Page 180 of Immune

He sees me looking. Of course he does. But he doesn’t move. Not forward or back. The choice simply sits between us, delicate and terrifying, but mine if I want it. Mine if I don’t.

My fingers curl and my nails stab into my palm. I think about closing the distance. I consider how gentle his mouth might be. How still he would stay until I decided how much was too much. How he might taste like ice and steel and quiet and all the things I’ve spent six whole years pretending I don’t need.

And I hate just how badly I want to know.

A shout suddenly comes from the far side of the roof, and Fletcher calls, “Route!”

The moment shatters. Or maybe I break it by stepping back. Either way, Xeon lets me without an ounce of disappointment. No chase. No heat sharpened into pressure.Just acceptance, clean and quiet. And that is somehow the most dangerous thing he has done all day.

I turn toward Fletcher and the others, pulse skittering unsteadily. After three steps, I realize Xeon isn’t beside me. He’s behind me, giving me room, even now.

I stop.

Don’t think about it.

Don’t make it a thing.

Don’t let your face show anything embarrassing.

I look back and jerk my chin toward the path Fletcher has found. “You coming or what?”

Xeon’s expression barely changes, but something in his depths warms, and he answers softly with a simple, “Yes.”

He falls into step next to me this time, and closer than before. He’s not touching or crowding, just close enough that the wind carries his scent toward me in soft, gentle pieces.

Frost.

Steel.

Clean enough to cut through the smoke without turning cold.

A quiet I don’t have to earn.

The compound waits beyond the next stretch of roofline, all fences, watch posts, and promises I wouldn’t trust with a sneeze. Vector is still somewhere behind us, and the dead continue to answer every sound they make. But Xeon? He stays beside me, with his calm, soothing scent that comes to me every time the wind turns.

I should step away.

I know how to step away.

Instead, I let him stay and simply keep walking.

TWENTY-NINE

FLETCHER

The compound looks safest from a distance, but most things do. Houses with lights in the windows. Roads without bodies crawling in the middle of them. People smiling with clean hands and locked gates behind them. From far enough away, anything can dress itself up as salvation.

I’ve learned not to trust distance. It lies prettier than most men I’ve known.

From the rooftop, the compound is a stark contrast to the broken district ahead. High walls built from sheet metal, shipping containers, reinforced fencing, and whatever else survived long enough to be dragged into place. Watch posts sit at the corners, makeshift floodlights hang dead in the morning haze, and there are old signs that have been bolted to the outside that warn off the desperate, the infected, or anyone stupid enough to think the walls are meant as a welcome.

A good compound knows how to look strong.

A bad one knows how to look necessary.

This one is both.

Ewan crouches next to the roof edge with one hand pressed to his headphones, listening past the wind. Xeon stays close to the pilot, checking him with a quiet focus I’ve come to trust more than most folks’ promises. Kaito stands because sitting is apparently against his personal religion, one hand pressed low to his side where his blood keeps testing every bandage or cloth Dakota has slapped on him.