Page 76 of Immune

I don’t like taking orders, but I like dying less.

“Ewan, rear. Xeon, pilot. Kaito, with me,” I bark, spitting orders rapidly. Then I cut my eyes to the masked girl. “Route.”

She gives me a look as if she’s debating whether or not I’m worth disobeying, and then she moves. Of course she does.

The hallway ahead is narrow, damp, and half-swallowed by shadows. The masked girl passes through it like she belongs to the dark. She’s fast, silent, and almost angry at the floor for even existing. Kaito follows her, not as close as he wants. I can tell because every instinct in his shoulders leans forward while his feet stay disciplined.

Behind us, Ewan covers the stairwell. Xeon doubles back for the pilot with a look that tells me he’s not loving leaving the girl in my line of sight or fire, even for ten seconds. He goes anyway, because that’s the job.

More gunfire blasts outside, and then shouting. “Upper floors! Movement in the east block!”

Fuck.

“I think they saw the window,” Ewan says.

I nod. “Then they’ll be coming this way.”

The girl stops at an intersection where the passage splits, and then she tilts her head, listening. I watch her shoulders, noticing the lack of movement. She doesn’t waste it, not even for a flinch that would immediately turn into information. She’s too damned young to look that tired. Too small to carry that level of control and still have anything left behind her eyes other than the kind of exhaustion soldiers develop after too many bad orders and not enough sleep.

She points left. “That way slopes down.”

“You sure?” I check.

I might as well have pushed her in a pile of horse shit for the look I receive.

“Nah, I’m just choosing the directions solely based on vibes,” she answers.

Ewan makes a weird choking sound behind me, and I give the girl a hard look that she only gives right back. No fear ofviolence. Not one bit. But when Kaito shifts only half a step too close, she turns to stone.

There it is again. Terrified of being touched. Not of blood, or teeth, or men with guns. But of touch.

I file that away in the part of my brain that keeps people alive just as the first looter reaches the far end of the hallway behind us. Ewan fires once and the man drops back with a bellow, not dead but hit.

“Time to go, lads,” Ewan says, his voice lined with too much cheer. “Lovely hallway, but I can’t stand the decor.”

Just like that, we run.

The masked girl leads us through a broken service door and down a concrete stairwell that smells like stagnant water and electrical fire. There’s no railing on one side, half the steps are cracked, and Rots are groaning below from somewhere close enough that the sound slithers up my spine.

Xeon meets us at the next landing, the pilot only partially dragged over his shoulder. The man is conscious enough for it to hurt, but not enough to offer any kind of help, so Kaito steps forward and offers, “I can carry him.”

The girl darts her gaze over to him and snaps, “You’re barely carrying yourself.”

“I can help,” he argues.

She narrows her eyes on him. “No. What you can do is bleed in a straight line and attract every dead thing with a nose.”

“Rots don’t track like that,” Ewan points out.

The girl’s eyes cut to him. “Mine do.”

It’s a weird thing to say, something too quick and certain, but I’m not the only one who hears it. Kaito hears it. Xeon definitely hears it. But no one pushes it. Not now, at least.

A shot explodes from behind us at that moment, followed quickly by a metallic clang of bullets against metal. Looks like the looters have found their way to the hallway.

“Fletcher,” Xeon warns lowly.

Nodding, I clip, “I know.”