Page 349 of Immune
Another sound comes from beyond the door.
A thud.
Then a softer one.
Body hitting wall.
Body hitting floor.
The three bonds surge so hard my back arches against the restraints.
There.
There.
There.
Close enough now that hope stops feeling like a hallucination and starts feeling like something I can actually latch on to.
The door opens and the older man from the tunnel steps in. His black mask is gone now, showing off his hard face and gray hair. He’s also wearing clean gloves. Of course he has clean gloves. After all, men who call women cargo always love clean gloves.
His eyes move from me to the dead light, then to the guard’s bleeding wrist.
“Still lively, I see,” he says, almost blandly, like he’s as emotionless as his exterior would lead you to believe.
I bare my bloody teeth at him and rasp, “You should see me with breakfast.”
He studies me like I am interesting and I hate that more than fear.
“You could have been handled gently.”
“People keep saying that right before doing the opposite.”
“You are valuable, Miss O’Reilly.”
“Heard that sales pitch, too. Not interested in hearing it again.”
His mouth tightens and that emotionless exterior splinters only a little. It’s enough to show the ugly he’s hiding right before it spills out of his mouth. “You are cargo. Cure, womb, leverage, asset. Choose whichever word makes you feel most human.”
The room goes very still and for one second, fear tries to own me. Not borrow or visit, but fully own. It slides its cold fingers around my throat and whispers every nightmare I have ever had since I learned what being an Omega meant after the world ended.
Cage.
Heat.
Hands.
Blood.
No choice.
No name.
No.
I lift my head.
It takes every scrap of strength I have.
