TWENTY-ONE #2
Her eyes cut toward me and suspicion enters them instantly. “What?”
“Your arm,” I say softly.
Her grip on the pilot’s boot tightens. “It’s still attached.”
“I’m glad,” I tell her, and she frowns as if she can’t decide if that was a joke or not. It wasn’t exactly one, if I’m being honest. But then I say, “Move it less.”
“Bossy for someone with nice eyes,” she mutters.
Ewan suddenly makes a small choking sound behind me, Kaito looks up at the ceiling as though it interests him more than Dakota, and Fletcher closes his eyes for half a second, as if patience is as limited a resource as clean water now and he’s budgeting really hard.
Dakota seems just as horrified by what came out of her mouth, and that makes the two of us. Her scent spikes, but not in fear this time. More like embarrassment. Heat. Something sweet and sharp.
She releases the pilot’s boot as if it’s offended her, and she snaps, “Forget I said that.”
“I can try,” I promise.
“Try really fucking hard,” she demands, her gaze narrowing on me.
I dip my head slightly. “All right.”
The softness of the answer seems to make her more suspicious than anger would have, and she steps away from me. Just a single step, not far. Just enough to prove that she can. And I do nothing but let her.
Fletcher then gestures to a maintenance alcove. “Pilot in there. We take position.”
The alcove is shallow, filled with stacked caution signs and a maintenance cart.
Not defensible for long, but enough to at least hide from direct view.
Fletcher lowers the pilot behind the cart with care, and Kaito hovers nearby.
He’s ready to help, but his injured side keeps him from taking more weight than he should. He’s already suffered enough until now.
Dakota watches Kaito’s hand press briefly against his ribs, and so do I. Her mouth tightens under the bandana. She’s concerned and she’s angry about it. I can see both emotions live openly in the set of her shoulders before she buries them again.
The approaching footsteps draw closer and two men appear at the far end of the red-lit corridor. They’re wearing dark waterproof jackets and carry rifles held too low for soldiers but too comfortably for scavengers. One has a yellow strip of material tied around his wrist.
Vector.
Dakota sees it at the same time I do. Her whole body changes, but not with panic.
With precision. The same eerie calm that settled over her when the Rot dropped from the market tarp.
It’s not the absence of fear, but fear disciplined into a weapon.
Into a blade sharp enough to slice through anything in its way.
The men speak softly to one another, one saying, “Station’s clear enough.”
“Boss said to check upper routes. Pilot won’t get very far injured,” the other replies.
“They had help.”
“Then we’ll find help, too.”
Dakota’s fingers tighten around her knife while Fletcher’s rifle is already raised. Kaito is pale but steady, and Ewan’s expression has gone completely blank in the way I’m starting to recognize means he’s heard too much and he’s making a plan with it.
I look at Dakota. She’s closest to the left wall. If the men advance another fifteen feet, they’ll see the alcove.
I catch her eye, and her brows pinch tightly.
I lift two fingers.
Wait.
She doesn’t like that, but she waits anyway.
The first Vector man steps under a broken ceiling panel, and water drips onto his shoulder.
He looks up and Fletcher fires his rifle once.
The shot hits the wall next to the man’s head, close enough to shower him with plaster but not close enough to kill him.
It’s a warning that simply sounds like an execution.
Both men dive for cover, right as one shouts, “Compound!”
Dakota moves under the sound. She’s fast despite her limp, and too fast for someone injured. She slips along the wall while their attention goes to Fletcher, reaches the emergency panel next to the hallway door, and slams the heel of her knife into the old alarm switch.
Nothing happens.
For one terrifying breath, nothing happens.
Then the station screams.
A rusted, slightly crackled emergency alarm shrieks through the hallway, loud enough to split the world into pieces. Below us, the Rots answer as if the blaring sound is meant for them, a chorus of groans and screams rising from the platform and tunnels.
Ewan winces, muttering, “Well, that’s just horrible. Effective, don’t get me wrong. But still very horrible.”
Dakota rips open the hallway door and points down the stairwell beyond it. “Noise will draw them up from the lower platforms. We leave now.”
Fletcher fires again, forcing the Vector men to keep cover. Kaito reaches for the pilot and then stops, his face tightening. Fletch sees it and says, “Don’t.”
“I can help,” Kaito tries, but it’s no use.
“You can continue to bleed quietly and leave the usefulness to someone else,” Fletch commands.
Dakota’s eyes flash to Kaito’s side, witnessing the blood that has spread again under the torn edge of his shirt, dark against wet fabric.
“Kaito,” she snaps.
He instantly freezes, and so does everyone else, because his name from her mouth just landed differently. It’s not soft or gentle, and it’s still very much edged, but it’s real.
She digs into her pocket, yanks out the cloth he gave her earlier, and throws it at his chest. “Press that on it before you leak all over the floor like a dramatic idiot.”
For half a second, Kaito only looks at her. Then he blinks, catching the cloth, and presses it to his side. “Sure.”
Not okay, which I’m thankful for. Although, she glares at him anyway.
Before any more words pass between them, we run.
The stairwell is narrow, concrete, and lit by the pulsing red emergency glow.
Fletcher carries the pilot as best as he can, dragging most of the man’s weight with grim efficiency.
Kaito moves beside him, a knife in hand he must have pulled from somewhere on his body, guarding the front rather than carrying.
Every step is costing him, but he doesn’t once slow down.
Ewan takes the rear, firing once when one of the Vector men tries to follow.
Dakota ends up beside me because the stairwell is tight, and because her knee nearly gives out on the first run.
She catches herself on the railing, and I make sure not to touch her.
Instead, I move close enough that if she falls she’ll hit my shoulder before the stairs.
She notices.
“Don’t,” she breathes.
“I’m not doing anything,” I tell her quietly.
“You’re hovering.”
“I’m adjacent.”
“Now is not the time to be cute with vocabulary,” she grits through her teeth.
“I’m not trying to be cute,” I tell her seriously.
“That’s worse,” she snaps.
A smile almost sneaks onto my face, but I press it down. She wouldn’t appreciate it at all.
Behind us, the alarm continues its ear-ringing scream. Below, the dead answer, dragging themselves up from the lower platforms. The stairwell fills with echoes of boots, rain, Rots, and distant shouting.
At the next landing, Dakota pauses for too long.
It’s only a second. Her breath catches, her free hand going to her chest, fingers curling against the strap of her pack.
Her scent flares again, sweet under the fear, under the fever, and under the chemical bitterness of blockers losing their fight against her biology.
I look away from her throat. From her trembling hand, and from everything she would hate me for seeing.
“There’s a maintenance room on this level,” I say.
Her eyes cut to mine. “How do you know?”
“Sign,” I tell her, nodding toward the faded lettering on the wall. She looks, and then scowls, because I’m telling the truth. “We can redirect through it. Avoid the next flight.”
“Or get trapped,” she counters.
“Yes,” I agree.
“At least you’re admitting that part,” she murmurs.
I shrug. “I try not to lie when the truth is already obvious.”
She studies me for half a breath. “That sounds exhausting.”
“Sometimes,” I tell her honestly.
Fletcher looks back from the stairs above and barks, “Decision.”
Dakota glances down the stairwell just as a Rot appears from two flights below, head jerking toward the alarm and cloudy eyes rolling aimlessly. Another slams into the railing behind it. And then another.
“Maintenance room,” she says.
And so we move.
The room is small, but it has another door at the far end. For once, we’ve been granted a stroke of luck that hasn’t been molded into a joke.
Fletcher hauls the pilot through. Kaito guards the doorway until Dakota and I are inside, and Ewan shuts the door behind us, wedging a fallen mop handle under it.
“Very secure,” Dakota comments.
“Thank you,” Ewan replies. “I was top of my class in the incredibly prestigious Academy of That’ll Fucking Do.”
A Rot slams into the door and the mop handle bends precariously.
Ewan clears his throat. “It was the accelerated programme and I was the only student.”
Dakota crosses the room to the far door with a shake of her head, but her steps turn uneven. Heat and pain are catching up to her, and she’s forced to press a hand to the wall next to the door, breathing through her nose.
I stand near the workbench, offering her the width of the room. Then, quietly, I say, “Dakota.”
Her shoulders tighten right before she snaps, “I know, okay? I’m slow, I’m injured, and I smell like every single bad decision wearing tactical gear. Can we skip the inspirational speech?”
I pause for a beat before telling her, “I was just going to tell you your knife sheath is caught on the cabinet handle.”
She looks down.
It is.
For one second, she only stares at it. Then she mutters, “I knew that.”
“I assumed,” I assure, watching as she frees it with a sharp tug.