Page 4 of The ARC Unit: Breach

A metal loft wrapped around one side of the room. Beneath it stood a long operations table cluttered with laptops, folders, notes, weapons and coffee cups. Most of the far wall had been converted into screens showing maps, surveillance photographs and exterior feeds from around the compound. Equipment cases were stacked beneath them, and a worn couch had been shoved against another wall as though someone had decided that one piece of secondhand furniture officially made the place livable.

At the far end of the operations table, my eyes caught an undeniable presence.

Wolf.

The photograph had flattened him. In person, there was a solidity to his build that made everyone around him seem to occupy less space. He sat slightly angled toward a paper file, one forearm resting near the edge of the table, his shoulders broad beneath a fitted black shirt. His head and lower face were hidden beneath a black balaclava, leaving only his brown eyes visible under dark lashes.

There was something unnerving about the stillness.

Raven moved constantly. Even standing beside me, there was an ease to him that made his attention feel fluid. Wolf barely seemed to move at all.

As I walked forward toward the table, a faint smell reached me. Clean soap underneath something darker that took me another second to recognize.

Cigarette smoke.

Not fresh enough that he’d been smoking inside. Just enough caught in his clothing to tell me he’d had one recently. Wolf tracked my suitcase beside the stairs before fixing his attention on me.

“Do you expect all of us to wait on you hand and foot?”

His deep voice paired with the question came so casually that it took me a second to realize he was serious. I stared back with my mouth slightly open.

Raven looked over his shoulder. “I carried one suitcase.”

Wolf didn’t acknowledge him. His attention stayed on me.

I glanced at the bag by the stairs. “H-he took it.”

“And you let him,” he retorted without a pause.

There wasn’t even enough emotion in the answer to call it rude. He stated it like a problem he’d noticed and expected me to correct. I folded my arms and got myself under control. If this was how he wanted to start things, fine. We could do this his way.

I tilted my head to the side. “I didn’t realize not carrying my own luggage counted as insubordination.”

Wolf closed the file in front of him and finally gave me his full attention, his eyes settling directly on mine.

“You came here as an analyst. If you can’t get your own bags through a door, I’m not interested in finding out what else you need done for you.”

There were several responses available to me. I chose the one least likely to get me sent home before I had technically arrived.

“I can carry my own bags.”

“Then do that next time.”

Wolf reopened the file, which ended the conversation as far as he was concerned.

Raven leaned slightly toward me and whispered, “That… is Wolf.”

Wolf’s eyes lifted and Raven immediately walked away.

I followed him farther into the room, still trying to decide whether Wolf had specifically disliked me before I arrived or if this was simply his personality. Just then, a voice came from above us.

“Ssibal, that went well.”

I looked up to see Jackal leaning over the railing of the loft. He looked almost exactly like the second photograph from his file. Straight black hair fell around his forehead, and the tattoos along his neck were easier to see from below.

Raven looked up at him. “She’s been here forty-five seconds.”

“I know. I’m impressed.”