Chapter One #3
“Maybe. Or Cerberus recognizes when somebody is getting close another way. I don’t know yet.”
Wolf glanced from my report to the handwritten page he’d been working from.
“How long did you spend on this?”
“The flight.”
“Nine hours?”
“I slept.”
From the other side of the table, Jackal chimed in. “I can never sleep on a plane.”
Wolf ignored him.
“You think you found something six agencies missed on an airplane?” There was enough contempt in the question that my back straightened.
“No. I think six agencies wrote reports about six different things, and nobody asked whether they were starting the clock in the right place.”
For a moment neither of us said anything. Through the mask, his face gave me almost nothing. Only the eyes. They were darker up close than they’d looked in the photograph. Wolf pulled the Romanian report toward himself.
“Raven.”
Raven was already moving back to his computer. “Looking.”
Taking the report was all the acknowledgement Wolf planned to offer.
Jackal leaned toward me across the table. “I’d take the win.”
“I didn’t know we were competing.”
“Everything is a competition if Wolf’s involved.”
“I’m sitting right here,” Wolf said.
Jackal nodded and stretched his arms behind his head. “That’s what makes it exciting.”
A door opened at the rear of the room while Raven searched through the files. Bear came in first with Hawk and Viper behind him.
Bear recognized me immediately, though his size registered differently in person.
He was tall enough that the doorframe seemed lower when he came through it, broad without looking bulky, with light brown skin and a close buzz cut.
Unlike the man currently making me defend my worth before I’d unpacked, Bear actually smiled.
“You must be Mia.”
“Finally, someone who doesn’t sound disappointed about it.”
Bear glanced toward Wolf. “You’ve met him, then.”
“I’ve had the pleasure.”
Bear offered me his hand. “Bear.”
“Mia.”
His handshake was careful, which amused me considering his hand almost swallowed mine. Hawk and Viper came around the table next. I recognized Hawk by the longer blond hair and leaner frame.
“Hawk,” I said.
His eyebrows lifted once in acknowledgment. I turned to the other brother.
“And Viper?”
Viper gave me a short nod.
Hawk glanced toward the files sticking out of my carry-on. “You read ahead.”
“Apparently that’s controversial here.”
Jackal quietly pointed toward Wolf. “Everything is controversial here.”
Viper pulled out a chair without waiting for Hawk. His brother remained on the other side of the table. I looked between them. “People usually ask which one is which?”
“Constantly,” Hawk said, and the ease in his expression faded enough that I understood the subject wasn’t as funny to them as it probably was to everyone else. Viper opened a bottle of water.
“People hear twins and decide that’s enough information.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I said.
Hawk gave me a small nod. “Appreciated.”
Jackal leaned against the table beside Viper. “They’re very sensitive.”
Viper looked at him. “You cried when Bear broke your sunglasses.”
“They were expensive.”
“They were twelve euros.”
“They had sentimental value.”
Bear shook his head. “He’d owned them for two days.”
Jackal sighed. “Nobody here respects grief.”
The conversation continued naturally around me while Raven worked.
Bear asked Hawk something about a vehicle in the garage.
Viper complained that somebody had moved equipment out of his locker, which Jackal blamed on an unspecified conspiracy.
Wolf barely participated. He just sat at the end of the table reading my report.
The contrast was hard to miss. The other five moved around one another like people who had spent too much time together and no longer bothered with formalities.
Wolf didn’t need to join every conversation to remain at the center of it because every so often, someone looked toward him without seeming aware they’d done it.
Raven finally turned his laptop around.
“Mia’s right about Romania.”
Wolf looked at the screen.
“The warehouse started shutting down earlier than we’ve been treating it,” Raven continued. “Prague might be the same, but I need to go farther back before I’m willing to swear to that.”
Wolf looked at me.
“You’re with Raven.”
Three words were enough to assign me a new working partner.
Raven smiled. “Congratulations.”
“To which one of us?”
“Me, obviously.”
Wolf ignored both of us. “Start before the missions reach ARC. Find out who knew enough to make Cerberus nervous.”
At least he had given me a direction I could actually use instead of another formal briefing.
“How far back can I go?” I asked.
“As far as Raven clears.”
I frowned. “Commander Vale gave me broader access than that.”
“I don’t care.”
“She also classified me as field capable.”
Wolf looked up.
“No.”
I waited.
“No what?”
“You’re not going out in the field, Mercer.”
“You haven’t seen me do anything.”
“Exactly.”
My irritation rose. “So how am I supposed to prove I can handle myself if you won’t let me?”
Wolf closed the report.
“That’s your problem.”
Jackal became very interested in something on the floor but I could see his mouth trying to betray him with the twitch of a smile. Wolf looked past Raven and nodded toward the stairs.
“Show her upstairs.”
Then he looked back down, ending whatever counted as orientation around here.
Raven closed his laptop and headed toward the staircase while gesturing at me to follow, while Jackal trailed behind us despite nobody inviting him.
At the bottom of the staircase, Raven instinctively reached toward my suitcase before catching himself.
“Your mother would be disappointed,” I whispered.
“Deeply,” he said with a hand over his heart and eyebrows pushed together.
Jackal looked between us and mimicked my whisper, “What did his mother do?”
“Raised him to carry luggage,” I continued.
He nodded with his hand on his chin. “Hm. Good woman.”
From the operations table, Wolf spoke without raising his voice.
“Mercer.”
I looked back and his gaze dropped briefly toward the suitcase.
“Yes. I remember I have arms.”
“Use them.”
I scoffed and grabbed the handle.
Jackal leaned closer. “I think he likes you.”
“Do you want to die?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Eventually.”
Raven started upstairs before Wolf could hear the rest as I lugged my too-heavy-for-airline-regulations suitcase up one step at a time.
The loft opened into a narrow corridor lit by fluorescent fixtures that gave the entire place the atmosphere of an old military hospital somebody had abandoned halfway through renovation.
The concrete walls had been painted, but not recently enough to hide cracks underneath and the identical doors were close enough together that privacy seemed like something the architects had considered inefficient.
Raven stopped at one near the middle.
“This is you.”
I opened it and for a second, I thought he was joking.
The room wasn’t much larger than the bed inside it. A metal locker stood against one wall, while a small desk had been squeezed beneath the window. There was enough space between the furniture to move around if I planned the route first.
I stepped inside and looked at Raven.
“Where’s the rest of it?”
He remained in the doorway. “That’s quite hurtful. We cleaned.”
“Where am I supposed to put my suitcase?”
Jackal appeared behind him and looked around thoughtfully. “On the bed.”
“Then where am I supposed to sleep?”
“On the suitca-”
Raven pushed him backward with one hand.
“There should be space underneath.”
I crouched on my hands and knees to look under the bed. There was not. A folded training mat already occupied most of it.
“Whose is that?” I asked while sitting up on my knees. Raven leaned down beside me.
“No idea.”
Jackal looked over Raven’s shoulder. “Mine.”
“Why is your stuff under my bed?”
“It wasn’t your bed yesterday.”
“Move it.”
He smiled. “Feisty.”
Raven pulled the mat out and shoved it into Jackal’s arms as I managed to wedge the suitcase halfway under the bed and decided that was a problem for another day.
“Bathroom?”
Raven pointed down the hall.
“That… would be toward the end here.”
Something in his voice made me suspicious as I walked toward it. The moment I opened the last door down the hall, my room became significantly less offensive.