6. Finn
Chapter 6
Finn
Forty-eight hours without movement, and my body has become a meditation on stillness.
Other snipers complain about muscle cramps, about minds wandering through endless hours of surveillance. But for me, the waiting crystallizes everything into perfect clarity, each detail sharp as broken glass—like watching pack wars through my father’s study window, learning how patience unmasks intention. He called it reading the dance. Called me a natural, right up until politics and pride painted our walls red.
My muscles remember other vigils, other rooftops where I learned that understanding patterns meant survival. The familiar weight of the rifle grounds me in now rather than then, though sometimes the scope reveals ghosts among the living.
Through my scope, Sterling Labs’ west entrance pulses with data—each pattern a heartbeat, each deviation a story. My mind catalogs it all with the same obsessive precision that once earned me doctorates I never bothered to claim. In another life, I might have been teaching in some Dublin university instead of watching killers through crosshairs. But that life ended in blood and fire, along with any illusions about academic detachment.
Between tactical observations, I reach through the pack bond, seeking Cayenne. Where the connections to my packmates burn steady—Ryker’s iron resolve, Jinx’s volatile energy, Theo’s artistic warmth—the thread to Cayenne stretches thin but unbroken.
Each connection tells a different story, but unlike my packmates, who experience bonds as pure emotion or physical sensation, my beta mind processes the connection as data patterns, frequencies of feeling that I can analyze but never fully immerse in. Still, I can sense her—faint but distinct, like a signal fighting through interference.
Alive. In pain, but alive.
Guard rotation every four hours, precise as a Swiss watch. Delivery trucks at 0600, 1400, and 2200—a waltz of diesel engines and security checks. Security cameras sweep in ninety-second intervals, mechanical eyes searching for threats.
Everything perfect. Everything precise. Too perfect.
But there, on the third floor north side, a pattern breaks. Every night at 0300, a light flickers to life for exactly seventy-three seconds. Someone in this temple of routine dares to seek shadows between the seconds.
“Status?” Ryker’s voice whispers through my earpiece, barely disturbing the air.
“Pattern holds.” The words form without moving my lips, a skill learned in places that don’t officially exist. “Our friend in accounting is stress-smoking again. Fourth cigarette in three hours.”
“His hands shake when he lights them.” Theo’s observation flows from his position at the cafe across the street, where he plays the role of bored barista with Oscar-worthy dedication. “Fear spreads like cancer here.”
“Sounds like an extraction target,” Jinx suggests, that eager edge in his voice making my skin prickle.
“Negative.” I track another guard’s path, noting the slight favor to his left leg. Old injury, probably knee. Exploitable. “Too obvious. But his fear is a marker. Sterling’s people know we’re here.”
“Let them feel it,” Ryker responds. “Anxiety makes people sloppy.”
A black sedan purrs into the underground garage, its occupants moving with the distinctive grace of professional killers. “New variables,” I report. “Israeli training, based on formation and vehicle approach. Sterling’s importing talent.”
“Good.” Jinx’s smile carries through the comm like a promise of violence. “I like professionals. They break so beautifully.”
Theo’s soft laugh holds no humor. “You just like how they cry prettier than amateurs.”
“I contain multitudes.”
But beneath our quiet banter, we wait. We watch. Because somewhere in that maze of concrete and steel, Cayenne is breathing too. That’s the thing about the psycho squad that everyone forgets—it’s not the violence that makes us dangerous. It’s the willingness to become living ghosts, to haunt the edges of our target’s world until we know them better than they know themselves.
A shadow crosses the third-floor window—too graceful for security, too deliberate for accident. My breath catches as I adjust my scope’s focus.
“Movement in our mystery room,” I key my comm. “Subject appears female. Omega, based on movement patterns.”
“Interesting.” Theo’s voice carries that particular note he gets when pieces click together. “The cafe’s busboy mentioned an omega who visits every Tuesday. Orders everything with whipped cream, then never eats it.”
The light clicks off at exactly seventy-three seconds, same as every night. But this time, I catch it—a flash of something pink stuck to the window. Bubblegum, maybe. The deliberate irregularity triggers old instincts, ones honed in Belfast backrooms where every casual gesture carried coded meaning.
My fingers trace the worn edge of my notebook—another habit inherited from my father, who documented every pattern until the very end. His last entry detailed the very security rotation that failed him. Seven packs gathered for peace talks at our family compound outside Dublin, and my father believed in the sanctity of parley. He died still believing in reason while I cataloged the attack patterns from my hidden position in the library rafters.
“I have a theory,” I offer. “Our mystery omega. The timing, the patterns—they’re too precise to be random. She’s marking time for someone.”
“Or showing off,” Theo muses. “Like a cat bringing dead birds to its favorite person.”
“The question is why?” Ryker asks. “Who puts on a show for surveillance teams?”
“Someone who wants to be seen,” I answer. “Someone who might be useful.”
“Or someone setting a trap,” Jinx adds, but I hear the intrigue in his tone.
“Either way,” I make another note in my log, “we just found a wild card in Sterling’s deck.”
The night stretches on, each second measured in heartbeats and guard rotations. Behind my tactical observations, memories of Cayenne surface like code breaking through firewalls—her laugh during free fall, the way she kissed me in that barn like she was finally letting herself feel something real.
What my packmates experienced as pure sensation, I cataloged as data—the 37.2% increase in her pulse when our lips met, the subtle shift in her breathing pattern when I touched that spot beneath her left ear. The analyst in me knows attachment is dangerous in our line of work. The beta in me doesn’t care.
“New pattern,” I report, forcing my voice to maintain its analytical distance. “Loading dock. They’re bringing in medical equipment. Cold storage units.”
The words taste like ash. I’ve watched this scene before, but this time it’s different. This time it’s personal.
“Specifications?” Ryker asks, voice tight with controlled rage.
“Advanced life support. Monitoring systems. The kind used for testing biological responses.”
“I’ll kill them,” Jinx vows. “If they’ve hurt her?—”
“Focus,” Theo interrupts. “She’s alive. I can feel it.”
I hear the strain beneath his steadiness—his pre-heat symptoms must be progressing, making this separation even harder on him. The approaching biological imperative would explain the occasional tremor in his voice when he mentions her.
My scope catches movement—our mystery omega again, this time at a different window. She’s writing something in the condensation, movements more deliberate than before.
“Message,” I report. “Numbers. Could be coordinates.”
“Or a trap,” Ryker reminds us.
“Everything’s a trap if you look at it right,” I counter. “The question is whether it’s one we can use.”
The memory of Cayenne hits me again—all calculated risk and brilliant chaos. She kissed me like she was dismantling my defenses, found weaknesses in walls built from loss and logic. The beta in me wants to storm the gates, but the analyst in me—the one who survived when my family didn’t—knows better.
I failed my family once by analyzing without acting. I won’t make the same mistake with my pack. The tactical patience my father taught me isn’t about inaction—it’s about choosing the perfect moment to strike.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Theo murmurs through the comm.
“Just calculating probabilities.”
“Liar.” His smile carries through his voice. “You’re remembering how she tastes like adrenaline and rebellion.”
“The omega’s back,” Jinx reports suddenly. “North side. Third floor. She’s... is she eating a lollipop?”
The lollipop detail catches in my mind like an anomaly in a data set. Everything in this facility is controlled, measured, precise. Yet here’s this omega, deliberately breaking pattern while staying just within acceptable parameters.
“She’s testing boundaries,” I realize. “Every movement calculated to look random while following a specific sequence—the light for seventy-three seconds, the bubblegum on cameras, the lollipop at exactly 0300. She’s creating a map of blind spots.”
Jinx’s breath catches. “She’s giving us a way in.”
“Or showing us where she plans to come out,” Theo adds.
The facility’s patterns shift subtly as night deepens—guard rotation getting sloppier, security sweeps growing predictable.
“New vehicle,” I report, tracking a sleek black car entering the underground garage. “Sterling himself, based on security response.”
“Time to move to phase two?” Jinx asks, his patience finally fraying.
Through my scope, I catch one last glimpse of our mystery omega. She presses something against the window—a piece of paper with what looks like chemical formulas scrawled across it. Just long enough for surveillance to catch it.
“Yes,” I decide. “Our omega friend just gave us everything we need. Time to show Sterling exactly why they called us the psycho squad.”
“Finally,” Jinx breathes.
Ryker’s voice carries cold certainty. “Finn, break it down.”
I close my eyes, seeing the facility’s patterns like lines of code. “Three entry points. Four security blind spots. One omega who’s either an ally or the most elaborate trap I’ve ever seen. And exactly six hours until shift change gives us our window.”
“And if she is a trap?” Theo asks.
“Then we spring it,” I answer. “Sometimes the best way through a trap is to let it snap.”
After all, that’s what they trained us for—to be the nightmare that other nightmares fear.
“Target the north entrance,” I instruct. “Camera blind spot extends twelve meters from the service door. Guard patrol leaves a four-second window.”
“Tight,” Jinx observes.
“But doable.” I pack my gear with mechanical precision. “Theo, status on our stress-smoking friend?”
“Left ten minutes ago. His security card is now in my apron pocket.” I can hear the slight smile in his voice. “Amazing what people will tell a sympathetic barista.”
We move like shadows, each position calculated to the second. But something feels off about the pattern now. Like we’re not the only ones counting seconds.
The service door opens before we reach it.
“You people have no appreciation for dramatic timing.” Our mystery omega leans against the doorframe, casually unwrapping a lollipop. “I had this whole thing planned. Very theatrical. Now I have to improvise.”
Four weapons train on her position. She doesn’t even blink.
“Boring,” she sighs, popping the candy in her mouth. “Also, six guards will round that corner in approximately twenty seconds, so maybe we should continue this conversation somewhere less exposed? I have candy. And intel. Not necessarily in that order of importance.”
No one moves. Twenty seconds tick by, but no guards appear.
“That was a test,” she announces, looking pleased with herself. “You passed. Kind of. Your trigger discipline is excellent, but your appreciation for theatrical timing needs work.”
“Inside,” Ryker orders, voice carrying lethal quiet. “Now.”
She leads us through a maze of maintenance corridors, each turn carefully calculated to avoid security cameras.
“The camera room is currently experiencing technical difficulties,” she informs us. “Apparently someone spilled whipped cream into the main console. Very unfortunate. Also, possibly staged.”
“Who are you?” I ask, though my analytical mind is already assembling the puzzle pieces.
My beta senses catalog the behavioral markers that alphas frequently miss: the recurring pattern that suggests obsessive-compulsive tendencies channeled into tactical advantage; the controlled chaos that indicates hypervigilance masked as casualness; the candy addiction that provides both sustenance and misdirection.
“Someone who appreciates good surveillance.” She produces a keycard, swiping us into what appears to be an abandoned office. “Your feral one’s work with piano wire was particularly inspiring. I took notes. Might try it at my next arranged marriage meeting.”
The room she led us to sits in a blind spot between security cameras, exactly seventy-three seconds from the nearest patrol route. The oleander scent that clings to her skin carries notes of chemical antiseptic beneath it—lab access, then. High-level clearance.
“You are exceptionally boring for a psycho squad,” she perches on a desk, producing an array of candy from her pockets, “we should discuss why daddy dearest is planning to inject your beta with an experimental virus in approximately—” she checks a Hello Kitty watch that probably costs more than most cars, “five hours and twenty-three minutes.”
Jinx’s growl fills the small space. “If they touch her?—”
“Oh, they’re going to do more than touch her.” Her smile holds no humor. “They’re going to try to rewrite her genetic code. Very ambitious. Probably fatal.” She looks up, eyes suddenly clear. “Unless, of course, someone were to help you get her out. Someone who knows exactly when and where they’re moving her. Someone who maybe has access to daddy’s special research notes.”
“You’re Sterling’s daughter,” Theo states, voice carrying dawning understanding.
My mind races through behavioral indicators I should have caught sooner. She plays unstable like I once played peacekeeper, every seemingly random choice serving a deeper purpose.
“Mona Sterling. Daddy’s little mistake. Professional pack-rejection specialist. Occasional agent of chaos.” She begins arranging candies on the desk in what looks disturbingly like facility blueprints, the pattern triggering memory—my mother laying out chess pieces, teaching me that sometimes the most dangerous player is the one everyone underestimates.
I watch her hands move with sniper’s focus, cataloging every micro-expression. She’s playing a deeper game, one that reminds me uncomfortably of old pack politics where every helper was a potential threat. But we’re beyond choosing perfect allies now. Sometimes survival means dancing with the devil who knows all the steps.
“Tell us everything,” Ryker demands.
I couldn’t agree more.