Page 175 of The ARC Unit: Breach

Two lay on mattresses without sitting up when the door opened. One had a swollen eye nearly closed and dried blood at the corner of her mouth. Another had both ankles wrapped in dirty gauze. A woman near the back was shivering beneath two thin blankets despite sweat dampening her hair. The smell of infection was sharp enough that one of the paramedics swore under his breath. Bear let his rifle fall behind him on its sling and lowered his voice before he moved any closer.

“Medical now,” he said into comms. “I need everybody you’ve got.”

The woman with the wrapped ankles tried to move backward when he approached. Bear stopped several feet away and lowered himself to one knee.

“I’m not touching you,” he said. “Doctor’s coming.”

She stared at him.

Bear looked over his shoulder. “Mercer. What languages?”

I moved to the threshold. The woman answered his question without knowing he had asked it, whispering something in Serbian to the woman beside her. The first Serbian word stopped me halfway into the doorway. I crouched outside the room and answered her. Her head lifted. I told her Bear was not going to hurt her and that we were getting everyone out, then asked whether she could tell me her name. Her lips moved twice before sound came.

“Tara.”

Tara. I had read the name so many times on the Haus Eberhardt transfer sheet that seeing a real woman answer to it made the page feel obscene. I looked at Bear.

“She’s from Eberhardt.”

His jaw tightened. Tara pointed weakly toward the room behind her and said something fast enough that I had to ask her to repeat it.

“They separated the ones who fought,” I translated. “This room.”

Bear studied the injuries again. The punishment records from Haus Eberhardt were suddenly visible in bruises, dirty gauze, black eyes and infected wounds three feet in front of me.

Raven broke into the channel.

“Wolf, visual on Kade. North loading floor. Black jacket, hard case, armed male with him.”

Wolf answered, “Hold medical corridor. Mercer stays south.”

I pressed the headset closer. “Understood.”

Bear held my gaze for another beat before returning to Tara. I stayed where I was while the gunfire moved toward the rear of the building.

Viper’s voice came fast and controlled. “Two moving east.”

Wolf said, “Take one. Leave the second if he breaks outside.”

“Copy.”

Raven switched feeds through my headset, narrating only what the team needed. “Rear camera lost. East lot still live. One male exiting side door.”

Hawk said, “Have him.”

A shot cracked outside.

Then Jackal. “BMW stopped. Driver running south.”

“German unit takes driver,” Wolf said. “Jackal hold east.”

“Copy.”

I stayed beside Tara while medical worked around us. She gripped my fingers when the paramedic cut away the bandage from her ankle. I let her squeeze until my knuckles hurt. When she asked whether the people from Eberhardt were alive, I told her eleven women had been recovered there.

She started crying.

“Six came here,” she said.