Page 135 of Immune

“They’re circling,” I tell him quietly.

Fletcher’s jaw tightens. “Search pattern.”

“Lush. Hate that shit,” I mutter quietly.

The pilot chooses that very moment to cough blood onto his own chin, and I close my eyes. Incredibly inconvenient timing.

Xeon drops next to him, fingers pressed to his throat, calm face going still in a way I’ve learned not to trust. “He needs to stop moving.”

“He needs a compound clinic,” Fletcher reminds him, as though that’s not exactly where we’ve been trying to go all this time.

“He’ll need a body bag if we keep dragging him farther right now, mate,” I add.

Dakota looks at the pilot. “If he dies, he gets loud.”

I blink at the pint-sized psycho and blurt, “That’s what you’re worried about?”

She shrugs emotionlessly. “Dead things draw dead things.”

Fletcher points at a narrow door set into the wall next to an old security panel. “There. Temporary point.”

Temporary point. Love that. Military dudes love making cupboards sound official. Because that’s what this little security office is. It’s literally just a cupboard. Concrete walls, dead monitors, one bolted desk. There are two cracked chairs, a filing cabinet that smells like musty paper and sadness, and a narrow little window that looks out into the tunnel. Which, might I add, is proper helpful if you enjoy the occasional watching of darkness as it sits there being all smug and shit.

The door locks from the inside, though, so small mercies and all that. I mean, for the apocalypse, this shit is basically a luxury suite at a five-star hotel.

We get the pilot inside, Fletcher and Xeon settling him on a sheet of thermal plastic next to the desk. Kaito takes up a position near the door, blade seated across his lap, and one hand still pressed to his side like stubbornness has medicinal properties.

It doesn’t, but what the hell do I know?

Dakota claims the far corner. Obviously. Not the chair, or the desk. Not anywhere normal people would sit if normal people still even existed and weren’t mostly groaning around train stations with unhinged jaws and cloudy eyes.

She tucks herself into the corner with one knee up, the other stretched out stiffly, and her knife loose in one hand. She’s still wearing her cap low and her bandana high on her face, and her shoulders look too tight to be comfortable, but her breathing is controlled. Too controlled. Her hands are shaking, but she curls one into her sleeve as if that makes it unnoticeable. It doesn’t, because I notice. I also don’t mention it, because despite everything that would lead someone to think otherwise, I’m not actually stupid.

After all, Dakota doesn’t just accept comfort.

She will, however, accept things, and that’s a completely different thing.

Comfort needs eye contact and feelings and someone saying things like “are you alright?” which is actually a famously terrible question to ask someone when we’re balls-deep in an apocalypse. The best anyone can hope for is being alive, mostly attached, and not currently being eaten through a door.

Things are easier. Water can roll across the floor like it’s minding its own business. Headphones can sit nearby, tragically abandoned, waiting for a stubborn little Tiny Terror in tactical gear to pretend she’s not interested. A joke can be dropped into the air and left there, no pressure, no expectation, and no grand emotional unveiling.

Dakota doesn’t like comfort.

But tools?

Oh, tools, she’ll consider, and that’s a damned good thing to know.

Fletcher and Xeon take turns at the little interior window, watching the tunnel. Kaito closes his eyes for exactly four seconds before opening them again, because apparently rest has offended him, his ancestors, and a horse-shaped cow. The pilot breathes like every single inhale costs him money and he’s flirting with the line of poverty.

I sit near the bolted desk, not between Dakota and the door. My headphones sit in my lap and my music player rests next to them. Dakota glances at both like they’re detonation devices, and I pretend not to see a thing.

Wow. Maturity again. See that? I really am full of surprises.

Outside, something drags along the tunnel, and everyone freezes.

Kaito’s head lifts. His jaw tightens, pain exploding across his face before he buries it. Dakota sees it, even though shepretends not to, and Kaito pretends he doesn’t need anyone to see it. Everyone in the fucking room is lying so hard it’s actually a miracle the ceiling doesn’t collapse out of sheer embarrassment. It’s actually tragic.

I lift one finger.