Page 96 of The ARC Unit: Breach

I kept walking.

Upstairs, the balcony door at the end of the upstairs corridor stood slightly open, and the smell of cigarette smoke reached me before I saw him.

Wolf stood outside with his back partly toward the building, forearms resting on the concrete railing while smoke drifted into the dark beyond the perimeter lights. He had changed out of the plate carrier and field shirt for a black t-shirt that stretched across his shoulders, its sleeves ending high enough to leave the snake wrapped around his forearm fully visible.

His hair was uncovered and loose around the zig-zag headband. The lower edge of the mask had been pulled above his mouth so he could smoke, giving me only a partial view of his jaw.

I could have gone back to my room. Instead, I stepped outside and let the door close quietly behind me.

The night air was cold against my bare legs. I had not bothered putting on anything over the sleep shorts, and the shirt did very little once the wind reached beneath it.

Wolf looked at me over his shoulder, took another drag from the cigarette and turned back toward the trees. I stopped beside the railing with enough distance between us that neither of us could touch the other without choosing to move. For a while, the only sound was the faint hum of the compound below us and the soft crackle at the end of his cigarette.

Wolf broke the silence first.

“Shoulder?”

“Bear says strain.”

“How bad?”

“Not bad enough to make him send me anywhere. Bad enough that he threatened me if I lift anything over my head.”

Wolf nodded.

He noticed my wrists.

“Those?”

“Still attached.”

“Not what I asked.”

“Then ask better questions.”

The corner of his mouth might have moved beneath the raised mask, but he’d angled himself just far enough out of the light that I couldn’t be sure. I suspected that was deliberate.

He returned the cigarette to his lips and I watched the ember brighten.

“Jackal hates you right now,” I said.

“I noticed.”

“He doesn’t seem like somebody who challenges you often.”

“He doesn’t.”

“And you’re not going to tell me why that made him challenge you.”

Wolf exhaled slowly. “No.”

I expected the refusal, but it still troubled me.

“Is there anything about any of you that I’m allowed to know?”

“Whatever they decide to tell you.”

I looked toward the dark windows below, realizing the answer fit the unit better than I wanted it to. We had talked about siblings without any of them offering names, and neither Raven nor Bear had explained what sat underneath Jackal’s reaction earlier. Even after the confrontation, nobody had tried to turn it into office gossip. Whatever each of them carried, the others left alone.