Page 179 of Immune

By the time we reach the roof, I’m shaking like a paranoid crackhead. Not visibly. Probably. I really hope not. I step away from the group while Fletcher and Ewan check the next crossing. Kaito lowers himself near a vent, breathing far too carefully to be natural. The pilot is still half-conscious, leaning against the parapet.

Everyone is occupied.

Good.

Great.

Now is the perfect time to quietly fall apart without witnesses.

Sadly, I only make it seven steps before Xeon appears next to me as though he was summoned by the idea of me taking a moment to just… be. He doesn’t step too close, but it’s close enough. I stare over the roof edge. “You following me?”

“Yes,” he answers honestly.

“You should at least try to lie.”

“I’m not very good at lying,” he confesses.

“That’s one hell of a tragic character flaw.”

“One of many.”

The corner of my mouth twitches before I can stop it, thankfully hidden beneath my bandana.

We stand there with the wind moving between us, carrying away some of the blood and smoke. Up here, the city feels less like a mouth trying to swallow us whole. It’s still ugly as shit, and still very dead, but it seems wider up here. More breathable.

My skin slowly cools, and my scent gradually folds itself back neatly under the blockers that are doing a really terrible job despite their efforts.

Xeon says nothing, and minutes pass. Well, maybe only a minute. It only feels longer because silence with another person often asks for something. Words. Explanations. Weakness dressed up in a fancy suit and calling itself sharing. But his silence? It doesn’t ask. It simply exists right next to mine, which is wildly inconvenient.

Because without something to fight, I start noticing him. The dark fall of his hair. The calm set of his mouth. The blood smeared across his sleeve that doesn’t belong to him. The way his hands rest loose at his sides, empty and open, as though he'd rather remain unarmed around me than make me feel threatened and cornered.

My chest aches. That can’t be good.

“You saw too much down there,” I eventually say.

His gaze remains on the skyline. “I saw enough.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“No.”

I turn my head, only to find him already looking at me now. Not hunting, not searching, just there.

“You think everyone who sees something gets to take it from you,” he says, and I’m forced to swallow around the lump that forms in my throat.

I can’t say I love that sentence. In fact, I hate it. I hate it so much that I almost walk away from him. Almost. Instead, I prod, “And you don’t?”

“No,” he answers with a single shake of his head.

“Why?”

His eyes soften. “Because you’re not something to take, Dakota.”

The wind brushes between us, and I can’t breathe for a full second. Which is honestly so stupid. Like, criminally stupid. There are Vector men below us, Zeds littering the streets, a compound just ahead, and blood under my nails, yet this quiet man has apparently just decided to start saying things that fall in the exact soft places I’ve been keeping booby-trapped.

I should make a joke or something. Maybe insult him. I should do absolutely anything but look at his mouth. Sad for me, I was built with traitorous eyes that have a terrible sense of discipline.

His lips part on a quiet breath.