Page 203 of Immune

“You knew Dr. O’Reilly’s work,” Fletcher says.

Mercer looks at him. “Yeah.”

“You know why Vector wants it.”

“I know why plenty of people would.”

“That ain’t an answer.”

“No,” Mercer says. “It’s the start of one.”

Dakota, don’t ask.

Dakota, please, don’t ask.

My mouth asks anyway. “Did he know?”

Everyone looks at me, and my blood stills in my veins. Mercer’s face softens in a way I don't like, because it’s not pity exactly. It’s grief coated in manners.

“Know what?” he asks.

“That it would turn into this,” I answer bluntly.

The dead.

The Runners.

The empty streets.

The bodies.

Mom hanging from a shower rail with white eyes and a snapping jaw.

Maine walking out of the door, never to be seen again.

Six years of hiding under his faded hat because cutting off the last thing we shared felt worse than the danger.

The room holds its breath and Mercer answers quietly. “No. Not at first.”

Not at first.

The floor tilts, because that’s not a no. That’s a door with blood seeping from under it.

I jerk back so fast my hip clips the edge of the table. My bad knee protests the movement, sharp enough to make the room tilt twice instead of just once. Every single guard tenses, and Kaito steps between me and the nearest one, his side bleeding through the fresh gauze.

Fletcher says, “Door’s behind you. Two steps. No one blocking it.”

Xeon’s voice slips under the muffled headphones, soft enough that I feel it more than I hear it. “You’re here. Not there.”

Ewan lifts one hand, palm out, and mouths, “Breathe, Tiny Terror.”

I don’t laugh, but I do breathe. Once. Ragged. Honey and rain floods my tongue, too sweet and too much. My skin prickles hot and tight, slick with sweat under all the layers. The old blockers are losing ground against the panic, pain, and the deep, ugly pull low in my abdomen that I flat-out refuse to name.

Not heat. Not here, and not right now.

Mercer’s eyes sharpen, but not with hunger. With realization. Scientist eyes. Kind eyes, maybe. Still scientist eyes, though.

He looks at my bandana, my hat, and my too-big clothes. He looks at the Alphas placed around me like four points of a compass. The scent in the room, the files, my question, my life. The name O’Reilly sitting between us with a detonation device strapped to it.