Page 326 of Immune

Not Haven Ridge.

Black masks, gray gear. Vector.

The sight of them makes my stomach turn to iron.

“Move!” I shout.

Dakota rolls, not away from me, but with me. We break from cover together, and I fire twice. One Vector soldier drops, and Dakota throws her knife into another’s thigh, then rips the pistol from Porter’s belt as she passes.

Smart girl.

Terrifying girl.

My girl.

No. Not mine like that. Chosen. Get it right, idiot.

We cut toward the service lane again, but smoke pours across the path, thick enough to swallow the lights. Ewan firesbehind us while Kaito drives a blade into the gap between a Vector soldier’s ribs, only wincing a little when the action costs his still-healing side. Xeon appears through the haze, grabs Dakota’s arm, and pulls her clear of a shot that cracks into the wall where she’d just been standing.

For half a second, she’s against him, his hand on her arm and her hand on his chest. No bond between them, no thread or answer. Her fingers curl once in his shirt like she expected something to be there and his eyes drop to the movement.

Pain slashes through his face and disappears almost before it even really exists, and then another smoke charge hits the ground between us.

White fire blooms and my eyes burn instantly.

“Dakota!” I shout, but the smoke swallows her whole.

My bond snaps tight, and Ewan’s panic flares brightly enough to blind me. Kaito’s bond goes cold and lethal, an echo of it strumming through my own bond with Kota. Mine is hammering hard enough to hit nails and build a porch. Three alarms inside her, three pulls, and through them, for one single second, I feel her reaching.

Not for us. For the quiet place inside her. For the missing thread.

“Xeon,” she chokes, but there’s nothing there to answer her.

Something slams into me from the side, and I hit the wall hard enough to crack my shoulder against concrete. A blade swings toward my throat, the flash of it the only thing that draws my attention to it before it does any damage. I catch the wrist, twist, and feel the bone snap under my hand. The attacker screams while gunfire cuts through the smoke.

Rots groan somewhere too close and the chemical stink is killing every scent in the air, including honey and rain. I shovethe attacker away and lunge toward the place Dakota’s bond is pulling from.

Moving.

She’s moving.

No.

Being moved.

“Fletcher!” she shouts, and the sound tears through me worse than any bullet could. It’ll haunt me long after the night ends, my heart shredding apart at the sound of her fear.

I see her shape through the smoke for all of a second. Small and fast and fighting. A masked man behind her has one arm locked around her ribs and a cloth pressed over her mouth. She drives her elbow back hard enough that he keels over a little, but then two more close in around her.

Ewan hits one from the side, dragging him down with a snarl.

Kaito reaches another.

Xeon moves like a blade through smoke, straight for Dakota.

Almost there.

Almost.