Page 125 of Immune

The mop handle snaps suddenly, and Ewan grabs the cart next to the workbench, shoving it against the door before the dead can push their way through. “Leaving would actually be lush right now.”

Dakota opens the far door and cool air floods into the room. A covered service passage stretches in front of us, leading west. She looks at it, then at me, right before she says, “You chose this route before.”

“Yes,” I answer.

“Because it has privacy,” she says, more of a statement than a question.

I answer it like it’s the latter. “Yes.”

Her eyes narrow, but I let the answer sit between us. There’s no smart or tricky phrasing, no hiding behind sightlines this time. She can have the truth when it’s safe enough to give. She deserves that much.

“Why?” she asks.

“Because,” I say. “You were overheating. Because your scent was spiking. Because enclosed routes with no exits make you worse.”

The hand wrapped around her knife flexes. “And you were, what? Being helpful?”

“Yes,” I answer, hoping she hears the honesty in that single word.

Suspicion sharpens her eyes and she asks again, “Why?”

I hold her gaze for a beat. The others are moving behind us now. Fletcher lifting the pilot again. Kaito is pale next to him, one hand pressed against his side while the other grips his knife. And Ewan keeps the cart braced until the very last second, the dead pushing heavily against the door.

There’s no time for a long answer, so I shortly tell her, “Because not every Alpha wants to own what he scents.”

Dakota goes utterly still, the words hitting a little too hard. I see the old belief appear in her eyes. Not thought, but knowledge. A lesson learned the hard way, through blood, flight, hunger, and years of hiding.

She laughs once, the sound lacking humor, and she says, “I don’t believe you.”

“I know,” I tell her, already fully aware. Her brows pinch, but I simply step back from the doorway, leaving her the path through first. Then I say, “You don’t have to.”

The door behind us cracks louder, and Ewan says, “Whatever this is, it’s very touching. Really, it is. Also, if you didn’t know, there are dead things incoming. Just thought you’d want to know.”

Dakota looks at me for one more second. The suspicion stays in those hazel eyes, but so does something else. Not trust, not quite yet. Maybe the place where trust would stand one day if the world stopped trying to kill her for long enough.

Then she turns and moves into the service passage. I follow after Fletcher and the pilot, not behind Dakota. Not too close. Near enough to help, but far enough to make sure the passage doesn’t feel like a cage.

Behind us, the maintenance room door gives way, and the dead spill into the space we left behind. Ahead, the passage runs west toward the compound route, toward whatever Vector knows, and toward the walls that might protect Dakota or try to keep her.

I look at her as she limps through the gray light with her knife ready and her shoulders locked against every possible kindness we could offer. She’s not a puzzle, though. Not a secret to pry open.

She’s a person who has survived by becoming difficult to reach.

So I don’t reach.

Not yet.

TWENTY-TWO

DAKOTA

The service tunnel west of the transit station stinks of wet concrete, old grease, stale blood, and whatever happens when six years of dampness decides to become a permanent fixture like a bad personality you can’t get rid of. Which, honestly, is really fucking rude. I mean, if a tunnel is going to survive an apocalypse, the least it could do is smell like medical supplies, clean blankets, and maybe one of those sick pretzel stalls that used to make shopping centers worth going to.

Instead, we got rot.

Because the universe is a joyless bastard with issues falling out of its ass.

The tunnel must have connected to the station’s delivery level once, back when people still believed trains would arrive on time, coffee fixed every problem, and sandwiches wrapped in plastic counted as lunch. Now it’s a narrow concrete grave lined with pipes, service doors, rusted electrical boxes, and red emergency lights that continue to flicker all around us like they’re warning and judging us at the very same time.