Page 205 of Immune

“Fair enough,” he says, and I catch the Hackney edges under the words that I recognize from a TV show before the world trusted a fart and shit itself. It’s not polished, or soft, and tired enough to be honest.

Hale steps closer then. “You should have told us who you were.”

I turn my head toward him slowly just as Fletcher says, “Careful.”

Not to me, but to Hale. That’s nice. Everyone is learning.

Hale completely ignores him. “If you’re O’Reilly’s kid, that changes the entire situation.”

“No,” I say. “It explains why everyone with a gun keeps looking at me like I came with assembly instructions. I’m not an Ikea desk.”

Valeria’s mouth tightens, but Hale’s gaze doesn’t move from mine. “It means you might have information critical to this compound’s survival.”

“I mean, I’ve got trust issues falling out of my ass and a screwed knee. Do either of those save lives?” I question.

“You know things.”

“So do you.”

“That archive is incomplete,” he tries.

“And that very much sounds like a you problem,” I counter.

Mercer rubs a hand over his mouth, hiding something that might almost be amusement if today had any manners at all. “Commander, pressing won’t get us anywhere.”

Hale’s jaw flexes. “We don’t have time to be delicate.”

“Good,” I mutter. “I hate delicate.”

“Enough,” Valeria finally chimes in. It’s not loud, but it works anyway. She looks between Hale and Mercer before she says, “If this really is Dr. O’Reilly’s child, we need a controlled debrief.”

Controlled.

There it is again. Everyone’s favorite word for a cage with all the fun paperwork.

“No,” I say.

Valeria looks at me. “You don’t even know what I was going to suggest.”

“I heard the word controlled and rejected the entire application. Thanks, though,” I tell her.

Ewan makes a small sound behind his fist and Fletcher keeps his eyes on the door. Xeon’s focus is on me. Not my scent, not my mouth under the bandana. Me. And that might actually be worse.

Mercer closes the file with my father’s name on it, and the sound is quiet. Final. Then he opens a different folderfrom the gray case. This one is thinner. Newer. The paper is less yellowed than the others, and the tab has a printed sticker instead of handwritten ink.

CURE DEVELOPMENT/FIELD TEAM CROSS-REFERENCE.

I stop breathing. Not because of the cure, because every asshole in here and outside the compound’s walls wants a cure. People have killed for less useful lies. But it’s the label that catches me off guard.

Field team.

Six years of streets and rot have long since taught me that field teams don’t always come back whole, if at all.

Mercer flips through pages slowly. Too slowly for my liking, and my fingers twitch toward the knife they didn’t find.

Fletcher’s voice drops next to mine as he says, “Tell us what you’re lookin’ for.”

Not tell me. Us.