Page 325 of Immune

One of Hale’s logistics men. Mousy little fuck with a twitchy face and a habit of looking at the ground whenever an Alpha walks by. His eyes widen when he sees Dakota, but not with surprise. Recognition.

My fingers tighten on the trigger and Dakota sees it, too. Her face goes flat. “So what’s with the mask, Porter?”

Stuttering and stumbling over his words, he answers, “I-I was assigned to-to chemical control.”

“No. No you weren’t,” I contradict, and Porter’s eyes flick to me, then to Dakota’s throat.

To the bites.

My bond snarls so hard my vision narrows. Dakota puts her knife under his chin before I can even move, and she snaps, “Eyes up here, Porter.”

The asshole’s breathing turns fast and wet under the cracked mask, but his eyes snap back to Dakota’s as he says, “You don’t understand.”

“You know what, people keep saying that to me right before they become the biggest pain in my ass,” she counters, pressing her knife a little harder into the skin of his neck.

Not that he seems all that bothered by it.

“She’s not yours,” Porter says, looking at me now. “She isn’t any of yours.”

Every single inch of me goes completely still. Dakota does, too. Ewan’s scent darkens. Kaito stops moving entirely and Xeon takes one soundless step closer. Porter’s eyes shine with terror and a strange little conviction, which is always a very ugly mix.

“She belongs to all of us,” he says, uncaring that Dakota is one breath away from slicing her blade from ear to ear. “You think one pack gets to hide her? One compound? She could change everything. Omegas are dying. People are still dying.”

Dakota’s knife presses closer, and a drop of blood spills down his throat and drips onto the ground under him. With a chill in her voice that would have had my hackles rising when we first met, Dakota asks, “Who did you tell?”

Porter’s eyes skitter away like the coward he is. Not toward the smoke, and not toward Vector. No. They skitter toward command.

My stomach drops.

“Porter,” I start, voice low. “Who gave the order?”

His mouth trembles and his eyes water from behind his shattered mask. “He said it wasn’t an order.”

Dakota goes still and her voice is eerily calm when she asks, “Who?”

“He said someone had to force the issue,” Porter whispers. “Before her pack made it impossible.”

Every sound in the lane seems to fall away, because I hear what he’s not saying. Before her pack made it impossible, not before the compound lost her. Or before Vector found her.

Her pack.

Only someone close enough to command would think of that.

The radio attached to Porter’s belt crackles right before a voice comes through, low and unfamiliar under the static. “Asset confirmed near storage annex. Team two, converge.”

Asset.

Dakota’s face empties completely and my blood burns in my veins so hot that I grit my teeth against it.

Porter starts to sob, whispering through hiccups, “I did it for humanity.”

Dakota hits him with the hilt of her knife, the blunt tip clocking him in the temple. His head snaps sideways and he falls unconscious in the next breath. With a voice sharp enough to cut through bone, Dakota says, “Humanity can send you a thank-you card.”

Then the first shot explodes from the smoke.

I shove Dakota down behind the crates just as bullets chew right through the wood where her head just was. Splinters explode over us like a fucked-up kind of confetti. She lands hard, breath punching out of her lungs, and I come down over her without pinning her. One of my arms is braced above her shoulder, while the other is already returning fire with the rifle clutched in my hand.

Three figures move through the smoke.