Her eyes widened as she took in the jagged lines etched into my skin. “Caden didthat?” she nearly shrieked, her whispering voice filled with terror.
I gave a curt nod.
“I can’t believe it. Why would he do that?”
I shrugged, but I couldn’t keep the bitterness from lacing my words. “He needed to lure out my magic. Said the good of the many outweighed the good of the one. Or, in this case, my arm.”
She winced, muttering, “Doesn’t sound like him.” Her features contorted with disbelief as she grabbed my other arm, her gaze locking onto mine. “I had no idea.”
I offered her a small smile. “So much is clear. Don’t worry about it.”
Her frown deepened. “So, if Caden isn’t the reason you came here, and he didthat…” she pointed at the scars before I coveredthem back up with my tattoo, “why the helldidyou come to Crown?”
I sighed, feeling the weight of the question settle in. “A guy at Cyclos broke my heart.”
Understatement of the cycle.
Saoirse’s eyes narrowed, her tone cutting. “What did he do?”
I swallowed hard, dodging the emotional landmine. “Nothing a good boyfriend would do.”
Saoirse stilled for a beat before growling, “Fuck him. Who needs men anyway? Overrated species if you ask me.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Exactly.”
She leaned in conspiratorially. “Want me to take care of him? I could make it look like an accident. Or better yet, I could permanently disfigure his dick. He’d live, but trust me—sex with another woman? Never happening again.”
The thought of James with another woman made my stomach twist like I’d swallowed a live eel. Sure, he was technically free to do whatever—or whoever—he wanted. I’d broken up with him, after all. But the idea of it still made my blood boil. And what would it say about his feelings for me if he did? Then again, the fact he’d lied to me and covered for Julian instead of coming clean about my past didn’t exactly scream undying devotion.
I shook my head, forcing the bile back down. “Thanks, but no disfiguration needed. If I change my mind, you’ll be the first to know.”
Saoirse cocked her head, a gleam of mock disappointment in her eyes. “Please do. I’m itching to use my creativity on something new.”
We spent the next hour in silence, meticulously studying the movements of the Radicals. The post was alive with activity—Radicals moving in purposeful patterns, though nothing about their behavior suggested panic or urgency.
“Have you noticed,” I murmured, breaking the quiet, “aside from the twenty guards glued to the bunker, no one else seems to care it exists?”
Saoirse turned to me, brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”
I gestured toward the fortress-like structure. “They supposedly have a nuclear-level weapon in there, and yet no one’s checking on it? No one making sure it’s still there, not even a glance in its direction? It’s like the least popular VIP section at a club.”
Saoirse bit the inside of her lip, her gaze flicking toward the posted sentries. “Maybe they simply trust those guards to do their job.”
I tilted my head, unconvinced. “Maybe, but… When I was doing my master’s in criminology, I spent some time in heavily guarded prisons. Any time they moved a ‘dangerous’ inmate, the jailers were hyper-vigilant. Never took their eyes off him, stayed close to avoid surprises. Here, we’ve got a compound of hundreds of hostiles, and only twenty of them are standing around this thing? No backup, no patrols overlapping, nothing? It feels like…” I trailed off, the thought forming fully in my mind but too strange to voice aloud.
“Like it’s a decoy,” she said, finishing my sentence.
I nodded, the pieces starting to align. “Yeah. Exactly.”
Saoirse frowned, then studied the bunker with renewed intensity. “Okay, so if you were a Radical, and you were hiding a nuclear weapon, where would you keep it?”
Looking around, my gaze swept over the site.
Damn it. Nothing else stood out. Maybe I was wrong about the bunker being a decoy, but my gut told me we were on the right track moving away from it.
“Does it even have to be inside this camp?” Saoirse asked suddenly, breaking my thoughts.
I frowned, glancing at her. “What makes you say that?”
