Page 286 of Immune

That’s better. It’s still not good enough, but it’ll do for now.

Dakota continues to stare at her hands like they belong to someone else, and that’s what makes me move.

I step closer slowly. The healing wound near my ribs pulls under the fresh stitches, sharp enough to notice but not sharp enough to stop me.

Ewan sees me first. His grip changes, not tighter, just aware. The very clear and new bond between them is fresh in the air, smoke and clove wrapped tightly around wild honey and rain like a warning.

I stop only three feet away, but Dakota doesn’t look up. So, quietly, I say, “Dakota.”

Her eyes lift from her hands, and it’s that look in them that sucker punches me harder than the blood. She’s not afraid of Davis, because that bastard is dead and she knows that. She’s not even sorry in the way people expect women to be sorry after saving themselves.

I can see that, too.

She’s scared because something inside her had the balls to move without her permission. And I know that fear. I’ve lived with it long enough to recognize the shape and color.

“I’m going to take you somewhere quiet,” I tell her carefully.

Her mouth twitches, but it’s not with a smile. “Are you asking?”

“Yup,” I answer.

“Sounded like you were telling.”

“Semantics.”

For one second, a spark of her comes back. Mean, tired, and all hers. Then it flickers out just as quickly as it came, and she glances down at the blood on her hands again before muttering with a muted devastation only those who know her would catch, “I don’t know if I’m safe.”

Ewan makes a broken sound and Fletcher grows still. Maine looks like someone just took a dagger to his chest, and I keep my eyes on Dakota.

“Then we find out,” I declare.

Her eyebrows pull together. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” I say, “that I’m not going to lie to you.”

“That’s your comfort plan?”

“Yup.”

“That’s a really shitty plan.”

“You’ve always thought my plans are shitty. Remember the roof?” I remind her.

Her stare sharpens at that, at the memory of me launching myself across a roof and needing saving again. “You’re supposed to make me feel better.”

“Yeah, maybe. But I think helping you feel real is a better idea.”

That collides into her a little harder than a joke would have. Her mouth closes and for a second, the empty look in her eyes splits apart enough for anger to finally bubble through.

There we go.

Anger is still hers.

I hold my hand out to her, not close enough to make her take it. Just… there. She looks at it for a very long moment, and then she pulls away from Ewan slowly. He lets her go even though it looks like it fucks something up inside him to do it, but it matters that he did it.

Dakota sways once, and Ewan starts to reach for her. Then he stops himself so hard I see it cost him. “I’m right here.”

“I know,” she says, her voice cracking on the second word.