Page 141 of Immune

So I decide, sitting there with only one bar of battery left and Vector somewhere loitering above us, that I won’t use humor to step away from what hurts her. I’ll use it like a crowbar. Wedge it into the next five minutes and make just enough room for her to finally breathe.

Across from me, Dakota slips one side of the headphones back over her ear.

She doesn’t thank me, but she doesn’t move away either.

And for tonight, that’ll do.

TWENTY-FOUR

DAKOTA

We move before dawn.

Not because dawn means much of anything down here. There are no windows in the west service tunnels, no pale flash of morning light sprawling over rooftops, and no sky changing color to tell the world has somehow survived yet another night. There’s only concrete, damp, red flashing emergency lights, and the grim collective mood of five people who haven’t slept anywhere near enough.

Six, if we’re going to be technical and include the pilot.

I’m trying really hard not to, because counting him makes him feel like a responsibility, and I already have too many of those as it is. My knee. My arm. My hat. My failing blockers. My knives. The stupid flutter in my stomach every time one of the Alphas gets a little too close and my body reacts like it’s been asked to vote in a really painfully inappropriate election.

Ewan’s music is still stuck in my head. Not the words, because I barely remember those now. Just the crackle of it. The weak little thread of a sound. The ridiculous softness of it in a room full of weapons and fevered breathing.

The headphones are back around Ewan’s neck now, because I handed them back before we moved. I didn’t thank him, obviously, but he didn’t expect me to. Which, honestly, is probably why I didn’t stab him.

Small mercies and all that jazz.

Fletcher is leading us, because of course he is. He moves like he owns the tunnels, like they belong to him just because he’s decided they should. His rifle is up, shoulders are squared,and his voice is low every time he gives out directions. Every word is clipped, precise, and annoyingly confident.

“Stay tight,” he says. “No drifting.”

My jaw tightens, and behind me, Ewan makes a sound under his breath. It’s not quite a laugh, and that makes him a smart man at this moment.

Kaito walks near the pilot, paler than he should be, and side wound hidden under a fresh cloth and stubborn denial. Xeon stays close enough to help if the pilot drops, his quiet attention sweeping over all of us in that gentle way that makes me want to accuse him of something. The pilot is mostly upright between Fletcher and Kaito, which is actually a very generous description for a man currently being held together by spite, fever, and the horrifying possibility that his brain contains the answers I need.

His boots scrape the ground every few steps. It’s too loud, but everything is too loud down here.

We left the security office twenty minutes ago after the boots above finally moved east and Ewan declared the tunnel ahead “less of a ballache,” which is apparently Welsh for not currently full of armed bastards.

I’m still trying to decide whether or not to trust that particular scale.

“Supply room’s through here,” Fletcher says, pausing at a junction with a half-broken sign bolted to the wall. “Old station maintenance. Medical kits if we’re lucky. Water if we’re even luckier. Maybe even batteries.”

“Maybe a fucking unicorn and a rainbow with a pot of gold sat at the end of it,” I mutter under my breath.

His head turns slightly toward me. “You got something useful to add?”

“Nope,” I answer.

“Then keep watch,” he barks.

And there it is. The tone. Short, commanding, and assumptive. Like I’m just another piece on a board he gets to move around because he has the deepest voice and the biggest shoulders.

My skin prickles and the tunnel narrows around me. Not physically, but worse. Inside.

Maine used to tell me what to do and I listened because I trusted him. Because he was my brother. Because he knew how to keep us alive without making me feel owned by the instructions. Dad used to instruct in a distracted way, all science and love and gentle explanations. Mom, before EMD completely hollowed her out, would ask more than tell.

Since then? Orders usually come from men who thought my body was something they could claim if they only got close enough to breathe me in.

So no. I don’t do well with orders. Especially not from Fletcher, who smells like cedar and leather and walks around like a wall who somehow learned how to use a rifle.