Page 29 of Immune

The attic is dim, cluttered, and thick with dust. Boxes are stacked under the slanted ceiling, water stains have spread all over the walls, and a broken rocking chair sits long discarded near the window, the seat bogged down with a thick blanket of dust. I pause, listening for anything within. There isn’t any movement, no wet breathing, no dragging of feet. Still, I wait.

Patience is a virtue, Maine would tell me. Patience keeps you breathing.

It also makes you feel like a paranoid gargoyle perched on a roof while the guy behind you bleeds profusely onto the shingles like he’s trying to leave his mark wherever he goes.

Sadly, it looks like we’re embracing the gargoyle life today, because I don’t move for a full minute before I ease myself through the window.

My boots land on old floorboards with only the slightest creak. I freeze, knife lifted at the ready, every single muscle in my body poised and waiting for anything to answer. It doesn’t, and I release my held breath slowly as I check the attic quickly.

When all is clear, I look back at the Alpha and quietly command, “It’s clear. Come on.”

Kaito moves instantly, and again, his obedience crashes into something weird in my chest. He approaches the window with the utmost care, one hand braced on the frame while he keeps the other pressed tightly to his side.

“Glass,” I warn quietly but sharply.

He nods. “I see it.”

I raise an eyebrow that he doesn’t see and question flatly, “Do you?”

With a twitching mouth, he replies, “Yup.”

“Huh,” I quip. “Figured I’d check, because you also saw a half-collapsed apartment building and thought, ‘Oh wow, what a marvelous place to die.’”

I catch the amusement on his face as he retorts, “Technically, I found supplies.”

Offering him a dry look, I question, “And did you keep those supplies, perchance?”

His mouth opens, and then it closes. It opens again, and literally nothing but a defeated sigh escapes.

“My point exactly,” I say, nodding like I’ve won something.

Kaito doesn’t bother with another reply, simply choosing to climb through the window slowly. His teeth are clenched so tight I can hear them click when his side catches on the sill, and I wince with a phantom pain right before I move before I can think it through. I grab the front of his jacket, tugging him firmly, hauling him forward enough to make sure he doesn’t fall right back out of the window.

He lands closely. Maybe a little too closely, because I’m suddenly doused in his scent with a speed that makes my head spin. It rolls over me like a gentle wave, the burning wood and worn flannel scent now wrapped in blood and pain. I have the sudden thought that he smells like a campfire seen through a cabin window, warm and distant and certainly not mine.

My Omega, the traitorous little bitch, seems to disagree with that last part, and it’s that that has me releasing his jacket as if it just burned me. With a low mutter, I say, “How about we don’t fall out of windows?”

“I’ll add it to my growing list,” he agrees.

“Great. And while you’re at it, you can add following strangers to it, too,” I add, shaking my head at him.

Kaito gestures his head from side to side. “Eh. That one’s more like a guideline than an actual rule I should follow.”

I stare at him, and he looks back with a pale face and eyes too bright for the gloomy attic that we’re now standing in. “You know, you’re really good at testing my commitment to not shooting you.”

“Noted,” he responds quickly with a firm nod that almost seems mocking at this point.

Before I can berate him again, a thump sounds from outside, followed by the scrape of dead hands against the wood siding. Kaito and I go still, sending each other weighted looks. Thankfully, the Zeds haven’t figured out how to climb yet, but they’re close enough to smell us if the wind happens to decide tochange directions. Well, they’ll certainly smell me, blockers be damned. After all, fear is loud. Fear makes everything worse.

Stepping away from Kaito and closer to the attic window as much as the wonky frame will allow, I ease the curtain back into place just to break up any movement from inside. Then I gesture to the attic stairs.

“Quiet,” I whisper, pressing a finger to my lips with only my bandana separating both.

Kaito nods before we descend into the second-floor hallway one cautious step at a time. The house smells as bad as the Zeds outside, dead but not freshly so. That’s a very important distinction, because freshly dead has a thick wetness to it. Old death becomes a part of the walls, bled into the wallpaper and dust until the whole place seems to exhale when disturbed.

A cute little holiday home.

Three doors are situated upstairs: bedroom, bathroom, bedroom. I clear them quickly, skipping the bathroom after just a quick glance, checking both bedrooms with my gun drawn. The first bedroom contains a mattress void of bedding, a broken lamp, and curtains thick and heavy with mold. The second bedroom is smaller than the first. A child’s bedroom, with pastel blue walls, those glow-in-the-dark stars plastered across the ceiling, and a wooden train derailed from the track at the end of the bed.