SIXTEEN
DAKOTA
There’s a handful of things in this world I’d never want to experience again.
Packless heats.
Watching my mother’s dead eyes snapping open.
A Runner trying to chew through a maintenance door like it’s developed a personal vendetta against hinges.
And, apparently, being trapped in an underground service passage with four Alphas, one unconscious helicopter pilot, no bullets, a pulsing knee, a stitched-up rogue, and my brother’s hat shoved under my jacket like my ribs have become the security-deposit box that will keep it safe.
It doesn’t escape my notice how much the universe loves variety. It seems it’s also a big fan of humbling me more now than ever. Whatever birthed the universe should have swallowed.
Behind us, something slams into the blocked door with enough force to make the entire passage tremble. Dust rains from the ceiling and somewhere in the pipes above us, water drips in a rhythm so steady and cheerful I want to throat-punch it.
I hate it. I hate the passage. I hate the blocked door.
I hate how the word Vector still lingers in the air like a dead opossum someone carelessly tossed onto the dinner table.
I hate the way Fletcher’s eyes sharpened when the pilot said it.
I hate the way Xeon went quiet. And I hate the way Ewan stopped joking for all of three seconds, which somehow made the situation feel so much worse.
But mostly, I hate that I’m still here with them. All of them.
Kaito stands closest, but not too close.
One of his hands presses against his bleeding side, while the other is braced against the damp wall as if he’s trying to convince his body that now isn’t the time to collapse.
His face has grown pale under the grime, sweat, and blood, his dark hair is slick with sweat and stuck to his forehead, and his jaw is clenched tight with a pain he’s now doing an awful job at hiding from me.
Fletcher stands near the front with his rifle raised, broad shoulders filling half the passage as if he was designed to block doors and ruin escape routes.
Scar looks even bigger down here, all controlled violence and cold attention.
His blue eyes move from the shaking door to the ceiling, then to the limp pilot, and then to me.
Not to my face, I notice. To my hands. My knife, more specifically.
The angle of my feet. He watches like he’s clocking every way I might run and every countermeasure he can think of to stop me if he had to.
Hm. Love that. Ten out of ten, would absolutely recommend being scrutinized and assessed like a feral raccoon with a suspicious nature and a blade.
I fucking hate it here.
Xeon crouches next to the pilot, his body angled in a way that keeps him between the injured man and the door without looking as if he’s guarding anything at all.
His black hair is falling into his eyes, hoop earrings catching the weak lantern glow Ewan must have switched on at some point.
The soft Alpha moves with a calm I don’t trust, and not because it seems fake.
It isn’t. And real softness still contains sharp knives if you don’t look close enough.
It makes you forget to even check for them.
Then there’s Ewan, leaning one shoulder against the wall with his headphones hanging around his neck, gun in hand, knife in the other, and his face doing this thing where he looks like he’s one minor inconvenience away from saying something stupid enough to earn a knife in the thigh.
I might do it, too. For stress-relieving purposes.
Another slam hits the door, spoiling my plans, and the bent pipe Kaito shoves through the handle squeaks. It still holds, though. At least for now.
“Oh, nice,” Ewan mutters. “The door has started making noises now. I love it when insentient things start developing personalities. No time like the present, right? Even in an apocalypse. It really boosts the atmosphere down here.”
“Quiet,” Fletcher says bluntly.
Ewan looks dramatically offended. “Excuse me for emotionally supporting the door.”
“Support it quietly,” Scar snaps.
My own fingers tighten around my knife before I remind myself that stabbing one of them will make it harder to leave.
Not impossible by any means, but definitely harder.
There's four of them and one of me, and while I like to believe my spite could bench-press a truck if I’m properly motivated, my knee is currently sobbing with enough pain to make me want to remove my whole leg and launch it into the nearest body of water.
There’s also the case of Kaito’s continuous bleeding. Which, I tell myself, is not my problem. Only, it is, because I stitched him, so that kind of means his wound is technically under warranty. Something like that. Goddamn it.
“We need to keep moving,” Fletcher says, voice kept low and steady.
“Sherlock strikes again,” I snap before I can think better of it.
His eyes cut to me, and Ewan makes a delighted little sound. Fletcher doesn’t look away from me as he warns him, “Don’t.”
“Wouldn’t dare,” Ewan says, lying through his teeth.
“You were,” Fletcher contradicts, calling him on his bullshit.
“Fine,” Ewan relents. “I was going to do it quietly.”
I look between the two of them, a spreading horror washing through me as I mutter, “Do you two always communicate like divorced dads at a barbecue?”
Ewan’s mouth opens.
Fletcher bluntly replies, “No.”
At the same time, Ewan says, “A little, yeah.”
Then they both turn to look at each other.
Fucking hell.
I stare at the ceiling like it might just grant me a small mercy, open up, and drop a piano on my head like they used to in cartoons. Maybe if I pray hard enough, it’ll grant me my wish. Sadly, nothing happens, proving once more that deities don’t exist. Typical.
Xeon presses two fingers to the pilot’s throat. “Pulse is weak and his fever is rising. He needs treatment. Proper treatment and soon.”
“Then take him to your compound,” I mutter instantly. Everyone turns to look at me and I roll my eyes, pointing my knife down the passage. “I assume that’s where you’re heading. Big military vibe. Supplies. Medics. Rules. People who think calling Zeds Rots makes them fancier.”
Ewan lifts a finger. “I want it on record that Rots is very efficient.”
“Zeds has more character,” I argue, just out of pure spite.
“Rots sounds meaner.”
“That’s not the selling point you think it is,” I tell him blandly.
His eyes brighten then, as if he’s discovered a new hobby and it’s called annoying the shit out of me until one of us dies. Thankfully, before he can speak another word, Fletcher cuts in. “You know the district.”
A laugh splits from me. It sounds all wrong, and it lasts for only a second. “Yeah, and?”
“And the streets are riddled right now,” he continues, voice measured and controlled.
“Okay? Get to the point,” I demand blandly.
“Looters are sweeping the area. Rots are migrating toward the noise. Fast Rots are running loose,” he says. “You go out there now and you’ll only end up drawing attention.”
“I draw attention simply by standing still these days,” I grumble under my breath.
Kaito hears it, though, because why the fuck wouldn’t he? His eyes move to me, and something in them softens in a way I want to douse in gasoline and set on fire. Because it’s not pity. It’s worse. It’s a heap load of understanding. Damn it all.
I jerk my gaze away from his and focus on the passage ahead instead.
It bends left about twenty feet down, where the ceiling lowers and the floor dips.
Air wafts from that direction, cold, damp, and carrying hints of old metal and mold.
Not fresh enough to be outside, but it’s blowing enough to tell me there’s an opening somewhere.
Maybe an old delivery tunnel or basement access.
Or maybe it’s a small murder cupboard filled with death and disappointment.
At this point, who can really say?
“I’m leaving,” I announce shortly.
“No,” Fletcher says, and before the word has even fully left his mouth, my knife is raised and pointed at him. The threat is very clear, as is the warning to watch where he’s fucking stepping now, the blade steady and sure in my grasp.
Silence drops all around us. Because there it is. That vile little word men love when they think it belongs to them.
No.
Kaito turns completely still. Xeon’s gaze lifts slowly from the pilot. Ewan’s expression loses the last scraps of humor he was clinging to. And Fletcher, to his credit, doesn’t even twitch a finger toward his rifle. He simply looks at the knife pointed at him, and then back to my eyes.
“Careful,” Kaito warns quietly. I can’t even tell if he’s talking to Fletcher or me. It could very well be both.
“Don’t tell me no,” I warn coldly, my voice pitched low enough that it barely sounds like mine.
Fletcher’s jaw shifts only once. “Wasn’t an order.”
“Could have fooled me,” I argue flatly. “Because it sure as hell sounded like one.”
“It was an assessment,” the scarred Alpha corrects.
“Doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between the two,” I snark, voice carrying a chill to it. “Love that. Definitely doesn’t make me want to commit a crime or anything.”
Ewan coughs into his fist, but Fletcher ignores him. His eyes stay firmly planted on me, his voice lowering as he says, “You step outside tonight, you’ll die.”
“You don’t know that,” I argue.
“I know the street.”
“I know them better,” I counter, sharp eyes glaring into the Alpha hard enough that it would split him apart if I possessed such an ability.
Fletcher shakes his head once. “You know the buildings. You know the ways through them, I’ll give you that. But the streets tonight? They belong to whoever fired that launcher, and they’re flushing every dead thing they can find out to cover their asses.”
“They’re gone.”
“They’re regrouping.”
“I don’t care.”