Page 121 of The ARC Unit: Breach

I was out of my chair before I decided whether I intended to answer. Jackal opened his arms with an exaggerated look of concern when I reached him.

“Easy, Mercer. Bear says my insides are delicate now.”

“Bear says your insides are where they belong because somebody competent fixed them.”

I hugged him anyway, keeping my arms high around his shoulders and careful not to put pressure against his side. Jackal made a quiet sound near my ear that could have been discomfort or an attempt to convince me he was suffering for dramatic effect.

“You’re going to reopen me.”

“Then stop talking and conserve blood.”

His hand settled briefly between my shoulder blades. “You got meaner while I was gone.”

“You were gone two days.”

He sighed. “Trauma changes people.”

Bear passed us without slowing. “If you use the word trauma to get sympathy after spending all morning arguing with a nurse about whether you could drive yourself home, I’m taking your pain medication.”

Jackal pulled away from me. “She was being unreasonable.”

Viper shut the door behind them. “She asked you to sit in a wheelchair.”

“Exactly. Humiliating.”

Bear stopped at the end of the hall and looked back. “You also asked her if the injury was going to affect your dick.”

Jackal’s expression hardened. “That was a medically relevant question.”

Viper nodded once. “Asked three times.”

“I wanted a clear answer.”

Bear kept walking. “She gave you one the first time.”

Hawk looked down from the loft railing, with his usual backwards hat on. “How long before you try to train?”

Jackal’s head tipped back. “Today feels aggressive. Tomorrow?”

“No,” Bear said from the kitchen.

“I wasn’t asking you.”

“Still no.”

The room had sounded wrong without Jackal in it. I had noticed that the first morning and then resented noticing it every hour after. Hawk and Viper could fill a conversation when they wanted to, while Raven had complained enough about hospital coffee to keep me entertained, but there had been spaces where Jackal usually inserted himself simply because silence had offended him.

Now he had been back for less than a minute and was already arguing with Bear, which sounded much closer to the compound I had gotten used to. Bear lowered Jackal’s pack beside the couch, and a strip of red caught against the black fabric before the bag settled against the floor.

I recognized the same narrow ribbon I had seen in Jackal’s hand that night, now tied through one of the pack’s zipper pulls. Up close, the edges looked even softer from wear. A small section near the knot had faded lighter than the rest, and the fabric had frayed enough that somebody had reinforced it instead of replacing it. I realized he didn’t tuck the ribbon into a drawer or leave it somewhere private in his room.

He carried it on the bag he takes into the field.

I kept my eyes on him rather than the ribbon. Whatever it meant, he had already given me his answer when I found him by the window.

“You standing there all day?” Raven asked.

I turned back toward the table. “I’m appreciating that our household nuisance survived.”