Page 10 of Jude

“Say yes. We can arrange a meet-up. We’ll pick a safe space if you don’t want to come to the bunker.” He’d beg if he had to, but he wanted her here, with him.

The comms room door opened. Heath, his older brother and unofficial leader of the squad, stood in the doorway. “Danni wants you in the briefing room in five minutes. She wants to know what happened.”

Jude cursed quietly under his breath. “I’ll be there.”

Heath nodded. His green eyes narrowed. “Is everything okay with you?”

“Everything is great.” His finger touched his earbud. It would be once Octavia was here.

“Tobias will be fine if you’re concerned about him. I’ve spoken to Solomon. They’ll be here in two hours.”

“I’m not worried about Tobias,” said Jude. “The guy survived being buried under a ten story building for three days. He can survive a little chewing by a baby Dinnorm.”

“He’s a tough one,” said Heath. “Are you coming now?”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” Jude hadn’t finished with Octavia.

Heath took another look around the room. “I’ll see you in there.”

Jude turned back to his screen. His lips pressed together. He could see by the tiny red light in the right-hand corner of his screen that Octavia had gone off-line. She was hiding from him.

He kicked away from his desk and stood before running his hand across his face. He needed to get his thoughts together before facing the others. He wasn’t in the mood for being teased about Octavia this evening.

Rolling his shoulders, Jude headed out along the gray corridor. It was the main route leading off to the rest of the bunker. It included a canteen, gym, weapons and training room, numerous corridors full of living quarters, the finds room where they stored and analyzed the fragments of dragon bones and eggs they collected, and the briefing room.

When he entered the room, Danni Hannigan was already standing at the head of the table. Dressed in a fitted black jumpsuit and matching eyepatch, she was ever the professional. Heath was already there, along with Kade Ember and Honor Davenport, his significant other and equal brainiac for all things cipher and systems-hacking related.

Jude nodded at everyone as he took a seat.

“We have a problem with our potential new bunker site,” said Danni. “What happened?” She looked at Jude.

“I think the Dinnorms used it as a breeding site. When the hatchlings emerged, they must have been trapped underground. Tobias and his team going in disturbed them.”

“We’re seeing more of these giant egg pods in our investigations of new sites,” said Danni. “Any theories as to why?”

“The Dinnorms are being less careful now we know what they are,” said Heath. “Before, they were hiding their hatching sites from us. Now there’s no reason for them to. When they had us believing they were human, they had to keep up the pretense. If any of the squads found those Dinnorm pods, it would have made us suspicious.”

“We were already suspicious.” Kade pushed his messy dark hair off his face. “They weren’t that careful at concealing the hatching sites.”

Jude nodded. “We do have records of those pods, but not large ones. They could be accelerating infant development, so they become lethal at a younger age.”

“We need to be cautious before moving forward with using this site as a permanent base. Dinnorms might return and leave more pods.”

“We can post a team there,” said Jude. “They can scout the area for a couple of weeks. It would show us if there’s any more interest from the State.”

“It would be a shame to pass up that site. It’s a good location,” said Kade.

“It is,” said Honor. “The thick stone walls make it a perfect site to avoid detection. We can test those new 4D scanning probes we’ve been working on without being noticed.”

“We need somewhere to expand into,” said Heath. “We’re outgrowing this space.”

“There are other bunkers to explore,” said Danni. “We leave this one for now. But I agree with Jude. We’ll post a small team there. They can do further exploration of the site and monitor any movement from the State.

“I’ll arrange that,” said Heath.

“Any update on how Tobias is doing?” asked Danni.

“He was unconscious. He should be here soon,” said Heath.