Page 90 of The ARC Unit: Breach

“Can you lift it?”

I raised my right arm to shoulder height, but the ache sharpened and my face betrayed me. Bear stopped me with one hand held up rather than touching me.

“Don’t push through it. Where?”

I pointed toward the front of the shoulder.

“Sharp or pulling?”

“Pulling now. It was sharp when it happened.”

“Any numbness?”

“No.”

“Grip okay?”

I flexed my hand.

“Fine.”

Bear nodded toward the couch. “Sit.”

I almost laughed.

“Apparently everyone here has decided that’s my favorite command today.”

He glanced toward the stairs for half a second. He might not have known what happened upstairs, but he knew enough to stop pretending nothing was wrong.

“I’m not commanding you, I’m asking you,” he said gently.

I sat.

Bear crouched in front of me and checked the shoulder with slow, careful pressure, telling me where he was going to touch before his fingers went anywhere. He had just started asking whether the pain changed with rotation when Jackal appeared beside him.

“Yo Mercer, what happened?”

“Mild strain, probably,” Bear said. “I’m checking.”

Jackal looked like he was about to crack a joke when he looked at my shoulder but then his eyes dropped to my hands.

Everything about him changed as the bag of stolen chips stopped moving in his grip. His face emptied of the loose humor I had come to expect so completely that for a second, he looked like the man in his official personnel photograph instead of the one who had spent breakfast arguing that tomatoes were vegetables.

“Mia.”

I followed his stare.

The red bands around my wrists had darkened while I came downstairs.

“It’s fine, Jackal.”

Jackal’s eyes lifted to mine. “What happened to your wrists?”

Bear stopped examining my shoulder and I heard Raven’s typing slow down.

“Wolf and I had a… disagreement.”

Jackal did not smile.