Page 204 of Immune

His face changes. Only barely, but I see it.

He knows I know something. Worse, he knows I might be a part of the research he still doesn’t understand.

Hale sees Mercer see it, and the room tightens again. I pull the headphones down around my neck because hiding from sound won’t save me from the shitshow that’s about to come.

Mercer speaks before Hale can.

“Kota,” he says carefully, using the name I gave and not the one he might be starting to suspect. “There are details in Conrad’s research that never made it into the official archive.”

My pulse stutters.

“What details?”

He looks at Hale, then Valeria, then back to me. “That’s what I’m hoping you can help us figure out.”

I stare at him and the science wing hums around us.

My father’s name waits open on the table. The compound has walls, food, medicine, files, and people who might actuallyknow exactly how the world ended in the first place. And now one of them is looking at me like I might be the missing page they’ve been searching for.

I grip the edge of the table until my black-painted nails bite into the metal.

Then I smile under my bandana, sharp enough to sting.

THIRTY-TWO

DAKOTA

Mercer shouldn’t have looked at me like that. Like I’m the answer to a question he has been afraid to ask. Like I’m something that can be opened. Not in front of me. And not in a room where my father’s name still sits open on a table and every locked door smells like bleach, secrets, and men who think permission is a decorative concept.

I’m not a missing page.

I’m a woman with a knife they didn’t find, old blockers dying depressingly in my blood, and four Alphas settled around me like the universe finally grew a spine.

Mercer watches me across the table, and I watch him back. Hale stands near the corner of the room with his arms folded. Valeria remains by the inner door, face unreadable, and one hand on her radio. The guards are doing their best not to stare at me, but they’re failing in shifts.

Professional. Adorable. Fucking awful.

“You want me to help you understand my father’s research,” I say.

I don’t mean to say my father, but it comes out anyway like a dropped match. Only a small one, but the whole room catches fire instantly.

Hale’s head lifts and Valeria’s eyes sharpen. One of the scientists by the glass wall goes very, very still. Mercer doesn’t react, and that’s the worst reaction of all. Because he already knew. Or he suspected enough that hearing it only fills in the blanks in his mind.

Beside me, Fletcher’s body changes. Not with surprise, or not exactly. He already knew pieces because he had enough ofthem to form an ugly enough picture. But the word father falls differently. It puts blood on the facts.

Ewan is too quiet, and so is Xeon. Kaito’s scent deepens at the edge of the room, burning wood and worn flannel held tight, controlled enough not to crowd me.

No one says a damned thing, and I hate all of them for that, too.

“Dr. Conrad O’Reilly was your father,” Mercer says carefully.

It’s not a question, but I answer it like it is.

“No,” I say, because apparently my mouth has picked a theme to stick with.

Mercer blinks once, and I lean forward, palms flat on the table, black-painted nails stark against the metal. Then I say, “Dad was my father. Conrad O’Reilly was my father. Dr. Conrad O’Reilly is just a name on your file.”

Mercer’s face shifts to something like pain, maybe. Good. Let him have some.