Page 127 of Immune

I don’t jump. My soul flees my body for all of two seconds and only returns after leaving a formal complaint to HR, but on the outside, I’m nothing but cool, calm, and composed.

The hand drags down the glass, leaving a trail of old, black blood, smearing it across the already grimy window. And then another face appears behind it. Followed quickly by another. Zeds press against the doors from the other side, mouths opening and closing, jaws snapping as if the scent of living flesh has finally reached whatever is left of their brains.

“Straight is out,” Fletcher says shortly.

“Very helpful,” I whisper.

He looks over at me and I simply look back at him with a straight face and a shrug.

“Move,” he commands, just as the door slams again, only harder this time.

The pilot chooses that moment to make a sound, groaning far too loudly. As expected, every Zed behind the glass surges forward.

Kaito shifts, already looking for a defensive angle, but pain slashes across his face when he twists too quickly. Fletcher sees it. Xeon sees it. I definitely see it. Hell, everyone is seeing every damned thing lately, and it’s starting to feel real crowded in here.

“Left,” Xeon says. “Now.”

We don’t waste any more time, moving as instructed. The left tunnel narrows almost immediately, dropping into a delivery passage with a lower ceiling and pipes cluttered above us. Fletcher and Xeon pull the pilot through first, because hauling an injured man through a concrete hellhole is apparently our newest group activity. Kaito covers them, pale as a ghost but steady, tightly clutching his knife at the ready. Ewan and I are at the back of our merry band of survivors.

The double doors suddenly release a metallic screech that has my stomach dropping, and I look back just in time to watch the door bow inward.

“That’s not holding very well,” Ewan points out.

“Apparently everyone is captain of their own obvious ship these days,” I grit, shaking my head.

Ewan, without missing a beat, volleys, “I have always wanted to wear an eyepatch and one of those funky hats with the feathers.”

“You’re an idiot,” I mutter.

“Only professionally,” he quips, unfazed and taking it all in stride.

That quickly changes when the first Zeds break through. The left door bursts open with a vicious clang of metal, spilling dead bodies into the tunnel with a wet, snapping sound that turns my stomach. They stumble over one another, limbs tangling together in a morbid little knot and mouths snapping mindlessly, then they right themselves as one ugly wave of rot and decay.

“Run,” Fletcher barks.

I don’t need telling twice.

We take off down the delivery passage, boots sloshing through the shallow water. The tunnel bends sharply, and then splits again around a collapsed section where part of the ceiling has fallen in a heap of concrete, rebar, and broken pipe.

Fletcher and Xeon drag the pilot right, and Kaito follows, right before he turns back. Of course he turns back.

“Dakota!”

“I’m coming, goddamn it,” I snap back, literally seconds before the pipe above me bursts with a sound that mirrors a gunshot.

Cold water sprays across the tunnel, and I flinch from pure instinct, slipping on the slick floor. Ewan grabs the strap of my pack for half a second, just enough to keep me upright, then releases it so fast I almost convince myself his hand didn’t even come near me.

The ceiling groans at that moment and, like I’ve stepped into a fucking horror movie, a chunk of the ceiling drops between us and the others. It’s not huge, but it’s big enough to separate Ewan and me from the other three Alphas and the deadweight pilot.

Dust and water explode upward, and Kaito lunges toward the gap from the other side. His injured side buckles, and Fletcher manages to catch him by the shoulder just before he can force himself through and bleed all over the floor like some heroic dumbass with the worst self-preservation skills known to all Alphas, Betas, and Omegas alike.

“Keep moving!” I shout.

Kaito’s expression turns dark, but the Zeds behind us hit the bend before he can protest the command.

Ewan shoves me toward the left branch with a hurried, “This way.”

“I was already going this way,” I inform him hurriedly.