Page 249 of Immune

Now the armor is back.

The hat.

The bandana.

The lowered chin.

The small Beta boy outline everyone seems to find much easier to understand before I fucked it all up by daring to even exist out loud.

You’d think I’d feel safer with it all back in place, but I don’t. Too many people caught an eyeful, and too many smelled my scent. Too many looked at that small Beta boy from the road and watched something else claw its way out from under the disguise I worked hard to perfect for six entire years.

Haven Ridge has rules.

But I seem to have become the exception.

And that’s never a good thing.

Fletcher stands close to the wall on my left, arms folded and face calm in the same way mountains are calm before they send an avalanche down on an unexpected village just daring to exist. He hasn’t tried to stand in front of me once since we stepped into the room. I noticed, and I can’t help but find it incredibly annoying of him.

Xeon is with Maine because I asked him to check whether or not my brother is still breathing without making it look like he’s checking whether or not the idiot is breathing. Ewan went scouring for food after announcing that grief for breakfast should legally include something fried or sugary. Kaito is still sleeping off the blood loss under the intimidating and incredibly aggressive supervision of Ellis, who has decided threats definitely count as professional bedside manner. I’m not even mad about it.

But all of that leaves Fletcher.

Big. Quiet. Southern. And standing close enough to become a wall if I ever want or need one. But not close enough to make me feel all boxed in and suffocated. It grates at me that I can feel the difference now.

Across the table, Commander Hale reads from a folder as if folders have ever saved anyone from taking a fist to the face. “You will remain in the interior wing until Mercer has finished the preliminary testing.”

“No.”

Hale’s eyes lift and I simply stare back. His jaw tightens before he declares, “This is not optional.”

Fletcher shifts, only a little bit. A single breath of movement, and then he stops himself. I feel it happen before he even speaks.

“You can explain the risks,” he says, voice low. “Then she can decide what she’s willing and what she’s not willing to do.”

Hale looks at him with an unimpressed expression that prickles at my nerves. “That’s not how compound security works.”

“No,” Fletcher says. “I’m startin’ to see that.”

A very unhelpful and distracting warmth spreads through my chest.

Rude.

Incredibly inconvenient.

Probably medically alarming.

Mercer, sitting at the end of the table with two coffee cups stationed in front of him and the haunted look of a man who just slept inside a filing cabinet, rubs at his forehead. “No one is locking Kota away anywhere.”

Hale gives him a flat look. “We don’t know whether her marker response can be tracked inside these walls.”

“Then maybe don’t solve that by locking her behind more of them,” the doctor counters.

I glance at Mercer. He looks tired. Good. If scientists are going to walk around just ruining lives like it’s just another day, they should at least look rumpled as shit while doing it.

Valeria Reyes is standing close to the door, silent and watchful. She hasn’t decided what I am quite yet, but I see the options play across her face. Threat. Victim. Asset. A problem with knives.

Honestly, that’s so fair.