Page 5 of Immune

The front door is behind me, the staff door is just ahead. The counter sits to the left, and the broken window to the right is far too haggard and jagged to climb through quickly unless I desire opening my arm up like a tin of tuna. There’s a knife on my thigh, a gun at my hip, and three bullets left. That means bullets are for emergencies, not feelings.

I refuse to think more about the pregnancy tests. I don’t think about what happens to Omegas who get found. I don’t think about the way my scent always seems to get bolder and a whole lot louder when I’m scared.

Instead, I wipe my thoughts clean until my hand finally steadies.

And I only barely manage it.

“There we go. Good girl,” I whisper to myself, then I cringe so hard my face almost cramps from the effort. “Okay, ew, gross. Never say that again, Kota. You’re better than that. Don’t embarrass me.”

The restless Omega in me seems to huff in agreement, and I nod to myself right before I make my way behind thecounter first. People are idiots and will always assume the shelves will still hold the best stock. They don’t. Not anymore. They only hold what everyone can reach, which so happens to be a whole lot of nothing. I mean, there’s not much use for skincare in the new world.

Crouching, I open drawers with gloved hands, finding nothing but receipts in the first, dried-up pens and dusty sticky notes in the second, and a pitiful dead spider the size of a strawberry in the third.

“Oh, absolutely not,” I mutter to myself, shutting that drawer swiftly.

Battling a shudder, I move on to the other drawers. The first two provide medical tape, a handful of antiseptic wipes that I stash into my backpack, and a sad, lonely tube of burn gel that looks to have been half-used.

Not exactly a treasure trove of goodies, but I’ve been excited over less, so I tuck the rest into my backpack before shifting to the locked cabinet under the cash register.

As expected, the lock is already broken. Inside, I find useless painkillers, a few blister packs, and antibiotics that have long since expired but are miraculously sealed, some antihistamines, and a bottle of iron supplements. Sadly for yours truly, there are no blockers, because of course there isn’t. Apparently I’ve used up my yearly allowance of miracles when I found the pharmacy stash last year.

Refusing to let disappointment settle into my bones, I shake it off like I’ve learned to do over the years. Settling is dangerous, because if you give it too much energy, feed into it, it becomes grief. And grief will swallow a person whole in this world. There’s no room for it anymore, and I refuse to fall back into it after crawling my ass out of that endless pit over the past six years.

Shoving the antibiotics and iron into my bag a little aggressively, I stand and move toward the staff door.

It’s closed, which is kind of promising since the front of the pharmacy has been picked over until only the bones remain. Closed doors, though? They’re like little lucky dips in a carnival of horrors. Sometimes you’ll find storage, sometimes they’ll hide death. Sometimes, depending on the universe’s sense of humor on some particular days, you’ll find both. She likes variety, what can I say?

Pressing my ear against the door, I hold my breath and listen.

Nothing but the sound of silence greets me.

I reach for the handle, and it turns beneath my palm. It’s unlocked, which proves to be a whole lot less promising than it did before. Running my tongue over my top teeth, I pause for a brief moment before easing the door open with the tip of my knife, stepping back quickly while I wait for something to throw itself at me.

When nothing does, I peer inside. The hallway beyond is dark and narrow, cluttered with fallen boxes and spilled papers. A staff room sits to the right, empty and eerie, and there’s a restroom to the left. At the far end is a metal door that hangs slightly ajar.

Storage.

Suddenly, my pulse hiccups, but I smother any kind of excitement that tries to grow comfortable under my skin.

“Don’t do that,” I tell myself quietly. “You’ll only paint a target on your forehead so the universe will know where to aim.”

With a single nod, I slowly and very carefully head toward the staff room, and I’m instantly rewarded. After a quick but thorough check for anything nasty that might spring out at me, I clear the room before retrieving my treasure. Two bottles of water in a cupboard, three packets of instant noodlesso old the flavor packet had turned into a solid lump, two tins of chicken soup, one of those travel sewing kits, and a fleece quarter-zip hoodie with a faded pharmacy logo on the chest hanging on a hook behind the door.

I almost laugh. Not because it’s particularly funny, but because it’s very clear how warped my standards have become. Survival has ruined me so thoroughly that a tin of soup now feels like a religious experience, even if it expired four years ago. I pack it anyway because, six years after humanity’s collapse, you learn that expiry dates are only suggestions now.

And possible indications that you might get sick real fast, but hey, gotta live with a little optimism, right?

I fold and stuff the hoodie into my backpack, too, even though it’s four sizes too big for me. That just makes it more perfect, because it’s another layer for winter. Something else to hide my figure from anyone I might happen across.

Moving on from the storage room, I check the restroom, thanking every God I don’t believe in that it’s empty. Testing the tap, my eyes widen when water spills out, and I fight that little harder against the excitement that begs to break free. I don’t actually remember the last time I saw running water in any building I’ve been in. I don’t even know how there’s water running here, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. That’s not how life works now. You take your miracles and run.

Keeping my wits about me, I test the water first, using a strip from my kit I found last year. The results aren’t particularly ideal, but it’s also not immediately deadly. So, refusing to think about it too deeply, I add the water to two of my canteens and add a purification tablet to each, thankful I still have a few stashed in a pocket of my backpack.

Then I head for the storage room.

The metal door groans softly as I nudge it open, and I freeze instantly, wincing at the metallic sound that seems muchlouder than it ought to be. My ears do overtime, listening for any sign of life or death. When no answering movement comes from inside, I slip through the gap with my knife raised and my breath held in my lungs.

Stepping into the windowless room, the smell worsening the further in I go, I look around as I fight the urge to hurl at the scent of damp, chemicals, and a faint hint of sweetness that makes my stomach tighten. Slowly, I pull my flashlight from my pocket, click it once, and sweep the beam across the shelves.