Titus discovered that for all Beau owned a muscle car, he drove it like a granny. Always stayed five miles per hour under the speed limit, came to a complete stop every time, used his blinker religiously, the whole package. That deep rumbling engine never exceeded 3000 rpm unless he was actively accelerating, and even then, Beau eased up on the gas pedal if he felt the engine was revving just the tiniest bit more than it needed to. 

“How do you deal with the traffic around here?” Titus finally asked as they neared the address. “California drivers are insane!”

“I make Danni drive every chance I get,” came the answer. Beau never even took his eyes off the road. “But we take their car. Ain’t nobody gets behind the wheel of my baby here but me.” He patted the steering wheel with such tenderness, Titus wondered for a moment if any of Beau’s past partners had been jealous of the car.

When they finally neared the address, Titus instructed Beau to take a lap past the building. With how slow Beau drove, it would give them all plenty of time to get a good look at the location. And it turned out to be a good idea.

The site wasn’t anything like what they were expecting.

A long, single story brick facade warehouse stood at the listed address. It was surrounded by a high chain link fence topped in coils of razor wire, with signs posted at regular intervals warning it was electrified. There was a double wide gate at one end, monitored by a shack of a gatehouse beside it. No guards were in obvious evidence, but Titus was sure there were foot patrols somewhere based on how heavily fenced the building was. The windows in the building itself were set high up the walls and there were only two external doors that Titus could easily see. A mostly unoccupied parking lot ran down one long side of the building. Two cars were parked close up by a door, while a third car was just on the other side of the gate from the guard shack, and a box truck was backed up by a set of double doors at the other end. Evenly spaced streetlights banished the worst of the shadows, but had problems pushing back the darkness around the building itself and left the doors to be lit only by struggling sodium lamps mounted on the walls next to them.

It was Danni who said aloud what they were all thinking. “Well. That’s fucking ominous.”

“Yeah, I don’t like it one bit,” Titus agreed as Beau turned the corner away from the building. “Beau, park us a couple of blocks away. These buildings here aren’t too tall, so I’m pretty sure we can get up on a roof nearby. Danni, you should approach on foot. But be ready to run at the first sign of trouble. I have my service weapon, but that’s not going to be much good if they want you to go inside. Your wire will transmit to my earpiece, so I’ll be able to monitor your end of the conversation at least. If you get into trouble, just scream or cuss or something and I’ll call in the backup. The squad cars can go through that fence no problem, so we’ll have officers to your location in a matter of seconds. And if you can’t make any noise for some reason, we’ve got the group chat as another option.”

The three of them fell silent as Beau pulled the car up to the curb a couple of blocks away and shut off the engine. Without the low rumble of the vehicle, the air felt oppressively heavy. Titus definitely couldn’t bring himself to speak up into it. Beau finally had to be the one to break it. “Danni…” He paused, as though the silence itself was eating up his ability to speak. “Be careful.” Titus could tell that there was an entire conversation between the twins in those two words.

“I will.” There was a clear strain in Danni’s voice as they worked to overcome the ominous air. It seemed to Titus that they took a long moment to gather up their courage, then opened the door and slid out before it could falter. Titus also knew he wasn’t the only one watching in the mirrors as Danni walked off.

“We should go get in position.” Beau’s voice sounded gruff when he spoke again, and Titus suspected there was some emotion the Lyco was holding in with a vice-like grip. He knew better than to comment on it, though, and merely nodded his assent before grabbing up the backpack between his feet containing the radio from Ky and earbud from Danni’s wire. Still, everything seemed overloud as they shut the doors and locked the car up. Even the chirp of the car alarm being set felt to Titus like it carried for miles on the still air. 

Not a word was spoken between them as they walked. Titus initially scanned for likely sites where they could get a vantage point of the warehouse, but quickly realized that Beau was striding along with purpose in his steps. He seemed to already have some place in mind and Titus was definitely of a mind to trust the hunting instincts of a Lyco in this case.

Beau led them down an alley. They skirted past a couple of open dumpsters, and Titus nearly jumped out of his skin at every rustle from within them. Probably just rats, he told himself, but only half believed that. Hell, for all he knew, there were rabid raccoons gnawing on the half decayed remains of one of the missing Nostu in one of those bins. Though he figured Beau would have said something if he’d smelled a corpse nearby. At least, Titus hoped the Lyco would have mentioned it if that were true. 

“Here.” Beau finally stopped beside one of the dumpsters. “What little wind there is here, it’s blowin’ toward us from that place. The smells from this restaurant’s vent hoods will cover our scent. We can get up on their roof here; I’ll boost you up from atop this thing.” He knocked lightly on the side of the bin with his knuckle. “Just be sure t’not step on the plastic lid; you’ll be thumbin’ a ride back if you fall in.”

Titus eyeballed the dumpster in question. Even in his college days, he’d never been one to engage in dumpster diving. So he wasn’t entirely confident in his ability to climb up on the thing, let alone stand on the narrow edge. To cover for his hesitation, he checked the backpack to make sure it wouldn’t slip off his shoulders as he clambered inexpertly around a disgusting dumpster.

Beau, however, seemed to be a pro at trash can parkour. He made it look easy as he grabbed the lip with both hands and swung a leg up to catch on the edge. Once upright and balanced, Beau then offered a hand back down to Titus. Eh, what the hell, Titus decided with a mental shrug. He clasped Beau’s forearm and let the Lyco assist him. 

His feet left the ground so fast, Titus almost didn’t know what was happening. He found himself hoisted bodily into the air by just his arm. Titus might have yelped had there been time. But before his system could figure out how to respond to his surprise, Beau’s other arm went around his waist and his feet were being guided safely to the edge of the dumpster. His free arm ended up around Beau’s neck, clinging to the Lyco so he didn’t overbalance and fall right off again. 

Beau didn’t leave him time to consider whether he should be embarrassed or aroused, either. “Hands on my shoulders. Gimme your foot.” Titus followed the softly barked instructions without even considering otherwise. “Brace yourself against the wall as you go.” Beau cupped his free hand beneath Titus’ upraised foot and gave another seemingly effortless shove, boosting Titus up until he could grab the edge of the roof. The brief rippling of muscles beneath his hands was the only way Titus could tell the other man was exerting himself. And then Titus was pulling himself inelegantly up over the low wall surrounding the flat roof of the restaurant. 

Flopping over onto his side, Titus gasped like a landed fish as he tried to process what had just occurred. There was no way Beau should have been able to do that. Even built as he was, Beau should have struggled to assist Titus, not pick him up and throw him around like a hacky sack. And the dissonance only intensified when Beau pulled himself up by his fingertips to peer over the edge at Titus. “Give me a little space.” The Lyco didn’t even sound out of breath, for fuck’s sake! Titus hustled to roll a little further away, though, as Beau proceeded to straight-arm press himself up upward and throw his leg up over the low wall.

What. The. Fuck.

“You okay?” Beau had the audacity to look concerned as he got to his feet.

“Yeah, just, uh…just give me a minute?” Titus’ mind was racing as he tried to process what had just happened in the span of the last few seconds. 

And Beau just shrugged about it. “Take your time. I’ll get eyes on Danni, so catch your breath before you catch up to me.”

It took Titus a long couple of minutes of lying braced on his elbows to rationalize any of that. Staring up into the star flecked darkness, he mentally reviewed what he knew of Lycos. They do tend to be stronger than humans of equivalent size, he recalled. Studies had been done when Lycos wanted to participate in athletics and had, on average, outperformed their human counterparts. It had led to the creation of Lyco exclusive sports teams. And yet, Titus didn’t remember any of his foster siblings ever outstripping him that significantly whenever they’d tussled around outside. Maybe Beau was just a little further along on that scale, perhaps? It’s not like there was a metric for how much a Lyco could outperform a human; much like humans themselves, there was a wide range in how much strength a Lyco possessed. The same went for their enhanced hearing and smell. And, to be entirely fair, it wasn’t like Titus had much expertise when it came to either Lycos or Nostu. He just tried to treat them as fairly as he treated anyone. 

Ultimately, Titus reasoned, Beau was probably just above the average. Maybe he worked out a lot; it sure looked like that was the case, at any rate. And it was rude of him to assume differently, Titus reprimanded himself. Besides, he’d only known the man for what? A week at most? It had just surprised him, was all.

Sitting up, Titus gave himself one last admonishment for letting this rattle him so badly. He needed to get his shit together. Danni was out there risking their neck while he was here having a breakdown about how strong Beau was. Foolish! 

With that thought firmly in mind, Titus crouched down and duck walked himself over to join Beau in peeking over the edge of the building.