Page 61 of Immune

Survival begs for me to leave. It says a hat is not worth four Alphas, a mixed horde, unknown shooters, and a bleeding man who has decided my poor decisions are now a group activity. Survival tells me to run the other way, but survival never really understood Maine. And it certainly doesn't understand me.

I step onto the narrow ledge connecting this roof to the next fire escape and Kaito follows. Of course he does. I don’t expect anything less now. And this time, just like the last, I let him. Not because I need the help, or because I trust him. Not because something in my chest has started to recognize the sound of his footsteps and breathing. Nope. None of that. None of it at all.

I tell myself I let him follow because the Alphas ahead have my brother’s hat, and I’m going to get it back. Even if I have to stalk them through every ruined inch of this district.

Even if the entire world chooses to get in my way.

Especially then.

THIRTEEN

EWAN

We’re being followed.

I know it before Fletcher, which is actually rare enough that I almost consider being smug about it for all of four seconds. Unfortunately, smugness is pretty hard to maintain when you’re carrying a half-conscious pilot through a Rot-heavy city, with smoke scratching the back of your throat and something pretty fucking fast screaming like a dying pig from two streets over.

Fuck me, but it’s like the apocalypse has developed a soprano section.

Despite that, it’s clear we’re being followed. The first sign doesn’t come from footsteps, because that would be too obvious, and whoever is shadowing us is anything but. They’re light, patient, and careful enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck raise as if they’re personally offended.

No, the first sign is a branch. One thin, half-broken branch that hangs over the second-floor balcony. It moves when we pass under it, and it’s not the wind that moves it. The wind is pushing east, funneling smoke down the street and carrying the stench of Rots, burning fuel, and Fletcher’s shitty-ass mood straight into my face.

The branch shifts west. It’s a small thing, but wrong enough that I catch it. I keep walking, though.

Fletcher is carrying most of the pilot’s weight over one shoulder, which is no surprise. Man sees an injured survivor and immediately turns into a mule with military trauma. The pilot is barely conscious, head lolling about, flight suit torn open on one side where blood has soaked through the fabric. Xeo walkson his other side, steadying him with one hand while keeping his gun clutched loosely in the other.

I’m bringing up the rear.

Normally, I much prefer to be somewhere in the middle, thank you very much. The middle comes with options. The middle has fewer teeth I have to worry about. The middle means if something goes wrong, there’s usually someone else to be dramatically grabbed first.

But Fletcher put me at the back because I hear things. I’m not exactly better at hearing, exactly. I just hear differently. The headphones help, too. Most people assume they block the world out. In a way, they do a little. And thank every saint, sinner, and half-functioning battery for that, because the world is an absolute mess on the senses right now. Rots are groaning, metal is creaking, wind is whistling through broken windows, boots stomp over broken glass. Someone is breathing too close, something is crying too quietly, and gunfire is echoing off the concrete until it feels like the sound tries to burrow under my skin.

The headphones dull the sharpness of everything around me. But they also make spotting patterns that little bit easier. Like a repeated footfall, or a scrape that stops every time we stop, or the lack of birds on a roof that should have them, or even the sound of someone breathing carefully enough to think they aren’t breathing at all.

I hear that now.

A pause. Not behind us on the street, but above us, which is both interesting and annoying. Maybe even kinda murdery. That’s my favorite kind of inconvenience.

Tugging one side of the headphones off my head and dropping them around my neck, I glance up at the broken apartment building to our left. Nothing moves, which is actuallysuper rude, because something was absolutely moving up there before.

Xeon notices my head tilt, which is nothing new. He always notices things. He looks at me, a quiet little question in his eyes, and I give him the smallest shake of my head I can manage. I can’t tell him here, not yet.

The street ahead narrows where two delivery vans crashed nose-first into each other years ago, creating a metal barricade between the apartment blocks. Fletch slows before we reach it, scanning windows, rooftops, alleys, trashed cars, and probably the emotional state of the concrete. Man has never trusted a narrow space in his life.

Which, honestly, is so fair.

Narrow spaces are basically the Pennywise of the apocalypse. They have a way of saying, “Hey, come here. I’ve got a surprise for you,” and the surprise is a clown in a drain wanting to gnaw your arm off.

A Rot drags itself from between the trucks, a whole arm missing and its jaw hanging crooked. Fletcher doesn’t even break stride, shifting the weight of the pilot as he raises his sidearm and puts the Rot down with a single shot. The sound bounces harshly off the buildings and I wince.

“Any chance we could maybe use the loud death stick a little less?” I grumble. “I dunno, maybe as a fun little experiment or something.”

“Could use you as bait instead,” Fletcher volleys.

I glare at the back of his stupid head. “Damn. So there’s that Southern hospitality I’ve heard so much about.”

“Keep moving,” he says, avoiding my poking.