I’d never worked with him, not even when we sat up at the top as well.It hadn’t been any real choice—back then we’d always had our own guide and Kaiden had always refused to settle down with his own squad.
And there was the whole rumor that he was a top.
Not a lot of espers were willing to let a guide top them—and I wasn’t interested in that—but it wasn’t like he didn’t still have a place.
Besides, if anyone knew better than to believe every rumor, I did.
“I’ve interacted with The Pitt twice,” Kaiden said, his hands folded behind him, resting at the small of his back.The position pushed his chest out and made him look larger.Hell, he could almost pass for an esper.He proved that not all guides were women or waify, feminine men.
Maybe I’d let him top me…
A sharp look from my side said Shear had probably caught a strand of that thought.I didn’t bother to deny it—Shear knew me too well for me to try.Instead, I gestured toward the stage as though to scold him for paying attention to my perverted musings instead of the point of our being here.
Math—not my strong suit—kicked me in the head as I tried to work out how Kaiden could have been around for The Pitt twice.It only opened every ten years, and Kaiden couldn’t have been older than thirty?Maybe he just looked good for his age?
“My first exposure to The Pitt was when I was twelve—my first stable dungeon after appearing as a guide.I was still in training at the time, and this was when The Pitt appeared outside of Phoenix.We had twenty guides working that day, plus others in training like myself, and we could not get ahead of the corruption levels.We lost only two espers that day to monsters, but twenty fell to corruption.”He paused at the end of that statement, as though to ensure it sank in.
He didn’t really need to—not with a group of espers.
Guides prevented corruption, sure, they helped give us more time, butno oneunderstood the danger of corruption like the one staring down the muzzle of that gun.I knew exactly what it could mean, what itwouldmean, eventually, if I didn’t get myself killed by a monster first, if I didn’t take my own fate into my hands and deal with the problem myself first.
It was just a long fucking path with a single possible outcome.I either died or I ended up as much a monster as those I’d spent my life killing.
There weren’t other options, not for espers, not since we’d started appearing around eighty years ago.
Still, sometimes guides liked to act like they were the experts of it, like it was their job to make sure espers understood the danger.
Kaiden struck me as that sort of asshole.
Or maybe I just really disliked him because of how close he was to Yun.Some part of me wanted to put a claim on her, to make sure he understood that he was second to us.I didn’t care that he’d known her longer, that she sure didn’t smile likethatwhen she saw us.We were espers and guide.
She’d guided us, lived with us, was underourprotection.That meant we had a connection with her that Kaiden never would.
That thought helped me to settle deeper into the chair, scooting down slightly so I looked like a delinquent at the back of a classroom.
“You have already heard what happened the last time The Pitt opened right in the middle of San Diego, near the beach.We lost over a thousand civilians by the time the portal closed, and more in the months and years since with breakthrough monsters.The San Diego appearance was an absolute disaster, aided by a lack of Guild planning, a failure of squads to work together, and…” Kaiden’s gaze moved over to us, a sharpness there that said he knew what had happened—or at least the official story.
I smiled as though I couldn’t feel the daggers there.
“Other issues,” he finished.“We can’t have that happen again.That is why we are putting so much into these practices first.I will handle training with guides ahead of time while the espers receive their own training over the next month until The Pitt appears.We will be prepared to travel to where The Pitt opens as soon as it starts to appear.”He gestured to Inlan, signaling he had nothing else to say.
Inlan took center stage again.“Part of what this meeting is for is to alert you all about what is coming up.Our joint missions so far have taught us something important—squads don’t work well together.If we want to create a cohesive group to ensure we are ready for The Pitt, we have to take more drastic measures.For that reason, we have decided to move forward our timeline.You all have one week to finish your preparations, to settle your plans, because every squad involved in The Pitt offensivewillarrive at our training location in Nevada in one week to give us time to actually prepare.”
I lifted my eyebrow at that—it was the last thing I’d expected to hear.Working together was one thing—a stupid idea, but whatever—but housing and training us together?Full-grown adult espers used to having our own way?
I chuckled to myself at what a fucking disaster this was going to be.
Chapter Thirty-One
Yun
Well, not having that much stuff made it easier to pack everything.Kenyon had brought me a number of suitcases, all appearing brand new and worth way more than anything I had to put inside them.Instead, I’d just ensured everything I had was clean and placed it back into the bag I’d brought with me.It was easy since I hadn’t really put any of it away.
“You sad to be leaving?”Kenyon asked from the doorway of my room.
“Maybe sad to be losing out on the nice bathtub, but otherwise?”I shrugged.“One place is pretty much like the next.”
“You didn’t get accustomedat allto being here?”His voice sounded almost hurt by my disinterest.
