Page 282 of Immune

I blink at him.

Fletcher’s voice cuts in, rougher than I think I’ve ever heard it. “He said lower them.”

The first gun dips, and then another.

Xeon doesn’t speak at all. He simply moves until he’s between me and the nearest guard, frost and steel cutting through the blood-stained air.

Not threatening me.

Shielding me.

Maine tries to get past Fletcher, but Fletcher catches him around the chest. It’s not rough, just firm enough to keep him from running through the blood and bodies.

“Let me go,” Maine snarls, struggling against the Alpha.

“Not yet,” Fletcher says. “Look at her feet.”

“My sister—”

“I know.” Fletcher’s voice cracks around the word. “I know. But she’s standing in blood and broken glass, and if you rush her, she might slip. Or you might, and then she gets one more thing to blame herself for. Breathe, kid.”

That trickles into my brain a little weirdly. Not all the way, but enough.

I look down.

Glass.

Blood.

My boots planted in both.

My knee hurts suddenly.

My wrist too.

My throat.

My neck where Ewan’s bite pulses under my collar, hot and alive and scared with him.

The hallway comes back in fragments, small pieces splitting through my brain.

Bleach.

Concrete.

Blood.

Smoke and clove.

Wild honey and rain, faint under a copper tang.

I look at Davis, and then the others.

“What?” I ask.

My voice sounds normal, but that seems wrong.

No one answers.