Page 43 of Immune

“Move,” I warn with no short amount of annoyance.

Kaito steps aside without argument, and I aim at the padlock.

“Oh. The subtle approach. I like it,” he snarks in a hushed murmur, and I would actually slap him if this wasn’t urgent.

Instead, I snap, “Shut up.”

And then I fire the gun.

The shot blasts through the tunnel and the padlock snaps, chains whipping loose with a loud jangle. My ears ring instantly, my eardrums rattling in pain. Kaito recovers quickly, kicking the door open, and daylight spills down the steps in blinding rivers of light. Fuck me, it’s like being flash-banged, my senses fighting for their lives.

There’s no reprieve, though, because something fast suddenly rounds the corner below. I don’t look, because that would be a waste of time. I already know what it is, and my heart slams into my rib cage knowing what’s gunning for us.

Without wasting another valuable second, we burst out into the park behind the old public bathrooms, stumbling into wet, overgrown grass and cool air. I turn and shove the door closed behind us, and Kaito shoves the pipe through the handles like a temporary barricade.

A split second later, the thing inside slams into the door with a heavy thud. The metal jumps, but then it holds. For now.

I back away, breathing hard and the gun still smoking in my hand. My knee tries to fold in on itself, and I flat-out refuse to let it. Pride might be stupid in an apocalypse, but it’s also the only thing keeping me stable enough to function properly.

Kaito stands beside me, one hand pressed to his side while sweat beads over his pale face.

I look at him.

He looks at me.

For a moment, neither one of us says anything.

It’s weird, standing in the wet grass behind an old park bathroom while a Runner tries to turn the door behind us into a metal taco. Weird that the world continues to move, Zeds still snarling and crawling toward us with rotten hands and hungry mouths, and yet, for a single breath, everything narrows down to the Alpha beside me. To the sweat beading on his pale face, to the hand pressed hard against his side, to the way he keeps scanning the park instead of staring down at me, even though I know every instinct in him must be yelling at him to look.

Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe I’m the only one whose body has hijacked all rational thinking, becoming a total embarrassment in the middle of an active survival situation.

Once more, my Omega lifts her head, all curious and soft and stupid, so I mentally clock her around the head with a saucepan, shove her into a Harry Potter-style cupboard, and lock the door before throwing away the key. We won’t be having any of this soft shit, thank you very much.

When the silence stretches too long, a weighted element joining it, I point at his bandage and grumble, “If you’ve ripped my stitches, I’m pushing you in a ditch and leaving you there.”

His mouth twitches. “Your stitches?”

Nodding as though it should be obvious and he’s simply not catching on, I inform him, “I installed those. That’s my handiwork, so that means they’re mine.”

“That makes sense,” he relents, amusement very clear in his words.

It makes me frown, and I point a finger at him. “Don’t do that. Don’t agree with me like that, because it’s weird.”

He raises a dark eyebrow. “Again, is this where I should argue?”

“No,” I answer automatically, my mouth moving before my brain can catch up.

“Then I’m running out of options here,” he tells me.

Unimpressed, I bluntly retort, “You could give silence a go.”

Kaito’s lips suddenly press together, but the amusement doesn’t once leave his eyes, and I hate more than anything that I actually notice. Even more than that, I hate that I notice the blood darkening under his hand. It’s not much, but enough to worry over. The stitches might be holding, but the idiot jumped through a collapsed floor, fought a Runner, broke a lock, ran through a maintenance tunnel that was built too small for him, and then barricaded a door, all while injured because self-preservation seems to be a language he only speaks in casual conversation. Hell, maybe not even then. I’m pretty sure he only knows a handful of words and wings the rest.

I step closer before I can overthink the action, and Kaito grows still. Not tense, exactly, but more like he’s bracing himself to make sure he doesn’t move wrong before he finds his body sprawled on the floor with my knife buried in his chest.

There’s that carefulness again, and it scratches at something under my ribs that I can’t keep ignoring.

“Move your hand,” I mutter.