Page 291 of Immune

I don’t dare dress up my answer, so I give it to her with the brutal honesty she deserves. The honesty I’ve always given her. “Someone who survived a trap. Someone who killed because they didn’t give her any other option. Someone who is scared out of her mind because it felt too easy.”

She swallows hard.

“Someone who thinks wanting anything right now might mean that thing inside her is still sitting in the driver’s seat.”

Her breath leaves her in a rush.

“And someone I want anyway.”

Silence after that.

Her eyes burn as she looks at me, and her voice is almost small when she asks, “Even like this?”

“Yup,” I tell her with a nod.

“That’s kind of stupid.”

“Probably, yeah.”

“Also very concerning.”

“Oh, it’s been concerning for a while now,” I confess, sighing like it’s a problem when it’s really not. At least, not to me.

A rough laugh bursts out of her, small and cracked but hers, and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever heard.

There she is.

Under the blood, under NOVAC, and under every gross thing that tried to stamp its name on her. She’s still right there.

I point to the sink. “Wash up, Dakota.”

She glares at me, but she goes to the sink. The water runs red first and she scrubs hard at her skin. Too hard. For ten whole seconds, I let her.

Then I blurt, “Please stop trying to take your skin off.”

She freezes.

“I’m not coming over there unless you ask me to,” I add. “But stop.”

Her fingers loosen and the water keeps running. She looks down into the sink, then quietly admits, “I keep thinking I’ll see it.”

“What?”

“The switch.” Her voice has grown quieter now. “Like there’ll be some kind of mark, something under my skin. Proof that it’s still there.”

“It’s still there.”

She looks at me through the mirror above the sink, and I don’t soften my words for her.

“That’s not the same as it being in control, though.”

Her eyes close then and, for a heavy moment, she just breathes. Then she turns off the water. Her hands are cleaner now. Not fully clean, but cleaner.

She turns back to me. “What if it wants?”

I go very still at that.

“What if it isn’t just killing?” she asks. “What if wanting feels the same? What if I touch you and it opens that door again?”