Page 45 of Anchor
The Chase HQ terrace was dark by design. High above Ann Arbor, the city moved in thin ribbons. The hum of briefing rooms and corridors didn’t reach this high.
Reid stood with a cooling mug of coffee, his reflection ghosted in the glass. The door clicked open. Dean Kozlow stepped out, boots loose-laced, jaw shadowed, shoulders steady in soft-worn gray. He didn’t announce himself, just crossed the stone floor and handed Reid a second mug of black coffee.
“You get her to work all right?” Dean asked, voice low.
Reid nodded. “Yeah. Dropped her at the university this morning.” He paused. “I’ll be taking her down to Chase Tech later. They’ll want her set up, cleared, working.”
Dean grunted. “Good. That keeps her inside the wire.”
Reid didn’t answer right away. He watched the city breathe below them, thinking of Claire’s smile when she’d teased him about his bare-bones apartment. The way her eyes sharpened when she scanned a room, reading it faster than most analystswith a full feed. He felt that, the sharp line where wanting her close blurred with knowing she was marked.
Dean sipped his coffee, reading him without asking. Then, almost casually, he asked, “She’s in it, isn’t she?”
Reid’s jaw flexed. “Yeah, more than anyone meant for her to be.”
Dean didn’t press. He just nodded once, like the fact had been logged and filed. Then he steered them back to business. “Stack and Shade are sparring after hours. Good rhythm.”
Reid let out a breath and followed his lead. “Spartan and Flint too. Spartan follows better than he leads. Flint reads people before tactics.”
Dean smirked, barely. “Not useless.”
“Lockjaw hates chaos,” Reid said.
“She hates sloppy,” Dean corrected.
““Same thing,” Reid muttered.
He let it slide. “Torch?”
“Needs friction,” Reid answered. “She doesn’t trust smooth. Respect only lands with her if it leaves a bruise first.”
Dean tilted his head. “You going to let her bruise you?”
“I already did,” Reid said simply.
Dean sipped his coffee, didn’t press. “Scope?”
“Quiet command. Watches everything. Talks only when it matters.”
“Hush?”
“Doesn’t waste words. But if he speaks, you listen. Either stone wall or scalpel.”
“Bluebird.”
“Catalogs everything. Breath counts, risk angles. Looks soft—isn’t.”
“Ghostwire?”
Reid’s brow tightened. “Not much for words, but he’ll see what the rest of us miss.”
“Fuse?”
“Brilliant. Doesn’t care about hierarchy. Point her the right way, and that’s firepower.”
Dean leaned back against the glass, coffee in hand. “You think they’ll follow you?”
Reid didn’t answer right away. He watched the stoplights shift red to green over the traffic below, a wash of color moving like a tide across the windshields.
