Page 331 of Immune

I bite my tongue hard enough that I taste blood.

Mine.

I am mine.

I hit the ground on my side, arm spasming uselessly, knee screaming, and teeth clamped against the sound trying its best to crawl up my throat. The NOVAC cold flickers at the edge of my vision, trying to turn everything into angles and targets.

I refuse it, not because I’m all noble and shit.

It’s because I don’t know what will happen if I let it take me while there are Zeds bursting into the compound, chemicals, and my bonded Alphas close enough to be caught in the blast radius of whatever the hell my body will decide survival means.

A boot steps close to my face and I sweep my good leg out, taking out the man’s ankle like the menace I’ve taught myself to be. He falls and I grab the dart gun with numb fingers and jam it against his thigh. He sees what I’m about to do and his eyes widen behind his goofy-ass goggles right before I pull the trigger.

The dart punches through fabric and his body jerks once. Then his breathing changes, growing fast and panicked.

“Suppressant dose,” one of the others snaps. “Watch cross-exposure.”

Suppressant. Not a sedative like I thought, but a suppressant.

My blood turns to ice in my veins.

Omega suppressant.

Alpha-disruptors.

Shock weapons.

Scent-masking chemicals.

Masks.

Smoke.

Lures.

A whole-ass nightmare kit that has been built around someone exactly like me.

I scramble backward, dragging my bad arm close to my chest. Then I whisper roughly, “Collectors.”

The word tastes like bile, and one of the masked bastards hears me. He tilts his head, but not with confusion. There’s too much amusement for that, and that tells me more than enough.

It’s only then that my fear finally catches up with the rage. It slams into me so hard my breath stutters.

They don’t know that I’m an Immune, a name Mercer has given those like me. Hell, if there even are more like me out there in the broken world. They don’t know about my blood, my father, Mercer’s vial, NOVAC stabilizing inside me like a science experiment with boundary issues. They don’t have a single clue about any of that. They only know I’m an Omega.

And that’s enough.

That’s always been enough.

The thought should splinter something in me. Instead, it sharpens every single jagged piece.

I push myself up off the ground, swaying before grabbing the closest thing I can reach. That just so happens to be the length of a broken pipe. Love that. Very end-of-the-world chic.

“You want me?” I rasp, blood in my mouth, smoke in my eyes, and Maine’s hat still somehow clinging to my head like the stubborn relic it is. “Then come and fucking get me, assholes.”

They do.

All at once.