Chapter 68 NADIA

Chapter 68 NADIA
Petra filed the injunction on Thursday morning.

By Thursday afternoon, the response came, but it wasn’t through lawyers or the court, but through a media leak. Someone in Marcus's circle released a sixty-second video clip online. 

It had no caption or context, just raw footage from inside the Crestfall facility during a full moon practice. The players on screen were moving at speeds that no human being should be able to move at, and anybody with eyes could see that.

The clip didn't name the team. It didn't name anyone. But then, it didn't need to.

I watched the views climb up from Petra's office computer. The video got viewed two hundred thousand times in six hours. I sat there next to her, kept my eyes on the screen, and tried to figure out what I was actually feeling, because whatever it was, it wasn't what I expected.

I was trained to see this moment as a threat. The supernatural world was being exposed for the public to stare at. That was supposed to be the end of everything, the very thing my father was hoping to achieve, the thing I was sent here to help set in motion. 

But now I was sitting on the wrong side, watching it happen in real time, and all I could think about was that the pack deserved better than a sixty-second video clip with no context.

Just then my phone buzzed. It was Zane.

"Did you see it?" he asked.

"I'm looking at it right now," I said. "It has two hundred thousand views."

"I'm calling a press conference."

That stopped me immediately. "That's not part of the plan."

"The plan just changed. I'm doing it tomorrow morning."

"Is the council on board?" I asked.

"They will be."

"Zane—"

"Nadia." From the way he said my name, I could tell he'd already thought that decision through and wasn't asking for permission. "I've been using visibility as protection for six years. I know how this works. Trust me."

I was quiet for a second. Then I said, "Okay."

"Okay?"

"I said okay," I repeated. "What do you need from me?"

He exhaled. "Come help me prepare."

I told Petra I'd be back and went to find him.

We worked throughout the night at the big table in the conference room off the main hall. There were papers everywhere, two laptops were open, and even a cold cup of coffee I kept forgetting about.

He already knew what he wanted to say. That wasn't the problem. The problem was anticipating what the press was going to throw at him and making sure he had actual answers that would sound reasonable when someone pushed back hard.

Turns out I was really good at this.

I'd spent two years building a cover identity from scratch. That meant thinking through every angle, every question, and every possible way something could fall apart. I knew how people poked holes in a story. I knew what a weak answer sounded like before the person asking even finished their sentence. I ran Zane through question after question for three hours, not letting him slide on a single one.

"What do you say when they ask if the pack has been hiding this from the entire city?" I pressed.

"We haven't been hiding. We've been private. There's a difference." He leaned back in his chair. "We built businesses here, raise families here, play baseball here. We pay taxes. We're not a secret society. We just didn't owe anyone an announcement."

"Good," I said. "Don't soften it. Say it exactly like that."

He watched me write something down. Then he said, "You're helping me prepare to tell the world what I am."

I looked up. "I know."

"That's a long way from where you started."

I looked at the notes in my hand. The pages were full of questions I'd written out, possible angles, things I knew the press would go after. A few weeks ago, I was the one who would have been feeding them those angles. 

“Yeah, it is.” I set the paper down. "But I think this is where I was always going to end up. I just didn't know it yet."

Zane held my gaze for a moment. Something crossed his face that he didn't put into words. Then he picked up the next question.

We kept going until after two in the morning. At some point Dex showed up with food nobody asked for and dropped it on the table without a word, which was typical of him. He looked at the two of us, looked at the papers, looked at me specifically for just a second, and then left without saying anything.

Around three, I sat back and rubbed my eyes. "I think you're ready."

"You think or you know?"

"I know you're ready. You've got clear answers for everything, and the ones you don't have clear answers for, you know how to redirect without looking like you're hiding something."

He nodded slowly. "What about Marcus?"

"He's definitely going to respond. He'll hold his own press conference or get someone else to do it. He's not going to be quiet while you do this." I paused. "But his whole move was centered around controlling the reveal. You're taking that away from him. He won’t get to be the one who exposes you anymore since you're doing it yourself."

Zane was quiet for a moment. I knew he was turning something over in his head. Then he looked up. "I've been running this pack alone for years," he began. "Through every decision, every risk, every call when something was going wrong, I've never had someone beside me for that."

I didn't say anything.

"I'm not saying that to make it weird," he added quickly. There was something almost funny about the way he said it, like he'd caught himself being too honest and was trying to tone it down a little.

"You're not making it weird," I said.

He looked at me. I looked at him. 

"Get some sleep," I told him. "You've got to be in front of the cameras in six hours."

He stood up and started stacking papers. "You'll be there?"

"I'll be there," I replied as I gathered my own things. "Zane." He looked up. "For what it's worth, I think the pack is lucky to have you running it." I picked up my bag. "Even when you're insufferable."

He actually smiled at that. A real one that didn’t look forced.

I left before either of us could say anything else.

But as I walked out to my car, I thought about what he'd said. About doing it alone and never having someone beside him. 

I'd spent my whole life in rooms full of people and still, I’d done everything alone. My father made sure of that. “Don't get attached, don't get soft, and don't let anyone close enough to matter.” That was the whole training. That was the whole point.

I thought about Zane inside that building, awake and preparing to stand in front of cameras and tell the world the truth about what he was.

I got in the car and sat there for a second.

Then I thought about the third name we still didn't know. The one that wasn't Marcus or anyone we'd identified. The one that meant this thing went even deeper than we thought.

We had six hours until the press conference and twelve days until the council hearing. And we also had a name we hadn't found yet, attached to a person who already knew exactly where we were.

Then I started the car.