Page 156 of The ARC Unit: Breach

I left the phone where it was.

The shirt shifted against my bare stomach when I settled deeper into the bed. I became aware again of the fact that I had nothing underneath it, which felt ridiculous in the dark because Wolf could not see that either.

“Mercer.”

His voice sounded different again without fabric over his mouth. It was clearer around the edges, the low register less muffled and suddenly more human than the voice I was used to hearing through the mask.

“I’m not looking.”

Silence.

“I didn’t say you were.”

“You were thinking it.”

“Go to sleep.”

“You sound different.”

Another pause.

“Mercer.”

“Fine.”

I closed my eyes.

The compound settled around us. Pipes shifted inside the walls and somewhere outside a door closed as Bear probably finished dealing with my room for the night. Wolf’s breathing gradually slowed from a pattern I could hear into one I had to listen for.

Mine took considerably longer as I finally drifted off.

◆

I woke to a voice.

For several seconds, I could not place the room. The sheets smelled wrong, my legs were tangled beneath a heavier blanket than the one on my own bed and there was a low sound somewhere beside me that did not belong in sleep.

Then the voice came again.

“Move.”

Wolf. I opened my eyes.

He was still on the floor, but every part of him had tightened. His shoulders were rigid beneath the black shirt and one hand had twisted into the blanket under him. His breathing came too fast, each inhale catching before it fully settled.

“Wolf?”

Nothing.

His head turned sharply toward the wall.

“Get them out.”

The words came rough enough that I stopped moving. I had heard Wolf angry. I had heard him command through gunfire and talk over police radios while people bled around him. That voice always had control built into it.

This one did not.

“Wolf.”