NINETEEN #2
Dakota reaches for the shelf with her injured arm and pain flashes across her face before she can bury it. I’m moving before I can even stop myself. I manage only a step before her head snaps up and her knife is pointed at me.
Everyone stills, and I stop instantly, hands loose at my sides.
“Don’t,” she says quietly, but it lands louder than a shout ever could.
My Alpha slams against my ribs violently.
She’s hurt.
Help.
Move.
Take the shelf.
Open the door.
Carry her if she can’t walk.
No.
I look at the shelf instead of her face, muttering, “It’s heavy.”
“Yes, I did notice,” she says. “Your contribution to the investigation has been noted.”
I ignore her sarcasm and offer, “I can move it.”
“Well, shit, that’s nice. I can move it, too,” she volleys.
“Your arm is hurt,” I point out, and her eyes go flat so quickly that I instantly know it was the wrong thing to say. It was too direct, too much proof that I’ve been watching her.
“Yeah, well, I’m full of surprises,” she utters blandly.
Fletcher shifts next to the pilot, maybe readying himself to step in. Xeon stays completely still, and Ewan falls completely silent.
I take one step back, and Dakota blinks. So does my Alpha, if instincts even possess the ability to blink. Then I tell her, “I know you can move it. I’m not questioning that.”
Her grip doesn’t loosen on her knife. “Then what are you doing?”
“Offering,” I tell her simply, and she literally just stares at me as if I’ve started talking in riddles.
Honestly, maybe I have.
Offering isn’t how the old world taught Alphas to talk to Omegas. Not when hunger steps into the room. Not when the virus made the world smaller and meaner and turned biology into a law for people desperate enough to worship anything with teeth.
But Dakota doesn’t need law. She needs exits.
“If you say no,” I add, “I don’t move.”
Her throat shifts. Rain taps through a hole above the stairwell, landing between us in steady drops.
One.
Two.
Three.
“Fine,” she then says, like the word has been dragged over hot coal and gravel. “Move the stupid shelf.”
I do, slowly. No sudden steps, no brushing against her, no reaching across her body. I grab the shelf at one end and drag it aside with a metal screech that makes every one of us wince.
“The art of subtlety is still alive and well,” Ewan says quietly.
Dakota gives him a dirty look, half-hidden under the bandana. “Would you like to move the next one with your arms unattached?”
“I would, but I think we’ll be here all day if I did,” Ewan knocks back.
Fletcher lifts the pilot up again with Xeon, snapping a single command. “Up.”
Dakota goes first, because of course she does. The stairwell stinks of wet dust, old piss, and something dead under the landing. There’s no fresh movement. Not yet, anyway.
So we all climb the stairs.
By the second floor, Dakota’s limp has worsened.
She hides it badly now, but only because pain is stronger than pride when the body starts making formal complaints.
She grips the railing with her good hand, jaw clenched and breathing controlled through her nose.
Every single step feels like a test I’m not allowed to help her pass.
Good. That’s how it should be.
Seems like her life has been full of hands reaching without permission, so I can be the person who doesn’t.
At the fourth floor, the stairs end in a narrow maintenance hallway. The roof access door is locked, but Dakota already has a pick out before Fletcher can even think to inspect it. He watches her work for all of three seconds before he says, “Good hands.”
She doesn’t bother looking up, quietly muttering, “Don’t flirt with my lock-picking skills, Scar. They’re emotionally unavailable.”
Ewan snorts, and Xeon’s mouth softens. Fletcher looks like he regrets every choice and decision that has led him to this very staircase.
The lock clicks, and Dakota pushes the door open with her shoulder.
The morning rain washes through in cold sheets and gray light.
The roof is flat and covered in puddles and rusted vents.
Low walls line the edges, and beyond them, a broken city spreads as far as the eye can see, soaked under a sky the same color as bruised metal.
There are no dead bodies roaming close by, no Vector men visible, but I know it’s not the time to find relief in it.
It’s a matter of time. Always a matter of time.
We cross the roof to a covered maintenance shed near the far side. The door is unlocked, and inside is cramped but dry enough to breathe. Old tools hang across one wall, and I spot empty paint cans, a workbench, and a stack of cracked plastic crates near the door.
Fletcher and Xeon lower the pilot onto a sheet of insulation board, and Xeon checks his wound straight away. “He needs proper medical care.”
“How long?” Fletcher prods.
“Less than we have,” Xeon answers.
Ewan peers through a crack in the shed door. “No movement on the roof behind us. Streets below are busy, though. Rots drifting east.”
Dakota stands near the opposite wall, arms folded, wet braid hanging over one shoulder, and knife still in hand. Her bandana is secured in place, her hat sits low, and her shoulders are locked tightly.
Even if I hadn’t kissed her, I’d still know she’s shaking. Not in a visible, obvious way. Certainly not in a way others can call out without losing at least three fingers. But I know. Her scent trembles under the blockers, thinned by the rain, scared, and angry at itself for being scared.
I stay near the door. Not between her and it, but beside it. Close enough to block the wind from the gap in the frame, but far enough that she can leave if she wants.
Her eyes flick to me. She notices, of course, and her gaze narrows. She doesn’t say anything, though.
Small mercy, right?
I look away first, and that is the second choice.
The pilot groans and everyone’s attention shifts to him. His eyes flutter under swollen lids and his hands twitch against the board, his fingers scraping against it weakly.
“Hey,” Xeon says, leaning closer. “You’re safe.”
The pilot’s lips crack open. “No.”
Fletcher crouches on his other side. “You said Vector. Cargo. NOVAC. What else?”
The pilot shivers hard enough to make Xeon press his hand to the man's shoulder. With a whisper, he says, “Case. Need… case.”
“Where is it?” Fletcher pushes.
“Split. Took… black case. Silver stayed,” the pilot breathes.
Ewan looks at Fletcher. “Silver?”
The pilot’s breath rattles harshly in his chest. “Drive. Samples. O’Reilly…”
Dakota goes painfully still.
There it is. Not a guess anymore.
Her fingers tighten around her knife. I see it, Xeon sees it, Fletcher definitely sees it. Ewan’s gaze cuts to her, and then away just as fast. Then the pilot’s head rolls toward Dakota and he rasps, “Doctor's daughter… His research…”
The room seems to stop breathing with her. Her scent spikes, and I move one step without thinking, only to stop before the second. I start repeating a chant in my head the moment I still. Don’t corner her. Don’t expose her. Don’t make this worse.
The pilot’s eyes are barely open now, feverish and unfocused. There’s every chance he might not be seeing what’s even in front of him. He might be seeing a memory. A file. A ghost. But then he whispers, “Immune.”
And the shed falls silent in a way that is borderline horrifying. Dakota’s knife lifts by an inch, but not toward him. Toward the room.
My blood turns cold. Fletcher’s expression locks down. Xeon’s hand stills on the pilot’s shoulder. And Ewan literally stops breathing for half a second. Dakota’s eyes are wide and terrified above the bandana, all pale hazel and panic.
Then the pilot falls unconscious again, as if dropping grenades in small spaces is perfectly acceptable bedside manner. His head lolls to the side while rain hammers the roof, and not a soul speaks for long enough for the tension to spread like its own virus.
Dakota moves first.
She turns toward the shed door, but I’m beside it. I’m not blocking it, simply standing next to it, but she stops anyway before issuing a sharp command. “Move.”
I step away immediately, the word barely leaving her mouth before the path is completely clear for her to walk down.
Something in her gaze flickers. Not quite relief, and definitely not trust. Something smaller, more dangerous. Proof.
Then she steps out into the rain.
I wait about three seconds before I end up following after her, but it seems three seconds wasn’t enough.
Ten years wouldn’t have been enough. But it’s all I can give her before my instincts start ripping through my self-control and the roofline becomes too open and exposed and easy for a shot from another building.
Dakota stands near a rusted vent, rain pouring down her jacket and dripping from the brim of her hat. The wind catches at the end of her braid, the white-blond rope swaying with every gust that blows past.
“Don’t ask,” she demands, voice cracked and raspy.
“I won’t,” I promise.
Her laugh is short and rough. “That was fast.”
“I mean it,” I assure her.
She turns her head slightly and shakes it. “Everyone says that before they inevitably start asking.”
I shrug. “I’m not everyone.”
“No,” she agrees, but it doesn’t sound like something positive, especially when her fingers flex around her knife. “You’re worse. You act like you understand things you have no business understanding.”
I keep several feet between us as I tell her, “I understand enough.”
“You don’t understand anything,” she chokes.
“Maybe.”
She faces me fully then, eyes sharp. “No. Not maybe, Kaito. Definitely. You don’t know me.”
The words land exactly where she aimed them, exactly where she intended for them to hit hard enough that I’d back down.
“I don’t,” I agree, and her expression falters for only a second. But then I continue. “I know pieces. Not enough to claim anything, and definitely not to decide anything for you.”
Her breathing changes under her bandana.
Rain is running down my face and into my eyes, but I let it, because I know if I move too much she’ll run.