Knet leave now?”I paused to take a long drink of orange juice, savoring the sweetness.“And how could the Federation implement an attack on us while losing their eyes and ears on the island?Knet must have had help.”
I used a piece of toast to sop up some eggs, shoving the mixture into my mouth and swallowing before continuing.“Since Knet worked with the hellhounds, it made sense they’d use the hellhounds against us.While I was meditating during the meeting, it hit me.The only way to use the hounds as a weapon would be to sabotage the whistles.Everything fell into place after that.I just wasn’t sure who the traitor was.”
King’s expression stayed skeptical, so I went on.“Think about it.You and I, along with the guard, carry our whistles at all times.The rest of the whistles are kept in strategic locations around the citadel, making them accessible to everyone.Our Warriors are better at killing hellhounds than directing them with the whistles.The simplest way for the Federation and Knet to cause massive casualties would be to sabotage them.It’s efficient, and it’s exactly the kind of move they’d make.”
King leaned back, mulling it over while I used another piece of toast to clean my plate.
“Hmm,” he said after a minute passed.
