Page 328 of Immune

The bond in my chest pulls south again, weaker with every passing second, smothered more and more by the distance and something that has clearly been built to hide her from us.

I lift my head, blood dripping from my mouth, and force the fucking words off my tongue.

“They took her.”

FORTY-FIVE

DAKOTA

The smoke takes Fletcher first.

One second he’s there, broad and bloodied and reaching for me through the white.

The next, he’s gone. Well, not gone exactly. I still feel him in my chest, cedar and leather turned wild and frantic through the bond, but the chemical fog splits his shape from the world as if someone carved him right out of it.

Then it takes Ewan.

Then Kaito.

Then everything else.

The first thing I lose is scent. Not sight or hearing. Not the breath in my lungs or the furious, panicked thoughts clawing around inside my skull.

Scent.

It vanishes under a chemical burn so strong it feels like someone has poured bleach down the back of my throat. Honey and rain disappear first. My own scent. My own body. Gone beneath something bitter and metallic and wrong.

Then Ewan disappears, smoke and clove growing thin until it’s snuffed out.

Kaito’s burning wood and worn flannel fracture into nothingness.

The bonds don’t vanish. They’re still there, three live wires welded under my ribs, but the world around them goes completely blind. And that’s the first moment I understand that we haven’t just stepped into chaos. Because chaos is loud. Chaos is messy. Chaos doesn’t know what to silence first.

This does, though.

I reach for the quiet place in my chest before I can stop myself. For frost and steel and the thread that isn’t there because I’m a stupid bitch who told him not to bite when I should have asked for it. I should have told him I wanted it. Wanted his bond. Because I did. I do. But that’s what fear does, right? It makes you stupid, even in times when there isn’t an actual threat to be worried about. Just my own stupid fears and worries and overworked brain.

“Xeon,” I choke, the smoke thick and cloying.

Nothing answers, and the silence hurts worse than the smoke.

Something moves behind me a moment later. A gloved arm hooks around my ribs from behind, so quick and tight that it crushes the breath right out of me and loosens my hand enough that my freshly acquired gun goes scattering over the ground like it was nothing more than a prop. A cloth is shoved against my mouth, the pressure hard and unrelenting. It’s soaked with something sweet under the chemical tang, and my body instantly recognizes the danger before my brain can even begin to name it.

Drug.

It’s a fucking drug.

I stop breathing without a second thought. It’s instant, even if my lungs are already screaming at me. I lock it down and focus on everything else instead.

The man behind me swears when I slam my elbow back into his ribs, the collision hurting him more than me. It digs him hard enough to make him bend, the cloth dropping away enough that I can take in a breath that rattles painfully in my lungs, but it’s not hard enough for him to release his hold on me. Not that it would matter, because another hand clamps down on my wrist right before some fucker grips my hair from under Maine’s hat and yanks. Hard.

Pain explodes across my scalp and I see fucking red. It’s not fear. Not yet. It’s pure, unfiltered rage.

My knife is gone, buried in some fucker’s body, but that isn’t their first mistake. Their first mistake is thinking I’m only packing one blade. I twist toward the pull on my hair instead of trying to get away, letting the grip drag me off balance. The man holding my wrist expects me to fight backward, so I go forward instead, yanking the spare blade from my boot just as my shoulder collides with his chest.

My boot hooks behind his knee and I drive my knife into the soft spot under his jaw. He makes this wet, choking sound that is honestly music to my ears. Good. Serves the bastard right. This should teach him not to mess with things that aren’t his to mess with.

I rip the blade free and slam my head back into the face of the one behind me. Cartilage crunches beautifully, the sound loud in my ears. His hold loosens and I drop. Not gracefully, by all means. My knee screams the moment it hits concrete, a flood of pain bursting up my thigh. I ignore it, because pain is information and information can shut the actual fuck up until I’m not currently in the process of being Omega-napped by apocalypse versions of nightmares at discounted prices.