Page 5 of Strays
It’s empty, so we cram ourselves into the chairs in front of his desk to wait. Shane’s foot starts tapping against the floor almost immediately.
“Stop fidgeting,” I snap.
He shoots me a look, but his leg goes still. It came out harsher than I intended, but we’re all on edge, and thetap, tap, tapof his foot on the floor was getting under my skin.
Jay sighs on my right.
I lift my head, stretch my neck, and take a deep breath, trying to ease the pressure on my lungs. Between the three of us, the air in this tiny room is so thick with aggressive pheromones that I’m sure any aegis within a mile of the station can smell it.
Now that my mind’s made up, I just want to get it over with.
“When Balls gets here, I’m putting in for our dismissal,” I say.
Their heads snap toward me, and my chest unclenches a little, watching their faces change, their features lighting up.
Jay’s the first to speak. “It’s time, Kory. It really is.”
Shane lets out a breath that’s half a laugh. “We’ll be better off. There’s a decent cage-fighting league in Pittsburgh. We could start there.”
There aren’t many paths left for packs like us. Once you’re out of the force or the military, it’s either private security, usually for some crime-adjacent asshole, or fighting. At least in the cage, it’s legal.
Jay nods. “The money sucks if you’re not a name, but it’s not like we’re getting paid well here, anyway.”
“We’re Tier-Four. We have two years of military training and six on the force,” Shane adds. “We could be a name.”
Some of the tension slips off my shoulders. They’re already thinking ahead, already trying to make the best of it. Even if it’s not much, since we’re trading a stable paycheck and a few basic benefits for a cut of whatever tickets the league sells.
But Shane’s not wrong. Most cage fighters are Tier-Five: packs at the very bottom of our society. Their bonds are weak; their hormone regulation barely functional. They can’t control their aggression, not even with their own brothers. Tier-Fives are smaller, unstable.
We are bigger. Disciplined. Trained. So yeah, we’ve got a shot at making something out of it, even if it’s just fighting for scraps in a ring. At least there, no one expects us to bow. No constant pressure to stay tame, stay harmless. No need to prove day in, day out that we’re safe to be around.
In the cage, they want us unleashed.
The real loss is the Matching Program. Once we’re out, that’s it; we’re erased. But after three years of chasing nothing, I’ve finally given up on the fantasy that our nyra ever existed.
The clock ticks loudly above the door. Ten minutes feels like a lifetime.
“Come on, where is the motherfucker?” Jay mutters.
Shane and I grunt in agreement. I can’t wait to get out of here.
The sharp clack of the door lock is like an angel choir in my ears. Captain Balls starts yelling before he even steps inside.
His name isn’t actually Balls, but Shane came up with the nickname, and it fits so well that it stuck. The man is tiny — maybe 5’5” — and round all over. Especially his head. His bald, round head.
He looks like a little ball on top of a ball, with arms and legs awkwardly stuck to it. The nickname is so good that even the human cops call him that.
“You’re suspended, Larsen! All of you!” His face is red as he storms in. “Suspended! Do you hear me?”
God, I can’t stand this little man.
As a human, he’s untouchable. If an aegis lays a hand on a human outside an operation, it’s a one-way ticket to jail. But if I’m honest, even if I could swing at him, I probably wouldn’t. He’s so damn small it’d feel like hitting a kid.
“What the hell were you thinking, you little shit?” He glares at Shane, squinting his piggy eyes so much they’re almost shut. “You could’ve killed that damn kid! You have no discipline! No respect! When I asked for dogs, I meant purebred. If I knew I’d be stuck with strays, I never would’ve asked!”
Strays.
There it is again.
