Page 148 of The ARC Unit: Breach

Hawk appeared at the far end of the corridor dressed in dark shorts and a long sleeve shirt, his blond hair somehow less destroyed by sleep than everyone else’s. Viper came out behind him, looked at the water spreading across the floor and closed his eyes briefly.

“Why?” he asked with a sigh.

Nobody answered.

Viper went back into his room.

I watched the door shut. “Is he going back to sleep?”

Hawk looked toward it. “Probably getting shoes.”

The door opened again. Viper stepped out wearing boots.

“Mia finally broke the building,” Jackal said.

“I was unconscious.”

“No witnesses.”

By then, Raven had reached the shutoff. The pressure dropped in stages, the hard spray weakening into a heavy stream before settling into an aggressive drip from the sprinkler head and the ceiling around it. Water still tapped against the desk and mattress, but the room no longer looked like someone had turned a hose on it. Bear stood beneath the damaged fitting with both hands on his hips.

“Branch fitting probably failed above the head.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Probably in the morning.”

As if offended by his confidence, the sprinkler gave one last pathetic spit onto my pillow. I stared at the bed. The entire mattress was dark with water. My pillow had landed on the floor and absorbed enough additional moisture to qualify as a flotation device.

The door behind us opened again and Wolf stepped into the hallway.

He wore black drawstring pants and a fitted dark shirt, the plain black covering already pulled over the lower half of his face. His hair was completely loose without the zig-zag headband, dark waves falling around his forehead and ears. Without boots, a belt or tactical gear, there was less between me and the actual man underneath everything he usually wore.

His eyes went first to the water at my feet, then to Bear.

“What happened?”

“Sprinkler line failed,” Bear said. “Branch is shut. Breaker is off in this room until I open the wall and make sure nothing else got wet.”

Wolf stepped around me and looked inside.

Water dripped from the desk. One corner of the mattress had started sagging under the weight, wet sheets hanging partly onto the floor. The open locker held several shirts plastered together against the metal backing.

“Room’s out,” Bear said. “At least until tomorrow night. Probably longer if the wall’s bad.”

Wolf nodded once.

I folded my arms and immediately regretted it when the soaked sleep shirt pulled tighter against my chest. The pale gray cotton had gone almost transparent under the hallway lights, and cold air moving through the corridor made my nipples tighten beneath it.

Wonderful.

I crossed my arms more deliberately.

Wolf’s attention flicked down. It lasted no more than a second before his eyes returned to my face, but after the kitchen that morning, pretending I had imagined it would have been insulting to both of us.

Bear started moving the rest of my things into the hallway. Hawk took the plastic bin Raven had brought back upstairs, while Viper lifted the wet suitcase and carried it toward the stairs without commenting on the amount of water dripping from the bottom. Raven returned with two industrial towels looped over one arm. I stared at the small disaster now occupying one side of the corridor.

“Thanks guys, but where should I go?”