Page 23 of Immune

I pause before jerking the gun toward the door very quickly, before training it back on him. “Great. We agree. Now the door’s there. Don’t let it hit you where the good Lord split you.”

The fucker doesn’t budge. Hell, he doesn’t move a single inch, and it pisses me all the way off. My patience is already stretched thin enough to see through. His refusal to catch a hint and move shreds it a little more.

“Kaito,” I growl, fingers tightening around the gun to stop myself from strangling the stupid bastard.

The Alpha looks at me when I say his name. Like, really looks, and something inside him seems to settle around the sound in a way I don’t think I like. Or, maybe I do like it? Which actually makes it worse, and therefore it’s going straight into the mental trash where it belongs.

Before I can utter a word, Kaito says, “I don’t think you should stay here alone tonight.”

The laugh that breaks out of me sounds flat. “That’s adorable.”

“I’m serious,” he argues gently.

“Oh. Adorable and delusional,” I volley, rolling my eyes again.

He pauses before his eyes drop to my arm again. “You’re hurt.”

“We’ve already been through this. I’m hurt. You’re hurt. We’re all hurt. What’s your point?” I ask, raising an eyebrow I’m not sure he can even see.

“I’m bigger,” he tries.

I scoff, jerking the gun at him. “That’s not an argument when I’m the one holding a gun.”

His eyes drop to the barrel, then those dark brown eyes meet mine again. “That you are.”

The quiet acceptance chips at something inside me. Something I don’t understand, or want to understand, and I make sure not to let it show as I say, “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.”

A quiet pause follows before he quietly counters, “What I do know is that you saved my life when you didn’t need to. You jumped in and risked your own life to save mine.”

“You were making noise. I couldn’t very well not step in,” I retort a little sharply, not exactly enjoying this back and forth.

“You came to save me even after you managed to get away,” he pushes, and my finger twitches on my gun.

“You were making a lot of noise,” I contradict.

Kaito’s lips twitch, and I brace myself for whatever counterargument is about to spill out of his mouth, pre-annoyed before he’s uttered a word. “You sacrificed two knives to save me. Two.”

“That’s why I returned. I wanted them back,” I blurt, latching on to that excuse like it’s a raft on a stormy sea.

Apparently, it’s the wrong thing to say, because Kaito bites his smile away before he points out, “You grabbed them before you ran to the school. Your timeline is getting muddled.”

Fuck.

He’s got me there.

I don’t bother responding. I simply stare at him, and he only stares back. I don’t particularly appreciate his memory right now, more so because it bested mine, and there’s nothing more infuriating.

When the silence stretches too long between us, I finally relent and grumble, “You’re very annoying.”

“So I’ve been told,” he quips with a small snort.

“By who? People who survived telling you?” I ask.

He jerks his head back and forth before he says, “Eh. Only some of them.”

I’ll be damned to the deepest parts of hell if a laugh doesn’t try to climb up my throat. I kill it promptly with a damned shovel, an axe, and a whole plethora of other mental tools I can conjure. I will not laugh at this Alpha. Not in this world or the next.

Outside, a low groan floats through the broken window in the kitchen. Another follows quickly after, and my head turns slightly. Kaito’s does the same, mirroring my movement. The stress isn’t clear anymore. Or maybe it never was and I’ve let my irritation with the bleeding Alpha distract me, which is exactly why people are so fucking dangerous. They don’t even need to attack, coming in with guns blazing. Sometimes, all it takes is someone just standing there being an inconvenient pain in the ass until you stop paying enough attention to the things that bite.