Page 100 of The ARC Unit: Breach

Chapter Seven

MIA

My shoulder had improved enough by morning that I could move it without seeing stars, which was fortunate because Bear had decided the joint belonged to him until further notice. I discovered that when I reached for the coffee mugs and his hand appeared above mine, taking one down before I could stretch high enough to irritate the front of my shoulder.

He set it on the counter and went back to the eggs without ceremony. “You can be annoyed or you can heal. Pick whichever one doesn’t make my job harder.”

“I was reaching for a mug, not attempting a cartwheel.”

“You were reaching over your head after I told you not to.”

“Barely.”

Bear glanced at me with the same patient expression he had used while checking my shoulder the night before. “That word is doing a lot of work for you this morning.”

I took the mug. “You’re enjoying this.”

“I’m enjoying not having to explain to an actual doctor why an intelligence officer turned a mild strain into something stupid because she needed caffeine.”

Bear had a talent for making medical instructions sound like ordinary household maintenance, which made arguing with him feel childish even when I wanted to do it on principle.

I poured coffee one-handed and sat at the long table while Bear finished breakfast. Raven was already at his workstation with the party package open across two screens. Hawk and Viper had come downstairs dressed for the yard, and Jackal sat near the end of the table with one ankle hooked beneath his chair instead of propped on somebody else’s furniture. The position alone made him not look like himself.

He had been quieter since the confrontation, though silence was probably beyond Jackal’s physical capabilities. The jokes still surfaced, only later than usual, and they disappeared as soon as the room stopped giving him somewhere easy to hide behind them. Every so often his attention drifted toward my wrists before returning to whatever he was doing, and each time he made a point of saying nothing about the fading pink bands there.

The side door opened while Bear was setting plates down.

Wolf came inside with a folder tucked beneath one arm and cigarette smoke faintly caught in the black fabric of his shirt. He took in the room, found Raven first and me second, pausing only long enough for both of us to know it had happened.

I had spent part of the night telling myself the webbing would become ordinary gear again once I saw it in daylight, but the small metal clip at his belt shifted when he removed the folder from beneath his arm.

Click.

My fingers tightened around the coffee mug before I could stop them. Wolf’s eyes dropped to my hand.

Nothing changed in his posture, but he reached down a moment later and moved the folded webbing from the front of his belt to the rear attachment point, where it sat beyond my line of sight when he faced the room.

Jackal walked in from the equipment room with his MP7 case in one hand and stopped beside Wolf. “East structure still?”

“East first,” Wolf said. “Then the wooded lane.”

“Live movement or markers?”

“Markers until Hawk is set.”

Jackal nodded once. “Got it.”

He turned toward the equipment room before Wolf had fully shifted his attention away, leaving none of the usual extra commentary behind.

Three days earlier, he would have found a reason to irritate Wolf before he made it ten feet. Wolf would have shut him down and the rest of the room would have treated the exchange like background noise. Watching both men refuse that familiar rhythm made the guilt in my chest harder to dismiss, even though the choices that had caused the fracture were not mine.

Wolf looked toward Hawk and Viper. “Ten minutes.”

The twins stood and Jackal followed them without another word.

Bear gave Wolf a plate. Wolf took it, then nodded toward Raven’s screens. “Party.”

“We’re stripping it now,” Raven said. “I’ll pull you when there is something worth interrupting training for.”