Chapter Fourteen #4
I stood there for a second before following him into the hallway barefoot.
The corridor had dried enough that there was no standing water, although my belongings still occupied one side in bins and damp heaps. The damaged room was dark behind the open door. Bear had left an industrial fan near the entrance but had not powered it with the circuit isolated.
Wolf didn’t even bother to look at the mess as we passed.
The balcony door sat at the far end of the hall. He opened it and cold night air hit my bare legs hard enough that I immediately folded my arms across my chest.
“Fuck.”
Wolf stepped outside. “You wanted the balcony.”
“I forgot Germany hates joy.”
He gave me a look over his shoulder and moved toward the railing. I followed because turning around now would have felt like admitting defeat to weather.
The compound beyond us was almost completely dark. Security lights washed the nearest section of fence in pale white while the forest disappeared beyond it. Rain earlier in the evening had left the air wet and sharp, carrying the smell of pine and cold concrete across the balcony.
Wolf leaned against the railing and pulled the mask above his mouth.
His lips came back into view with the dark stubble along his chin and the section of scar I had spent half the previous morning pretending not to study.
Cold air stung my legs and arms, yet my attention kept returning to his uncovered mouth.
He put a cigarette between his lips and flicked the lighter.
The flame briefly caught the uncovered lower half of his face. I saw the hard line of his jaw and the jagged scar pulling faintly toward the left side before the lighter snapped shut and darkness took most of it back.
Wolf inhaled deeply.
His shoulders lowered a fraction on the exhale. I sat in the metal chair near the wall and immediately regretted letting bare thighs touch it.
“Jesus Christ.”
Wolf looked over. “Go inside, Mercer.”
“No.”
“You’re freezing.”
“I’m committed now.”
He turned back toward the trees.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
The silence felt different from the ones we usually shared. Wolf was normally quiet because he liked control over what entered a room but tonight, he seemed to be using the silence to get something back under his hands.
I watched smoke leave his mouth and disappear over the railing.
“Does that happen often?”
His jaw tightened.
“You don’t have to answer.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because I wanted to know.”
He took another drag.
“Sometimes.”
I waited, but that was all I got.
“Is it always the same one?”
Wolf looked at me.
I rested my hands between my knees. “You kept saying the same things. Get them out. Move. I figured you weren’t dreaming about an expense report.”
His mouth flattened.
“Don’t push it, Mercer.”
The warning was quiet.
I nodded once. “Okay.”
He looked at me again, almost suspicious of how quickly I had accepted it.
I leaned back in the chair. “I can learn. Occasionally.”
“Debatable.”
The dry answer fit him better.
I glanced toward the snake disappearing beneath the sleeve of his shirt. The question had been sitting in the back of my mind since the first morning I saw the tattoo through the window, but the last time we were on this balcony, he had warned me not to ask about it.
Fuck it.
“Is that connected?”
Wolf followed my gaze and his arm shifted slightly against the railing.
“The snake.”
“Not your concern.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“That was very convincing.”
“You asked,” he said.
“I asked whether it was connected.”
“And I answered.”
“Badly.”
Wolf took another drag and ignored me.
The security light caught the black-and-gray scales around his forearm whenever he moved. “Why a snake?”
His fingers tightened around the cigarette. For a second I thought he was going to refuse without another word.
“Because they shed. They shed old shit.”
“That’s the whole explanation?”
“It’s the relevant part.”
“They do it to grow.”
Wolf went still for a beat.
“That’s important too,” I continued.
“Not tonight, Mercer.”
The lack of anger stopped me. He sounded almost defeated, the fight gone out of his voice in a way that made whatever he was saying feel heavier than if he had snapped at me.
I nodded and looked back toward the trees. He studied me for another second, then crushed the cigarette into the metal cup on the small table beside him and reached for another.
I looked at the pack. “That’s two.”
“You counting?”
“Hard not to when you’re doing it right in front of me.”
Wolf rolled the second cigarette between his fingers but did not light it immediately.
“Don’t tell them, Mercer.”
The words were quiet enough that I almost missed them. I turned my head but he kept his attention on the cigarette.
“About the nightmare?”
Wolf nodded once.
I waited a moment before answering. “Okay.”
His eyes lifted to mine, brown beneath those thick lashes, and the look sent an unwanted jolt low through me. He seemed almost caught off guard, like he had been bracing for an argument or at least a demand to know why.
“That’s it?” he asked.
“You asked me not to tell them.”
“You usually need a reason.”
“Operationally, yes.” I pulled the shirt lower over my knees. “This isn’t operational.”
His jaw shifted once beneath the edge of the mask before he looked back toward the railing.
“Nobody,” he said.
“Nobody.”
“Raven included.”
“I know what nobody means.”
He looked toward the balcony door, then back at me. “Jackal.”
“Especially Jackal?”
A faint shift touched the corner of his mouth.
“Especially Jackal.”
I smiled despite myself. “Fine. Your terrifying secret that you have a nervous system is safe.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You don’t have to.”
Wolf lit the second cigarette.
The flame touched his face again, and this time I deliberately kept my eyes on his hand. It felt important in a way I did not want to examine too closely. He had taken the mask off in a dark room less than six feet from me. I could have looked.
I had not.
Wolf put the lighter back into his pocket.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Thinking loudly.”
“You cannot hear thoughts, Wolf.”
“Yours make a lot of noise.”
“I didn’t look.”
He went still and I wished immediately that I had kept the words to myself.
“When you took the mask off,” I said. “I could’ve. But I didn’t.”
Wolf stared at me.
“I know.”
“How?”
“Your phone never moved.”
He had noticed where my phone was before going to sleep, because naturally even that had made it into whatever part of his brain kept track of a room.
“You track things while unconscious?”
“I wasn’t unconscious the whole time.”
“Comforting.”
Wolf took another drag. “You could’ve looked.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
I considered giving him a joke. Something about respecting classified information or being afraid he would throw me off the balcony if I tried. Either one would have been easier than the truth.
“Because you didn’t offer.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
I rubbed my palms over my cold knees. “I’m curious, obviously. But I’m not entitled to your face just because I’m curious.”
I held his gaze and repeated what he said in the car. “A yes means more from someone who can say no.”
The cigarette stopped halfway to his mouth and for once, Wolf had nothing ready. I became uncomfortable with the silence before he did.
“Don’t make this weird,” I said.
“I’m not.”
“You’re staring.”
“You notice that a lot for somebody who does the same thing,” he replied.
I looked at him with the bitchiest face possible. There was the faintest pull at one corner of his exposed mouth.
“Was that almost a smile?”
The mask came back up immediately.
“Seriously?”
Wolf looked toward the trees and I laughed quietly, more from exhaustion than anything else.
“Go back inside.”
“I’m fine.”
“Your legs are shaking.”
I looked down.
They were.
“Cold. Not fear.”
“Didn’t say fear.”
“Good.”
Wolf turned and nodded toward the door. “Bed, Mercer.”
The command tightened my stomach again. His eyes held mine for a second, long enough to tell me he had noticed the reaction.
I stood.
“You coming?”
“In a minute.”
I reached for the balcony door, then stopped with my hand on the metal handle.
“I meant what I said.”
Wolf looked at me.
“Nobody hears about tonight from me.”
For a moment he simply watched me through the mask, the security light catching the brown of his eyes again.
“Goodnight,” he said gently.
I opened the door and went inside.
His room felt warmer after the balcony. I climbed back into his bed and pulled the blanket over my legs, still acutely aware of what I was not wearing beneath his shirt when the fabric shifted over my thighs.
Wolf came in several minutes later. The lighter landed softly on the desk and I heard him settle onto the floor, but this time the mask stayed on. He turned his head toward the bed.
“Mercer.”
“What?”
“Sleep.”
I smiled into his pillow where he could not see it.
“I’m trying.”
“Try quieter.”
“I wasn’t talking.”
“Loud thoughts.”
I almost laughed but managed to keep it inside.
The room went still.
By morning the compound would wake up, Bear would start opening the wall in my room and Raven would drag us both back into the Strasbourg account. Wolf would become Wolf again in all the ways that mattered publicly, mask in place and every private edge hidden behind it.
Nobody downstairs would know what his uncovered voice sounded like in the dark, or how fast he had reached for the mask once he realized I was awake.
I already knew I wasn’t going to tell them.