Page 58 of Immune

Hold still, Kota, he would tell me.

I was holding still.

You wriggled, he’d argue.

I was actually holding my breath, but Maine was always the dramatic little bitch.

My chest chooses then to tighten so harshly that it steals my breath and tears instantly pool in my eyes. No. God, no. Not now. I have to move. Keep moving.

Stumbling over broken frames and trashed carpet, I cross the apartment. Voices echo outside from behind me, lower now and muffled by the deadly chorus of Zeds groaning hungrily. The Alphas are trying to follow, because I’m sure they have questions that need answers. They want the tiny masked almost-Beta who smells all wrong and runs too fast. Maybe they want to help, and maybe they want to cage. Maybe even both, because people really do love wrapping ugly things in pretty paper and a bow, calling it kindness and protection.

When I reach the hallway, I pause. Left will lead me to the stairwell, and right will take me deeper into the other apartments. I’m fairly confident the stairwell will be watched, and the apartments are too unpredictable.

In this scenario, unpredictable is much better.

I go right.

Like the universe has decided I haven’t suffered enough, a Zed chooses that moment to stumble out of an open doorway, half of its face missing and one hand dragging part of a torn curtain. I slam my knife into its temple before it can groan loud enough to give me away or invite its buddies to join it. It falls against the wall, sliding down it with a wet smear of blood.

“Sorry about that,” I whisper, because sometimes manners just happen by accident.

Cutting through the bedroom, I knock out the bottom of a wonky closet and squeeze through the hole into the next apartment. It’s an old trick I’ve learned, because apartmentsshare walls, and I’ve come to learn walls rot pretty badly in an apocalypse. After all, there’s no one to maintain their homes anymore and everything is left to rot and waste now. Survivors, I’ve found, will only board walls or windows, always forgetting that plaster is only a suggestion if you’re small, determined, and desperate enough.

Behind me, someone enters the first apartment. I can hear the heavy stomp of footprints, and I instantly know it’s not Kaito. The steps are too controlled. Scarred Alpha, maybe? My pulse spikes again at that possibility, and I crawl through the closet and land in a laundry room, choking back a scream when my knee jerks awkwardly.

I hear a voice from the apartment behind me, muffled but clear enough to hear the words. “Tracks run through here.”

There’s a southern accent to them, and I internally curse. Scarred Alpha. Of course he tracks things. Of fucking course.

Another voice answers, lighter than the first, Welsh-edged and deeply annoyed. “Oh, lush, we’re being outsmarted and outmaneuvered by a tiny terror.”

Tiny terror? Fucking rude, much?

Accurate, but rude, man.

Slipping out into the hallway of the second apartment, I cross to the balcony and climb over the railing. It’s an asinine idea. Really fucking stupid, actually, because the balcony below is only a few feet down and slick with rain. Still, I lower myself slowly and very carefully, fingers gripping tightly to the cold metal.

My cap chooses that moment to be an inconvenient little shit, slipping slow once more. I jerk my head back to keep it on and, for one horrifying second, my fingers lose their grip. My boots hit the lower balcony hard, the sound echoing along with the flare of pain that bursts through my knee.

I collapse sideways into a bunch of broken plant pots, clay shattering under my weight with an obnoxious sound. My cap falls off my head and everything suddenly stops. The world keeps moving, obviously. Zeds continue to groan below, the helicopter is still burning away somewhere behind the buildings, Alphas are shouting, Runners are screaming from somewhere near the park.

But everything inside me grows painfully silent as I watch the old faded ball cap land on the edge of the balcony, tip only once before the wind sends it sailing over the ledge, and it drops.

“No,” I breathe, pain twisted in that single word.

It falls into the courtyard below and my chest feels too tight. Because that’s Maine’s hat. Not just a hat, or just a random bit of fabric. It’s not replaceable. It’s Maine’s. The stupid faded cap he wore on supply runs. The one he shoved on my head before he left, because he knew my hair was too bright and easy to spot. The one that somehow still managed to smell like him for a whole year after he left, maybe longer than that when I held it close and lied to myself hard enough. Freshly cut grass. Sweat. Brother.

The one thing he left me that didn’t rot, turn, or fucking break.

“No, no, no,” I whisper-chant.

I lunge for the railing just as a Zed slams into the balcony below, lured over by the sound of breaking plant pots. Another follows, and then another, until the courtyard fills with stumbling bodies ambling through overgrown flower beds and around rusted garden chairs.

The cap lies near a cracked fountain, dark with rain, and inches from a Zed’s dragging foot.

My heart feels like it’s shredding itself apart, and I can’t stop myself. I start to climb down just as a hand reaches for the balcony opposite mine.

Kaito.