Page 177 of Immune

No. It was triggered, because ahead, another grate slams down. The sound of it is so final, so heavy, that my mind spins. It’s like a cage closing, and we’re forced to stop in the dark between both.

For one breath, no one moves. Then the pilot starts coughing, wet and awful, and the tight space fills with the sour scent of fever and fear and blood and Alpha and damp and my own panic trying its best to claw its way up my throat.

No.

No, no, no.

I cannot be trapped in a tunnel.

I can’t be penned in.

I can’t be a thing behind bars again, even if I have never been behind bars. Even if the thought comes from somewhere older than my own memory stretches, somewhere body-deep and designation-heavy.

My skin goes hot then. Too hot. My heartbeat kicks frantically and my scent spikes. I feel it happen, the sweetness under smoke, the fear under blockers. It’s too much, too loud. Too me.

Every Alpha in the tunnel stills. Not dramatically. Not like monsters. Like men fighting their instincts, and that almost makes it worse.

“I’m fine,” I say immediately, but no one believes me. Rude, but understandable. I wouldn’t believe me either.

Fletcher turns his head away first, jaw clenching tightly. Kaito steps back as much as the tunnel will allow him, one hand braced on the wall and eyes lowered. Ewan mutters something in Welsh that sounds like he’s having an argument with himself.

Xeon doesn’t move toward me. Instead, he looks at the grate ahead and says, “There’s a release bar.”

My breath catches on the edge of a laugh that can’t even be considered a laugh at all. “Great. Love that. Do you also see cookies and shakes?”

“Not from here, no,” he answers.

I can only blink.

Was… was that a joke?

Tiny. Dry. Almost invisible.

The absolute absurdity finds one loose screw inside my brain and turns. I don’t calm. Not quite, anyway. But the panic does somehow slip an inch.

Xeon gestures to the left wall near the grate without stepping closer. “You can reach it. I can’t from this angle.”

I look over and, sure enough, the guy is right. A narrow gap runs next to the grate where the wall has cracked. It’s big enough for my arm. Maybe, anyway. It’s not enough for Fletcher’s. Not enough for Kaito’s. Not enough for Ewan’s or Xeon’s.

Mine.

My breathing is still coming in and out too quickly, and my skin still feels all kinds of wrong, but the panic now has somewhere to go. It’s a job. A problem. I can handle those, because problems are far better than feelings. Problems have locks and wires, hinges and bars, and weak points. Feelings just sit in your chest and rearrange everything without asking permission.

I crouch beside the gate, and Xeon crouches too. He’s on the other side of the tunnel, leaving the middle space open between us. For me.

“You don’t have to keep watching me like I’m made of glass,” I mutter.

“I’m watching the mechanism.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Yes,” he says bluntly, and it shocks a breath out of me. He looks at me then, only briefly, to explain, “I’m also watching you, but not because you’re fragile.”

My fingers pause on the grate. “Then why?”

His voice stays quiet and calm when he replies. “Because you go somewhere very far away when there isn’t an exit.”

The tunnel seems to shrink around that particular sentence, but not because he’s wrong. Because he’s right in a certain way I don’t want anyone to be.