Chapter Twenty-Two – Time For Us To Grow #2
Once they sit, Josh looks straight at us.
“As you can see, each pack has been assigned to a different agency, but the work intersects constantly. Collaboration makes us effective. If you see something that smells like a shared thread — aliases, routes, funding — bring it to the team. It doesn’t matter who closes the case; what matters is that it gets done. ”
“And we keep it clean,” Samuel adds, eyes on us. “We don’t have to be best friends, but we have to coexist.”
Josh folds his arms and looks at the other packs around the table. “On that note, I know a lot of you feel some type of way about the new pack. So say what you need to say now, because after this, I don’t want to hear any more bullshit. Formal briefing’s over, speak freely.”
One guy from the Zervas pack leans in, eyes fixed on us.
“Let’s address it. You’re the weirdest pack I’ve ever heard of.
Stray aegis who somehow scent-bonded with a Prime.
I figured you’d be humans’ little bitches, since you’re Steve Bureau’s pets.
Then you break a human’s face like a damn Tier-Five. ”
Every eye in the room’s on us. Normally, people say that kind of shit in corners, quiet enough for leadership to pretend not to hear, not like this, out in the open. I can’t decide whether this is better or worse.
“Yeah. That’s us,” I say, meeting his stare.
“Care to explain?” he asks.
I lift my chin. “No.”
I glance at my brothers. Both hold their heads high. Good.
“I’m not attacking you,” the Zervas guy says. “Like Sam said, we’re a small team; we can’t afford beefs. I’m giving you a chance to help me understand you, because right now, your presence doesn’t sit right with me.”
He’s direct. I’ll give him that.
Shane speaks up. “We don’t apologize for who we are. We’re strays. A drunk asshole came for our mate. A big guy like you shouldn’t need help to understand things this simple.”
One of the FBI aegis snorts. “I like your attitude. We’re not asking you to apologize for being strays, but don’t expect us to apologize for how we feel about having Bureau’s motherfuckers in this garrison either.”
We’ve done this dance too many times. “Feel however you want. We’ll stay out of your way, you stay out of ours, and we’re good.” I say.
The tension lingers. No one speaks.
Then one of the Bielke pack, one of the strawberry-blonds, breaks the silence. “Just tell me this: how the hell can you call Steve Bureau ‘father’? Man talks about us like we’re some special breed of dogs.”
What?
Shane’s eyes narrow. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“We all know the strays call him father,” the ash-blond replies.
Jay exhales. “I’ve seen Dr. Steve Bureau twice in my life.
Never spoke to him, and he never spoke to us.
Both times I heard his voice, he was talking to the med team about us like we weren’t even in the room.
Far as I know, I’ve never called anyone ‘father’, not even the son of a bitch who knocked up my mother. So where the fuck did you hear that?”
Half of them shift in their seats, passing quick, silent looks across the table.
One of the FBI guys clears his throat. “So what is the nature of your relationship with Steve Bureau?”
Feels like a trial. I don’t like it.
“We don’t have any relationship with him,” I say.
“Like my brother said, we saw him maybe twice. And I don’t think he ever thought to speak to one of his program’s subjects, probably figured it’d be as stupid as talking to a monkey.
But I’ll say this: I’m grateful he created the Strays Program.
Without it, we’d be solitary aegis. I know he’s a piece of shit, but I won’t lie: he saved my life and gave me my brothers. So, that’s that.”
The FBI pack trades glances. Their leader leans forward and stares at us. “There’s a photo of Steve Bureau surrounded by smiling kids from the program hugging him.”
“We left the program eight years ago,” Jay says, voice steady. “But I doubt it’s changed all that much. The only way aegis kids are smiling around Dr. Bureau is if he offered double sensory deprivation to the ones who didn’t.”
“Sensory deprivation?” Josh asks, brow furrowing.
Shane lifts an eyebrow. His face stays blank, but I can tell he’s annoyed.
He always hated that part the most. “Yeah. Never heard of it?” he snaps.
“They put you in a box. No light, no sound, no contact, just a ventilation system. You sit there for twelve hours, alone. Your brothers are supposed to keep you calm by pumping pheromones into the air around the box.”
Josh looks stunned. “How old were you when they did that?”
“Started once a week after we became a pack,” Shane says. “I was twelve.”
The expressions shift around the table, every face showing some level of discomfort and doubt.
“How the hell do you not know that?” Shane asks, eyes sharp. “Didn’t the MAB or any agency ever look into the Program?”
The expressions get even more uncomfortable. “Bureau was never specific about the methods,” the Harris pack leader says slowly. “He just said he used synthetic oxytocin modeled off nyra hormone and behavioral conditioning.”
I look straight at him. “Well, that’s behavioral conditioning.”
The room falls silent. I don’t look at anyone, but I can feel the weight of every stare.
Finally, Josh speaks. “Anything else?”
No one answers.
“You had your chance,” he says. “From now on, no bullshit.”
He turns to us. “Larsens, you’re expected at the DEA office this afternoon. Tomorrow, you start T1P at six sharp.”
He stands, and the rest of the room moves with him, including us.
We decide to head straight to Bridgeport and grab lunch at that place Jo showed us, the little restaurant next to Joseph Monson Hospital. She texts us while we’re eating. It’s nice to see her name on my screen again. She used to message us around lunchtime almost every day before she left.
The notification makes me smile, but it hits somewhere else too. The ache of all those days she was just gone and silent.
Hey babe, how’s the first day?
Babe? That’s new. Good type of new.
It’s okay. We scored a crazy Bronco and decent gear. Grabbing lunch at Fatimah’s . I send back.
A minute later, she replies.
Shane just told me you’re working with the DEA. Sounds exciting!
Exciting, sure. After this morning’s interrogation at the briefing, I’d trade this posting to go back to our high-risk unit in a heartbeat. But I don’t tell her that .
Yeah, how about you? , I reply.
I’m good. After you left for work, I went back to the nest and slept till ten. Enjoying my last days of freedom.
I don’t understand, so I send her back: Last days of freedom?
I called Dr. Lindstrom this morning. I’m going back to the hospital on Wednesday.
A tight chill runs through my chest. There’s no reason to think it’ll be any better for her there than it was before: the same people, the same hate for what she is. What if she breaks under the pressure? What if she shuts down again?
But I can’t say any of that to her either. I don’t know what to say at all, so I just text: Okay.
Shane’s voice cuts in from across the table, clipped and tense. “She’s going back to the hospital.”
We sit in silence for a moment, the three phones on the table still buzzing with her replies.
“I don’t want to be in the way of her career,” I say.
Jay exchanges a look with Shane before answering. “We can’t be. But we can talk to her about what happens if people come for her like last time.”
He pauses, then adds: “She owes us that much.”
I flinch at that. I used to think we were just lucky she accepted us.
Like we should be grateful for every second with her, no matter what it cost. And I am grateful.
I always will be. So, the idea of her owing us anything still doesn’t sit right with me.
But now I realize that’s not how a bond should be.
We’re her mates. We make her whole just as much as she completes us. It hurt like hell when she left, but she changed; she grew. It’s time for us, for me, to grow too. To see ourselves as equals in this bond and speak up when something feels wrong, even if we’re scared she might not like it.
I nod slowly. “We’ll talk to her tonight.”
Shane’s already picking up his phone and texting her back so she won’t think we disappeared mid-conversation.
After this morning’s mess at the garrison and Jo’s news, my mood tanks fast. By the time we reach the DEA office, I’m in no shape to make first impressions.
The building’s unmarked, just another anonymous federal block sunken behind the courthouse. Two American flags drooped limp on silver poles like they had given up on catching wind.
Jay pulls into the back lot. There’s a single row of reserved spaces behind a chained gate, black SUVs already taking two. He parks the F-150 half over a faded line and kills the engine.
The front entrance of the building has a wide glass door, sealed behind a security vestibule. A man sits inside, halfway through a burrito, watching a tiny screen.
He doesn’t even blink when we walk in. “You scheduled?” he asks through the mic grill, eyes flicking from our chests to our faces .
“Larsen pack,” I say. “From Special Ops.”
He squints, then picks up the desk phone and speaks into it.
A few minutes later, a door clicks open at the far end of the hallway and a man steps through wearing a gray DEA windbreaker, with a badge hanging low off his belt loop and a clipboard in hand.
“Larsens?” he says. “I’m Lowell. Assistant Special Agent in Charge. Follow me.”
He pivots and steps down the hall. We enter; the front door shuts behind us, and we follow him into the belly of the office. The corridor opens onto a room lined with desks. No cubicles, just an open squad floor.
Agents in windbreakers look up as we pass, and conversations stall. One guy even leans over his desk to get a better look at us.
“This is the Bridgeport squad room,” Lowell says without slowing. “You’ll be working out of here.”
He leads us past a row of desks, and that’s when we see them: three oversized workstations tucked along the far wall, just before a glass-walled office. Bigger chairs, desk surfaces set higher. Old, but solid. Not the kind of thing you throw together last minute.
Jay lets out a quiet breath. Shane’s already smiling. It’s the first time we’ve stepped into a human building and felt like maybe we’re meant to stay.
Lowell gestures us forward, into the small office. A woman in a black blazer stands as we enter, and her gaze sweeps over us.
“This is Supervisory Special Agent Scouse,” Lowell explains. “You’ll report to her directly.”
“Larsen pack,” she says. “I read the file. Come in. Close the door.”
We step inside. The room is tight. There’s barely space for her desk, a side table with a coffeemaker, and two small chairs. Shane lowers himself into one. Jay takes a spot near the wall, arms folded. I stay standing too.
Scouse opens a folder on her desk, thumb sliding under a clipped set of papers. “I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never worked with aegis agents before. When I joined this office, the last aegis unit had already retired.”
That’s fine. I’d rather have honesty than someone pretending they’ve got us figured out.
At least she’s not giving us that hungry look some human women get when they want to fuck us.
Or worse, the scared one that turns everything we do into a threat.
Either would make it harder to work with her, but her face stays neutral and her voice steady. That’s something.
She flips a page. “From everything I’ve heard, they were damn effective, and we could use that right now. Bridgeport’s been under pressure. We’ve got a spike in overdose deaths; people are dying before emergency responders can even try to save them.
“Right now, we don’t have a name for it.
No confirmed samples, no lab work. Just the aftermath, and it’s spreading.
Overdoses are up coast to coast: Bridgeport, Houston, Los Angeles.
Same symptoms, same toxicology gaps and same story of no drugs recovered, no trace compounds.
It’s like the stuff disappears the second it hits the bloodstream. ”
“Your job is simple: dig,” she continues.
“I don’t really know what you can do, but people in this office said the last aegis unit could scent narcotics from two blocks away and caught patterns no one else could see.
I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m hoping you’ve got something.
You’ll start with the latest reports. There’s a full file on the shared server.
Lowell will make sure you have access. You’ll also sit in on the task force briefings on Fridays. ”
Jay nods. Shane and I hold her stare.
She taps the file once. “Dismissed.”