TWENTY-ONE #3
Her face is flushed with embarrassment and anger again, scared under both.
Softness would be easy to misuse here, and comfort could quickly turn into pressure if I’m not careful.
So, I don’t offer her comfort. Instead, I offer her information.
“The men behind us are Vector. They knew the pilot was alive, and they knew he was hurt. They expected him to use upper routes.”
Sure enough, her breathing steadies only by a fraction. A problem to solve is easier for her to handle than kindness.
“They’ll know your compound routes,” she says.
“Some of them,” I confirm.
“Then you have a leak,” she points out.
“Maybe.”
“No,” she argues. “Not maybe. Definitely.”
I nod once. “Probably.”
She glances at me. “Look at that. That was almost a disagreement. I’m proud of you.”
“This didn’t seem like the right moment to disappoint you,” I tell her.
She huffs. Barely. It’s a sound too small to even consider calling it amusement, but it’s definitely not nothing.
Just then, the mop handle bends and cracks. Kaito steps forward, but his face tightens with pain. Fletcher sees it, and Fletcher throws another warning at him, “Don’t.”
“I can hold it,” Kaito assures.
“How about you just try to stay upright?” Fletcher counters.
Dakota points her knife at Fletcher, grumbling, “I hate that I agree with him.”
Kaito looks at her. “So do I.”
She looks away too fast, but I catch it.
The pull. Not simple attraction, and not only scent.
There’s something more complicated and much more dangerous for her playing on the sidelines that she doesn’t want to acknowledge and is fighting tooth and nail to keep it that way.
She trusts Kaito in ways she doesn’t even have a language for yet.
She doesn’t trust me, and that’s okay. Trust shouldn’t build quickly in a world like this. When it does, it’s usually bait.
The mop handle snaps suddenly, and Ewan grabs the cart next to the workbench, shoving it against the door before the dead can push their way through. “Leaving would actually be lush right now.”
Dakota opens the far door and cool air floods into the room. A covered service passage stretches in front of us, leading west. She looks at it, then at me, right before she says, “You chose this route before.”
“Yes,” I answer.
“Because it has privacy,” she says, more of a statement than a question.
I answer it like it’s the latter. “Yes.”
Her eyes narrow, but I let the answer sit between us. There’s no smart or tricky phrasing, no hiding behind sightlines this time. She can have the truth when it’s safe enough to give. She deserves that much.
“Why?” she asks.
“Because,” I say. “You were overheating. Because your scent was spiking. Because enclosed routes with no exits make you worse.”
The hand wrapped around her knife flexes. “And you were, what? Being helpful?”
“Yes,” I answer, hoping she hears the honesty in that single word.
Suspicion sharpens her eyes and she asks again, “Why?”
I hold her gaze for a beat. The others are moving behind us now. Fletcher lifting the pilot again. Kaito is pale next to him, one hand pressed against his side while the other grips his knife. And Ewan keeps the cart braced until the very last second, the dead pushing heavily against the door.
There’s no time for a long answer, so I shortly tell her, “Because not every Alpha wants to own what he scents.”
Dakota goes utterly still, the words hitting a little too hard. I see the old belief appear in her eyes. Not thought, but knowledge. A lesson learned the hard way, through blood, flight, hunger, and years of hiding.
She laughs once, the sound lacking humor, and she says, “I don’t believe you.”
“I know,” I tell her, already fully aware. Her brows pinch, but I simply step back from the doorway, leaving her the path through first. Then I say, “You don’t have to.”
The door behind us cracks louder, and Ewan says, “Whatever this is, it’s very touching. Really, it is. Also, if you didn’t know, there are dead things incoming. Just thought you’d want to know.”
Dakota looks at me for one more second. The suspicion stays in those hazel eyes, but so does something else. Not trust, not quite yet. Maybe the place where trust would stand one day if the world stopped trying to kill her for long enough.
Then she turns and moves into the service passage. I follow after Fletcher and the pilot, not behind Dakota. Not too close. Near enough to help, but far enough to make sure the passage doesn’t feel like a cage.
Behind us, the maintenance room door gives way, and the dead spill into the space we left behind. Ahead, the passage runs west toward the compound route, toward whatever Vector knows, and toward the walls that might protect Dakota or try to keep her.
I look at her as she limps through the gray light with her knife ready and her shoulders locked against every possible kindness we could offer. She’s not a puzzle, though. Not a secret to pry open.
She’s a person who has survived by becoming difficult to reach.
So I don’t reach.
Not yet.