Page 172 of Immune

The walkway behind us trembles as bullets hit the metal frame. Glass bursts above us, raining shards around us. Ewan ducks with a sharp curse, and Xeon shields the pilot with his body. Fletcher fires back through the broken glass, cool and controlled.

Kaito grabs my sleeve.

Not skin.

Sleeve.

“Move,” he commands, and this time, I do.

At the far end, the walkway drops into another residential tower. We take the first available exit, down a short maintenance stair, and through a laundry room that stinks of mildew and old detergent. Zeds slam into the door behind us, and someone screams from the hallway above.

Vector, maybe? I hope it fucking hurts.

We burst through a side exit into a narrow alley between the tower and a row of garages. Morning light hits me in the face with the sting of a slap, and I have to blink rapidly just to see clearly.

The compound outer district is closer now, but the direct road is crawling with movement, and not just with Zeds. Vector has cut across the route. Three figures on the lower road, two more near the garages, and one on a balcony with a fucking rifle.

Organized.

Really persistent.

Too close.

The compound is right there beyond the barricaded stretch, and somehow it’s farther away than it was before.

Fletcher drags the pilot behind a store and Xeon crouches beside them, checking the pilot’s breathing. Ewan listens at the tower, then the road, face tight enough that I know nothing good is coming.

Kaito leans against the wall a second too long, his blood dripping onto the cracked tarmac.

Drip.

Drip.

I hate that sound. I hate that I can hear it over everything else.

Fletcher’s voice stays low as he says, “Main route’s compromised.”

“Fuck me, man. No shit,” I say, because apparently my mouth has all the survival instincts of a moth when it catches the eye of a lamp. Even when the rest of me is panicking, my mouth still knows how to run full sprint into shit it shouldn’t.

He looks toward the compound. “We need another way in.”

Ewan swallows harshly. “Could cut through the garages. Maybe the old drainage system past them? Sounds open.”

“Sounds?” I ask.

“Echoes all wrong. Means there’s space,” he explains.

Kaito pushes off the wall. “They’re driving us.”

Everyone goes quiet at that, so I look at the road. The Vector figures don’t rush, they hold positions. They’re blocking routes, pressuring without closing. They’re literally herding, like they know where we need to go. Like they want us tired and predictable.

The pilot’s eyes flutter open for half a second, and his lips move.

Fletcher drops beside him and requests, “Say it again.”

It takes a second before the pilot rasps something too broken to be understood. Then clearer, barely more than a breath, he says, “Not… cargo.”

My skin prickles, and his eyes roll toward me. Or, maybe toward all of us. I can’t actually tell.