Page 327 of Immune

And then the western fence blows.

The explosion throws every single sound out of the world. Heat blasts through the lane and metal screams. Rots pour through the new gap in a rot-filled wave, dead bodies climbing over one another as they enter the compound, drawn in by the shrill screeching somewhere in the smoke. Bodies slam into the passage between us and Dakota.

I fire my rifle until it clicks empty.

Ewan is shouting.

Kaito is killing anything that crosses his path.

Xeon disappears into the wave of dead.

Dakota’s bond yanks hard.

South, then down, then suddenly thin, buried under concrete and chemicals.

Not broken or gone, just covered. Stolen.

I try to go after her when a Rot collides with my side. I drive my knife through its skull and shove it off, but another takes its place. Then another. Smoke continues to burn my eyes until the world blurs white and red.

Ewan grabs my jacket. “Fletch!”

I fight him. “Move!”

“You’re going to get buried, you dipshit!” he yells roughly, coughing through the thick smoke.

“They have her!”

His face twists like he feels the same piercing through the bond, because he does.

Kaito would too. He appears through the smoke not even a second later, blood dripping from his face and murder shining brightly in his eyes. “Where is she?”

I turn toward the pull.

South.

Down.

Away.

The bond stretches again, thin as fishing wire. Then the chemical haze shifts and I see it. I fucking see it. I see the service hatch behind the generator shed. I see it open. I see a black-clad figure dropping through it with Dakota over his shoulder, her boots kicking harshly and one hand clawing at the frame.

Then the hatch slams shut.

Xeon reaches it first. He hits the metal so hard the sound of it rings out even through the sirens.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

Fucking nothing.

No bond tells him where she went, and no thread guides him to her.

He looks back at us, and for the first time in all the time I’ve known the man, I see panic make it all the way to his face. The quiet place has finally become a wound and I slam my fist into the ground until pain shoots up my arm.

Ewan makes a broken sound behind me that fucks me up just as much, and Kaito goes deadly still.